SAP- Business Objects

Shilpa BalanPh.D Candidate, University of Mississippi

Feb 21, 2013

SAP

• SAP AG is a German software corporation that makes enterprise software to manage business operations and customer relations.

• Headquartered in Germany, with regional offices around the world, SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software.

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SAP North America

A subsidiary of SAP AG, SAP America oversees all business operations in North America and is headquartered in Newtown Square, PA – about 15 miles west of Philadelphia.

SAP has about 12,500 employees in North America, with more than 2,000 employees in Newtown Square and more than 10,000 total employees in the U.S.

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Companies that use SAP• Soft Drinks and Beverages

Coca Cola7 Eleven

• EntertainmentWalt Disney

• Fast foodBurger King

• Oil and GasShell Oil Co.Pacific Gas & Electric Company

• AutomobileBMWFord

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Companies that use SAP- Contd…

• Electronics and MobileT-MobilePhillips ElectronicsVerizonHPIBMMicrosoft

• HealthcareBlue Cross Blue ShieldCentral Michigan Community Hospital

• Health & Wellness-NutritionNestle

• Audit/FinancePricewaterhouseCoopers University of Mississippi

Small and medium sized companies

• Small and medium size companies

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JobsUniversity of Mississippi

SAP History – Important Dates

• Founded in 1972• 1973- SAP R/1• 1979- SAP R/2• 1992- SAP R/3• By 2000, SAP AG had 22,000 employees in 50

countries and 10 million users at 30,000 installations around the world

• 2008- Business ObjectsUniversity of Mississippi

SAP Example

• SAP Example Video

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BI-

• defined as the ability for an organization to take all its capabilities and convert them into knowledge, ultimately, getting the right information to the right people, at the right time, via the right channel.

• Business intelligence aims to support better business decision-making.

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BI-Contd …• Business Intelligence (BI) is

– the technology for understanding the past & predicting the future …–allows for gathering, storing, accessing & analyzing data to help business users make better decisions

• Business intelligence is said to have evolved from the decision support systems which began in the 1960s and developed throughout the mid-1980s.

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BI- Contd …

• In 1989, Howard Dresner (later a Gartner Group analyst) proposed Business intelligence, or BI, as an umbrella term that refers to a variety of software applications used to analyze an organization’s raw data.

• It was not until the late 1990s that this usage was widespread.

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BI- Contd …

• Business Intelligence is a set of methodologies, processes, architectures, and technologies that transform raw data into meaningful and useful information used to enable more effective strategic, tactical, and operational insights and decision-making. (Forrester Research)

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Business Intelligence Turns Data into Knowledge

Data

Information

Knowledge

Decision

Product AProduct BCustomer Smith

Customer Smithbuys product A

Product A & B havea 80% sales correlation

Offer product B to customer Smith

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BI-Video on Deloitte

• http://www.sap.com/solutions/analytics/business-intelligence/index.epx

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Business Objects• A report is the “presentation” of the query. • A query defines the data columns, query filters,

query prompts and calculations that are applied to the database objects selected to generate the report. The term for the combined item that consists of both a query and its resulting report is called a Web Intelligence Document (i.e., document).

• By default, a document is created when all the selected objects and measures in the query are displayed in a report.

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Global Bike Incorporated

• Company in the bicycle business• Buys and re-sells different lines of bicycles

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Business Case

• Monitoring sales activities• Typical questions:

– Which country generated the most revenue?– Which were the most successful product groups /

products?– What discounts were the given?– Which sales organization made the most profit?– What were the revenues compared to last year?

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Logging on to Business Objects

• Browser: Do not use Google Chrome.• Preferably use Mozilla.• URL for Log in:http://bo4.ucc.uwm.edu:8080/BOE/BI• Enter User Name, Password

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Cross Tab

• The crosstab component is a grid, similar to a spreadsheet, that displays data.

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Filters

• You define a filter by creating one or more filter conditions, or “rules”.

• For example, you could define a filter that comprises a rule: bicycle sales Greater than 100,000

• Applying such a filter to a Country hierarchy would result in the crosstab displaying only the five countries with the bicycle sales greater than 100,000.

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Conditional Formatting

• You can apply formatting to the cells in a crosstab to highlight important differences or unexpected results.

• For example, you might want to add background colors to cells that are greater than or less than a particular value.

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CalculationsUniversity of Mississippi

Input Prompt

• When you want to filter a query based on a value that changes depending on circumstances, you can edit the query each time, or you can create a prompt.

• When a query contains a prompt, each time the query is run or refreshed, you are prompted to choose the appropriate value on which the filter is based.

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Formula Editor

• Report Title

• Variables

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Functions

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Aggregation

• Subtotals are “aggregations” of member values within an inner hierarchy, while grand totals are aggregations of member values of the outermost hierarchy.

• The default aggregation type is Sum, but you can change the aggregation type; for example, to Minimum or Average.

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Drill

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Chart

• You can add charts to your workspaces to present your data graphically.

• Charts can often emphasize irregularities or trends in your data, and help you focus your business analysis on those areas.

• Charts can be easily customized. You can change the chart type, or change the appearance of the chart to increase clarity.

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Export

• You can export data from your analyses to Microsoft Excel, to allow Excel users to share your data.

• The data can be viewed immediately in Excel.

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