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© 2008 SAP AG 1

SAP BusinessObjects BI Solutions

Exploring SAP NetWeaver

Business Warehouse Data

Applies to

SAP NetWeaver 7.0 SP16, including BW 7.0 SP18 (Note: This version does not yet include the new direct Xcelsius connectivity to SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse queries) or

SAP NetWeaver 7.01 SP5 (supporting new Xcelsius connectivity) or

SAP NetWeaver 7.20 SP1 (supporting new Xcelsius connectivity)

Check note 1133935 to ensure having the correct software version for activating the Demo Model Content.

To run through the entire tutorial, you need in addition SAP GUI comprising Business Explorer 7.10, SAP BusinessObjects XI SAP Integration 12.1, BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 containing Universe Designer and Web Intelligence, Xcelsius 2008 SP2, and Crystal Reports 2008. However, you can also work on individual chapters without having all software installed, see respective chapters.

Summary

The purpose of this article is to describe how to use the SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (BW) Demo Model content by SAP BusinessObjects BI solutions. This content is available as technical content in all SAP NetWeaver BW installations with the release level as mentioned above, even without installation of BI content. The content provides easy-to-understand Sales InfoProviders and queries which can be used for education, training, and testing purposes. Furthermore, as part of the SAP NetWeaver – Demo Model it is used at SAP to ensure consistent demos, training material and documentation across all SAP NetWeaver technologies. This tutorial shows the simplicity of combining the power of the SAP NetWeaver BW system with the strengths of the SAP BusinessObjects BI solutions.

Authors: Marcel Ackermann, Dr. Matthias Sessler

Company: SAP AG

Last Update:09 October 2009

Authors Bio:

Marcel Ackermann is a working student at SAP since 2008, currently member of the SAP NetWeaver Solution Management Rollout Demo & Configuration team. He studies computer science at the University of Applied Sciences in Mannheim. Before he developed Eclipse RCP applications and Java Server Pages at the company Orientation in Objects. His topics at SAP include Xcelsius, SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, Web Intelligence and Crystal Reports.

Dr. Matthias Sessler joined SAP in 2000 as a member of the CRM Object Modeling group. Before he was developing parallel processing architectures and algorithms at CERN. In 2001 he joined the SAP NetWeaver product management team in the area of Ramp-up Knowledge Transfer for Lifecycle Management, NWDI, and Java. Since 2007 he is responsible as Demo Champion for the SAP NetWeaver demo portfolio, including Business Warehouse, Master Data Management, Portal, and BusinessObjects integration.

SAP BusinessObjects BI Solutions Exploring SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse Data


© 2009 SAP AG 2

Table of Contents

Requirements ..................................................................................................................................................... 3

Demo Model Content Activation ......................................................................................................................... 3

Objectives ........................................................................................................................................................... 4 Xcelsius in 5 minutes ................................................................................................................................................... 4

Xcelsius in 15 minutes ................................................................................................................................................. 5

Universe Designer ....................................................................................................................................................... 5

Web Intelligence .......................................................................................................................................................... 6

SAP BusinessObjects Explorer .................................................................................................................................... 6

Crystal Reports ............................................................................................................................................................ 7

Architecture – Data Flow for the Examples ........................................................................................................ 8

Xcelsius in 5 Minutes ...................................................................................................................................... 9 1. Xcelsius Workbench Overview ................................................................................................................................. 9

2. Adding example data ............................................................................................................................................. 10

3. Adding components to the Dashboard ................................................................................................................... 10

4. Creating a new connection ..................................................................................................................................... 13

5. Configure connection ............................................................................................................................................. 14

6. Running the Dashboard ......................................................................................................................................... 15

Xcelsius in 15 Minutes .................................................................................................................................. 16 1. Preparing the spreadsheet ..................................................................................................................................... 16

2. The query results ................................................................................................................................................... 16

3. Add visualization .................................................................................................................................................... 16

4. Add more visualization ........................................................................................................................................... 18

5. Designing your Dashboard ..................................................................................................................................... 20

6. Connecting Everything ........................................................................................................................................... 21

Web Intelligence ............................................................................................................................................... 28

Web Intelligence Basics ................................................................................................................................ 28

Web Intelligence Continued .......................................................................................................................... 29

SAP BusinessObjects Explorer ........................................................................................................................ 31

Data Provisioning in SAP BusinessObjects Explorer ................................................................................... 31

SAP BusinessObjects Explorer Usage ......................................................................................................... 34

Technical Background: BI Consumer Services ................................................................................................ 43

Related Content ................................................................................................................................................ 46

Copyright ........................................................................................................................................................... 47



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Requirements

As a requirement you need connection to a SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse system which already comprises the demo model in the technical content. This is the case as of the Release and SP level as shown at page 1 – Applies to section:

SAP NetWeaver 7.0 SP16, including BW 7.0 SP18

SAP NetWeaver 7.01 SP5

SAP NetWeaver 7.20 SP1

Note: please check note 1133935 for any additional notes which might have to be applied.

There might be differences in the queries shown in this document and your system. In that case you still can do all the exercises, but rethink on slight differences. If you want to adjust the changes, have a look in the chapter Adjustments. Here you will find guides to add new Key Figures, change column and row titles as well as making other demo queries visible in your frontend tools.

For the integration of SAP and BusinessObjects, you require:

SAP GUI with Business Explorer 7.10

Integration Kit (SAP Business Objects XI SAP Integration 12.1) Furthermore, you need the following software:

Crystal Reports 2008 for the Crystal Reports chapter

Xcelsius 2008 SP2 for the Xcelsius chapters, and a SAP NetWeaver version which includes the Xcelsius connectivity, see Xcelsius chapter Note: For the new Xcelsius connectivity you require at least SAP NetWeaver BW 7.01 SP5

BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 for Universe Designer, Web Intelligence, and SAP BusinessObjects Explorer

Demo Model Content Activation

The procedure of activation the content is described in the paper SAP NetWeaver – Demo Model BW Content, which you find in the SDN under the quick link https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/nw-demomodel. Here you have a short summary: 1. Check if your system is at a suitable software version:

SAP NetWeaver 7.0 SP16 (including BW 7.0 SP18) or higher SAP NetWeaver 7.01 SP5 or higher SAP NetWeaver 7.20 SP1 or higher

2. Check note 1133935 if you have to apply additional notes depending on the software version 3. Logon to your system 4. Choose transaction /rsfc 5. Select area NW Demo Model 6. Select the actual data queries and choose Activate 7. Choose Yes 8. After a refresh you see that the content is activated

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/nw-demomodel



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Objectives

The purpose of the SAP NetWeaver Demo Model is to provide simplify examples for understanding the basic concepts of SAP NetWeaver and BusinessObjects capabilities.

Relevant for this paper is the content in the area of SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (BW), which can be used to easily present BW data with SAP BusinessObjects BI solutions.

There is a document SAP NetWeaver – Demo Model BW Content in the SDN under the quick link

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/nw-demomodel which describes the delivered content for SAP NetWeaver

Business Warehouse. This content has to be activated as described in the document, and then it can be used here for information discovery and delivery using BusinessObjects tools.

For visualization, ad-hoc reporting, search & analysis, and reporting we use four solutions in this document:

Xcelsius 2008

Web Intelligence

SAP BusinessObjects Explorer

Crystal Reports

The tools have different focuses, as described in the next section, but finally in this tutorial all read data from an SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse system and display them. Please note that in general those tools can have different data sources, but here we focus on the integration of SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse with the mentioned BusinessObjects tools.

The results of the chapters in this tutorial look like this:

Xcelsius in 5 minutes

Here you create your first simple Dashboard, with BW data shown in a table and as a pie chart.




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Xcelsius in 15 minutes

This is the next step in creating Xcelsius dashboards – including more advanced features such as data refresh from your BW, fancy UI design and advanced components.

Universe Designer

In Universe Designer, you can create a BusinessObjects Universe from a BW Query.



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Web Intelligence

In Web Intelligence you can display your data from the defined Universe in a table or in a graphics. You can do your ad-hoc analysis by drilling-down, save your results on the server and create a print-version.


Here you will learn how easy it is to connect SAP BusinessObjects Explorer with your BW and then explore your data.



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Crystal Reports

With Crystal Reports, you can connect to virtually any data source, design and format interactive reports, and share them internally and externally. Here we connect to our SAP NetWeaver Demo Model queries and display the results.

For a detailed positioning of the individual tools, please refer to http://www.sap.com/solutions/index.epx where

you also find links to free trials.

http://www.sap.com/solutions/index.epx



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Architecture – Data Flow for the Examples

As you can see from the data flow diagram, it is rather straightforward to analyze your data which is stored in an SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse with BusinessObjects software. In this tutorial we focus on Xcelsius 2008, Web Intelligence, SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, and Crystal Reports. These tools cover different use-cases as you can see in the orange boxes in the diagram and already cover a large fraction of the Information Discovery & Delivery area. For training purposes we already deliver queries and InfoProviders in the SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse, which are used in the tutorial for being displayed in the different front-end tools.

With Crystal Reports 2008 you can connect directly to the delivered InfoProviders and queries. With Xcelsius 2008 you can connect directly to the queries and start designing your own dashboard with BW data as of Xcelsius 2008 SP2. Technically, the BI Consumer Services are used for that connection, but this is transparent for the end-user. For more details on BI Consumer Services, see the last chapter of this document.

With Web Intelligence and SAP BusinessObjects Explorer you only have to define a so-called Universe, which is a semantic layer and does not store the operational data. This Universe can then immediately be explored by using either Web Intelligence or SAP BusinessObjects Explorer. Please note that building Information Spaces based on Universes instead of Business Warehouse Accelerator indexes has major implications on the business-readiness of this solution. However, for training purposes, we demonstrate here the Universe input.



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Xcelsius

Xcelsius in 5 Minutes

Prerequisites for the shown new direct connectivity to BW queries:

Xcelsius 2008 SP2

SAP NetWeaver BW 7.02 or 7.01 SP5

Business Explorer 7.10 (delivered with SAP GUI) In the following section we want to make a first Dashboard which connects via Business Intelligence Consumer Services (BICS) to an SAP Business Warehouse (BW) system. We will learn the basics about Xcelsius, including the connection management and simple data views like the data table and a pie chart.

1. Xcelsius Workbench Overview

When you start Xcelsius you see the following screen, the arrows help you understanding the different parts of the application:



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2. Adding example data

Insert the following example data into your embedded spreadsheet:

For your convenience you can copy these values:

Net Value

Sales Organization EUR

Berlin 45000000

London 20000000

Paris 40000000

New York 55000000

San Francisco 35000000

This allows you an easier design of your Dashboard, as you can use the Preview functionality and actually „see‟ the data.

3. Adding components to the Dashboard

We work in Xcelsius with the Design-First approach. So before connecting anything with a server we design our dashboard, and afterwards fit the data into our dashboard.

We keep the selection in our spreadsheet and add a Spreadsheet Table in the Components toolbar in the section Selectors. This is being done with dragging the Spreadsheet Table object and dropping it on the workbench.

On the right side of the screen we can configure the selected component:



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With a click on the red arrow of the Display Data line we can keep the selection we had (A1 - B7) and just click OK.

To have a better visualization than a simple spreadsheet we add the component Pie Chart in the Charts section of Components toolbox with dragging it on our workbench:

To configure the Pie Chart click the red arrow next to Values in the right toolbox and select B3 to B7 (the first 2 lines are the header) and then we select the range for the labels from A3 to A7 to have the right legend.

We can enter a meaningful title and subtitle in the toolbox as well; enter Sales Revenue, respectively Net Value [EUR] here.

Afterwards your screen should look like this:



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4. Creating a new connection

In this step we configure a connection to our SAP BW system, which uses BICS transparently. We will use a query which is delivered in the demo content with all SAP BW systems (as of the releases mentioned in section Applies To).

Click on this icon (Manage Connections) in the toolbar to open the Data Manager.

Click Add Choose SAP NetWeaver BI Connection.

Click Browse and logon to your system.

Search for *_NW_* by choosing Find and select Search in Technical Name and choose Find. Select the query 0D_FC_NW_C01_Q0005 which belongs to the InfoProvider Actual for NW Demo.

Click Open.

Now our connection is successfully set up and is ready for use.



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5. Configure connection

We are now able to configure the data connection. We can create filters, preview the data, output the data in our spreadsheet, and control refreshing. For this 5 minutes demo we will set up only the basics of this:

Click on the first entry Cross-Tab Data in the Output Values section.

Now you can choose the red arrow next to Insert In to choose an area of your spreadsheet where to put the data.

Our data will have 2 columns and 7 rows like our example data, so we select A1 to B7.

The Cross-Tab Data contains the result of the query. This is usually the desired selection as you can easily configure the output in the Data Preview tab. There are more options available which will be covered later.

In order to get the data when we start the dashboard we select the tab Usage and there tick the checkbox Refresh On Load:

Click on close to save all settings.

We also could have selected triggering cell for the refresh of our data. Yet, in this example we want to demonstrate a refresh button which triggers the reload. If you want to define Refresh on Trigger, click the red arrow button next to



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the Trigger Cell input box and choose the cell which is supposed to trigger the reload. As soon as this cell gets changed, the new data is fetched from the source.

6. Running the Dashboard

Now we are ready to have a first preview of our dashboard. Click on Publish in the SAP menu. And save under a desired name, e.g. Demo_Model_Q0005 for the Description and Technical Name. The dashboard is actually stored on the BW server.

Then select launch in the SAP menu to see your first dashboard opening in a browser which displays data coming from your SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse system:

As you can see, you now already created a flash-based Xcelsius dashboard which displays data from your SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse system: It is stored in your SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse and runs in the portal.



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Xcelsius in 15 Minutes

In this chapter we want to familiarize you with some more enhanced techniques in Xcelsius. Our key learning points are:

- Xcelsius Interaction - Enhanced Data Visualization - Query Configuration - Data Input - Refresh Live Data - Best Practices

Business Case: Our Sales Manager wants a live view on the sales data to monitor the success of our company. He wants to be able to drill down from countries to product categories with an easy understandable visualization. He wants to have full control over the data with an easy-to use, feature rich Xcelsius Dashboard.

1. Preparing the spreadsheet

We will start with a new Project, for doing so choose or press CTRL+N.

Xcelsius experts use a dashboard-first approach when creating a new dashboard. You create your dashboard first with some sample data and then configure your live data to fit into your underlying spreadsheet. This allows you faster development and easier debugging. One might call this dashboard-prototyping.

2. The query results

Rename the empty spreadsheet to Query Data. Insert some example data like this:

You can copy these values directly to your spreadsheet:

Net Value

Country Product Category EUR

DE Mobile 14700000

DE Monitor 15300000

DE Notebook 15800000 At design time we already know how our data will look like, so here we are sure that our query returns two header lines with three columns and 3 data lines. With this information we can prototype our UI and the insertion of live data will be very easy at the end.

3. Add visualization

Drag a Tab Set into your workbench. With the + and - symbols over the first tab you can add and delete tabs. Create two tabs named Overview and Data, and then delete the initial tab.

Your workbench should look like this now:



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The Tab Set brings real interaction in our dashboard. With this our Sales Manager is able to control what he sees.

The Tab Set is a good reason to have a look on another detail of the Xcelsius Toolbars: The Object Browser. In this toolbar you have a hierarchal overview of all components in your dashboard. Here you can control the layers: You can toggle the visibility, order them and give your components meaningful names.

Each object/component in Xcelsius has an internal name, which you should directly give a qualified name, which makes debugging and later reference and overall understanding easier.

On our screen we see a Canvas 1 and a Canvas 2 component within our Tab Set 1. Let‟s give them meaningful names, e.g. Overview and Data.

We now add a Selectors Spreadsheet Table to our Data tab (and remark how it gets sorted in our Data canvas). As Display Data in the right toolbar we choose our example data.



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4. Add more visualization

Add a Selectors Combo Box component to your workbench.

Create a new spreadsheet in your workbook named Query Input.

Add some example data like this and connect your new Label with it (Labels configuration input field, add only the data rows):

We already added in our screenshot the Destination Data: Go in line 7 of your spreadsheet, supply a title for your target field and enter DE as an example. Then point your Data Insertion Destination on this cell. Make sure to set the Insertion Type to Label, otherwise with the default setting of Position a number (1 for the first and so on) would be inserted, instead of the desired Country Code.

Now we do several steps and this is the resulting screen:



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As you can see we added a Pie Chart and a Button.

The pie chart gets its data from the Query Data table, as well as its labels:

You may want to have a look in the section Appearance in the Customization Toolbox and play around with the settings there. For example you can remove the chart background by deselecting the checkbox in Appearance Layout Chart Area Show Chart Background, like it is done in this example.

Adding refresh functionality to our Dashboard is as easy as this:

Drag a Web Connectivity Connection Refresh Button to your workbench and in the Properties toolbar select your connection (in this example Conn_BQI_BW_Q0001). Every time the user clicks the button, Xcelsius connects via BICS to our BW and fetches the new data from our query.



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5. Designing your Dashboard

You can change the appearance of each single component on your Dashboard with the Properties toolbar Appearance section. Yet, there are two new options in the toolbar, we want to introduce now, which give you the kick-start in designing the best-looking dashboard for your manager:

The Colours drop-down:

And the Themes selector:

With two clicks you can totally change the look of your Dashboard for example into this:



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6. Connecting Everything

Using the Data Manager we add a connection to the Query 0D_FC_NW_C01_Q0001, for details on how to use the Data Manager review the chapter “Xcelsius in 5 minutes”.

Knowing the exact name of the query you can save time with directly typing it in the name field and clicking Open without performing a search before.

At first we do the step we already know from the “Xcelsius in 5 minutes” section of this document: Select Cross-Tab Data and bind it to your Query Data sheet (remember to also select the headline).

Then we define our query filter: Select Country in the Input Values section of the current screen and point Read From to your Query Input sheet Country Code Selection cell. Like this:

Confirm the range selection and close the Data Manager.

Publish your dashboard (SAP menu) and launch it.

After logging in you will be presented with your result:



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Let‟s say you wish to present your dashboard with live data in a PowerPoint Presentation, simply choose the appropriate option in the Export Menu.

PowerPoint will start and you will be able to edit the new presentation with the dashboard as you know it.

Or if you want to attach you Xcelsius dashboard to a PDF, choose this in the Export menu and you will get a result like this one:



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Universe Designer

This is required to be installed to connect to an SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse:

SAP GUI

Integration Kit (SAP Business Objects XI SAP Integration 12.1)

The Universe Designer creates a Universe, which is a semantic layer defining the data structure. You can define a Universe accessing database tables directly, however to access a BW, you use InfoProviders or queries directly.

First, you start the Universe Designer, logon, and cancel the wizard. Then choose File New

We want to create a new connection and choose New…

Choose Next in the wizard and enter a connection name (in this example LUNA) and select SAP Client.

Fill out the login data to your BW system and choose Next.



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.

Expand the OLAP Cubes and the InfoProvider Actual for NW Demo and select the Query OD_FC_NW_C01_Q0001.

This is one of the Queries which is delivered by SAP as part of the SAP NetWeaver Demo Model and “allows external access for this query”. Choose Next and then Finish, then your new connection is defined:



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Supply a name for the Universe (here luna) and click OK.

The Universe Designer allows you much more than we discover here, but as a start we only want to preview our query, to verify that everything is as expected:

In order to use our universe in Web Intelligence or SAP BusinessObjects Explorer we need it to publish it. To do so, choose Export… in the File menu.

The SAP BW query element characteristic relates to the OLAP Universe element dimension, and the SAP BW query element key figure relates to the OLAP Universe element measure:



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Confirm the save dialogue and choose Everyone as the publishing option:

After clicking OK you can use this Universe in SAP BusinessObjects applications such as Web Intelligence and SAP BusinessObjects Explorer.



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Web Intelligence

Web Intelligence Basics

Start Web Intelligence and login.

Create a new Document by choosing File New:

Select Universe as source and select your Universe you created in the previous section Universe Designer.

Drag and Drop dimensions and measures of your choice to the upper panel.

This is only an example query. It might be that you have different Key Figures available. In that case you still can continue the exercise and transfer the differences. If you want to adjust the changes, have a look in the chapter Adjustments. Here you will find guides to add new Key Figures, change column and row titles as well as making other demo queries visible in your frontend tools.

Now you can hit Run Query to see your report:



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Now you already see the BW data displayed in Web Intelligence.

Web Intelligence Continued

Now you can optionally continue to change the way your data is displayed. You can e.g. order the columns with drag and drop on their titles:

Now we are interested in the highest net values, so lets sort by them, clicking right in the column and choosing Sort.

You can also copy a table by choosing drag & drop with holding Ctrl. Now you have two identical tables, one of which you can convert into a chart. In the context menu of the table we also find the entry Turn to



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Which leads to a lot of different chart types you can choose, here we switch to a simple Bar Chart

Once we are happy with our ad-hoc analysis, we can save the Web Intelligence Document (.wid) either locally on your computer or on the server and decide whether it should be e.g. refreshed on open.



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Data Provisioning in SAP BusinessObjects Explorer

Start SAP BusinessObjects Explorer with opening e.g. http://localhost:8080/polestar/ in the Internet Explorer if you work on the computer where SAP BusinessObjects Explorer is installed. Otherwise you have to specify the correct hostname and port for your environment.

Use your user and password.

Now choose Manage Spaces in the top navigation bar.

In the Sources tree we see our new Universe which we created in section Universe Designer.

We will now create a new Information Space by selecting our new Universe (here LUNA) and choosing Create New.

In the upcoming dialogue supply a meaningful name (here luna) and description:

http://localhost:8080/polestar/



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In Objects you can specify the dimensions and measures which will be available in your SAP BusinessObjects Explorer Analysis.

Your selection could look like this:

Hitting OK, we now can index our Information Space, to make the Analysis Results instantly available and accessible in SAP BusinessObjects Explorer.

After clicking the Index button our Status column shows this symbol:

After a while the symbol changes to the status: , which signals a successful indexing.

Now we can search in the home tab for our new information space to explore:

In the following screen we click on the name (here luna) of the Information space to explore it:



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Actually, in SAP BusinessObjects Explorer a search is integrated, so that you can also search for the names of your dimensions or measures. Now you can use SAP BusinessObjects Explorer as you know it:



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SAP BusinessObjects Explorer Usage

Now we will have a look on the main features of SAP BusinessObjects Explorer.

In the first menu (next to Measures) we can add measures to our diagrams:

With this we can compare two measures.

Selecting for example Service-enabled Sales in the first combo box below Measures filters on the selected entry.



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You also can do this drill down with clicking on one of the bars in your diagram:

With a click on the cross in the filter combo box you can undo the filter.

In the lower half of the screen you can decide which dimension to show, for example we switch this from the Best Guess, which SAP BusinessObjects Explorer automatically selects to Plant:



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To highlight a bar single click on it:

Your selection is also shown in the right part, where you have your current data which is visualized in the diagram.

If you need to have a look on your original data, choose the Table button next to the Chart button:

Go back to the chart view and choose another diagram type:

This could look like this for example:



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If you choose a second measure the Correlation chart gets activated which allows you to visualize the correlation between the two selected measures:



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Crystal Reports

With Crystal Reports, you can connect to virtually any data source, design and format interactive reports, and share them internally and externally. Here we show a simple example of connecting to our SAP NetWeaver Demo Model queries and displaying the results.

Start Crystal Reports and locate the SAP toolbar:

Create a new report

Log on to your SAP system.

Select the query 0D_FC_NW_C01_Q0001.

Choose Database Expert choose Create new Connection SAP BW MDX query Make new Connection

(Double click on Make new Connection)

Make sure you entered your connection details in the SAP logon, and then the system will be shown in the Available SAP Systems list. Choose your system and enter your credentials. Press Finish.

Choose Options in the context menu of your new connection.



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Here you can define to only show the description of the tables and fields, which makes it easier for you in handling them later.

Choose OK.

Expand your new connection in the Available Data Sources list to see all available queries.

In our example we select the query 0D_NW_C01/0D_FC_NW_C01_Q0001 in QC. In the folder CU the Cubes are grouped and in QC the queries.

Add it to Selected Tables with the arrow button or you can also use drag and drop.

Press next and choose these Fields to Display:



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We do not want to group our rows, so we are fine in the next step and continue with a filter. We are only interested in the data of the current month, so we add Calendar year/month as a filter field and set it is equal to MAY 2009, or whatever your current date is.

Press Finish to see this report:

After we successfully got our data from the BW system we now want to customize our report.

With double clicking on a header of a row you can edit the title:

We can add a new chart as simple as this:



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Choose the insert chart button and place your new diagram, for example to the beginning of the document. In the upcoming screen choose your Measure and add it with the arrow button to the Show value list. Add the dimensions to the upper list with the concordant button. Choose OK.

Your diagram will look like this:

You can define the titles of your chart as well, simply click on the diagram and choose Format title….

In the tab Text you may enter your titles.

Your first report will look like this:



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If you are interested in more details on Crystal Reports you can continue your learning path here:

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/004aacbb-4983-2b10-8da7-cdff5dcbb948

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/004aacbb-4983-2b10-8da7-cdff5dcbb948



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Technical Background: BI Consumer Services

The BI Consumer Services are available with the SAP NetWeaver 7.0 Release and part of the BI program. They enable the BW frontend tools, planning applications and Java applications running in the portal to work with selections and access OLAP data in a unified way for different sources; this includes data that is stored in BW as well as non BW sources. They are used e.g. by Xcelsius 2008 SP2.

The BI Consumer Services provide client/application-like access to the data in contrast to the more functional APIs that typical OLAP APIs provide. Furthermore, the BI Consumer Services provide services that go beyond typical OLAP APIs like exception reporting, list calculation, document integration, etc.

BICS is a unification layer for multidimensional and relational data access. It is independent of the underlying platform (e.g. BusinessObjects Enterprise, SAP NetWeaver). Its API is Consumer/BI Client focused. With BICS it is very easy to build a BI client. Developers using BICS experience a high efficiency because of the high number of convenience functions offered by the API. The API consists of a consumer and provider part:

Consumer API o Stateful object model for typical BI related questions like meta data browsing, relational and

multidimensional data access and persistency of views. o UI-less client by providing not only pure data access but exception highlighting, list

calculations, customer exists, etc. o Very high developer efficiency

Provider API o Simplified APIs for source adaptors to implement o Optional APIs for leveraging the capabilities of a source by delegation

BICS provides the following services with one API for all systems (independent of the system type):

Object Services Browse for InfoProviders, Queries, Views, Items, etc. across all systems available.

Data Access o Selector: Access to master data, handling of selections. Can be used with or without

InfoProvider context. o Query View: Access to InfoProvider data & client features like List Calculation, Exception

Highlighting, etc. o Persistency: Operations on the planning buffer including planning functions and sequences

Persistency o View persistency for selector and query states o Variant support for variable requestors



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Adjustments with BEx Query Designer

You have to make the following steps to be complient to later versions, so that you are able to do the examples exactly as shown above.

In order to see all demo queries you have to make them visible with the BEx Query Designer.

Start the BEx Query Designer and open the desired query:

On the right side of the opened query you have a toolbox Properties in which you find a tab Advanced. There you check the box Allow External Access to this Query, then your query will be available in the frontend tools of your choice.

If you like to change the title of any Key Figure or Dimension, select it on the left and then you can change in the tab General the field Description to the new title you want to have. Remark that the checkbox Use Standard Text gets unchecked as soon as you change the standard text.



© 2009 SAP AG 45

If your goal is to have more Key Figures visible in your frontend tools, then you do the following steps:

First you drag your new Key Figure to the Columns area:

After this you choose your new Key Figure and click on the Display tab of the Properties toolbox. Here you have three options in the Hide section: Always Show and Always Hide are self-explanatory, and Hide (Can Be Shown) is what you usually want to have. This makes the Key Figure available in your frontend tools, but filters it out automatically. So if you want to use it in your frontend tool, you simply have to remove the filter.



© 2009 SAP AG 46

Appendix

You can also display the provided data with other front-end tools, such as Visual Composer Dashboard, BEx Web Application Designer, BEx Web Template, BEx Query Designer. You find some examples in the following document:

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/nw-demomodel BI Content

(https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/902519b7-5337-2b10-cb95-a4db52dc57aa)

Related Content

SAP NetWeaver - Demo Model (https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/nw-demomodel)

SAP NetWeaver - Business Intelligence (https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/nw-bi)

SAP BusinessObjects Community (https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/boc)


https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/902519b7-5337-2b10-cb95-a4db52dc57aa


https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/nw-bi

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/boc



© 2009 SAP AG 47

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