When upgrading the SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 Platform in a server that also contains an installation of DataServices, you are risking to damage the DataServices installation, specifically when opening the DataServices Designer after the SAP Business Objects 4.1 SP4 upgrade. You may receive an error as the following -- DataServices is down!
SAP BusinessObjects 4.1: How to disable SELECT ALL values with WebIntelligence Input Controls
Recently, I received the following requirement from a customer: To hide the “Select (All)” value that WebIntelligence places by default in the Input Controls.
Before the SAP BusinessObjects BI4.1 SP4 version, there was no way to hide that line. However, SAP has finally addressed the topic with an BuisnessObjects enhancement and now it is possible to disable it in the Properties of the Input Control.
An easy solution for e-mail delivery using SAP BI BusinessObjects and Gmail
In order to distribute content of SAP BI BusinessObjects, there are currently several automated options, including send to Inbox, FTP, default location and e-mail.
Regarding the send to e-mail feature, sometimes it is easy to configure — that is the case of big corporations that have their own accounts set up within their domain and unlimited power to administer them — but sometimes it’s not that easy and it involves extra cost.
A alternative way of configuring the send to e-mail feature is by using a Gmail account, which is explained in this article.
Have you encountered the migration bug for SAP BusinessObjects (BO) BI Platform 4.x?
When trying to upgrade your SAP BusinessObjects (BO) Business Intelligence (BI) Platform from XI3.1 to 4.0 or greater and migrate your Windows AD Users and Groups, you will notice that they were migrated with Copy (1) in their name.
The resolution provided by SAP in this case is to manually rename the Users and Groups.
This is fine if you have up to 50 objects to rename; but in general this is not the case, so you will want an automated solution (unless you want to waste some good hours).
Now the question is: How you can create an automated solution? There is a simple answer: by taking advantage of the Platform SDK.
Clariba receives certification for SAP recognized expertise in business intelligence and SAP HANA
10 easy steps - How to use LDAP-based authentication in SAP BusinessObjects 4.1
These days almost every company store data such as users, emails, roles, printers, etc. in what it is call a Directory Service, providing a centralized access to company-related data that can be use across all its systems. One of the most widely used solution is Active Directory from Microsoft, since its tightly integrated with Windows OS systems. The other one LDAP, which stands for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, has a broad range of users too since the de facto standard in Linux-based systems.
Business Intelligence for SMEs - faster time to value and more affordable than ever
Given the fierce competition and the ever-soaring demands of customers, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) today need to invest in having BI capabilities to stay relevant and meet these demands. Yet, with scarce resources available, the alignment of business and IT is vital to ensure success, and new options for hosted BI solutions freeing up cash flow are attractive options for SMEs.
Key Concepts to Optimize SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 Platform
SAP BusinessObjects (BO) BI 4 Platform has come with many improvements that have made the system more complex. Rep-Up-GraphWe, as BI 4 administrators, are required to know how this application works in order to apply the proper optimization improvements to the platform, when it is required. In this blog article, we will cover the most important concepts that need to be considered as a first step to increase the performance of the BI platform. It is very important for a good designer to understand the conceptual tiers in the BI Platform: Application Tier, Intelligence tier and Processing tier. We will refer to each one of them and we will nail down some optimization tips.
Single Sign-On to Folder in BusinessObjects
One of our customers came up with a challenge for us asking if it was possible to open a folder or category in InfoView through a URL. Doing some research we found that in BO3 there is no SAP official solution for this (SAP note 1390226), however we found some workarounds on how to accomplish it, but the real challenge was that none of these supported SingleSignOn, so every time the end user clicked on the URL before entering in InfoView the logon screen showed up.
SAP Explorer Views with Geographical Data
SAP Explorer has become one of the most useful tools in the Business Objects Toolkit, although sometimes we do not appreciate all its potential. If our data set has one or more geographical dimensions, like city, country, state.., we should use the geographical variable types for these dimensions. This kind of dimensions allow us to introduce map analytics in our Exploration Views, which is a plus. Below we will proceed to explain the needed steps in order to set up these dimensions and explain how to better use them. First of all, we need to log on SAP Explorer with an account with permission to "Manage Spaces".