SAP BusinessObjects Mobility Solutions (Part 2 - SAP BI Mobile)

This is the second article of the SAP Mobility Solution series.  It is time to review the second Mobile application that has been release by SAP Business Objects: SAP BI Mobile

If you have not  read the first article on SAP Explorer yet, check it out.

Just as a brief reminder that both this and the previous tool can be downloaded (if you are an SAP partner) through SAP Marketplace

If you are not an SAP partner but still feel like trying these tools you can still download the mobile applications from the app store and try out the demo servers SAP has made available.

Now let’s start reviewing the second Mobile tool from SAP Business Objects

SAP BI Mobile

The SAP BI Mobile application allows WebI and Crystal reports to be displayed and distributed through Mobile devices. The application we will review here is the Ipad version but other mobile devices are also supported. The Ipad version of this application can only be installed if you have Business Objects XI 3.1 SP3 or higher, so be prepared to patch your system if it is not at this level.

Click Here to find a complete overview of this application.

The first step to get this application running is to install the server side of the software. To do so you need to download two files from the SAP Marketplace: the BI Mobile 3.1 SP3 file and also the BI Mobile SP4 (required for Ipad support)

Installation

The installation is also straightforward and you should only modify the default settings of the install if your Business Objects system configuration requires it.

For example, if you have a web server separated from the application server then you will have to install those two sides separately (Custom Install). In our example, since all the components are on the same machine we will install all the software on the same place (Complete Install).

You can see in the screen below how components are separated in the install process.

Once you run through the install for the BI Mobile SP3, you will also need to install SP4. This patch installation does not require any configuration and will only write the patched files on the home business objects directory.

After these two installations are complete you will notice new applications are installed on the server components of you Business Objects system.

Run both of the Configure as a service options (only on windows install) so you can also have the BI Mobile components available as services under windows.

Make sure your new Mobile services are started and remember to set them to start automatically in case they need to remain ON along with the Business Objects system.

Deploying Web Components

The web part of the BI Mobile application has also been generated during installation but for some reason they are not automatically deployed (at least in our test cases). Therefore you will need to move them yourself to the Tomcat webapps directory so they are deployed.

Browse to the following directory: $BOBJ_Home/Business Objects 12.0/java/

Locate the following files:

• MobileBIService.war
• MobileOTA.war
• MOBIServer.war

Copy these files to the webapps directory located at: $BOBJ_Home/Tomcat55/webapps

When the .war files are copied to this directory they will be automatically picked up by Tomcat and new directory apps will be created. If the deployment is successful you should be able to access the Mobile default web page at:

http://yourserver:8080/MobileOTA

If a webpage comes on with options for different mobile devices, we are now ready to install/configure the mobile application on the ipad.

The Mobile Application

First off, we need to download the application from the App Store. You would find it under the name SAP BI Mobile (do not confuse with Mobile One app)

Once downloaded, it is time to configure the settings for a new Mobile connection.  Start the app on the Ipad and click on the Settings option at the bottom.

Select the "add a connection" option where you will have to provide the following:

• Connection Name
• Server URL. This is the name:port of the machine where the BI Mobile web component has been installed (without http in front)
• The CMS name that controls the BI Mobile server components
• The Authentication method
• Username and Password

Save the configuration and select the newly created connection.

If the connection is successful we will face the following screen on the Ipad application.

The connection to the mobile server has been successful but we have no reports to show yet. To make new reports available to the mobile application we will have to tag them as mobile compatible. This is done by adding the reports to a category called Mobile. This category can be customized as desired but for this example we will use the default value.

Select the reports we want to make available on the BI Mobile application and categorize them as Mobile.

NOTE: In most cases the category does not previously exist and you might need to create it prior to this step.

Almost immediately after this is done, you will see the categorized reports appear on the lower part of the BI Mobile application.  The reports are now ready to be downloaded to the Ipad.

Click on the green download button that appears next to each report.

When the download is completed the downloaded report will appear on the upper part of the BI Mobile application. We can now click on the report on the upper part and you will find the Mobile version of your WebI/Crystal report.

Be aware that not all WebI capabilities are supported by the BI Mobile version. To understand the limitations you can review the product guide here

On the same document we can also find some useful best practices on how to design a WebI/Crystal report for Mobile viewing and templates that can help you when designing new reports according to mobile devices´ size.

Although the variety of graphs and interaction in the BI Mobile application is still quite basic, we think SAP is in definitely on the right track.

Appendix on Business Objects XI 4.0

Although our example reviews version 3.1 of the Mobile application we also advise to review the guide for release 4.0 as it contains additional features on the BI Mobile application. The additional features include in-table graphics such as percentage bars or sparkline trends. See screenshot below:

Conclusion on SAP BusinessObjects Mobility Solutions

This is a promising start. Chances are that  soon SAP will extend the devices covered, support more complex graphs and take better advantage of the Ipad interaction capabilities as well.

With mobile solutions you will be able to optimize your existing investment by bringing your content to more mediums, you will be able to provide instant answers to more people, no matter where they are working from, therefore, you will boost the performace of your organization. All bets are on mobility!

If you are interested or have worked with this application, or if you feel it might be useful in your organization, please leave a comment below.

StreamWork – the Collaborative Work Environment from SAP

We are noticing that our customers and potential customers are starting to look for collaborative models and workflows. The reason is that they want to foster and improve teamwork and reduce human errors by creating approval flows for their internal tasks. So, if yesterday the power users or IT could directly modify the values of a database without any control, today, with an increasing number of employees and a growing level of complexity for processes, they prefer formal workflows to drive efficiency and always ensure the approval of the management, a collaborative model that can reduce or even eliminate errors coming from lack of control on actions.

SAP does not yet have any workflow engine (or at least we are not aware of it), but we have what SAP calls “Social Intelligence” tool, which is called StreamWork.

This solution looks like a mix between Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MS Outlook/Projects. I have taken some print screen images during the tests I have done in one of our clients, so you can see what is available:

Users can create tasks/activities and add participants;

Add actions to different tasks;

Manage feeds and control what they are following;

Set agendas and RACI matrices;

Define notification settings and get email reminders on their inbox…

…in a few words: they can collaborate while they work on a project.

If you want to access a free version of StreamWork, please go to www.streamwork.com and sign in. Moreover, you can find a white paper attached sap_streamwork, where you can read what SAP says about it. In my opinion, a very interesting tool, worth checking it out.

How to search faster and more efficiently with Firefox (and Chrome/Opera)

Implementing technologies in environments that are always changing often generates doubts and challenges for us consultants. Of course you can ask your colleagues, but they are not always free and sometimes they just don't know the answer.  So most of the time we are relying on the Internet to find tutorials or people who met the same problems before and explain how they have solved them. Therefore being able to search fast and efficiently makes our lives easier. Fortunately, some of the modern browsers (who said IE6?) give us this possibility. I will now give three main tips to improve the way you search the internet - if you don't have much time, jump directly to the 3rd tip, which is the most effective one.

This article focuses on Firefox, but alternative browsers are mentioned as well.

Tip n°1: add search engines to your browser (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Opera and Safari).

On Firefox you can see the search engine box on the top-right corner of your window.

If you click on the symbol on the left (here the Google icon), you will see a list of all the search engines you have already installed, plus an option to manage search engines. One of the best options available to look for new search engines (at least for Firefox, IE and Chrome) is the Mycroft project: http://mycroft.mozdev.org/

For example, if we search what are the search engines corresponding to SAP, then we find (unter section 6. Computer) the following:

Just click on one of them, and confirm that you want to use it as a new search engine.

You can now do searches based on this search engine.

Tip n°2: assign keywords to your search engines (Firefox, Chrome and Opera).

Assigning keywords to your search engines is quite easy. Open the "Manage Search Engine List" window, select the search engine of your choice, click on "Edit Keyword..." and just enter a keyword - and it is better if you make it short, for example "g" for Google and "w" for Wikipedia.

Once you've done this, you do not need to manually select the search engine anymore! Go to the address bar (remember the Ctrl+L shortcut), and simply type the keyword for the chosen search engine, followed by the searched term. Example: "g rapid mart" if you want to look for rapid marts on Google, or "w SAP" if you want to look at the SAP Wikipedia page.

Tip n°3: use bookmarks with the %s variable (Firefox, Chrome and Opera)

The search engines feature has many advantages, but also some clear limitations.

The most obvious is that not every website has an associated search engine, like for example the very useful Business Objects Board.

The second limitation is due to the nature of search engines - they're rather browser-specific, and the process of backing them up / restoring them is not always straightforward.

Fortunately, there is an even better solution which combines all the advantages of the search engines with the flexibility of the bookmarks. The solution simply consists in using "%s" in the URL of a bookmark.

Let's take a simple example: you are often using the excellent WordReference.com to translate from English to Italian and backwards. If you open the website, type the word "printer", choose "English-Italian" and press Enter, you get on the page "http://www.wordreference.com/enit/printer". Now create a new bookmark, but replace the "printer" in the URL with "%s". You end up having a new URL "http://www.wordreference.com/enit/%s". Assign a keyword to this bookmark - for example en_it. Now if you type "en_it printer" in your address bar (once again remember Ctrl+L), you are taken to the same page.

The huge advantage of bookmarks is that they can be synchronized rather easily, be it with Firefox Sync or Xmarks.

Here is a list of some of the bookmarks I use almost every day, with URL and possible keyword. Don't hesitate on using them!

• Acronym Finder (acro) http://www.acronymfinder.com/~/search/af.aspx?pid=osearch&string=exact&acronym=%s

• Business Objects Board (bob) http://www.google.com/search?name=f&hl=en&q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fforumtopics.com%2Fbusobj%2F%20%s

• Cambridge Britsh English Dictionary (dicoen) http://dictionary.cambridge.org/search/british/?q=%s

• Google Images (img) http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%s&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi

• Google Maps (maps) http://maps.google.com/maps?q=%s

• Google US (ge) http://www.google.com/search?name=f&hl=en&q=%s

• Google France (gf) http://www.google.fr/search?q=%s

• Wikipedia English (we) http://en.wikipedia.org/?search=%s

• Wikipedia French (wf) http://fr.wikipedia.org/?search=%s

• SAP Notes (sapnote) https://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/%s?nlang=E

If you have any further tips, or if you feel a useful bookmark is missing from my list, share it with us on a comment below!

SAP Strategy Management: When the Customization Generates New Standards

During the time we spent at our customer in Abu Dhabi, we learned a lot about the SSM customization until we realized that the final product could be a new standard instead of a customization. Our customer had some concerns about the out-of-the-box features and they were asking us to modify the functionality by adding new ones and automating the entire platform.

The biggest challenge we had was related to the approval work flow. How can the customer approve the creation of a new Strategic Objective? SSM does not allow the user to perform this task and our customer raised this topic as a risk. The work flow for the strategic components became a requirement from that moment. They asked us to use K2 black pearl, which for us was like a black box. We decided then to merge our teams and split the work in order to achieve the same goal.

We created a simplified SSM data model that reduced the number of tables needed to create a Balanced Scorecard and we connected it to SSM. From our interface we were able to populate any strategic components as well as the cube (using IDQL commands). We then created the database and a dedicated ETL (with SAP BO Data Services) that was populating the balanced scorecards.

On the other side of the desk, our customer was building the work flow in K2, creating the new web pages that are now replacing the SSM administration tool and connecting the output directly to our interface tables.

It took us a while before we got a chance to see something that was really working, but we did it; we built a powerful interface that creates balanced scorecards within SAP SSM.

In this interface everything runs automatically, the KPIs as well as the perspectives, the objectives, the initiatives and also the milestones are being updated by a scheduled ETL job in SAP BusinessObjects Data Services.

The customization we made can be summarized as follows:

• Normalization and re-engineering of SSM tables (after performing a specific analysis on SSM data model) to create our interface DB.
• Connection of our interface tables to the SSM tables.
• Customization of the standard IDQL jobs that are updating the SSM Cubes.
• Making SSM read-only to avoid changes on initiatives or milestones from the end user interface.
• Making the SSM interface tables available for reporting and dashboarding as they can be included in a simple universe.

So far the only manual intervention that the customer needs to do is create the strategy maps. This step needs to be done from the SSM administration tool.

To conclude, the solution we explained above has been created as a customization but it can be adapted for any customer that might need this level of security and detail for their SSM implementation.

Part of this implementation could be applied for the companies that need to have an automated KPIs basket that does not includes any manual entry for the values (the final part of this solution can be considered as an SSM DB connector). This solution has been developed by using SQL Server 2008 but it can be connected to any data sources (i.e. SAP R/3, ORACLE DB, flat files, etc.).

If you think that this solution might work also for your company or your customers please feel free to contact us by email at info@clariba.com or by leaving a comment below.

How to move content in BusinessObjects BI 4.0 with version control using LCM

In SAP BusinessObjects BI4, SAP provides us with an enhanced LifeCycle Management (LCM) application to deploy content.  This version has new features useful for moving our files between servers or directly between BusinessObjects XI repositories. The enhancements include aspects like security, the capacity to recover different document versions, the ability to safeguard information and provide internal control about what changes are made and who has made them.

It is also important to note that with the release of BI4, the Import Wizard (the tool used up to this release) is no longer working for deploying content between two BI4 servers; it only works to upgrade from a previous release.

One of the most important new features of LifeCycle Management is that you can import categories as well as other types of objects such as: Information Designer, Pioneer, Crystal Reports (next generation), Events and Xcelcius Enterprise.

Another improvement is the new exportable file version: LCMBIAR, which contains an enhanced file structure adapted to these new features. The Job component allows us to define a set of objects to transfer in LCMBIAR format. We can group these Jobs in folders to keep content organized into departments. However if the two servers are in the same network, the files  can also be migrated directly from one platform to another.

To create a new Job you will need to define: name, folder, origin and destination. Optionally but recommended you can add description and keyword.

LCM Menu

In the Job you can select the objects that will be included in the LCMBIAR files, then click on ‘Manage dependencies’ to add items related to the objects selected before. Finally, you need to click ‘Promote’ to configure the Job settings.

Promote Panel

In the Promote panel we can find four options:

• Summary: Check source and destination names to ensure the file is moving from the right source to the correct destination, change management ID.
• Security Settings: Check this option when you want to release the security of the files.
• Test Promote: Use this option to ensure that there will not be errors during the conversion.
• Schedule Job: This is to plan the promotion task for later, very useful if you are not available to do it manually, typically at out of office times.

Rollback

The new feature Rollback deserves a special mention. It allows us to check the different versions of a conversion set and, in case of errors, to revert back to a previous stable version and therefore prevent any risk to the project.

Before starting a Rollback, you must ensure that the status of the job is one of the following:

• Success
• Failure
• Partial success

The Job status refers to the current version in the system.

You can access the Job History from the home page after login to LCM. The Job History shows the list of all the previous versions of the selected Job. Please note that you only can go back to the most recent previous instance.

To restore the latest instance, click in the check box and then press Rollback button.

You can choose between two rollback options:

• Complete Rollback: this will restore the destination system to its previous state before the job was promoted
• Partial Rollback: enables you to roll back a set of infoobjects included in a job by selecting them from their objects list.

In summary, the handy Rollback function sets the latest instance as the current system version and enables the previous instance for rollback if required.

Conclusion

To summarize, the enhanced LifeCycle Management application is the best option to release your documents from development to production in SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0. If you have questions about this method, or if you want to share your experience or tips, please feel free to leave a comment!

Dynamic Scale in WebI for Combined Graphs

The scale in graphs for WebI is something that can be left as automatic or it can be hardcoded by introducing figures. However it is always preferable to select the automatic set up for the following two reasons: firstly because when a new value is added to the graph, it won’t  out of scale, and secondly if the graph is located inside a section, the user will always enjoy the optimal graph size. But automatic scale has an issue when dealing with combined graphs. For example, if what we want to compare from the Y and Z Axis needs to be in the same scale, WebI creates two different scales. To help you with this challenge, this article will show you a workaround so you can have identical scales for all graph Axes, preserving the native dynamic feature of the scale.

The Workaround Let's imagine the example of a combined graph with bars and lines. And imagine that your sales department wants to see the sales in bars and the target in lines, in a monthly evolution. The chance that the bars and lines will have the same scale is low, because targets normally are higher than the sales. As a result users cannot compare both pieces of information, even if they are shown in the same units.

A workaround to get to see target and sales in the same scale is the following:

1. Create a measure with the highest value by month of the sales
2. Create a measure with the highest value by month of the targets
3. Calculate the maximum value between the two of them
4. Allocate this dummy value in the last month shown of the graph and store it in a new measure
5. Drag & Drop this last measure in both Axis (Y and Z) and paint the result in the same color as the background, so it is not seen

The Result

The graph will have the following look & feel:

Fig.1. The same optimized scale for both Y and Z axes also applies with Sections

Notice that if we decide to go for grid lines, these ones will have a small defect when it comes to the place where the dummy bar is shown. This is a small price you have to pay for the great functionality achieved, but remove the grid if you prefer and the result will be absolutely professional.

Conclusion This workaround adds value to the user who is looking for two measures being compared graphically and wants to always have the optimal data size automatically. If you have questions about this method, or if you want to share your experience or tips, please feel free to leave a comment!

Migration from Deski R2 to Webi R4 with FreeHand SQL

In this article I would like to write about our first migration from BOXIR2 to BOXIR4 in which we had to migrate the entire BO platform (Universes, Reports, Dashboards, Security...). This was quite a substantial migration. Most of the reports that we had to convert were Deskis. We used two applications in order to migrate these objects: Report Conversion Tool (RCT) used for converting reports from Deski to Webi and Upgrade Managment Tool (UMT) which instead is used for moving objects from different environments. This should be an automatic and simple process, but we had encountered some difficulties when migrating Deskis that had FreeHand SQL embedded.

So we would like to move on to explaining the two solutions we worked on that have lead to a successful conversion.

• Direct conversion from R2:

First of all we should check the Deski connection; once we have detected all the properties of this connection we will have to recreate it in R4. It is important to be careful during this process because we also need to create the ODBC Data Sources in our system.

At this point we open Universe Design Tool and we replicate the connection in R4. We have to make sure we use the exact same name we had in R2. Also notice that we should select a shared connection.

Note: Once more we would like to stress the importance of using the identical name as well as the very same parameters of the R2 connection.

Now we have the same connection in both environments. So we can proceed with the report migration. Use RCT from R4 to convert the Deski.

Remember to select the checkbox Convert documents containing free-hand SQL/Stored Procedures. If not this process will not work.

Having completed this step the following objects will be created:

FreeHand SQL Universe: Where we can find the SQL from the Deski data source which is embedded in a derived table.

FreeHand SQL Universe Connection: Special connection for the FreeHand SQL Universe with the name and parameters that we had previously created.

The nomenclature of these objects is as follows:

Universe:  FHSQLXXX  ( You can find it in the Report Conversion Tool Universes Folder)

Universe Connection: FHSQLXXX_Connection_Name

If you don’t create the connection in the final environment, you will get this error message:

• Conversion in R2 and move to R4:

This option is probably a bit more laborious than our previous solution nonetheless based on our experience you will come across less errors.

First of all convert the Deski to Webi in R2. Remember to select the FreeHand SQL conversion checkbox. The advantage is that we won’t need to create the connections because in actual fact we were converting the report in the same environment, so the connections are already defined.

Once we have executed the RCT we will have created the same objects as outline in our previous example.

Finally we should use the UMT to move the reports and its dependencies (Universe& Connection) from R2 to R4. So we only need to select the webi reports and tick the option “Convert selected object and its dependencies”.

In conclusion, thanks to our experience migrating all Deski reports from both environments, we firmly believe that the best practice in order to avoid connection problems is to convert Deskis in R2. From here we can move by using UMT the Webi, the FSQL Universe and the FSQL connection.

SAP Data Warehousing Solutions: an October 2011 Review

Regardless of software or hardware vendors, the Data Warehousing market is an area of growth, expected to increase about 10.1% in CAGR (compound annual growth rate) by 2015 according to the latest study carried out by IDC. SAP, thanks to the acquisition of Sybase, it is seen as a leader in the Data Warehouse by Gartner & Forrester. This article is focused on the solutions provided by SAP for organizations looking for enterprise-oriented data warehouses or more agile high-performance data foundations and to catch a glimpse of their future road map.

Enterprise Data Warehouse

• SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (BW): is nowadays a very stable product, with a large installed base and in constant growth (more than 12000 customers, more than 15000 productive systems), and what more it has not been affected by the economic downturn in 2009. If we look at its future evolution, it is intended to be running on HANA in 2012 which will be used as the underlying In-Memory database Platform (BW 7.3x SP5), this means to be based on an  already built-in Business Warehouse Accelerator.

High Performance Analytic Data Foundation

• SAP HANA: is a flexible, data source agnostic, in-memory appliance that analyzes high volumes of transactional data in real-time. It includes tools for data modeling, data and lifecycle management, security and operations. It combines SAP software components which are optimized with the hardware provided by partners. The benefits are the following: make smarter business decisions supported by an increased visibility  of very large volumes of business information, react to business events more quickly through real-time analysis and reporting of operational data, a new application foundation for a new category of applications, streamline IT landscapes and finally reducetotal cost of ownership (TCO). If we look further  ahead in time, there will be a transition going from having SAP Business Objects BI 4.0 running on SAP HANA 1.0 to having the whole SAP Business Suite running on SAP HANA 2.0 in 2013.

• Sybase IQ: is a market leading, high-performance, columnar analytics server and data warehouse specifically designed for high speed data analytics, enabling high speed performance of complex queries against large datasets, with the advantage of being a low cost  maintenance when compared to row-based systems (by reducing the need for aggregates and indexes). It is a mature and proven solution with about 1900 customers and more than 3300 unique deployments. SAP will continue to support and invest on this acceleration technology, especially for non-SAP applications and data (including the possibility of placing SAP BusinessObjects BI on top).

• SAP BusinessObjects RapidMarts are preconfigured jumpstart data marts that are designed to accelerate BI. And they all come pre-packaged by subject areas and sub-areas specific to SAP modules (Finance, Manufacturing, Operations, HR, etc.) as well as for non-SAP applications (JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, Lawson, Oracle EBS, etc.). The key elements included are the following:

1. ETL Mappings: Source-to-target mappings and data transformation for relevant source tables (initial and incremental data movements).
2. Data Marts: set of target RDBMS objects and schemas based on best practices for dimensional data modeling (Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, Teradata).
3. BI Content: preconfigured universes based on best practices and samples of reports displaying  the wealth of data available.

If you need any further information on the solutions presented here, don’t hesitate to post a reply or contact Clariba.

SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards 4.0 Cookbook - Review

IntroductionSAP BusinessObjects Dashboards 4.0 Cookbook, by Xavier Hacking and David Lai (352 pages, May 2011) promises you nothing less than "Over 90 simple and incredibly effective recipes for transforming your business data into exciting dashboards". Does it achieve this objective? Read the full review below to find out.

While I have experience working with BO Xcelsius 2008 (what BO Dashboards would formerly go by), I didn't have any with BO Dashboards 4.0 before reading this book. So my expectations about it were simple: tell me how to do with BO Dashboards 4.0 what I already know how to do with Xcelsius; give me recipes around the new features, and show me a few extra tips. I can tell you right now: even though this book has not met all my expectations (as it's not focused on the new 4.0 version), it is a really good one.

The book is structured in ten chapters (see the table of contents) containing a dozen recipes each. The recipes follow a steady progression, from simple to advanced recipes. You can of course directly jump to any recipe, but reading the whole book in the proposed order is also a possibility.

SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards 4.0

The good and the bad

In a few key points I would like to offer my perspective on the strengths and weaknesses of this read, what I found to be particularly stimulating and enriching as well as on some aspects that I, as a reader, would've liked to see integrated.

What I like the most:

• It feels like the recipes come from a real-life experience. Not only do the authors tell you how a component can be used, but they also tell you in which circumstances these are used at their best. The examples used by the authors make a lot of sense.

• The recipes chosen cover a nice proportion of the BO Dashboards / Xcelsius universe. It is a very good base from which to start and move forward.

• The first chapter is about best practices (color-code and comment the spreadsheet, etc.); strictly speaking not recipes but the fact remains that this is still a very good idea.

• The chapter about add-ons shows in an easy way how to extend BO Dashboards.

• The links to online resources are few but worth it (one of these is, for example, the very useful Business Objects Board).

• The book is quite clear and well written. Examples are easy to follow thanks to full color illustrations.

What I don't like:

• A few things aren’t outlined with enough precision and may need some time in research before executing.

• The index is cluttered with many terms that I wouldn't describe as necessary (to take an example, all the supported Excel functions are listed, and I doubt that anyone will look for the entry entitled "dashboard" when that is what the whole book is about).

• Some of the internet links given in the book cannot be reached as of today.

What I'm missing:

• I would have enjoyed is a section about the differences between Xcelsius 2008 and Dashboards 4.0 with a list of recipes that are valid only on the latter. It would allow experienced users to focus on the new features only (rather than having to flick through all of the recipes). This is where the book tends to fall short, in my opinion.

• For intermediate readers, a more complete real-life dashboard example could have been a great addition. The two case studies provided in the appendix A are good, but still pretty far from what I've been asked for in most client engagements.

A book for whom?

While many cookbooks require a good knowledge of the corresponding software/programming language, this is not the case here. The initial part of this book is targeted at beginners and no prior experience of BO Dashboards (or former Xcelsius versions) is required. Some general knowledge of Excel is required but some recipes deliver useful tips about it.

So if you're new to BO Dashboards; do you want to buy this book? Definitely. You will get much farther (and much more quickly) with this book than with only online tutorials and the official documentation. The recipes are really clear and can be used for real-life dashboards.

Note that it's also a perfect book for Xcelsius 2008 beginners – you'll be able to use more than 90% of the book's recipes, and many of the example files can be opened in it.

Do you have previous experience with Xcelsius? Although many of the recipes might probably not be that exciting to you, you're still likely to like some of the recipes. Having a look at the table of contents shall be enough to convince you to buy this book (or to leave it aside).

If you're expecting a book on BO Dashboards 4.0, bear in mind that only a few recipes are specific to this version.

Conclusion

Although the title is a slightly misleading, the SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards 4.0 Cookbook is a great book to help any dashboard developer to improve on his/her Dashboards 4.0 / Xcelsius knowledge. Don’t miss it!

Thanks a lot to Pakt Publishing for sending us an e-copy of the book for the review.

PS: note that I only had access to the e-book version, so I can't say anything about this full-of-paper book you'll buy in a bookshop.

Creating re-usable components in WebI

When we find ourselves developing a Web Intelligence document with multiple tabs, a common practice is to duplicate the components needed all across the document. For as convenient as this method may appear, it comes with a price: we end up with a vast amount of cells, tables and graphs that are very similar to each other, but that in actuality are very tedious to maintain. In this article the method presented provides a way to create a single table or graph that can be later copied anywhere throughout the document, with the ability to modify its content depending on the component’s location and its name.

Useful formulas

The following formulas may be of interest to you:

=ReportName(): Brings the name of the Report (tab) of the WebI document

=BlockName(): Brings the name of the component (table, graph or cell). It’s interesting to point out that this name is unique in the WebI document.

The solution

1. The idea is to base the content of the tables and the graphs on variables. The variables, to which we are refering, consist of the “IF-THEN-ELSE” clauses based on the formulas indicated above.
2. As a next step, we create the table or graph based on these variables.
3. Last but not the least is to place the component within a report with a specific name and/or name the block accordingly.

Let’s consider the follwing as an example. Our objective is to be able to visualize Sales and Revenue by Customer in a graph and within a report tab which we can name Customer. Then, in addition to this, we also want to be able to visualize Sales and Revenue, this time filtered by Country. As for before we want to display this in a graph and within another report tab which for convenience we can call Country. Below I have provided an exemplification on how to proceed:

1. Creation of variables:

[Dimension] = IF ReportName()=¨Customer¨ Then [Customer] ElseIf ReportName()=¨Country¨ Then [Country]

[Measure 1] = [Sales]

[Measure 2] = [Revenue]

2. Creation of the graph using these variables, but only once.

3. Copy and paste the graph in the Reports Customer and then Country and name them meaningfully (e.g. Graph_Customer and Graph_Country).

If we decide to go the extra mile and, within the Country tab, want to also have displayed an evolution graph of Sales by Salesman, we can achieve this by simply enhancing the variable from above:

[Dimension] = IF ReportName()=¨Customer¨ Then [Customer] ElseIf ReportName()=¨Country¨ And BlockName()=¨Graph_Country¨ Then [Country] ElseIf ReportName()=¨Country¨ And BlockName()=¨Graph_Sales¨ Then [Salesman]

We will then Copy and paste our graph in the Country’s tab and name it Graph_Sales.

In conclusion to this article we notice how this solution simplifies significantly things for a developer or maintainer specialized in WebI reports easing the work load especially when it comes to components that are very complex to configure, like highly formatted graphs.

It is important that you bear in mind that this solution will only work with BOXI 3.1.sp3 or higher versions, so make sure your software is updated.

If you have questions about this handy solution in WebI, or if you want to share your experience or tips, just leave a comment!