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

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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!

Le Invitamos A Registrarse En Nuestro Webinar: Visión Global de Ventas El Próximo 22 de Noviembre

SAP y Clariba le invitan a registrarse en el Webinar de Visión Global de Ventas el proximo 22 de Noviembre 2011, de 11:00 a 12:00 (CET) para conocer más sobre los beneficios de implementar una solución de análisis de su performance de ventas.  

Los ingresos de su empresa dependen en gran medida de la eficiencia y de la transparencia de su ciclo de ventas. Por lo tanto, está claro que tener una visión global acerca de su proceso de ventas le ayuda a tener mejor control sobre su negocio y le permite identificar cuales son sus fortalezas y debilidades en términos de productos, mercados y vendedores. También revela los patrones de ventas e ineficiencias que tal vez pueda tener, lo que le permite tomar las medidas adecuadas, tanto a corto como a largo plazo, asegurando la supervivencia de su negocio.

Con todo esto en mente, Clariba le invita a invertir una hora de su tiempo para conocer nuestra solución de análisis de ventas, impulsada por SAP BusinessObjects, líder mundial de Business Intelligence.

Nuestra solución “Visión Global de Ventas” permite a los tomadores de decisiones en departamentos de ventas y marketing obtener acceso instantáneo a información actualizada y ofrece una visión de 360​​° de los ingresos, de las tendencias y de su embudo de ventas (Sales pipeline). El formato es visualmente atractivo y fácil de analizar, y permite a los usuarios el profundizar para poder descubrir las orígenes de cualquier ineficiencia con el fin de realizar una toma de decisiones apropiada.

Esta solución es fácil de usar, interactiva y automatizada, y se puede adaptar a cualquier industria y cualquier fuente de datos. Todo ello se le demostrará durante nuestro webinar.

La agenda para el webinar Visión Global de Ventas es la siguiente:

  • Introducción y bienvenida
  • Presentación de Clariba Visión Global de Ventas
    • Los desafíos comunes de los departamento de ventas.
    • Caso de éxito y demostración del cuadro de mando interactivo
  • Presentación de la suite SAP BusinessObjects
  • Preguntas y Respuestas

Asista a esta sesión:

 Martes 22 de Noviembre de 2011, 11:00-12:00.

Regístrese ahora



Para obtener más información acerca de nuestras soluciones SAP BusinessObjects, visite nuestro sitio web www.clariba.com

 

 SAP and Clariba invite you to register to our Global Sales Insight Webinar on November 22 from 11:00 - 12:00 (CET) , to learn more about the benefits of implementing a sales performance analysis solution. Please note, this webinar will be held in Spanish.

Your company’s revenue is largely dependent on the efficiency and transparency of your sales cycle. It is therefore clear that having global insight into your sales process helps you to have better control over your business and enables you to identify where your strengths and weaknesses are in terms of products, markets and salespeople. It also unveils sales patterns and inefficiencies, enabling you to take suitable actions, both short and long term, ensuring the survival of your business.

With this in mind, Clariba invites you to invest one hour of your time to learn about our sales analysis solution powered by SAP BusinessObjects, global Business Intelligence leader.

Our Sales Global Insight solution allows decision makers in Sales and Marketing departments to gain instant access to  current information and provides a 360° view of sales revenue, trends and pipeline. The format is highly visual and easy to analyze, and allows  users to drill down to discover the sources of any inefficiency in order to determine the appropriate course of action.

This solution is user-friendly, interactive, automated, and can be adapted to any industry and any data source, all of which will be demonstrated to you during our webinar.

The Agenda for the sales global insight webinar is:

  • Introduction and welcome
  • Presentation of Clariba Visión Global de Ventas
    • Common challenges of   a Sales department.
    • Case study and demo of the dashboard.
  • Presentation of SAP BusinessObjects suite
  • Q&A

Attend this session: Tuesday 22nd November 2011, from 11:00 to 12:00.

Register now

For more information about our SAP BusinessObjects solutions, visit our website www.clariba.com

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SAP Strategy Management: When the Customization Generates New Standards

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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.

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

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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
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!

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ictQatar and SAP partner to bring in innovative IT solutions to region

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A collaboration between Supreme Council of Information and Communication Technology (ictQatar) and German IT giant SAP will make Qatar at par with more technologically advanced countries on bringing innovative IT solutions to the private and government sectors. Top officials from SAP and ictQatar separately outlined these programmes yesterday during the opening of SAP World Tour 2011 in Doha held at Sheraton Doha Hotel which was attended by some 300 participants from local business and government sector as well as SAP community partners.

Join Clariba at the SAP World Tour events in Doha on October 18 and Abu Dhabi on October 19

Clariba is pleased to be sponsoring SAP World Tour in Qatar and Abu Dhabi, the SAP business and technology event for C-level executives, IT decision makers, and Business managers. Join us at this showcase event for 2011 for an unparalleled opportunity to explore the entire SAP ecosystem under one roof and take away new vision and value for your business. In an increasingly consumer-driven world of accelerated pace where the rate of information continues to explode, businesses must get closer to their customer's customer. Join SAP co-CEO and Executive Board member Bill McDermott to find out how SAP helps leading edge companies digitize their business end-to-end and connect the boardroom to the front line worker and beyond. This is a new era of IT with innovations like mobile, in-memory and cloud computing that help businesses realize the full power of the integrated enterprise. Find out how you can take the next step forward to make your company a best run business.

“Clariba is proud to be sponsoring the SAP World Tour events in Qatar and Abu Dhabi, explains Marc Haberland, Managing Director of Clariba. “This is a premier SAP event and an excellent opportunity for business and IT professionals to discover more about SAP BusinessObjects BI4 and HANA, the latest innovations for business intelligence, while also experiencing BI solutions in action at our booth in the Partner Exhibition zone.”

The SAP World Tour  Qatar will be held on October 18 in the Al Majlis Auditorium, Sheraton Doha Resort & Convention Hotel, Doha, Qatar from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Attendance at the SAP World Tour is free of charge. Register now to secure your place.

The SAP World Tour Abu Dhabi will be held on October 19 in Hall 2, Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Center, Abu Dhabi, UAE from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Attendance at the SAP World Tour is free of charge. Register now to secure your place.

Highlights of World Tour 2011 include:

  • Gain inspiration from keynotes and informative breakout sessions that will focus on how new technology provides a path to business innovation and showcase the latest innovation in areas like mobility, in-memory computing, and business analytics.
  • Hear about the experiences of SAP customers - from small, medium and large companies - who have been able to accelerate innovation and minimize risk by implementing and adapting solutions faster
  • Get an in-depth look at future SAP applications that will support your growth strategies in areas such as Finance, CRM, Supply Chain and Procurement
  • Visit the comprehensive Exhibition Showcase where Clariba will be demonstrating exciting new solutions for organizations of all sizes
  • Learn how to maximize and future-proof your investment in mobility solutions to securely deliver information anytime, anywhere.

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to see how your investment in technology can deliver greater visibility for improved decision-making, operational excellence, flexibility and sustained growth - whatever the future might bring.

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Dynamic Scale in WebI for Combined Graphs

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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
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!

Le Invitamos A Registrarse En Nuestro Webinar "Control Del Tráfico De Llamadas De Clariba" El Próximo 4 Octubre

SAP y Clariba les invitan a asistir a nuestro Webinar "Control del Tráfico de Llamadas de Clariba" el próximo 4 de Octubre 2011, de 10:30 a 11:30 para conocer más sobre los beneficios de implementar una solución de atención al cliente de tiempo real. Su Centro de Llamadas y de Atención al Cliente juega un papel importante en el proceso de venta e influye directamente en la experiencia del cliente. Cuando nos encontramos en un pico de llamadas, aumenta el tiempo de espera, los clientes están insatisfechos con su experiencia y los directores de equipo necesitan poder reasignar dinámicamente los agentes para cumplir con los cambios de carga de llamadas. Los directores también necesitan encontrar la raíz del problema en cualquier ineficiencia para marcar el camino adecuado, como la formación del personal o la gestión del cambio.

Nos complace invitarle a nuestro Webinar con la siguiente Agenda:

  1. Bienvenida y Introducción
  2. Caso de Éxito: Departamento de Atención al Cliente para un gran cliente de Telecomunicaciones
  3. Demo del Control de Tráfico de Llamadas de Clariba: Beneficios y Funcionalidades
  4. Herramientas e implementación de SAP BusinessObjects
  5. Preguntas

Altamente Visual y Fácil de Leer: Control de Tráfico de Llamadas de Clariba es fiable, actúa en tiempo real y es la solución más atractiva que permite a los centros de llamadas y atención al cliente mostrar de forma autónoma los parámetros clave del tráfico de llamadas, las alertas de servicio y las tendencias de hasta 5 equipos simultáneamente en una única pantalla. Esto a su vez se puede mostrar en una gran variedad de dispositivos, desde las pantallas de gran formato en su oficina a los dispositivos móviles.

Datos Fiables en Tiempo Real: La solución de control de tráfico está basada en el conjunto totalmente integrado de tecnología BI SAP BusinessObjects y está totalmente automatizada, reduciendo así la dependencia del proceso manual de carga de información actualizándose en cada instante, proporcionando información fiable y actualizada para la toma rápida de decisiones.  SAP y Clariba le invitan a registrarse en el Webinar de Control de Tráfico de Llamadas para conocer más sobre los beneficios de implementar una solución de atención al cliente de tiempo real.

Para registrarse al Webinar “Control del Tráfico de Llamadas”, este 4 Octubre 2011, a las 10:30 haga clic aquí.

Para más información acerca de nuestras soluciones SAP BusinessObjects para departamentos de atención al cliente envíanos un email a través de events@clariba.com o llamándonos al +34 930 008 778.

SAP and Clariba invite you to attend our Webinar "Clariba Real Time Traffic Control" on this October 4th 2011, from 10:30 to 11:30 to learn more about the benefits of implementing a real-time, customer service solution.

Call Centers and Customer Service Departments play an important role in the sales process and are influential in shaping the customer experience. When call volumes spike, wait times increase or customers become dissatisfied with their experience, team managers need a way to dynamically reassign agents to meet changing call loads and management needs a way to drill down to the root cause of any inefficiency to find the appropriate course of action, such as retraining or process changes.

 The Traffic Control webinar agenda includes:

  1. Welcome and Introduction
  2. Case study: Call Center Department for prominent Telco customer
  3. Demo: Traffic Control Benefits and Features
  4. SAP BusinessObjects tools and implementation
  5. Q&A

Highly Visual and Easy-to-Read: Clariba Traffic Control is a reliable, real-time and eye-catching solution which allows Call Centers and Customer Service Departments to autonomously display key call traffic metrics, service level alerts and running trends for up to 5 teams simultaneously on a single dashboard. This in turn can be displayed on a variety of devices, from large screens throughout the office to hand-held mobile devices.

Real Time and Reliable Data: The Traffic Control solution is based on the most integrated stack of SAP BusinessObjects technology. It is fully automated, reducing reliance on manual reporting processes and is refreshed each minute, providing reliable and current data for quick decision making.

To register for our Webinar "Clariba Real Time Traffic Control", this October 4th 2011, at 10:30 click here. 

For more information about our SAP BusinessObjects solutions for Contact Centers send an email at events@clariba.com or call us at +34 930 008 778.