Are you satisfied with the way you currently manage the dependencies in your ETL? In the part 1 of this article, I talked about the features I’m expecting from a dependency management system, and what are the main possibilities offered (directly or indirectly) by Data Services. In part 2, I proposed an architecture (structure and expected behavior) for a dependency management system inside Data Services. In part 3, I explained the complete implementation details. In this final part, I'm going to give you a feedback on how it went “in real life” as well as possible improvements. So, the most important question is of course "Does it work?". I'm happy to confirm that yes, it does! And it makes quite a difference in the life of the customer's Data Services administrator. Of course it doesn't change anything if the ETL is running fine, but when there are problems, this dependency management system can be a huge time-saver!
Business Analytics: The end of a trend or room for growth?
In the last 14 years I have been living the expansion, consolidation and innovation of the BI market. No longer is BI a set of tools available only to the privileged few in IT or line of business analysts; BI is becoming ubiquitous in many organizations, and it is rapidly reaching into many areas of our lives as consumers. So one may ask, has BI reached full maturity; have we reached a saturation point with only limited evolutionary, incremental value in the years to come?Quite the opposite! While Gartner saw a slowdown of growth for BI Software from 17% in 2011 to 6.8% in 2012 to total $13.1bn worldwide*, we are seeing a tremendous shift in the industry with a series of innovations that are game changing and will deliver growth, if organizations can effectively adopt and transform.
Informatica PowerCenter - Automated loop execution with exchange of input parameters
One often required functionality that's not inherent to any Informatica PowerCenter entity is to automate loop execution of arbitrary logic with exchange of input parameters. In this article I will give you the implementation steps so you can achieve this. Most common implementation occurs with execution of arbitrary Data Integration process for a time period that's comprised of multiple temporal scopes of a single process run. For example, reloading a full month of transactions after the cutoff date when retroactive bookings for previous month become impossible, by means of daily transaction increment.
Getting the most from your SAP Strategy Management 10.0
You have successfully implemented SAP Strategy Management (SSM) in your company and users are gradually becoming familiar with that new tool. What’s next? How do we motivate managers to adopt it and use it as a support to their decision making tasks? In this article I would like to share my thoughts about the following topics
Not missing a hit in SAP BusinessObjects using HTTP traffic logs
Monitoring the number of views of an important corporate document is a key need for any company who is aiming for better resource management and company-wide alignment. This is especially important in a migration project in order to define what content to migrate or in a document maintenance process to prioritize assignments. SAP BusinessObjects Auditing is able to register when documents are viewed or retrieved but it has certain limitations, so most of the users activity is lost. This article explains an alternative method to collect the number of views of any SAP BusinessObjects file type or web page that sits on our web server so they can complement our current auditing reports.
Managing ETL dependencies with SAP BusinessObjects Data Services (Part 3)
Are you satisfied with the way you currently manage the dependencies in your ETL? In Part 1 of this series, I talked about the features I expect from a dependency management system, and what are the main possibilities offered (directly or indirectly) by Data Services. In Part 2, I proposed an architecture (structure and expected behavior) for a dependency management system inside Data Services. Now I will give you the implementation details, while a feedback on how it went “in real life” as well as possible improvements will come in part 4. So how do we implement this theoretical solution in Data Services?
Simple Forecast Exercise with SAP Predictive Analysis
One of the latest products that SAP has incorporated in its Business Intelligence Suite is SAP Predictive Analysis. Essentially, this product shares its main interface with SAP Lumira (formerly SAP Visual Intelligence) but the added value comes from the Predict workspace where you can find a series of algorithms to build predictive models.
Horeca Trade - Video testimonial
Hear how Hisham Aljamil runs Horeca Trade better, thanks to implementing SAP BusinessObjects BI with Clariba
Web banners-Horeca Clariba
Horeca Trade is the only company in the UAE completely dedicated to the foodservice channel. From people and products, to distribution and marketing, they do it all. Their business model was built from the ground up specifically to accommodate foodservice standards and requirements, which requires tight monitoring from producer to consumer.
Consumables have a very specific time frame for delivery, and Horeca has to ensure that its processes are as tightly controlled and efficient as possible. Any delay in the network could result in loss of products, and they have a lot to track as they deliver across the UAE 24 hours a day.
Horeca Trade Warehouse
With SAP Business Intelligence solutions implemented by SAP Partner Clariba, Horeca Trade has full control over sales, inventory, purchases, finance, operations and HR, all the ingredients needed for success. With SAP, they run better, and serve their customers better.
Listen to: Hisham Aljamil - Managing Director of Horeca Trade in our latest video testimonial.
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Common SAP Dashboards (Xcelsius) bugs and how to solve them
This post is about SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards (formerly known as Xcelsius) and its intricate form of work. If you are an assiduous dashboard developer or just beginning to work with the tool, you will notice some bugs that interfere with your developing and slows you down. My main goal is to talk about the bugs or "misfortunes" that I have commonly faced in SAP BO Dashboards (Xcelsius) and the workarounds that I have found to save you some time when working with this tool. My second objective is to open a discussion where you can comment on other SAP Dashboards issues and solutions you found.
Dashboard integration in SAP Crystal Reports
In this blog article I would like to share with you how to embed a dashboard in a Crystal Report using flash variables. First of all let’s give a scenario that leads us to do that. In this case we wanted to create a dashboard for a SAP GRC module. The problem was that we could not connect to the system directly with SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards (Xcelsius for the most nostalgic ones). Apart from that, there is a good thing about having a dashboard embedded in Crystal, you will have a dashboard that can be refreshed from Crystal Reports without needing a previous authentication. You will also be able to save the “report” (you can show the dashboard) in PDF with saved data and the dashboard will be completely clickable and navigable.