In case you missed the first parts of my blog series I have included the links to them here:
BusinessObjects and SAP Part I
BusinessObjects and SAP Part 2
BusinessObjects and SAP Part 3
BusinessObjects and SAP Part 4
In my previous blogs I did focus on how Crystal Reports can leverage data from a SAP BW or from a SAP R/3 system.
In the next couple of blogs I will focus on how simple it is to use Web Intelligence on top of SAP BW.
Web Intelligence is able to leverage SAP BW queries and SAP BW cubes. This connectivity is using the OLAP BAPI interface to build universes.
Universes allow the user to create a rich semantic layer (metadata) on top of the underlying datasource and share this data representation with all users.
To be able to use Web Intelligence I first have to build a new Universe based on the SAP BW query.
To build the universe I have first to create a new connection based on the SAP BW connection type.
In the next step I need to provide the details of the SAP server
The option "Authentication Mode" allows to specify the type of authentication that will be used for this connection. I am able to specify to use a specific user and password or to use Single-Sign-On.
In the next screen I am able to browse all available cubes and queries from the BW System.
After I selected my query I can build the universe. The Universe Designer is retrieving all available metadata from the SAP BW system and is creating a new Universe.
I will try to explain how the universe is matching the objects from SAP BW based on a concrete example.
This query contains several characteristics in the rows, several keyfigures in the columns and a filter for the characteristic Country (value = USA).
A new Universe based on this query looks like shown in the image below.
- The cube dimensions are resulting in a class in the OLAP Universe (for example, cube dimension Customer shown in the image).
- Each characteristic from the query results in a class with a dimension and one or more detail objects.
- Each characteristic is represented by a Level 0 and a Level 1 object in the universe, where the Level 0 object represents the aggregated view on this characteristic (representing the "All" member from the underlying cube).
- Each characteristic is also represented by one to several detail object (shown as green objects in the image) representing the key value, short, medium and long description, and the display attributes for the characteristic.
- Each key figure is represented with a measure object in a class Key Figures.
- In the case the keyfigure is configured in SAP BW with a unit, an additional dimension object will be added representing the unit information (in my example the Order Amount Unit).
- The formatted value represents the numeric value formatted as a string value, following the user-specific formatting settings.
After I create the new universe, I can export the universe to the BusinessObjects Enterprise platform. After doing so I am able to use Web Intelligence to create a new report.
I am starting InfoView and use the SAP authentication method so that I can use my SAP credentials and will be able to achieve Single-Sign-On.
In InfoView I start Web Intelligence and select the universe I just created.
In Web Intelligence I can use all components from the universe to create a query and a report. The query defines which data is being retrieved from the BW system and the report defines the layout.
In the area Query Filters I can create additional filters for this report.
After executing the query the data is presented to me in the report.
I hope that this short description gave you a good overview on how a Universe and Web Intelligence can leverage SAP BW queries.
The products I used for this are :
- BusinessObjects Enterprise XI Release 3.0
- Web Intelligence XI Release 3.0
- BusinessObjects Integration for SAP Solutions XI Release 3.0
In the following blogs I will go into more details on hierarchies, variables, attributes, and structures and how they will be leveraged in the universe.
- SAP Managed Tags:
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