Building your own Embedded Analytics application - part 5

[RafkeMagic]

First of all, apologies for not having updated anything sooner. Secondly, apologies for this being a very short and maybe not well structured blog, but I promised christopher.walstra to give an update on how to show a WebI in a sidepanel.

Mind you, this approach will not (always) work with Dashboards (at least not for BO4.0 SP7 Patch10 - for BO4.1 SP1 Patch4 this has been well explained by kohesco here).

Anyways, when you save your BI reports on the BO server (in the CMC), you can access the through an url (using the OpenDocument technology). If you go to the properties of such a report you see both an ID and a CUID (in General Properties under Title). Both can be used, however it's advised to use the latter. Anyways, you can call the BI report through the following url:

http://<your BO server>:<port>/BOE/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDocument.jsp?iDocID=<the CUID you just found>&sIDType=CUID&lsS<your variable name>=<value for the variable in SAP internal format>

should you wish to use the ID (instead of the CUID) the url changes slightly into:

http://<your BO server>:<port>/BOE/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDocument.jsp?iDocID=<the ID you just found>&lsS<variable name>=<value for the variable in SAP internal format>

the lsS part refers to a "single value" variable, in case you need another variable (or more than one) you need to look up the correct way to address it in the OpenDocument documentation (OSS 1671949 explains where to find this).

Now by just clicking on the url you should be taken to the report immediately (provided that single sign-on has been correctly setup and that you're authenticated).

In order to be able to use the above in a side panel, you first need to create a role (transaction PFCG). You could use an existing role, but for "testing" purposes a separate role is better practice. In this role, you need to add a folder, let's call it "sidepanel". This folder has to be "marked" as a side panel. By clicking on "Other Node Details" you can set this via the dropdown menu of Folder Option. In the same screen block, you need to fill "Application Alias" to indicate for which transactions you will use this side panel. For example if you input the following:

{TR=VA03}

it means that the side panel will be available for "Display Sales Order" (transaction VA03).

Via the dropdown linked to the "+ Transaction" button (small triangle on the right of it) you can add a Web Dynpro Application (3rd option) to this side panel folder.

choose/enter WDR_CHIP_PAGE (for Web Dynpro Application)

and enter a technical name for your application configuration (doesn't really need to exist yet, so for example you can go for ZTEST).

hit Enter.

Now you should see an entry under your side panel folder called WDR_CHIP_PAGE. Use the context menu (right-mouse click) to open it's details. First we need to create a configuration, you can do so via Create:

ZTEST (or whatever name you choose above)

WDR_CHIP_PAGE (should be filled out already)

WDR_CATALOG_ALL (your safest bet)

Once that's done, we can start "configuring" the side panel. Click on Application Configuration for Page (which will open a browser window with a web dynpro screen). Hit Edit (and make sure you don't have a popup blocker active).

Scroll down to Side Panel and check the flags for:

Enable Sending of Tagging Data to Remote Side Panel (WDSIDEPANELREMOTEPRODUCER):

Enable Receipt of Tagging Data in Remote Side Panel (WDSIDEPANELREMOTECONSUMER):

Scroll back up and hit Test (top line). On the right side of the screen you should see three little icons: a person, a wrench and a question mark. Click on the wrench and select Configuration.

Now we need to add a "web chip", so click Add which will open the CHIP Catalog. Use search and enter "Web CHIP". It finds a couple, select the top one. It should display a Google map. That's fine, just hit OK. So now you have a Web CHIP as your configuration.

Next step is to actually add a url. On the top right of your web chip you have a little white icon, which actually contains a drop down menu. Select Define URL. Here you paste the url partially:

http://<your BO server>:<port>/BOE/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDocument.jsp?iDocID=<the CUID you just found>&sIDType=CUID

Next Select Set URL parameter. Here you paste:

<your variable name>

Select Define URL parameter. In this table your start using "tagging".

Name = <your variable name>

Display name = <whatever you want it to be displayed> (I choose the same as my variable name)

Tags = <the name of the tag which should be the value for your variable> (the tag is the value sent from the SAP transaction to the side panel).

Make sure to enter everything correctly as it can be a real cumbersome task to change these settings/values afterwards. As soon as a valid BI report is assigned it will always try to open it immediately (before you can chose edit to possibly change the values). During testing we added a "normal" url (for example www.google.be) and added the tag as it would have been an OpenDocument url. You can check whether it's passed correctly in the sidepanel (NWBC functionality).

Well, I hope this helps. Once again, sorry for the not so organized (no screen caps) way of putting the info here. Also I can't spend any more time on this the next couple of weeks (too much work right now and taking a well-deserved break with my wife next week).

Cheers,

Raf