The Quick and Dirty Guide to SAP BusinessObjects Training By Martha Thieme and Antonio Soto |
Wow, there are a lot of classes on the SAP BusinessObjects products, aren’t there? Adding to the confusion of all the classes is the fact that currently there are two classes available on two different versions, but the course codes are almost identical. Oh, and some of the names of the products have changed, even though the product itself may not have.
Well, we’ve heard your cries of frustration, and the good news is that when the 4.1 courses become available, the course codes and course names will be much more clear. (We can’t promise, though, that the product names won’t change, but here’s a really good—and fun—blog on that topic: http://scn.sap.com/community/lumira/blog/2013/05/10/sap-lumira-why-did-we-change-yet-another-perfect...)
All that, however, doesn’t really help you in the present, does it? Well, here is an overview of all the courses, versions, and course codes to help you decide which course or courses you might need.
The focus of this blog is on the Version 4.0 courses, but we realize you may need to take some Version 3.1 courses. Here’s the easy way to spot the difference: The Version 4.0 courses all have “Col 96” in the course code. The Version 3.1 courses have “Col 91” in the course code. Don’t even get us started on what that means. Just trust us on this one!
We’ll list the courses by the application name, and if any applications have new names, we’ll be sure to note that for you.
CRYSTAL REPORTS
There are two “flavors” of Crystal Reports: Crystal Reports 2011 and Crystal Reports for Enterprise. The major difference between the two are the look and feel and user interface. Crystal Reports for Enterprise is a JAVA based application with adhoc capabilities allowing Business Users to run and modify queries against Universes, BEx Queries and traditional relational and OLAP data sources. The UI has been simplified with end users in mind to manage ad hoc reporting with Crystal Reports. Crystal Reports 2011 is the traditional application that report developers and programmers use to create beautiful looking highly formatted reports against relational, OLAP data sources, and unstructured data.
Crystal Reports 2011
BOC310 – Crystal Reports 2011: Fundamentals
Crystal Reports 2011® is a powerful, dynamic, actionable reporting solution that helps you design, explore, visualize, and deliver reports via the web or embedded in enterprise applications. This 2-day instructor-led course is designed to give you comprehensive skills and in-depth knowledge to plan and create reports that will help you analyze and interpret information. Topics include: an overview of record selection, data organization and formatting, the basics of creating formulas, applying conditional formatting, and an introduction to exporting and distributing reports.
BOC320 - Crystal Reports 2011: Report Processing
This 3-day instructor-led course will give you an overview of the Repository and Repository data sources, introduce you to the fundamentals of managing reports, and provide greater insight into creating advance formulas, applying variables and arrays, and creating report templates and building specialized reports.
View the entire Crystal Reports curriculum map here.
Crystal Reports for Enterprise
BOCE10 - Crystal Reports for Enterprise: Business Reporting Solutions
SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise is a powerful, dynamic, actionable reporting solution that helps you design, explore, visualize, and deliver reports via the web or embedded in enterprise applications. This 2-day instructor-led course is designed to give you comprehensive skills and in-depth knowledge to plan and create reports that will help you analyze and interpret data. As a business benefit, you will find that this course is an in-depth approach to the entire report creation cycle from planning a report prototype to distribution a report.
BOCE20 - This 3-day instructor-led course is designed to give you comprehensive skills and in-depth knowledge to create advanced reports that will help you analyze and interpret data. As a business benefit, you will be able to increase your understanding of formulas, variables, arrays, parameters, summaries and sections, which will help you to make more effective report design decisions and create more efficient reports.
View the entire Crystal Reports for Enterprise curriculum map here.
WEB INTELLIGENCE
BOW310 – Web Intelligence: Report Design I
This 2-day instructor-led course is designed to give you the comprehensive skills and in-depth knowledge needed to access, analyze and share data using SAP BusinessObjects BI launch pad and SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence™. You will learn how to create Web Intelligence documents for your reporting needs, to retrieve data by building queries using SAP BusinessObjects universes and to use Web Intelligence to enhance documents for easier analysis. You’ll also learn how to organize, manage and distribute documents using the BI launch pad.
BOW320 – Web Intelligence: Advanced Report Design
This 1-day instructor-led course is designed to give you the comprehensive skills needed to apply alternative query and reporting techniques when creating complex Web Intelligence documents. After completing this course, you will be able to create combined queries and use sub-queries. You will also be able to use character and date string functions, create variables using "If" logic, redefine calculation contexts, and create hyperlinks in your documents using Web Intelligence dialog boxes.
View the entire Web Intelligence 4.0 curriculum map here.
ANALYSIS
BOAN10 – Analysis, edition for MS Office
In this 1-day instructor-led course, you will be exposed to the complete functional scope of Analysis, edition for Microsoft Office. The course covers basic Analysis functions, navigation within the Design Panel, and working with SAP BW hierarchies, In additional, you’ll cover conditional formatting and filtering on measures; creating and using formulas; and integrating dynamic text elements, charts and filter elements. The course concludes with special functions, working with styles, creating layout elements such as dropdown boxes in combination with VBA to control variable and filter values, the combination of multiple functions into one action, and using creating PowerPoint slides.
View the entire Analysis curriculum map here.
DASHBOARDS 4.0 (Formerly called Xcelsius)
BOX310 – SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards 4.0: Core
This 2-day instructor-led course is designed to provide you with an understanding of how to create interactive visualizations based on Microsoft Excel workbooks and live data sources using BusinessObjects™ Dashboards 4.0. A series of interactive content, demonstrations, examples and exercises will help you create engaging and interactive dashboards in order to make business decisions based on up-to-the minute data.
View the entire Dashboards 4.0 curriculum map here.
DESIGN STUDIO
BOD310 - SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio 1.0
This two-day instructor-led course is designed to help you use different components to create and design applications and use scripting to realize more complex scenarios. You will design applications optimized for desktop clients and mobile devices and well as gain an understanding of the integration scenarios with the SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform.
There is currently no forma curriculum map for Design Studio.
UNIVERSE DESIGN USING THE INFORMATION DESIGN TOOL
BOID10 – Information Design Tool I
This core 3-day instructor-led course is designed to give you the comprehensive skills needed to design, build and maintain the primary aspects of Business Objects universes. You should attend this course to understand universe design concepts and terminology, as well as the role of universes in relation to the BusinessObjects reporting tools.
BOID20 – Advanced Use of the Information Design Tool
This 2-day instructor-led advanced course is designed to explore more advanced data foundation and business layer functionality in order to provide robust reporting capabilities to business users. You will create universes on non-relational data sources such as an OLAP cube as well as a Multi-source Universe.
View the entire Universe Designer curriculum map here.
Wait a minute! What about Designer?
Well, if you are a new customer to the SAP BusinessObjects tools, you should not be using Designer. You should be creating your universes using the Information Design Tool. If you are upgrading to the 4.0 tools, you still should be creating all your new universes using the Information Design Tool and using the old Designer (called Universe Design Tool in 4.0) only to maintain your old universes. Oh, and you should use the Information Design Tool to convert those old universes to the new universe format. (Tip: That’s a great job for interns!)
SAP BUSINESSOBJECTS DATA SERVICES
BODS10 – SAP BusinessObjects Data Services 4.0
This 3-day instructor-led course examines the data acquisition and process chains, and teaches you how to use the Data Services tool to create and trouble-shoot batch jobs for data integration; use functions, scripts, and variables; and use platform transforms. In addition, you will learn how to configure error handling and capture data changes.
BODS30 – SAP BusinessObjects Data Quality Services 4.0
This 2-day instructor-led course teaches you how to use data quality transforms, address cleanse transforms, and data cleanse transforms to match and transform data.
View the entire Data Services curriculum map here.
SAP BUSINESSOBJECTS ENTERPRISE ADMINISTRATION
BOE310 – SAP BusinessObjects Platform: Administration and Security
This two-day instructor-led course explains how to perform the tasks in the Central Management Console (CMC) and manage object oriented security model. These tasks involve supporting BusinessObjects Enterprise users and groups so they can access corporate data through the BI Launchpad portal.
BOE320 – SAP BusinessObjects Platform: Administering Servers
This three-day instructor-led course explains and demonstrates what each server component in BusinessObjects Enterprise does and how it is configured. You will configure each component and learn how information flows from server to server for system processes such as logging on to the system, scheduling reports, and viewing reports.
BOE330 – SAP BusinessObjects Platform: Designing and Deploying a Solution
This four-day instructor-led course teaches system administrators the skills and knowledge required to design and deploy a BusinessObjects Platform system. In this course, students will learn how to analyze and identify customer requirements in order to design a BusinessObjects Platform solution using the concepts of High Availability, Scalability, Sizing, Disaster Recovery and Lifecycle Management.
View the entire Business Objects Platform curriculum map here.
SAP BUSINESS OBJECTS CERTIFICATION PROGRAM
If certifications are your thing, there are three programs available for the SAP BusinessObjects tools.
SAP Certified Application Associate - Crystal Reports 2011
Booking Code C_BOCR_11: The certification test "SAP Certified Application Associate – Crystal Reports 2011 verifies proven skills and fundamental knowledge in using SAP BusinessObjects Crystal Reports 2011 to create and maintain reports that will help them analyze and interpret important information. This exam will measure your knowledge of Crystal Reports 2011 starting at creating a report with basic formulas through to managing and creating specialized reports. It will also cover tasks around planning and creating reports to help analyze and interpret important information through to setting up, configuring and maintaining data connections for reports.
SAP Certified Application Associate - SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence 4.0
Booking Code C_BOWI_40: The certification test "SAP Certified Application Associate – SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence 4.0" verifies proven skills and fundamental knowledge in using SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence 4.0 to create and maintain queries and reports that will help you analyze and interpret important information. This exam will measure your knowledge of BusinessObjects Web Intelligence 4.0, from building queries and designing reports to analyzing data and sharing documents. It also will test your skills from advanced reporting and formatting to calculation contexts, universe contexts, data tracking and security related issues that affect BusinessObjects Web Intelligence 4.0 solutions in BusinessObjects Enterprise 4.0.
SAP Certified Application Associate - SAP BusinessObjects Platform 4.0
Booking Code C_BOBIP_40: The certification test "SAP Certified Application Associate - SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform 4.0" verifies proven skills and fundamental knowledge in designing, deploying and running BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform 4.0. This exam will measure your knowledge of BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform starting with the tasks involved in supporting Business Intelligence platform users and groups so they can access corporate data through Business Intelligence platform's web portal. It will test your skills in configuring and managing servers in a Business Intelligence platform deployment, as well as in designing and deploying a Business Intelligence platform system.
