BO 4.0 Information Design tool : Vol II-Creating a...

Former Member · ‎05-30-2012

Author(s) : Abhishek Pal Chaudhuri & Muthukumar R

Date written (MM/DD/YY) :31/05/2012

Details :

 H/W Platform: Windows

 S/W Environment: Business Objects & SAP BW 7.3

 Application Type: SAP BI 4.0

Target readers :

 Business End Users

 BOBJ Developers

 Tech. Architects

Keywords :

BO 4.0 Information Design Tool and Best Practices, Business Layer, Data foundation, BW-BO Integration,Relational Universe

Author’s BIO:

Abhishek Pal Chaudhuri:

Is a BOBJ Developer currently working in Infosys on the BOBJ/BI domain having 2 years of experience in this domain. His expertise is in BO 3.x/4.0 tools like Information Design tool, Universe Design Tool, Web Intelligence, Xcelsius Dashboards, Admin activities. He specializes in BOBJ-BI Integration in BI 4.0 and working with the new aspects of integrating BW with BO 4.0 and enterprise reporting and consultancy.

Muthukumar Ramanchetty:

Is a BOBJ 3.x/4.0 Consultant currently working in Infosys on the BOBJ/BI domain having more than 7 years of experience in this domain. His expertise is in BO 3.x/4.0 tools like Information Design tool, Universe Design Tool, Web Intelligence, Xcelsius Dashboards, Admin activities. He specializes in BOBJ-BI Integration in BI 4.0 and working with the new aspects of integrating BW with BO 4.0 and enterprise reporting and consultancy. He has also worked on integrating BOBJ 3.x/4.0 with Oracle/MS/Access/SAP HANA.

What is MDX?

Multidimensional Expressions (MDX) is a querying language for OLAP databases. It provides a specialized syntax for querying and manipulating the multidimensional data stored in OLAP cubes.

Prior to BO 4.0 MDX connectivity was the only option to connect OLAP cubes and to perform the reporting on them. This approach had its own limitations as follow.

Very slow, MDX uses cell by cell approach.
Flattening of BW hierarchies when the data from BW is fetched into the report or the query via the MDX interface.
Inefficiency in returning complex data sets.
Might not expose all the Bex query features in the BO user interface.
No further enhancement towards improvement of performance could be done.

Workflow for creating Relational Universe/MDX Approach

Integrating BI 4.0 with SAP BW

Ø Connecting to SAP BW by building a Universe on Top of the Cube (Relational SAP connection)

In IDT, the biggest advantage is that you can create universe based on multiple data sources. It could be different relational data sources (must be 64-bit), or different SAP BW source or them combined.

You can create universe based of SAP BW. The tables underneath the cube would be extracted, and would be used like any relational database. Since the schema is already present inside the cube, the joins are made automatically once a data foundation is created.

Before creating a relational SAP netweaver BW connection, certain settings have to be made into the BW system.

SAP Netweaver BW uses a callback ID in order to contact the data federation service. A callback is registered automatically when the first query on the connector is executed. But this connector properties can be changed to stick to organization’s security policy.

Open SAP logon pad.Enter tcode se37 and execute.

Enter the function module RSDRI_DF_CONFIGURE and click execute.This will open the parameter panel.

Set the parameters as follows and execute the function module.

a.I_ONLY_CHECK : “(empty)

b. I_RFC_DESTINATION :DF_JCO_”HOSTNAME”_SID

c.I_REMOVE_CONFIGURATION: “(empty)

The connector is successfully configured. It is ok to get the message RFD destination already exists.

Once the Data federator connector has been configured in the BW system, open IDT and login to the central repository and create a Relational Connection.

Provide a suitable name to the connection.

Select the database middleware driver as SAP Java Connector (JCO).

Provide the system credentials of the BW server to connect to.

Once the Java connector connects to the BW system, uncheck the other options and select the Cube/ Multiprovider /DSO you want to connect to.

Select the BW object and click ok.

Once the BW data provider is successfully configured, test the connection to cross check the connectivity.

The below snapshot shows “Test Successful” i.e. the Data Federator connector is successfully able to ping the BW server.

Once the Connection is created in the repository, create a shortcut of the connection in the local projects folder.

The Connection shortcut is successfully created in the local projects folder.

Once the connection is successfully created, create a data foundation on top of the connection to map the default schema in the BW data provider.

Provide a suitable name to the data foundation.

Select the Data foundation type as “Multisource Enabled”.

Select the connection shortcut from the local projects folder.

Click on Finish to create the foundation on top of the connection.

Since the BW data provider (Cube/DSO/Multiprovider) already has the schema connected in the BW system, the data foundation automatically picks up the schema and maps the relevant tables.

Once the data foundation and the schema are created, create a Business layer on top of the Data foundation.

Select the Business Layer type as “Relational Data Source” as it is being built on top of a relational connection.

Provide a suitable name to the Business layer.

Select the Data foundation on top of which you need to create the Business Layer.

To map all the default classes and objects from the BW data provider check the option “Automatically create classes and objects for SAP NetWeaver BW connection”.

Click on finish to successfully create the business layer. Once the Business layer is created, you can see all the objects, classes of the BW data provider in the Business layer.

In order to test the connection, and the validation of the Business layer, a default query can be made in the query panel by pulling a few objects to check if the connection works properly and is it able to fetch data. For this, click on the query panel and Insert new query.

Drag and pull a few objects into the result objects panel and click on refresh .Your connection works properly if you’re able to preview data in the result set tab.

After everything has been setup successfully and once the data model is ready, right click on the business layer and publish it to the central repository.

Perform an integrity check to validate the data model.

Select the repository folder where you want to publish your Universe.

Now in order to check and validate the published universe, Login to the Webi rich client and select the data source as universe.

Select your universe from the list of universes on the central repository.

Drag a few objects into the Result Objects tab and click on refresh to preview the data.

Now click on Run query to generate the Webi report. The Webi report is successfully generated. Thus our Relation universe on top of the BW dataprovider works well.

Summary

This document provides an extensive knowledge on the new Information Design tool in Business Objects 4.0, its functionalities, step by step guide to create a relational universe on top of BW data providers like Cubes,DSO's,Multiproviders ,most importantly various aspects of the integration of Business objects BI 4.0 with SAP BW. This document can be useful for end users, developers and architects who work on both the functional and the technical aspects of BI 4.0.

Reference(s)

Ø Business Objects 4.0 Information Design tool guide.

Ø Business Objects 4.0 Data federation administration guide.

Ø http://www.forumtopics.com/busobj/

Ø www.google.com

Ø sdn.sap.com