Official Product Tutorials – BI for SAP BW

The following tutorials have been developed to help you get started using Business Intelligence products. New content is added as it becomes available, so check back on a regular basis.

Are there topics we've missed or things we can improve? You can submit and vote on ideas for new tutorial topics or improvements to tutorial formats and delivery.

Looking for more tutorials for the Business Intelligence Suite? Go to sap.com/LearnBI.

Click a BI tool in the diagram to see tutorials that will help you start using the tool with SAP BW.

Information design tool (IDT)

Business Intelligence Consumer Services (BICS) connection – OLAP connection

You can use IDT to create a direct OLAP connection to SAP BW. Crystal Reports for Enterprise (CRE), Web Intelligence, Dashboards, Analysis for Office, and Analysis for OLAP can connect to a direct OLAP connection to SAP BW and use BICS connectivity. This is the preferred method of connectivity over the IDT relational connection. The benefit is that you can gain access to external BW hierarchies, restricted key figures, calculated key figures, variables, and structures. Note that the direct OLAP connection to SAP BW is visible from within the Central Management Console (CMC).

• Create an OLAP connection to SAP BW using BICS (2:32)     interactive

Relational connection

Within the IDT, you can create a relational connection to an SAP BW and build a universe on top of it. There are limitations when connecting to SAP BW queries. For instance you will not be able to gain access to external BW hierarchies, restricted key figures, calculated key figures, variables, or structures. The benefit is that you can combine a relational connection with other data sources. All SAP BusinessObjects BI tools that work with IDT can take advantage of this relational connection.

• Create a relational connection to an SAP NetWeaver BW InfoProvider (2:07)     interactive

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Central Management Console (CMC)

Within the CMC, you can create a direct OLAP connection to SAP BW, which is an equivalent to the direct OLAP connection that you can also create using IDT.  CRE, Web Intelligence, Dashboards, Analysis for Office, and Analysis for OLAP can connect to the direct OLAP connection to SAP BW and use BICS connectivity.

• Create OLAP Connections to BW(7:10)interactive

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Crystal Reports for Enterprise (CRE)

In Crystal Reports for Enterprise, you can access SAP BW data by using an existing direct OLAP BICS connection created using the information design tool or CMC.

BI 4.0 SP4

• Connect to an SAP Business Explorer (BEx) query using an OLAP Connection (2:40)    interactive
• Connect to an SAP Business Explorer (BEx) query containing a hierarchy (8:30)    interactive
• Connect to an SAP Business Explorer (BEx) query containing a single value variable (3:45)    interactive

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Crystal Reports 2011

In Crystal Reports 2011, you can connect to  SAP BW data directly  using MDX connectivity.

BI 4.0 SP4

• Connect to an SAP BW data source (3:29)interactive

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Web Intelligence

In Web Intelligence, you can access SAP BW data by using an existing direct OLAP BICS connection created using the information design tool or CMC.

BI 4.0 SP4

• Connect to an SAP Business Explorer (BEx) query using an OLAP Connection (2:54)    interactive
• Connect to an SAP Business Explorer (BEx) query containing a hierarchy (7:43)    interactive
• Connect to an SAP Business Explorer (BEx) query containing a single value variable    (3:13)    interactive

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Dashboards

In Dashboards, you can access SAP BW data by using an existing direct OLAP BICS connection created using the information design tool or CMC.

BI 4.0 SP4

• Connect to an SAP Business Explorer (BEx) query using an OLAP Connection (4:45)    interactive
• Connect to an SAP Business Explorer (BEx) query containing a hierarchy (9:10)    interactive
• Connect to an SAP Business Explorer (BEx) query containing a single value variable (5:00)    interactive

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Analysis, edition for OLAP

In Analysis, edition for OLAP, you can access SAP BW data by using an existing direct OLAP BICS connection created using the information design tool or CMC.

BI 4.0 SP4

• Connect to an SAP Business Explorer (BEx) query using an OLAP Connection (2:30)    interactive
• Connect to an SAP Business Explorer (BEx) query containing a variable.(2:40)    interactive

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Analysis, edition for Microsoft Office

In Analysis, edition for Microsoft Office, you can access SAP BW data by using a direct OLAP BICS connection (unmanaged), or an existing OLAP BICS connection created using the information design tool or CMC (managed).

BI 4.0 SP4

• Insert a data source directly from BW (3:01)interactive
• Insert a data source using an OLAP Connection (2:40)interactive

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