New Chart Editor >= 3.5

[sap_cohort]

Is is just me or is the new Chart Editor Really bad?!!! Hasn't WYSIWYG been around for about 10 years now? If you can't develop a good tool yourself then go out and buy one. It's taking me forever to change my "upgraded" graphs to match what they looked like originally.

Usually an upgrade means improvements in tools, but this is really bad. If you look at the "Chart Layout" everything is expressed in percents? What is that all about? Does anyone at SAP say "Hey, lets have some people try this out before we pass it on for GA?" Let's lose the microsoft mentality of "Just good enough".

Thanks for listening....

I'd be interested in hearing other opinions...

[Former Member]

Hello Oliver,

I'd like to rate more your answers with rewards points but in this topic there isn't the possibility to do that!!!

I'm using BW 3.5 and I'd appreciate if you could explain in a easy way how to use the class "CL_GUI_CHART_ENGINE_WIN" to print a web report with charts on A4 or explain how this class works!

I've implemented the "HOW TO ENHANCE WEB PRINTING" but with it I can't print charts!

Thanks a lot and best regards,

Domenico.

[Former Member]

Great job Oliver,

I think the new chart tool is very good, but we'd like to print it on A4 because our customers need to have paper to read and to discuss! I hope you'd implement a tool to print easily the charts!

Best Regards,

Domenico.

[former_member196800]

Hi Domenico,

thx for your feedback, we appreciate your rating 🐵

The abap class "CL_GUI_CHART_ENGINE_WIN" provides a "PRINT" method which will print current chart to the configured default printer. (A windows printer dialog still comes up)

In newer releases the demo abap "GRAPHICS_GUI_CE_DEMO" has the printing method implemented via hotkey or within the menu.

best regards, Oliver.

[former_member196800]

Hello Ken.

Yes, we all know WYSIWYG very well. It was the basement the ChartDesigner was built on. But we also built two different design modes: A <b>wizard design mode</b> where only the most often used properties can be changed and a <b>full design mode</b> where each single chart object can be changed in any detail.

When developing the ChartDesigner's full design mode several usability aspects were addressed to get a most usable design tool:

a) Ease of use and usage transparency: Get rid of dozens of different dialogs when customizing colors, fills, fonts of different chart objects. (Which the old tool had.) We applied simple chart objects/elements, their properties and values. No magic inside some dialogs which is not transparent to the user and thus not fully controlable.

b) Consistency: Get rid of inconsistent behaviors when using some of those dialogs in context. (The old tool did indeed change something in dialog1 and dialog2 did also revert the setting of dialog1 - not quite intuitive.)

c) Rich visual feedback: Each change will be immediately reflected inside the chart's output - That exactly is what WYSIWYG means. When adding a title text each single character will visualize it's appearance in the chart. Every color change will be immediately reflected on the screen. The same with fonts, font sizes, bitmaps, etc.

Instead of jumping into different dialogs and changing dialog content without simultaneous reflection in the chart output is not a "real" WYSIWYG thing. Such a dialog may support an "Apply" functionality but this isn't nice either to force the user to trigger the reflection on his own.

d) Support of repetitive jobs: When changing colors on a graph object (the background, for example) you can easily copy the background's full set properties within the overview tree into the clipboard. After navigating to another object in the tree (e.g. the legend) a subsequent paste will copy all matching property attributes to the destination element. Additionally to this the ChartDesigner remembers last changed property type, so after navigating to another element the same property type will be automatically refocused.

e) Keyboard Support: The customizing should be easily editable using the keyboard, especially for users that are used to teletype. (To check the difference: edit a screen using MS Access or MS Powerpoint - two different UI design patterns, two different efficiency levels. Creating distinct design with exact positions is easily available inside MS Access while in MS Powerpoint it is just not feasible.)

Yes, the layouting is an area where more work should be invested. We will address this ASAP and we greatly welcome all constructive critics and suggestions for doing this job. Our current layout bases on the assumption of creating charts in various screen resolutions with variable widths and heights. If pixel width and height is not known at design time distinct positions cannot be applied as well. Indeed a pixel based design mode would be valuable and we consider this in future releases.

Kind regards, Oliver Keim, SAP Graphics Team, Software Developer & User Interface Design Expert.

[sap_cohort]

Oliver,

Thanks for your reply back. It sounds like your team is aware of the issues and we appreciate your candor on the topic.

We all are looking forward to the improvements your team will make to the tool!

Again thanks for addressing us through the forums! I think having valuable people like yourself involved in the forums lets us know that you are trying to keep in touch with your users concerns and it also builds a strong online community.

Kenneth Murray

[Former Member]

I agree with you 100% Ken. In an attempt to make the tool more intuitive, SAP has limited the functionality significantly. Even some of the features which should work do not. Simple things like creating a legend at the bottom without aligning to the plot area. The alignment of the legend at the bottom is limited to the size of the plot area regardless of the setting. If the legend is too large and does not fit within the plot area, it disappears from the graph. We have very complex graphs combining multiple graph types and we had a significant problem migrating to 3.5. I thought SAP would have moved closer to the competition with respect to chart design features and functionality, but Crystal Enterprise is looking better and better.

[sap_cohort]

Chuck, Thanks for your opinion. I didn't really see the intuitive part of the tool. I always thought of intuitive as something with some form of WYSIWYG.

Seriously, though I think the point has been made and I appreciate everyones comments. Now I'm back to fixing my graphs somehow and hoping that there will be some SP fix that will come along quickly to help us out!

Thanks..

[Former Member]

Hi Kenneth,

Each of the major SAP BI components in SAP Notes has a sub-component for Usability. Specific requests or recommendations for enhancements to usability for the Business Explorer tools, including Chart Designer, can be posted as a customer message to BW-BEX-ET-USAB. (See the other component hierarchies for other "USAB" sections.) Of course, specific errors or apparent bugs need to be reported as you usually would as a customer message.

Additionally, ASUG is an excellent feedback mechanism for usability issues. ASUG Influence Councils are groups of SAP customers who work together to identify and prioritize feedback on specific topics. The Information Delivery influence council of the ASUG Business Intelligence group is focusing on areas for enhancement for web reporting. For more information on joining this influence council, see the ASUG site at www.asug.com/influence or contact influence@asug.com.

If you have an opportunity to attend ASUG events including SAP NetWeaver BI topics, typically there is also usability testing, where customers can also sign up to test specific areas of new functionality and provide feed back about the new features. You will have to check the schedule for each event, however, as tested topics naturally vary from event to event.

Regards,

Katie

[sap_cohort]

Hi Kathleen,

Thanks for your reply to this thread. I understand that there are numerous forums for requests, recommendations, and enhancements and believe they are very valuable to a continuous improvement cycle.

In regards to my complaints about the Chart Editor being "really bad" I don't think the ASUG or OSS message route would be the most efficient way to express our overall dissapointment with a tool. Your forums are great for this and lets us share the news good or bad.

I have to believe in any development effort that there is some level of internal useability testing on any tool prior to releasing to customers. I can't believe that happened here and if it did then the shortcomings must have been realized and the "Lets just get it out there" thought process must have taken priority. I was really looking forward to an improvement in this area and didn't find it. It's making our job more difficult and holding back some web development strides you could be making.

"WYSIWYG" has been around over 10 years when it comes to any tools in this area and the best reporting software in the world doesn't have it. Maybe SAP could purchase something to help out in this area?

I have never posted anything negative, but I am really just trying to express my dissppointment and I'm hoping that I shed some light on the topic so that it can be seen that a better tool first time round is the best tool.

Thanks for listening and we are greatful that you read and comment on these forums!

[former_member188975]

Hi Kenneth,

I don't know if you went through this, but did you run the RSZW_CHART_MIGRATION_35 during your upgrade process. I thought that this is executed to ensure that you do not need to chnage your charts manually after the upgrade...

[sap_cohort]

Thanks but, I am talking about the tool and not the upgrade process. We did run the upgrade program RSZW_CHART_MIGRATION_35 and still our charts need modification.

[Former Member]

I totally agree with you!

Comparing with other tools you become rapidly convinced that defining a chart with SAP BW chart editor is most of the times a tedious task.

Cheers!

LauQ

[sap_cohort]

Your too kind! Let them know how you feel, maybe they will improve on the next round if they know how bad it is and how many people it affects....

Thanks

[Former Member]

Hi Ken,

I have no direct experience, but by reading a weblog "SAP BW 3.x Customers: Why No Web Reporting?", I think (and it seems) that customers have still some reserve...

Bye,

Roberto

/people/sap.user72/blog/2004/09/28/sap-bw-3x-customers-why-no-web-reporting

[sap_cohort]

It's still the same case almost a year later.... Hopefully SAP will buy some better developed tools for us to use.

[Former Member]

Hi Ken,

I am not quite sure, but I think there is a step necessary before upgrading charts to 3.5 in order to avoid problems. Hope somebody knows something more detailed about this to keep us informed.

Siggi