User Influence becomes SAP Application : SAP BI 4.1 (System Configuration Wizard)

Transcription

1 September 9 11, 2013 Anaheim, California User Influence becomes SAP Application : SAP BI 4.1 (System Configuration Wizard) Mark J. Richardson Senior B.I. Consultant Rose Richardson Enterprises, Inc. Radim Bacinschi Senior Product Manager SAP Canada

2 Overview The SAP BI 4.1 platform now includes a "System Configuration Wizard" in the CMC. This enhancement is a direct result of SAP Product Managers developing enhanced solutions to help manage complex Administration workflows based on user feedback from the "ASUG SAP BI Platform Influence Council". This session will cover the initial "Product Gap" feedback in 2011 from the 35 participant companies in the ASUG Influence Council, the creation of a focused SAP "Customer Engagement Initiative" (CEI) group, and the SAP process of iterative product development with regular feedback from the CEI group. There will also be a short discussion of the new "System Configuration Wizard" in the SAP BI 4.1 Central Management Console (CMC) that has resulted from the process 2

3 Learning Points How comments / feedback from ASUG Influence Council & Conferences started the SAP process. The SAP "Customer Engagement Initiative" (CEI) process of iterative development and regular CEI group feedback. Overview of the SAP BI 4.1 System Configuration Wizard solution that resulted from the CEI process. Reasons why your company should get more involved in ASUG Influence Council and SAP "Customer Engagement Initiative" (CEI) 3

4 Why should we listen to these guys? Mark J. Richardson (Independent Consultant) 16+ years of Crystal Reports and Business Objects experience starting from Crystal 7.5 and Seagate Info. Focus on high volume Operational and Transactional reporting deployments. BETA tester for Business Objects BI 4.0 / Ramp Up FP3 (SP04) & 4.1 Selected member of the ASUG SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise Platform Influence Council Designed and Deployed a number of SAP Business Objects Enterprise architectures for different Real World clients in a number of different sectors 4

5 Why should we listen to these guys? Radim Bacinschi (Senior Product Manager SAP Canada) 11+ years of Business Objects experience starting from Crystal Enterprise 8. Senior Product Manager responsible for SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform Server Administration Deployment Backup Auditing Monitoring 5

6 Know our audience (Who is attending this session..?) Show of Hands Business Objects End Users? Business Objects Administrators? Business Objects Architects? Business Objects Enterprise XI (R2)? [*Not Supported] Business Objects Enterprise 3.0/3.1? SAP Business Objects Platform 4.0/4.1? ASUG Influence Council participants? SAP Customer Engagement Initiative (CEI) participants? Other Feedback methods (eg. SAP Idea Place)? 8

7 ASUG Influence Councils ASUG Member led task forces make the business case for change. Activities include : SAP product roadmap validation. Building use case scenarios. Defining the next round of product enhancements. councils Contact influence@asug.com if you have any questions. 9

8 ASUG Influence at SBOUC 2013 Conference Dashboarding Convergence Influence Council SAP Crystal Reports Influence Council Semantic Layer Influence Council Information Management (IM) Influence Council SAP BO BI Platform Influence Council Web Intelligence Influence Council SAP BO Mobile BI Influence Council Engaging in a Customer Engagement Initiative (CEI) Usability Testing Contact influence@asug.com if you have any questions. 10

9 ASUG BI Platform Influence Council (2011) ASUG Member led task forces make the business case for change. Thirty-Five (35) Members covering. Financial Services Telecom Telecom Medical Services Public Sector Retail Manufacturing Utilities Consulting & Services 11

10 BI 4.0 Configuration Issues Raised During Q4 2011, SAP received the following requests from ASUG Influence Council members and other customers : Decrease time to value for initial system setup. Simplification of system deployment complexity. Initial deployment faster, simpler and less error prone. Specific ASUG Influence Council concerns : After installation it was not clear what tasks to perform next Administration interface was not talking administrator language Unclear purpose of Servers/Services and components. Too many components and properties to manage. Manual Adaptive Processing Server (APS) split was always required. 12

11 SAP Customer Engagement Initiative (CEI) Customer Engagement Initiative (CEI) & ASUG Influence Council CEI = Smaller Sub Group of Subject Matter Experts (SME) Participants : 5 Customers + 5 Partners CEI = Improve BI Platform Configuration Participant signed up through ASUG posting or individually Weekly and bi weekly 1 hour teleconferences (6 Months) Hands On Usability Testing at ASUG Conferences in usability labs. 13

12 Timeline : (CEI) Improve BI Platform Configuration Nov 2011 Dec 2011 Jan Mar 2012 April 2012 Early May 2012 Late May 2012 June Oct 2012 Sept 2012 Nov Concerns raised by ASUG Influence Council Initial round of problem validation w/ Council CEI Application and customer selection Initial CEI Improve BI Platform Configuration call First CEI working call Face to Face meeting at the ASUG conference Solution is built & reviewed Weekly and bi weekly (1 hour Teleconferences & Webshare) Hands On User testing at ASUG conference CEI project closed Solution scheduled to be shipped in 4.1 Platform 14

13 System Configuration Wizard in CMC 4.0 (CMC) (CEI) 4.1 (Final) [PROBLEMS] Post installation Workflows. CMC was not talking administrator language Unclear purpose of Servers/Services and components. Too many components and properties to manage. Manual Adaptive Processing Server (APS) split was always required. 15

14 ISSUE # 1 Post Install Configuration [PROBLEM] After SAP BO BI 4.0 base line installation, the generic Administrator needs to know : What tasks to do next..? Which Server / Service components to reconfigure...? Where to go to perform those tasks? SAP BO BI 4.1 System Configuration Wizard Solution : Wizard to walk users through essential post installation configuration process. Essential tasks done in one place. Users will not forget to perform essential configuration tasks. Wizard configures all appropriate components cluster wide. 16

15 ISSUE #2 Talking Administrator Language [PROBLEM] After SAP BO BI 4.0 base line installation, the CMC administration interface was not talking administrator language. Instead, it exposes implementation details (dll name, thread pool, etc). SAP BO BI 4.1 System Configuration Wizard Solution : Hide complexity: system setup wizard with goal oriented interface System to ask questions, so it can configure itself to meet the configuration needs Administrator to specify the configuration goal while the system to configure components 17

16 ISSUE #3 Better Resource Utilization [PROBLEMS] SAP BO BI 4.0 base line Servers/Services and components purpose is unclear. (example : Data Recovery Service is not needed for backup/recovery but is required by WebIntelligence processes.) Unclear which Servers/Services are needed for which Tools & Methods of Delivery. Users start everything > run unnecessary services > performance impact. Tools/Method of Delivery and their Server/Services dependencies are not clearly known by most Admins. 18

17 ISSUE #3 Better Resource Utilization SAP BO BI 4.1 System Configuration Wizard Solution : Administator User able to specify the specific tools/products used in their environment. Wizard performs behind the scenes work to start or stop appropriate servers and their dependencies. Risk of accidental stopping of required servers decreased. Performance improved, unnecessary servers do not consume physical/virtual resources. 19

18 (Improved) Product Selection Workflow 4.0 (CMC) (CEI) 4.1 (Final) Administrator User enters configuration goal, products. Lower chance of misconfiguration will give better performance. All services required for product started, other services stopped. Fewer CMC items to manage. Shorter and simpler workflow. 20

19 ISSUE #4 Configuration Consistency [PROBLEM] SAP BO BI 4.0 Central Management Console (CMC) interface exposes too many Servers, Services, Components and Properties to easily manage. Hard to keep multiple components and platforms in synch. Need to repeat the same operation on multiple components over and over again. Hard to support and trouble shoot when there are so many possible touch points in the CMC. 21

20 Folder Configuration Workflow 4.0 (CMC) 4.1 (Final) Current Proposed (CEI) Operation is repeated for each process: 15 x / machine. Repeat 75 times on 5 machine deployment Enter config goal: folder path Fewer items to manage. Much simpler workflow Easier to maintain 22

21 ISSUE #5 Adaptive Processing Server (APS) Split After SAP BO BI 4.0 install a single APS is created (approx. 30 services). OK for a small demo systems, but not good for UAT & Production. Manual APS split workflow process is required : Operation is repeated 7 times per machine/node. Need to know which services to select. Process would need to be done 35 times on a 5 machine/node deployment. Manual processes are Error prone and harder to support. Different profiles not acknowledged. Need to manually optimize system for resources utilization vs. better performance. 23

22 APS Split Workflow 4.0 (CMC) 4.1 (Final) (CEI) Admin enters goals : resource utilization vs. performance. Fewer items to manage. Much shorter and simpler workflow. Less error prone, easier to maintain and support. Improved performance and availability (*if resources available) 24

23 Programatic Configuration SCW can be invoke in script mode: SCW.bat Response and log files are auto generated at every run Edit response and rerun SCW.bat 25

24 SAP Customer Engagement Initiative (CEI) Weekly and bi weekly 1 hour teleconferences (6 Months) Hands On Usability Testing at ASUG Conferences in usability labs. My experience with the CEI group was most rewarding. I had an opportunity to not only interact with SAP customers and other consultants, but also to assist SAP in bringing a badly needed tool to the next version of the Business Intelligence product. W. Andy Roche Senior Consultant People Services Center, Inc 27

25 BI 4.0 Configuration Wizard (*Early Iterations) Early Draft (CEI) 4.1 (Final) Current Proposed Regular, direct Feedback from the CEI group changed many aspects of the new 4.1 User Interface. Labeling, Functionality and Workflows 28

26 BI 4.1 System Configuration Wizard DEMO 29

27 ASUG Influence Council & SAP CEI Feedback I found it useful to have our voices heard and influence the future SAP product line. Thomas Chung Capital Markets & Risk Infrastructure (CMRI) BMO Financial Group SAP was very responsive to our thoughts and concerns and showed that they really cared about what the customer needs and wants in the products they use in every day operations. W. Andy Roche Senior Consultant People Services Center, Inc 30

28 Key Learnings How comments / feedback from ASUG Influence Council & Conferences started the SAP process. The SAP "Customer Engagement Initiative" (CEI) process of iterative development and regular CEI group feedback. Overview of the SAP BI 4.1 System Configuration Wizard solution that resulted from the CEI process. Reasons why your company should get more involved in ASUG Influence Council and SAP "Customer Engagement Initiative" (CEI) 31

29 Thank you for participating. Please provide feedback on this session by completing a short survey via the event mobile application. SESSION CODE: 0911 Learn more year-round at

30 Contact Information Mark J. Richardson (Communication Chair ASUG Ontario Chapter) Senior Business Intelligence Consultant Rose Richardson Enterprises, Inc. LinkedIn richardson/20/a66/701/ Radim Bacinschi Senior Product Manager SAP Canada LinkedIn bacinschi/1/953/849 33

31 Questions and Answers What more would you like to know about. ASUG Influence Council? SAP "Customer Engagement Initiative" (CEI) process? The SAP BI 4.1 System Configuration Wizard solution? 34

32 35 APPENDIX : Step by Step Screenshots (1 of 9)

34 APPENDIX : Step by Step Screenshots (3 of 9) 37

35 APPENDIX : Step by Step Screenshots (4 of 9) 38