Tales of the Roadrunner: Lessons Learned on Upgrading to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 SP4

Transcription

1 Tales of the Roadrunner: Lessons Learned on Upgrading to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 SP4 Jamie Trevino, UTSA Jennifer Cofer, LaunchWorks SESSION CODE: #0311

2 Who we are Jamie Trevino Director of Student Information System at the University of Texas at San Antonio Teresa Meyers Systems Analyst, Office of the Registrar SIS at the University of Texas at San Antonio Jennifer Cofer Technical Analyst, LaunchWorks

3 Who is the Roadrunner?

4 About UTSA The University of Texas at San Antonio is among the top 10 largest universities in Texas. Focused on becoming Tier One Closely monitoring enrollment and retention of student population Varied population of data requestors

5 Why BusinessObjects Connecting student data from several sources Student Information System Ellucian Banner Student Activities Tracker Recruitment Software Ellucian Recruiter Alumni & Fundraising Raisers Edge & SmartCall Ease of use by end users WebI & Explorer Dashboards Reduces workload on SIS Staff Scheduling Capabilities

6 Why SP4 and why now? 2013 upgraded from XI 3.1 to 4.0 Underutilizing their investment in SAP Business Analytics BI Products Upgraded to 4.1 SP4 a few weeks ago

7 Reasons to upgrade It is the cool thing to do Everybody is doing it These are not good reasons to patch or upgrade Support for Office 2013 Getting on a more stable BI platform version These are better reasons

8 Our Plan (short term) Upgrade to the latest release of BI 4.1 Bring in Explorer to our users Have a separate Dev/Test and Production boxes Enable SSO Ready to roll out after the fall semester begins

9 Our Plan (longer term) Enable mobile for our staff More robust auditing & monitoring in BI

10 The Plan Putting together The Plan This can be as simple as getting together and saying let s upgrade and see what the new release it like. I would not recommend that approach.

11 Best Practices for planning and executing an upgrade Get steps to properly size the system based on the unique needs of your landscape, including review of sizing tools available and techniques to track CPU, RAM and Disk requirements Evaluate technical considerations of your server configurations and impacts on project planning Side by Side or In Place upgrades

12 Part 1 Analysis Test and Refine Migrate and Remediate Transition and Train Celebrate and Plan

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14 Analysis Scoping Introductions Analysis Design QA Universe / Report Cycle Productionalization Training Celebration

15 Analysis - Scoping Use a Business questionnaire Use Technical Questionnaire Determine Policies Personal Documents (Y/N) Security (New/Old) Customizations (SDK replace/rewrite) Run through test and remediation Create Estimates Create Project Plan

16 Analysis - Introductions Prepare questionnaire before hand Build Benefits Statements for the business Create Old vs. New Comparison Docs One on one meetings with app/department owner Joint meetings with teams that share universes or reports or that cross app/department universes Entire Division/Enterprise Reporting Migration/Standardization Kickoff

17 Why are you upgrading? Customer is underutilizing their investment in SAP Business Analytics BI Products The business is unsure if they are taking full advantage of the features and capabilities of the tools Users and/or IT are unsure if they are using the right tool to deliver needed information in all instances Require better system responsiveness Upgrading to the latest release is considered a risk

18 Is upgrading considered a risk to daily activities? Upgrade to 4.1 is considered a risk so setting communication plan with the business stakeholders is first priority The business is unsure if they are taking full advantage of the features and capabilities of the tools gathering business unit requirements and concerns up front is important in gaining trust Additional training is a natural outcome of the migration There will be reports that need to developed from scratch and need to be evaluated against timeline Data quality issues will get noticed during the reviews and will likely spin of parallel efforts

19 Analysis - Identification Create Source System Snapshot Get personal documents loaded into snapshot Analyze Available Audit Data Create Produce True-Inventory Analysis Identify Training Needs Create Conversion Plan (if needed for data)

20 Analysis - Teams Get Resource commitment There may be same people on multiple teams wearing multiple hats Benefits to having separate QA Team from remediation Team Create preliminary production support plan Get signoff from the department

21 Test and Refine - Design Design Folder and Group Security Layout Create Testing/QA communication collaboration environment Create Default Test Case List Create Migration Folders Design solutions for issues identified during test runs Update Project plan to App/Department

22 Test and Refine - QA Testing what s Visible Tabs, Pages & Page Width Cell/Column-width/height, word wrapping, color, font, alignment Pictures, Headings, Footers & Alignment Sorting Order Evaluate Usage Prompts and LOVs Execution Export Data Quality Numerical Figures & Calculations

23 Test and Refine - Remediation Pre-conversion preparation Open and Save Hidden Columns Formula Changes LOV s Auto Population

24 Transition and Train Ready for Production Production Management Security Standards Request / Approval Process New Application Setup

25 Transition and Train Mind the gap! Discover where the teams are struggling: End Users require Explorer type analysis rather than struggling with WebI and SAP Dashboards Dashboards are better delivered with Design Studio? SDK re-development need for upgrade? Week-long boot camps are made available in each of the following topics: Crystal Reports Web Intelligence (WebI) SAP Dashboards SDK Development

26 Transition and Train Boot Camps Viewers View, Print, Export Interactive Power Users Slice, Filter, Format, Schedule, View, Print, Export Developer Web Intelligence Crystal Reports / For Enterprise SAP Dashboards New Tools? Delegated Administrator Department/Application System Administration and Support

27 Installation Questions Cluster key? Solution Manager? Intrascope? What is SAP Java VM Runtime Library? What is wdeploy? Does Explorer Get installed? Can I shut off any services that BOE wont be using?

28 Installation Prep Server Configuration ~2-3 hours CMS / Audit Database Setup Disk Storage Allocation Network security configuration Database client setup.net 3.5 or greater Local Administrator rights Download All Necessary Keys

29 What we did Leave the production server alone for right now Prove out new feature with the Test box Added in a new VM box for Explorer After the conference we will be turning Prod on

30 Lessons Learned Make sure you have a backup of you Administrator password. Make friends with your network/ server teams if you are not already. You will need them to understand your needs. Make sure your super users are aware of what is happening and when. Take time to celebrate the little wins during the project The longest part was applying the SP4 patch. It took over 6 hours to run per box.

31 FOLLOW Me Jennifer &

32 FOLLOW ASUG News Follow the ASUGNews team: Tom & Courtney For all things SAP

33 THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING Please provide feedback on this session by completing a short survey via the event mobile application. SESSION CODE: 0311 For ongoing education on this area of focus, visit