Xcelsius Dashboards on SAP NetWaver BW Implementation Best Practices

Xcelsius Dashboards on SAP NetWaver BW Implementation Best Practices Patrice Le Bihan, SAP Intelligence Platform & NetWeaver RIG, Americas Dr. Gerd Schöffl, SAP Intelligence Platform & NetWeaver RIG, EMEA Raghu Ganesh, SAP Intelligence Platform & NetWeaver RIG, APJ public

Agenda 1. SAP BusinessObjects Xcelsius Enterprise Overview 2. Using Xcelsius with SAP NetWeaver BW Query as a Web Service Live Office SAP NetWeaver BW Connection 3. SAP NetWeaver BW Connection in Detail Demo Tips and Tricks Where to Find further Information SAP AG 2010 / 1

SAP BusinessObjects Xcelsius Enterprise What it is Xcelsius is a tool for rapid development of visualizations and highly interactive BI Dashboards through a flexible and easy to use point and click interface Tool of choice for BI dashboards solution Key component of a BI strategy Highly visual and interactive user interface Simple and intuitive dashboards for casual BI users: executives, managers and operational staff Provides the big picture : A clear overview of the business performance Summarized data and key performance indicators SAP 2010 / 2

SAP BusinessObjects Xcelsius Enterprise What it is not Xcelsius is not a comprehensive BI tool Not a reporting tool for detailed operational reporting No built-in paging No export to Excel or PDF Not an ad hoc or OLAP analysis tool Analysis paths are predefined by dashboard author Not an application building tool No state management No built-in persistence To provide the next level of detail : Use embedded hyperlinks to detailed views for contextual drill down Examples : InfoView opendocument URL to WebI Report-to-Report Interface (RRI) URL to BEx Web Analyzer reports SAP 2010 / 3

SAP BusinessObjects Xcelsius Enterprise Elements of Xcelsius Design Time Run Time Publish To: Infoview Dashboard Builder SAP NetWeaver Portal Crystal Reports 2008 Microsoft Office Adobe PDF HTML Xcelsius Flash Excel Embedded logic defined in Excel is converted to Adobe Flex http / web services Connectivity SAP 2010 / 4

SAP BusinessObjects Xcelsius Enterprise Intuitive Dashboard Design Environment Xcelsius enables creating dashboards and visualizations by Free-form layering a variety of visualizations on a canvas Customizing visualizations Setting fine-grained control over eventing between visualizations and defining data bindings Compiling solution into flash format makes deploying to various environments easy Select from Extensive List of UI Elements Free-form Canvas Layout Eventing and Data Modeling Layer Customize Visual Properties SAP 2010 / 5

Xcelsius and SAP NetWeaver BW Options for SAP NetWeaver BW data access Three implementation options: Universe Queries via Query as a Web Service Xcelsius Dashboard Live Office retrieving data from Crystal Reports or Web Intelligence Direct access via BI Consumer Services CRYSTAL REPORTS UNIVERSE WEB INTELLIGENCE SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform (BusinessObjects Enterprise) BICS API ODS OLAP BAPI SAP 2010 / 7 SAP NetWeaver BW

Xcelsius and SAP NetWeaver BW Query as a Web Service Universe Queries via Query as a Web Service Live access to BW data Leverage Semantic Layer from Universe Universe based on a BEx query, InfoCube or BW data manager (via Data Federator) Uses BOE for administration and authorization Easy Integration into Infoview Access to non BW data Xcelsius Dashboard UNIVERSE Use this option for SAP and non-sap data Existing BusinessObjects environment SQL Access to BW or Universe off an InfoCube SAP 2010 / 8 OLAP BAPI SAP NetWeaver BW

Xcelsius and SAP NetWeaver BW Query as a Web Service SAP 2010 / 9

Xcelsius and SAP NetWeaver BW Live Office Live Office retrieving data from Crystal Reports or Web Intelligence Documents are usually scheduled to avoid live access to BW Access to SAP R3/SAP ERP via Crystal Reports Leverage Semantic Layer from Universe Universe based on a BEx query, InfoCube or BW data manager (via Data Federator) Uses BOE for administration and authorization Easy Integration into Infoview Access to non BW data CRYSTAL REPORTS Xcelsius Dashboard WEB INTELLIGENCE SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform Use this option for SAP and non-sap data Existing BusinessObjects environment Scheduled report instances ODS OLAP BAPI SAP 2010 / 10 SAP NetWeaver BW

Xcelsius and SAP NetWeaver BW Live Office SAP 2010 / 11

Xcelsius and SAP NetWeaver BW SAP NetWeaver BW Connection Direct connector to BEx queries Consume BEx Queries and Views Support of all variable type (incl. personalization) No limitations in query features used BW authorization enforced Free characteristics list of values for filtering SAP NetWeaver platform integration Dashboard authorization Favorites and Roles Transport capability (integrated into DW workbench) Translation of texts Access through SAP NetWeaver Portal using BEx iview Does not require BOE Available with SAP NetWeaver 7.01 SP5 Use this option for Pure SAP environment (no BOE) Multilingual requirement SAP 2010 / 12 BICS API Xcelsius Dashboard BEx Web Runtime HTTP / Web Services SAP NetWeaver BW

Xcelsius Best Practices SAP NetWeaver BW Specific Be careful with existing BEx queries, potentially too large result sets Use Filters and Variables as Input Values to reduce the amount of data Use data from multiple queries, all from the same SAP NetWeaver BW system Aggregate on the back end Key figures can be retrieved as raw numbers or formatted strings Add debug and runtime information to the dashboard with URL parameters, during development No built-in tree control for hierarchy support, but partners options available Xcelsius does not support every Excel function and does not support Macros or VB Script SAP 2010 / 16

SAP NetWeaver BW Connection Performance Analysis Use URL parameters known from BEx Web: &Profiling = X: display the runtime statistics (Java, OLAP, Data Manager) directly from the dashboard &Trace=X: record an RSTT trace directly from the dashboard &Debug=X: Get information about the Java call stack (mainly for developers) Further information can be gained from standard tools such as Http Watch. SAP 2010 / 17

Resources SAP Public Web SAP Developer Network (SDN): www.sdn.sap.com/irj/boc/xcelsius Xcelsius 2008 Best Practices: http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/a084a11c-6564-2b10-79ac-cc1eb3f017ac Implementation Options for Xcelsius on BW: http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/x/wadhc Xcelsius 2008 and BW with Live Office and QaaWS: http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/11528 Xcelsius 2008 and SAP NetWeaver BW Connection: http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/x/eobvc Related SAP Education and Certification Opportunities www.sap.com/services/education/catalog/businessobjectstraining/index.epx SAP 2010 / 18

Thank You! How to contact us: Patrice Le Bihan, patrice.le.bihan@sap.com Dr. Gerd Schöffl, gerd.schoeffl@sap.com Raghu Ganesh, raghu.ganesh@sap.com

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