BI & Sap Business Objects for the masses

SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 Release to Customers

2013-05-20T15:28:00.000+03:00

Just before the SAPPHIRE NOW conference, SAP announced the Release to Customer (RTC) of SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1, Edge BI 4.1 and Crystal Server 2013.

Read here about all the new features in this version:

http://help.sap.com/businessobject/product_guides/sbo41/en/sbo41_whats_new_en.pdf

http://assets.timoelliott.com/docs/SAP%20BusinessObjects%20BI%204.1%20What's%20New%20L2.pdf

SAP Offers Small Businesses More Visibility and Control With Business Management Solution Running Fully on SAP HANA Platform

2013-03-06T11:47:00.002+02:00

SAP today announced SAP Business One, version for SAP HANA, the first business management solution for SMEs running fully in memory:

http://www.news-sap.com/sap-offers-small-businesses-more-visibility-and-control-with-business-management-solution-running-fully-on-sap-hana-platform/

Lifecycle Manager Overrides in BI4

2013-01-14T08:58:00.001+02:00

A good article I read today explaining the difficulties using promotion management

(former known as life cycle management ) in BI4 platform :

http://davidlai101.com/blog/2012/12/25/demystifying-lcm-overrides/

you can also read here a in general but the bugs aren't mentioned :

http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/BOBJ/Lifecycle+Manager+Overrides+in+BI4

How SAP BW and HANA will merge over time -- and why it matters

2013-01-14T08:45:00.001+02:00

Read the first of this two-part series on SAP Business Warehouse and HANA. Part one addresses how companies should consider their data management needs when assessing the technologies.

http://searchsap.techtarget.com/feature/How-SAP-BW-and-HANA-will-merge-over-time-and-why-it-matters

Sneak Peek of SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards 4.0 SP5

2012-11-21T09:15:00.001+02:00

What's new in BusinessObjects Dashboards 4.0 SP5 ?

"Dashboards 4.0 SP05 (formerly Xcelsius) will support iPad only in the first release. Publish your dashboard to the SAP BusinessObjects business intelligence platform and then download or run it on your iPad using SAP BusinessObjects Mobile. We may support other tablets in future releases..."

Get a Sneak Peek of SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards 4.0 SP5: How to Mobilize Your Dashboards

What’s new in SAP BusinessObjects 4.0 SP5...

2012-11-21T09:09:00.001+02:00

Whats's new in BI4 platform ,SP5 ?

Read here strating from page 81:

http://help.sap.com/businessobject/product_guides/boexir4/en/xi4_whats_new_en.pdf

SAP BusinessObjects Dashboarding Strategy and Statement of Direction

2012-11-13T10:48:00.002+02:00

Where exactly is Dashboard design is heading for ?

What will happen with flash ?

How will Zen take it's part in this process ?

Read hear for further understanding :

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-dashboards/blog/2012/06/08/follow-up-questions-to-the-dashboarding-statement-of-direction

http://blogs.sap.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/2/files/2012/04/External-SAP-SOD-Dashboarding-2012.pdf

Exists or not exists- that is the answer

2012-11-11T13:50:00.000+02:00

Using more complex queries that can answer simple question like who bought product A but didn't bought product B? Or in another Case: which customers from the customer’s table don’t have an order in the order table ,is one of the abilities that we would like to give for the users and allow them to use it simply and freely as we can.

In order to do that we can use in some cases the sub query method which is good and solid, but in some cases using the Exist \ not exist would be better.

And why is that?

There are first of all performance differences that makes the exists operator make a better work of evaluating which is the driving table and by doing so , use in some cases the appropriate index ,there is also the ability to work with nulls.

For a better understanding of the differences between Exists and subquery read here:

http://www.ehow.com/info_8750242_differences-between-exists-sql.html

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/oracle-tip-understand-the-difference-between-in-and-exists-in-subqueries/5297080

http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/mladenp/archive/2007/05/18/60210.aspx

Using the Island resort we will use the Customer and the Sales tables in order to answer a simple question:

Who are the customers who haven’t paid so far?

first we will build the following predefined condition using this syntax:

SELECT Customer.cust_id
FROM Customer

WHERE NOT EXISTS

(select Sales.cust_id from Sale where Customer.cust_id=Sales.cust_id)

We will create a simple query that returns the customers ID’s :

The result will be getting just those customers who don’t have any invoice :

SAP Announces New Trial for Data Discovery at SAP BusinessObjects User Conference

2012-09-20T09:26:00.000+03:00

Read here about the new exiting tool:

http://blogs.sap.com/analytics/2012/09/19/sap-launches-new-trial-for-data-discovery-at-bi-user-conference/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sap-launches-new-trial-for-data-discovery-at-bi-user-conference

SAP Dashboard BI 4.0 Feature Pack 3 Planned Features

2012-06-17T10:19:00.000+03:00

What's new in BI4 Dashboard design feature pack 3 ?

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-dashboards/blog/2011/11/25/sap-dashboard-bi-40-feature-pack-3-planned-features-asug-webcast-summary

What's New -SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Suite 4.0 Feature Package 3

2012-03-21T06:30:00.000+02:00

Here is the official PDF:

http://help.sap.com/businessobject/product_guides/boexir4/en/xi4_whats_new_FP3_en.pdf

What's New in Mobile BI ?

2012-03-01T07:15:00.001+02:00

What's new in SAP BI Mobile ?

According to the following link iphone devices are currently supporting SAP Explorer, still much to come in Feature pack 3 where also Android devices will be supported :

http://www.sap.com/campaigns/2011_08_mobile-analytics/see-it-in-action/index.epx

BI4 Feature Pack 3 Planned Features for the BI Platform

2012-01-09T07:48:00.002+02:00

What new features awaits in BI4 feature pack 3 ?

Some Highlights :

Call from Bex query to a web address,another Bex query (via report linking )

see here for more details :

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70ehp2/Helpdata/EN/99/08629bd3e41d418530c6849df303c9/content.htm

OEM support
Use custom user attributes for enhanced security in IDT
Bi Launch Pad supports theming
SAP Streamwork integration with BI Launch Pad
Hot full automated backup of the repository (DB +FRS )

For further reading here Tammy Powlas article :

http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/27890

SAP to Deliver Integrated Social Analytics to the Enterprise

2011-12-13T08:06:00.003+02:00

"SAP Social Media Analytics by NetBase enables enterprises to create an enterprise social analytics platform that offers a wider and deeper perspective on a range of activities"...

This tool allows organizations to extract unstructured data from the web (95 million social media posts daily from Twitter, Facebook, news feeds, blogs and other sources) and by that analyse trends,feedbacks
,requests and many other data items that can bring a better understanding of the business work flow.

Watch this new Video :

SAP pays $3.4B for cloud vendor SuccessFactors

2011-12-04T07:35:00.003+02:00

SAP is about to acquire SuccessFactors ,a provider of cloud-based human capital management tools.

In order to become a major player in the cloud and cloud BI business and compete with already in motion vendors like Oracle,Informatica,Salesforce and Microstrategy.

Click here for the original article :

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9222397/Update_SAP_pays_3.4B_for_cloud_vendor_SuccessFactors

On security breach In the CMC and data leak prevention

2011-11-28T19:55:00.003+02:00

Building permissions in the CMC is made up easy but when it comes to private folders it gets complicated.

What happens when a user sends a restricted public report to a user that doesn't have the right to see that report in the public folder?

That user will see that report because he has full control rights on his inbox object and his private folder.

There is no way to change all the inboxes right automatically through the CMC, writing an SDK script can do the work, but till this issue is covered you will remain with a security breach in the CMC.

Has far as I know this issue suppose to be resolved in the current version, I'll keep you update about that.

So what can you do in order to lower this breach as possible?

Use an SDK script to change the inbox\private folder objects
Allow schedule and send rights only to power users (problematic approach)
Define the reports with the options of refresh on open + row level restriction

Still you can't prevent people from seeing unwanted data and in order to monitor the "crime level" it recommended doing the following:

Run an audit report that will show you which reports the user accessed and which users are accessing reports that their universes are restricted to those users?
Check who sends reports to who (using VB, java or COM scripts,3rd part tools or some audit data )
Run periodic tests in the CMC to check the inboxes and private folders content.

What is the next generation of data security?

Security that works in the view level and not just in the data base access level
Alerts based on illegal user activity (just like in banks )
Encrypted data engine based on the destination target and the user rights.

Example: if John from sales sends a sales report(through inbox, e-mail, folder and ctr) to Smith from HR the engine recognizes the permission differences and encrypts the data.

Impact Analysis in Auditor ?

2011-10-10T08:48:00.006+02:00

Apparently you can get from the Auditor some Meta data information.

There are few drawbacks for this deal that makes the whole approach limited but for specific tests, general estimations and searches it can be most efficient.

First, what are the drawbacks?

1. The SQL data is documented but only for reports that have been edited through the query panel

if we are relating to Deski only then you can use the Rubik's cube as well.

therfore the result you will get won't be a full one.

Imagine we wouldn't have this drawback; we could make a full impact analysis on the reports.

2. This is more a basic line of the Auditor capabilities:

Auditor is only documenting live reports that have been activated during the audit, 'sleepy' reports, quarterly reports and reports that are used for single time purpose will not appear in the results, as we said it is a build in feature.

The data curve is simple:

The more you use Auditor and the more reports are being edited the more data you will get...

What reports can you write?

1. Reports Impact analysis:

This report can show you the report name, it's SQL ,it's owner and location in the repository.

By using the 'LIKE' operator we can make a search on the SQL field and ask questions like:

Which report is using a specific table, join, alias, SQL function, select clause, where clause...

2. Report select object:

This report will show you the result objects of the report.

You can ask questions like:

Are there objects that appear in different universes?

If I am about to change an object, which reports will be effected?

you have located an error in a calculated object, you want to

Locate the reports and their users in order to alert the users about this...

You can also write a complementary SDK script that will just perform the 'edit' function in all the reports in the repository,

By doing that you will achieve a much higher result of impact analysis and of course, if your company or organization can't afford a Third party tool, then script can do the job.

There are other ways how to achieve Impact analysis without buying any tools,on that i will discuss in a separate post.

Oracle Announces Exalytics - In memory and Advanced data visualization

2011-10-05T09:06:00.000+02:00

Oracle has released it's version for In memory fast computing for BI environments

("The industry's first in-memory BI machine "...), now Oracle will also become a player in the In memory technologies market setting an alternatinve and competition to SAP HANA,Qlikview and other vendors.

Oracle press release:

http://www.oracle.com/us/solutions/ent-performance-bi/business-intelligence/exalytics-bi-machine/overview/index.html

A Simple Overview on SAP HANA

2011-09-25T10:26:00.000+03:00

A good and helpfull article discussing the Architecture,In-Memory capabilities and many other interesring ideas of Hana

the article is located the sap articles section,written by Abyson Joseph :

http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/index?rid=/library/uuid/00909dbb-1bc7-2e10-cda7-891e2aaedde5

Business Objects XI 4.0 New Features - What's New?

2011-09-06T07:30:00.001+03:00

A good summarized paper that describes the new features in XI4.0 :

http://www.erphowtos.com/sap-business-objects/20-business-objects-xi-40-new-features-whats-new.html

Gognos IBM vs SAP Business Objects

2011-08-23T14:49:00.002+03:00

Here is a nice comparison i have found at http://www.bi-dw.info/

The compatirion isn't up to date and missing some important points but in general it is a good strating point for comparing Gognos to SAP Business Objects.

BIscorecard ,Gartner and Forrester are companies that are specialized in evaluating BI platforms and in general if you have the resources, i would reccomend to perform a POC

Here is the link:

http://www.bi-dw.info/businessobjects-vs-cognos.htm

BI related vs Google Related

2011-08-17T08:54:00.001+03:00

Google as just went up with another nice idea that has it's implications on the way we use BI

Just a quick thought :

You are running your regional sales report,you get the results and on the buttom of your browser there is a toobar that shows you:

1.Suggestions for other related reports.

2.You get the info : "people who view this report also viewed these repors" (just like in Amazon site)

3.You get suggestions for further data that can help you analyze the report.

4.You get suggestions " whould you like this reports to be sent to you when a certain value\amount cahnges ?"

Any more suggestions ?

Yoav

Getting rid of the LOV timestamp

2011-08-15T15:10:00.011+03:00

One of the famous problems in Designer is getting rid of the timestamp LOV and sorting the date LOV according to the date column.

Here is the step by step procees in order to achieve that in Oracle:

1.first we have the date object in the universe named :Time Key

2.Inside the object properties we can see the date LOV time stamp:

3.Now we will create an object that will be used inside the object's LOV,later on we re-map the lov of the date object to this object's LOV:

this object contain the function to_char in order to format the date object.

4.Inside the time key object properties we will re-map the LOV to the "No time stamp LOV " object and sort it from Z to A

5.Now we will get inside the object LOV and esit it's SQL to:

SELECT

to_char(TIME.TIME_KEY,'dd/mm/yyyy')

FROM

TIME

ORDER BY TIME.TIME_KEY

the result is :

make sure that you thick the "do not genertae" button and the "export with universe" property of the LOV.

Time difference calculations for call center - part 1

2011-08-14T10:38:00.003+03:00

Here are two scripts that return the time difference between two dates in Oracle:

1.The following script returns the time portion in seperated columns :

SECOUNDS MINUTES HOURS DAYS

38 8 10 2569

SELECT TO_CHAR(DATES.TIME_KEY, 'DD/MM/YYYY:HH24:MI:SS') AS TIME_KEY,

TO_CHAR(SYSDATE, 'DD/MM/YYYY:HH24:MI:SS') AS TODAY,

trunc(86400 * (SYSDATE - DATES.TIME_KEY)) -60 * (trunc((86400 * (SYSDATE - DATES.TIME_KEY) / 60))) AS SECOUNDS,trunc((86400 * (SYSDATE - DATES.TIME_KEY)) / 60) -60 *(trunc(((86400 * (SYSDATE - DATES.TIME_KEY)) / 60) / 60)) AS MINUTES,trunc(((86400 * (SYSDATE - DATES.TIME_KEY)) / 60) / 60) -24 *(trunc((((86400 * (SYSDATE - DATES.TIME_KEY)) / 60) / 60) / 24)) AS HOURS,trunc((((86400 * (SYSDATE - DATES.TIME_KEY)) / 60) / 60) / 24) AS DAYS

FROM DATES.TIME_KEY

2.The following script returns the time portion in hours,minutes and secounds in one column :

HOURS MINUTES SECOUNDS

61 : 22 : 11

SELECT

TO_CHAR(DATES.TIME_KEY.TIME_KEY, 'DD/MM/YYYY:HH24:MI:SS') AS TIME_KEY,

TO_CHAR(SYSDATE, 'DD/MM/YYYY:HH24:MI:SS') AS TODAY,

(sysdate - nvl(DATES.TIME_KEY.TIME_KEY, sysdate)) * 24 as hour_diff,

floor((SYSDATE - DATES.TIME_KEY.TIME_KEY) * 24) ' : '
mod(floor((SYSDATE - DATES.TIME_KEY.TIME_KEY) * 24 * 60), 60)' : '

mod(floor((SYSDATE - DATES.TIME_KEY.TIME_KEY) * 24 * 60 * 60), 60)' ' time_difference

FROM DATES.TIME_KEY

These scripts can become universe objects and are good for call center calculation

SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 Platform Demo

2011-08-14T09:02:00.000+03:00

sneak preview demo of SAP BusinessObjects 4.0 new capabilities in Designer and Webi modules: