SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 delivers a set of BI client tools, one of them being the updated version of SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence (also called WebI). SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence allows you to provide your end users with an environment in which they are able to create, edit, and share reports based on any kind of data source.

It is designed with the casual user in mind and is focused on the idea of “self-service reporting” to help remove the bottleneck around the IT department. Let me say it differently — it can help to free up IT resources so that they can focus on their core competencies and not have to worry about urgent report requirements. The first major release of the SAP BusinessObjects BI suite after the acquisition of BusinessObjects by SAP has a strong focus on integration with the SAP landscape.

Figure 1 shows the different data connectivity options available in SAP BusinessObjects 4.0:

• Direct connectivity using the BI Consumer Services on top of SAP NetWeaver BW
• Direct connectivity using the BI Consumer Services on top of a Transient Provider as part of the SAP ERP system. The Transient Provider requires SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) 6.0 with enhancement package 5.
• Leverage of OLAP Universes from the SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1 release
• Relational data access with a Universe on top of SAP NetWeaver BW

SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence 4.0  delivers several major enhancements for customers using SAP BusinessObjects in combination with SAP NetWeaver BW.

• SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence 4.0 is now able to leverage a direct data connection based on the BI Consumer Services (BICS) Interface without the mandatory step to create a Universe.
• SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence 4.0 delivers more hierarchical capabilities for end users. These new hierarchical capabilities include a hierarchical member selector, hierarchical prompting, hierarchical charting, and hierarchical navigation in the reports.
• SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence 4.0 also delivers a great set of interoperability with the other products as part of the SAP BusinessObjects BI platform. SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence is able to act as a “target” when navigating from SAP BusinessObjects Explorer to an SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence report and SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence is able to open so called Analysis Views created by SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for Microsoft Office and SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, OLAP edition.

Figure 1

Data connectivity options

Now I will outline some of these new capabilities of SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence 4.0 and show how you can use these new features and functions as part of your BI infrastructure on top of SAP NetWeaver BW.

Establish a Connection with SAP NetWeaver BW

For the next steps, I’m using a BEx query, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2

BEx query with characteristics and key figures

My query contains the following characteristics:

• Country
• Region
• Sales Organization
• Sold-to Party
• Product Category
• Product Group
• Product
• Calendar Year
• Calendar Year/Month
• Distribution Channel

It contains the following key figures:

• Product Costs
• Net Value
• Transport Costs
• Open Order Quantity
• Net Value

It does not contain any variables, pre-defined filters, or configured hierarchies. Keep in mind that I did not configure any hierarchies as this becomes important when I use this BEx query in Web Intelligence.

Before looking at the details of the new hierarchical capabilities of SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence 4.0, you need to establish a data connection with the BEx query. To do so, follow these steps:

1. To start the configuration of the data connection log on to the Central Management Console (CMC). To reach the CMC, open the URL https://localhost:8080/BOE/CMC in your browser.

2. Log on with an administrative account.

3. Navigate to the area OLAP Connections (Figure 3).

Figure 3

OLAP connections

4. Use the create new connection icon to create a new OLAP connection. 

5. Enter the details for your OLAP connection according to the definitions shown in Table 1 and use the values from your SAP system.

Table 1

Details to enter for the OLAP connection

6. After you enter all the necessary details click the Connect button.  

You are asked to enter your SAP credentials (Figure 4) to log on to the SAP NetWeaver system. After you successfully authenticate against the SAP NetWeaver BW system, you are presented with the list of InfoProviders and BEx queries (Figure 5).

Figure 4

Logon dialog

Figure 5

InfoCube browser

7. Select your BEx query and then click the Select button.

8. If you want to leverage the authentication option Single Sign-On (SSO), you have to make sure that the SAP authentication is configured as part of your SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise system. If that has not been completed, you can use the Predefined option and enter your SAP credentials.

9. Save your connection by clicking the Save button.

You created a new connection pointing to your BEx query. Another option when creating the connection is to select the actual InfoProvider. When you use Web Intelligence in combination with a connection pointing directly to the InfoProvider, you have the option to select any of the available BEx queries for this InfoProvider when designing the report. By using connections that point to the InfoProvider instead of pointing to a single BEx query, you can reduce the number of connections and you’ll have far more flexibility when creating the reports.

Before I go ahead and build a Web Intelligence 4.0 report, let’s look at how Web Intelligence uses the elements of the BEx query (Table 2).

Table 2

Query elements and their use in Web Intelligence 4.0

Table 3 shows the level of support of the existing metadata of your BEx query when using Web Intelligence 4.0 with the direct BICS connection and when using the relational Universe approach.

Table 3

Levels of support for BEx query

As you can see, SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence doesn’t fully support conditions and exceptions inside a BEx query. You can easily create exceptions in Web Intelligence by using the alerts functionality, and you can create conditions in your report using the ranking functionality.

For the limited support of compounded characteristics, you need to be aware that Web Intelligence 4.0 is not able to create a dependency between the compounded characteristics when used for prompting, which results in an independent list of values for each of the involved characteristics.

Now that you see how Web Intelligence maps the BEx query, let’s go ahead and build the report.

10. Log on to the BI LaunchPad via menu path Start > All Programs > SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0 > SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise > SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise Java BI Launchpad (Figure 6).

Figure 6

Central Management Console

11. Select SAP as the Authentication mode if you configured your SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise system with the SAP authentication. Otherwise, use the authentication Enterprise.

12. Navigate to the menu Applications in the BI Launchpad.

13. Select the menu option Interactive Analysis  

14. You are then presented with the Web Intelligence toolbar (Figure 7)

Figure 7

Web Intelligence toolbar

15. Use the new report icon to start a new report (Figure 8).

Figure 8

Data source options

16. You can then choose the option BEx (Figure 8) to leverage your previously configured connection.

17. After selecting the connection and the BEx query you are presented with the shared query panel. 

Figure 9

Query panel

The query panel (Figure 9) provides access to all elements of the underlying BEx query. In my example, you can see that the dimension Country is shown with the usual key, text, and short text but also two hierarchical options are shown: Country and Country Hierarchy 1.

18. Select Country Hierarchy 1 as part of the result objects.

Figure 10

Result Objects

19. You can then use the small triangle as part of the Country Hierarchy 1 object and open the member selector. You can see one of the first enhancements in SAP BusinessObjects 4.0 – a hierarchical list of members (Figure 11).

Figure 11

Hierarchical Members selector

20. You then run the query to start your report design and can immediately experience the second important enhancement – a hierarchical navigation in the report (Figure 12).

Figure 12

Hierarchical navigation options

You can see that the member WORLD is shown with a small + symbol that allows you to open and close the hierarchy levels, as shown in Figure 13.

Figure 13

Hierarchical table

Now you are using the menu Set as Section in Web Intelligence for the column of your hierarchy from the context menu. Select the column from your table (Figure 13) and use the context menu Set as Section. Because you are using a hierarchy, initially you only see the top level node of the hierarchy (Figure 14). As soon as you open the hierarchy using the + symbol, each hierarchy node level generates its own section (Figure 15).

Figure 14

Hierarchy as section

Figure 15

Hierarchical sections

As you can see in Figure 15, you can have totally separate elements such as tables and charts for each section and therefore those elements show the relevant data for each hierarchy node. In addition to the hierarchical navigation in Web Intelligence, one of the main enhancements is the use of hierarchies in charts. Figure 16 shows a simple table with the hierarchy in my example, but as you can see, the hierarchy is closed and you can only see the top level.

Figure 16

Hierarchical table

Now when I use the menu option Turn Into (Figure 17) and change the table to a chart, notice that the chart also shows the top level node only (Figure 18).

Figure 17

Menu option Turn Into

Figure 18

Hierarchical chart

You might recognize in Figure 18 that the chart does not offer any capabilities to drill down from the top level node WORLD to the next level of the hierarchy. Therefore you need to configure the table to show all the nodes and leafs of the hierarchy that you would like to show in the chart first (Figure 19). Then you can leverage the menu Turn Into again and the chart uses all the levels from the table as configured (Figure 20).

Figure 19

Hierarchical table

Figure 20

Hierarchical chart

I hope that I was able to summarize and show you some of the new functionalities when using hierarchies in combination with Web Intelligence 4.0

Ingo Hilgefort

Ingo Hilgefort started his career in 1999 with Seagate Software/Crystal Decisions as a trainer and consultant. He moved to Walldorf for Crystal Decisions at the end of 2000, and worked with the SAP NetWeaver BW development team integrating Crystal Reports with SAP NetWeaver BW. He then relocated to Vancouver in 2004, and worked as a product manager/program manager (in engineering) on the integration of BusinessObjects products with SAP products. Ingo's focus is now on the integration of the SAP BusinessObjects BI suite with  SAP landscapes, such as SAP BW and SAP BW on SAP HANA, focusing on end-to-end integration scenarios. In addition to his experience as a product manager and in his engineering roles, Ingo has been involved in architecting and delivering deployments of SAP BusinessObjects software in combination with SAP software for a number of global customers, and has been recognized by the SAP Community as an SAP Mentor for SAP BusinessObjects- and SAP integration-related topics. Currently, Ingo is the Vice President of Product Management and Product Strategy at Visual BI Solutions, working on extensions to SAP’s product offering such as SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio and SAP Lumira. You may follow him on Twitter at @ihilgefort.

You may contact the author at Ingo@visualbi.com.

If you have comments about this article or publication, or would like to submit an article idea, please contact the editor.