Learn the technical requirements of the SAP BusinessObjects BI portfolio and how to use them to help you select the right BI tool. Find out how to use these new rules and apply them to some sample scenarios.
Key Concept
SAP’s BusinessObjects BI portfolio provides organizations with a set of BI tools, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Not all these BI products can fulfill the same technical requirements. As a result, companies need to not only evaluate the products they use but also look at some of the technical requirements to ensure they select the best possible product based on their own requirements.
Companies need to evaluate the best available BI tools to meet their needs. BusinessObjects BI portfolio’s tools meet some technical requirements, but each tool comes with its own pros and cons. I show you the differences between each tool and guide your selections to best meet your organization’s specific requirements.
Note
In my previous BI Expert article I reviewed the overall SAP BusinessObjects BI portfolio and the different users who are relevant for BI project and requirements gathering. In addition I made a distinction between just consuming reports and analytics, and the role of creating content. You can read the complete article here: “
Selecting the Right BI Tool – SAP BusinessObjects BI Portfolio and Personas.”
Note
I sometimes refer to the SAP BusinessObjects Analysis Suite of products. In this context this refers to SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP; SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for Microsoft Office; and SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio.
SAP BusinessObjects BI Portfolio Charting Options
Figure 1 compares some technical capabilities of the SAP BusinessObjects BI portfolio.
Figure 1
End-user features of the SAP BusinessObjects BI portfolio
Figure 1 compares some typical end-user features across the complete SAP BusinessObjects BI portfolio. Notice that all the products offer capabilities such as a drill down or the option to sort and filter the data in the report interactively.
Two key differentiators of the portfolio are features that allow end users to merge data within the BI client without having to rely on the IT team and to create calculations. Merging data refers to the capability that your end user has to combine data from a different source in the BI content without having to go through the IT department, and without having to change some underlying data models. For example, the user can join data coming from SAP BW with data coming from SAP ERP in the report itself. The functionality to create calculations in the content is offered by almost all the BI products, but the functionality that enables end users to create calculations in a self-service fashion is only supported by Lumira; Predictive Analysis; Analysis, edition for Microsoft Office; Analysis, edition for OLAP; and Web Intelligence (also known as WEBI or WebI).
Figure 2 compares the web-based and mobile-device-based access for the BI products, as well as the support for offline access. Notice that only a few BI clients support offline access and web-based authoring of content.
Figure 2
SAP BusinessObjects BI portfolio mobile accessibility
In the Mobile BI access column in Figure 2 note that a red X is entered in the rows for SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for Microsoft Office, SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP, and Predictive Analysis. The red X indicates that there is no mobile BI solution for these products. For SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for Microsoft Office, and SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP, the mobile solution is SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio. In addition, both of the analysis clients are integrated with SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio so that you can automatically create mobile content for your workbooks. Predictive Analysis also doesn’t have an out-of-the-box mobile solution, but you can share your content via SAP Lumira Cloud and in that way enable content from SAP Predictive Analysis for mobile devices.
Figure 3 compares the availability of specific types of charts across the BI portfolio. As more and more organizations look for very specific visualization options, it is important to recognize that not all the BI products support an identical list of available chart types. As you can see in Figure 3, most of the listed comparison charts are available across the SAP BusinessObjects BI portfolio, with the exception of the bar chart, stacked bar chart, and polar chart.
Figure 3
SAP BusinessObjects BI portfolio’s comparison charts
In Figure 4 you see the two distribution chart types available in the SAP BusinessObjects BI portfolio: scatter and histogram. Note that the histogram chart is only available with Crystal Reports.
Figure 4
SAP BusinessObjects BI portfolio’s distribution charts
Figure 5 includes the waterfall chart as one of the composition charts. This chart has become increasingly popular with organizations. You can see that, with the exception of Crystal Reports and Explorer, this particular chart is covered well in the overall BI portfolio.
Figure 5
SAP BusinessObjects BI portfolio’s composition charts
Figure 6 shows the complete coverage in the BI products for the scatter and the bubble charts. However, Figure 7 shows the differences in the support for key performance indicator (KPI) charts, such as a gauge or a sparkline.
Figure 6
Relationship charts
Figure 7
KPI charts
Figure 8 lists the BI clients that can support additional charts, such as a heat map, a tree map, a Gantt chart, or a funnel chart.
Figure 8
Additional supported charts
So far I have reviewed the support for the different type of charts and the support for some basic end-user features, such as drill down, interactive filtering, and interactive sorting. In the next section I review the different options to connect to your SAP landscape as well as the ability to leverage hierarchies from SAP Business Warehouse (SAP BW).
SAP’s BusinessObjects BI Portfolio Connectivity and Hierarchical Options
Figure 9 shows the different options to connect to your SAP BW and SAP ERP systems. You can see that SAP Lumira, SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, and SAP Predictive Analysis are not connecting directly to a BEx query or an InfoProvider in SAP BW. These three BI clients can connect to SAP BW using the relational Universe option and the option provided by SAP BW on SAP HANA. When you use SAP BW on SAP HANA, you can use the integration between SAP BW and SAP HANA as the underlying database for SAP BW to publish your existing assets, such as an InfoProvider, to SAP HANA. BI clients can then connect to the newly created SAP HANA assets.
Figure 9
Data connectivity options
With regard to SAP ERP connectivity, you have the option to use a Universe connecting to the data in SAP ERP and the option to use the transient InfoProvider. Use of the transient InfoProvider requires SAP ERP 6.0 enhancement package 5 or higher. The advantage of the transient InfoProvider is that you can connect directly to your operational data without having to first create a Universe.
Figures 10 to 12 show the different levels of support for typical hierarchical features provided by SAP BW. You might receive requirements from your business users when some specific capabilities are critical, which makes the ability to fully use hierarchies from SAP BW very important.
As you can see in Figure 10, SAP Lumira and SAP Predictive Analysis cannot yet leverage the hierarchies from SAP BW. (Direct access to a BEx query was released in early July 2014.) In addition, the support for hierarchies with linked nodes is limited to SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for Microsoft Office; SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP; SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio; and SAP BusinessObjects Explorer. Although SAP BusinessObjects Explorer cannot visualize hierarchies, hierarchies can be used for filtering.
Figure 10
BI portfolio hierarchy support (part 1)
Using Figure 11 as a starting point, I compare the different navigation options involving hierarchies:
- All the BI clients can create a hierarchical member selection, allowing the user to select specific nodes and leaves.
- All the BI clients – with the exception of SAP Lumira, SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, and SAP Predictive Analysis – also provide a level-based hierarchical selection, allowing the user to create more dynamic reports simply by selecting specific levels of the hierarchy.
- Only SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP; SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for Microsoft Office; and SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio enable users to skip levels when selecting members of a hierarchy and show the leaf members only.
- Skipping levels of a hierarchy refers to the option for the user to, for example, select levels 5, 8, 12, and 14 of a cost center hierarchy that is 15 levels deep, and to unselect all other levels of the hierarchy.
- Showing only the leaf members is a scenario in which the user, for example, uses a cost center hierarchy with a maximum depth of 15 levels and prefers to quickly just show the leaf members. Note that even though there is a maximum depth of 15 levels for the hierarchy, the leaf members could be on any of these 15 levels as the hierarchy could be an unbalanced hierarchy. This is also the reason why classic reporting tools such as Crystal Reports and Web Intelligence cannot offer this capability.
Figure 11
BI portfolio hierarchy support (part 2)
Only SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP; SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for Microsoft Office; and SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio can fully support hierarchies from SAP BW. Figure 12 shows more of the hierarchical capabilities across all the different BI clients:
- In cases for which you prefer to rank the key figures along a hierarchy, the classic reporting products such as Crystal Reports and Web Intelligence cannot provide such capabilities and instead first break the hierarchy and then rank all elements on the same level.
- Being able to switch between different hierarchies for a single characteristic is a very important feature for most users, but it is only offered by the SAP BusinessObjects Analysis suite of products.
- The options to expand the complete hierarchy to a specific depth and to choose if the subtotals of a hierarchy should be displayed above or below the hierarchy nodes are functionalities that are only supported by the SAP BusinessObjects Analysis suite of products.
Figure 12
BI portfolio hierarchy support (part 3)
In addition to the support for the hierarchical workflows, Figure 13 shows the support for a set of key capabilities defined in a BEx query. The support for BEx query conditions, exceptions, and the ability to leverage a pre-configured zero suppression is limited to the SAP BusinessObjects Analysis suite. If these types of capabilities become relevant for your requirements, you need to look at the SAP BusinessObjects Analysis Suite as the other BI clients do not support those features. The inability to support these types of BEx query features results in far larger data volumes than expected and can lead to a bad performance, the result of which is a negative user experience.
Figure 13
BEx query support
Three Example Scenarios to Help You Choose
So far I have given an overview of the technical points of SAP BusinessObjects BI portfolio. The next step is to take a look at three different scenarios with different requirements, and how to identify the right BI product to meet each organization’s needs. In each scenario I first outline the requirements, put those requirements in a short list of deliverables, and then match those back to the BI products.
Scenario 1: Financial Management
In the first scenario I received the following instructions from the financial manager:
The financial manager for the West Coast region of North America needed to be able to analyze cost and profit center actuals toward the allocated budget along several dimensions. He needed to see these measures along the company structures as well as compare information from several sources. He also needed to add his own calculations to answer on-demand requests from senior management. In addition, he wanted to leverage the information inside Microsoft Excel, but it also needed to be available to use in a browser.
Here is a summary of the requirements:
- Based on the description, the hierarchies for the cost and profit center reporting, as well as the company structures, have to be leveraged.
- The customer structures in the BEx queries might have to be leveraged.
- The reports need to be available in Microsoft Excel and a browser-based access should be possible as well.
- Users need to be able to create their own calculations on the fly.
- The financial manager needed to access multiple data sources in a single report.
Figure 14 shows the different BI clients along those specific requirements. Based on those requirements, some of them quickly can be excluded:
- SAP Lumira, SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, and SAP Predictive Analysis cannot leverage the existing SAP BW hierarchies and custom structures.
- Crystal Reports, SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards, SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio, and SAP BusinessObjects Explorer do not enable the end-user to create calculations on the fly.
Figure 14
A comparison of BI products to meet scenario 1’s requirements
When those products are removed from the list, SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for Microsoft Office; SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP; and Web Intelligence remain as possible offerings. Based on the need for strong support for the hierarchies and custom structure SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP, and SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for Microsoft Office, could be used to fulfill these requirements.
Scenario 2: Sales Management
In the second scenario I received the following description from the sales manager:
The sales manager for Canada needed to create a report for his sales representatives that would allow them to see their current sales pipeline. He mentioned that the information needed to be available in the office, on the road, and on mobile devices. He also stressed that each sales representative needed to change the report as they wish so that they can see the information by opportunity, product, week, and month, as well as other options. Actual hierarchies are only used in a limited way. Personally, as the sales manager, he mentioned it would be of great value to be able to run some simple scenarios to see how certain changes could impact the pipeline, for example, a change in the product cost or price. Finally, he noted that some of his sales colleagues preferred to get information via email with attached PDF files.
Here’s a summary of the requirements:
- The information needed to be available on-premise (in the office), offline (on the road), and on mobile devices.
- Users needed to be able to change the report and to change the view on the data along several dimensions by themselves.
- There was only a limited need to leverage hierarchies.
- Users needed to send out the reports as PDF files and distribute these to a larger audience via email.
- For the sales manager, some simple what-if scenarios would be a great asset.
Figure 15 shows the different BI clients alongside the sales manager’s requirements. Starting by excluding some of the BI clients based on these requirements, the list of options can be quickly narrowed down:
- Crystal Reports, SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards, and SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio do not enable the end user to change reports.
- Only Crystal Reports, Web Intelligence, and SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for Microsoft Office provide the ability to schedule reports.
- SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for Microsoft Office, SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP, SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, and SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio do not offer offline access.
Figure 15
A comparison of BI products to meet scenario 2’s requirements
Based on all these exclusions, Web Intelligence fits all these requirements well. Web Intelligence rich client meets the requirement for providing offline access, and Web Intelligence meets the end users’ need for a self-service reporting tool. Based on the overall scenario and the very limited use of hierarchies, there should not be any issue using Web Intelligence in combination with SAP BW.
Scenario 3: Executive Reporting
In the third scenario I received these requirements from the leadership team:
The executive manager of the company needed consolidated information, providing him with a high-level overview on all critical corporate KPIs. He needed to access this information anytime, anywhere. In addition, if required, he needed to get to the root cause and see detailed information. Finally, timeliness was an important criterion. He needed to be able to access information quickly without having to rely on business analysts or IT to send information when requested. He wanted to simply search for answers by entering questions on his own.
Here’s a summary of the requirements:
- Users preferred to consume highly aggregated information.
- Users needed a BI product with strong data visualization options.
- Users wanted to drill down and navigate to detailed information when required.
- Users wanted the information needs to be available on mobile devices.
Looking at Figure 16 you can see that most of the BI clients can fulfill these requirements, but in this scenario, it is important to also consider the audience – the leadership team – as a very important criterion. In this scenario you want to make sure that the user experience is the best possible, and therefore, I recommend that you exclude SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for Microsoft Office, SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP, Crystal Reports, Web Intelligence, and Predictive Analysis. These listed products are not necessarily designed for this type of user audience and might provide too much information and not be enough. In this scenario I recommend that you use SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio to create an executive dashboard and provide SAP Lumira for the self-service aspects when needed.
Figure 16
A comparison of BI products to meet scenario 3’s requirements
Product Roadmap Disclaimer
The descriptions of future functionality are the author’s interpretation of the publicly available product integration roadmap. These items are subject to change at any time without any notice, and the author is not providing any warranty on these statements.
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.
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