With the acquisition of BusinessObjects and the integration of BusinessObjects with SAP BW, there are a variety of options available to create dashboards in SAP BusinessObjects as well as SAP BW. Some of the tools available with SAP BusinessObjects are dashboards, Design Studio, Web Intelligence (also known as WEBI or WebI), and Analysis Office. Most companies running the SAP Enterprise Portal want to integrate the dashboards directly into their portal so they can provide a role-based, single point of access to all reporting and non-reporting applications. My aim is to explain the available options and how to implement them. A clear understanding of the options and methodologies for integration helps the implementation team make the right decision from the outset, thereby reducing long-term maintenance costs. Although the integration of the SAP BW platform with the SAP Enterprise Portal is pretty mature and well documented, integration of BusinessObjects reports with the SAP Enterprise Portal is relatively new and, as a result, not very well documented. Also, there are many options such as dashboards, Web Intelligence, Design Studio, Analysis Office for Excel, Analysis Office for PowerPoint, and OpenDocument that can be very confusing when it comes to portal integration strategy. This article provides a step-by-step guide for integrating SAP BusinessObjects reports and dashboards with the SAP Enterprise Portal. These steps make the project teams better aware of the various options available and pros and cons of each option before making decisions. This guide also helps project teams visualize how the SAP BusinessObjects reports will be delivered to end users. I have divided it into two parts. The first part discusses the steps for setting up the system for integration, and the second part discusses the actual integration steps.

Part 1. Set Up the System for Integration

The first step is to make sure the system is set up correctly. This article assumes that you have the following components installed in your landscape:

• SAP Enterprise Portal 7.3, or higher
• SAP BusinessObjects 4.0, or higher
• SAP BW
• Analysis Office client tools (for Analysis Office iViews)

To create iViews in the SAP Enterprise Portal, you need to make sure that you have a portal system object that refers to the BusinessObjects system. You also have to have the correct iView templates for creating SAP BusinessObjects iViews. SAP provides two archive files to enable this:

1. com.sap.businessobjects.iviews.par
2. com.sap.businessobjects.iviews.templates.epa

These files can be found in the BusinessObjects installation directory at [BI4_INSTALL_PATH]/SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0/warfiles/portlet/iviews location. Next, follow these steps to set up the system: 1. Prepare the Enterprise Archive (EAR) file from the Portal Archive (PAR) file com.sap.businessobjects.iviews.par. Since the SAP Enterprise Portal 7.3 on does not support the PAR file format, you need to convert the PAR file to an EAR file before deploying on the SAP Enterprise Portal. Use the PAR Migration Tool found at System Administration > Support > PAR Migration Tool to do this conversion (Figure 1). 2. Deploy the EAR file to the SAP Enterprise Portal – You can use either JSPM or Telnet, or the new Software Upload Manager (SUM) tool to deploy the EAR file. Alternatively you can also use the SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio (NWDS) for this. 3. Import the Enterprise Portal Archive (EPA) file (com.sap.businessobjects.iviews.templates.epa) – In the SAP Enterprise Portal follow menu path System Administration > Transport > Import (Figure 2). Choose the EPA file, then upload and import it. (The EPA file is a file that contains the iView templates and system template for BusinessObjects. Importing this creates the iView templates and the system template for BusinessObjects.) 4. Create a new system object – To create the single sign-on between the SAP Enterprise Portal and BusinessObjects, you need to create a new system object on the SAP Enterprise Portal. You do this with the SAP BusinessObjects system template that became available after you imported the EPA file above in step 3 (Figure 3). Open the Portal Content folder on the left, and in the screen that opens on the right select the SAP BusinessObjects System Template radio button. Then click the Next button to create the new system object. (You also need to provide all the connection details here; contact your Basis team to get those details.) After the system object is created, go to the folder where you created the system, right-click the system name and select Open > Properties from the context menu. This opens the Properties tab (Figure 4) where you can check the format of the Web Application Server URL property under the SAP BusinessObjects Show Category field. It should be formatted like this: https://<host>:<port>/BOE. Next I discuss the actual integration steps you need to take to achieve your goal.

Part 2. Integrating SAP BusinessObjects with the SAP Enterprise Portal

Now that you have set up the SAP Enterprise Portal system to connect to BusinessObjects, you’re ready to start the integration. In this example you integrate the following into the SAP Enterprise Portal:

1. BI Launchpad
2. Dashboards (formerly Xcelcius), Design Studio, and Web Intelligence reports
3. Analysis Office for Excel or PowerPoint

I discuss the steps for each in the following sections.

Integrating BI Launchpad

BI Launchpad is the main page of BusinessObjects. From here, users can launch tools such as Web Intelligence and Crystal Reports. Users can also navigate through the various folders and reports that are already saved on the server. To create a BI Launchpad iView, select the SAP BusinessObjects Document List Template radio button from the BI Launchpad main screen (Figure 5) and click the Next button. In the next screen (not shown) enter the name and ID of the iView, then click the Next and Finish buttons to create the new iView. This opens the screen shown in Figure 6. After creating the iView, open the iView properties to change the system properties of the newly created iView to use the alias that was assigned to the BusinessObjects system (created earlier). In the screen in Figure 6, click the Modify Properties button and, in the screen that opens on the bottom, update the system alias of the BusinessObjects system. The next step is to preview the new iView. Right click the iView and choose Preview from the context menu options. If the single-sign on has been configured correctly, you should see the BusinessObjects Launchpad loaded as in Figure 7.

Integrating Dashboards, Design Studio, and Web Intelligence Reports

Dashboards, Design Studio, and Web Intelligence reports are tools for creating dashboards that are part of the BusinessObjects platform. A detailed discussion about these individual tools and their capabilities is outside the scope of this article. Instead I focus on how dashboards created using these tools can be integrated with the SAP Enterprise Portal. I’m covering all three tools because they are all integrated in the SAP Enterprise Portal in the same way. To create an iView for these types of dashboards, select the SAP BusinessObjects Document Viewer Template iView radio button (Figure 8). Click the Next button and in the screen that opens (not shown) enter the required iView details, such as name and ID. Click the Next button again, and in the screen that appears (Figure 9) select the System Alias. Select the alias of the BusinessObjects system that you created earlier—in this case, SAP_BOBJ. Leave the OpenDocument Path default and select the Document ID (CUID) drop-down option as the Document ID Type. (I discuss more about OpenDocument later in this article.) Click the Next button again, which opens the screen shown in Figure 10. Here (Figure 10) you can navigate through the documents that have been saved on the BusinessObjects server and select the specific dashboards, Design Studio, or Web Intelligence reports that you want to integrate. Alternatively, if you know the CUID, you can enter the ID in the Document ID (CUID) field instead of navigating through the folders. To find the CUID of a report, navigate to the report in the BI dashboard, right-click, and select General Properties (Figure 11). Now you are done creating the iView for the required BusinessObjects report. To preview the report and make sure it’s loading, right-click the iView you just created and choose the Preview option from the context menu that opens. This should launch the iView in a new browser window and load the report.

Integrating Analysis Office for Excel and PowerPoint

With SAP NetWeaver 7.4, SAP provides iView templates for Analysis for Microsoft Excel and Analysis for Microsoft Powerpoint. If the templates are present in the SAP Enterprise Portal, you’ll see them via menu path Content Provided by SAP > Platform Add-Ons > Business Intelligence > iViews (Figure 12). If the templates are not available, you can create the iViews by following the instructions in SAP Note 1799515 (log-in required). To create a new Excel template of PowerPoint iView, right-click the folder where you want to create the iView and choose New > iView. This opens up a list of the available templates to create the iView (Figure 13). Select the Analysis for Microsoft Excel radio button and click the Next button. In the next screen (not shown), enter the name and ID of the iView, and click the Next button. In the screen that opens (Figure 14), choose SAP_BW as the System (not BusinessObjects) and the Application Parameters. In this case, the parameters are as follows: OBJECT_TYPE=DOCUMENT&OBJECT_ID=<ID_OF_REPORT>. Click the Next and Finish buttons, and the iView is created in the folder. Please note that the OBJECT_ID is the ID of the report; for example: OBJECT_TYPE=DOCUMENT&OBJECT_ID=Z_WIP_REPORT. An important thing to note here is that you are choosing BW as the system instead of BusinessObjects. This is because the Analysis Office iView can only load a workbook from the SAP NetWeaver BW platform. This means you will have to save your workbook to the SAP NetWeaver platform instead of the BusinessObjects platform. To save a workbook to the SAP NetWeaver platform, click the File menu in the Analysis Office for Excel tool, and choose the Save Workbook, Save to the SAP NetWeaver platform option (Figure 15). This opens the screen in Figure 16. In Figure 16 you are prompted to select a folder in which to save the workbook (Figure 16). (The figure shows a list of the folders available on the SAP NetWeaver BW server.) Choose the folder where you want to save the workbook and click the Save button to save it. Congratulations—you have successfully created a new Analysis Office for Excel iView. Note that the steps are the same when you are creating an iView for Analysis Office for PowerPoint. You can now preview the iView to launch the Analysis Office for Excel report. To preview the iView, go to the folder where you created the iView, right-click the iView, and choose Preview from the context menu options. A new browser window is launched where the preview of the iView is shown.

Integrating BI Reports Using OpenDocument

Up to this point I have shown how to integrate SAP BusinessObjects reports with the SAP Enterprise Portal using the iView templates provided by SAP. In some cases, however, if the SAP Enterprise Portal stack is not up to the required level for these templates, you can use OpenDocument to create URLs for the reports, and launch the reports from the SAP Enterprise Portal using a URL iView. OpenDocument is a web application deployed on the SAP BusinessObjects platform. It processes the incoming URL requests for documents to BusinessObjects, and delivers the documents to users in the appropriate viewer. With this feature, you can send direct links of the reports to the users and they can open the report directly without going through the folder structure of the BI Launchpad. The advantage of using this approach is that even if you don’t have the SAP Enterprise Portal, you can still launch the reports by going to a URL on the browser. If you have a non-SAP portal where you want to integrate the reports, you can also integrate them by using this approach. The URL format to use OpenDocument for serving the documents is: https://<host>:<port>/BusinessObjectsE/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDocument.jsp?iDocID=ARPQ8wldqJJIsZjrJFnXrNA&sIDType=CUID Replace the <host> and <port> with your server’s host name and port number. Also you need to replace iDocID with the CUID of your document. (Previously, I showed how to find the CUID of any document.) You can use this URL format for any type of viewable report delivered through the SAP BusinessObjects server. The screenprint in Figure 17 shows an example of a Web Intelligence report delivered using the OpenDocument URL.