SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence allows you to provide self-service reporting in your SAP NetWeaver BW environment. It also helps to reduce potential bottlenecks in your IT department by offering your end users an environment that allows simple and quick report creation and modification, as well as a way to share the results across different users and user groups.

I’ll explain what the technical prerequisites are for using SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence, how the metadata is mapped to a universe, how you can create and use a universe on top of SAP NetWeaver BW, and how you can leverage time dependencies in SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence.

The technical prerequisites are:

• Access to the Universe Designer on your client computer
  
  
• The client components of the BusinessObjects Integration Kit for SAP Solutions installed on your client computer — particularly the OLAP BAPI connectivity and the SAP Authentication
  
  
• The server components of the BusinessObjects Integration Kit for SAP Solutions installed on your SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise system
  
  
• Your SAP account can view and execute SAP NetWeaver BW queries
  
  
• SAP NetWeaver BW queries are configured for external access. You can use BEx Query Designer for this purpose.
  
  
• If you want to use Single Sign-On (SSO), the SAP Authentication needs to be configured on your SAP BusinessObjects system
  
  

The SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence connectivity does not require you to import extra ABAP transports into your SAP system for the data connectivity part. However, you do need the ABAP transports for the SSO part. This differs from the connectivity with Crystal Reports, another SAP BusinessObjects reporting application. Crystal Reports uses BW MDX connectivity (based on a custom integration with SAP NetWeaver BI) and requires that you import ABAP transports into your SAP system to use it.

Data Connectivity

As you can see in Figure 1, SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence requires a universe for the data connectivity on top of SAP NetWeaver BW. You can create an OLAP universe on top of SAP NetWeaver BW queries or directly on top of InfoCubes. For the differences between accessing an SAP NetWeaver BW query and accessing an InfoCube directly, refer to my January 2009 article. The same rules apply for the OLAP universes.

Figure 1

SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence connectivity

As you can see in Figure 1, SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence does not have direct SAP ERP connectivity right now. However, SAP offers a set of SAP BusinessObjects Rapid Marts. It allows companies that use SAP ERP to extract the data from SAP ERP and use a pre-designed relational schema with a pre-built universe on top to create reports with SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence.

From a technical point of view, the connectivity for the OLAP universe uses the public OLAP BAPI interface from SAP NetWeaver BW for the metadata and data retrieval, which is also the reason that you don’t need any specific ABAP transports for that part of the application.

Metadata Mapping

Before going into the details of the metadata mapping for your OLAP universe, I’d like to clarify some terms. Table 1 shows the terms used on the SAP NetWeaver BW side compared to the terms used on the SAP BusinessObjects universe side. Table 2 shows how the metadata from your SAP NetWeaver BW system is mapped to the OLAP universe.

OLAP Universes and SAP NetWeaver BW Queries

Now let me show you the seven steps to create a new OLAP universe on top of an SAP NetWeaver BW query. I am going to use a query that is similar to the one that I used for Crystal Reports in the January 2009 article. The BW query in my example contains the following characteristics:

• Product group
  
  
• Product
  
  
• Distribution channel
  
  
• Calendar Year/Month
  
  
• Calendar Year

It also contains the following key figures:

• Billed Quantity
  
  
• Net Sales

Finally, I used an optional variable for the characteristic Product group for multiple single values (Figure 2).

Figure 2

BEx Query Designer with the example characteristics selected

It is important to note that when you create the universe, it does not matter if the characteristics are placed in the rows, columns, or free characteristics. The only exception is the filter area, as explained in the Query filter row in Table 2. In the query properties in BEx Query Designer, make sure to select Allow external access. Otherwise you cannot select the query when setting up the connection for your OLAP universe.

Step 1. Start the Universe Designer. Follow menu path Start > Programs > BusinessObjects XI Release 3 > BusinessObjects Enterprise > Designer. Enter your login credentials for the BusinessObjects Enterprise system. Then go to File > New to start the process to create a new universe.

Step 2. Click the New button to set up a new connection to your SAP system. Select SAP Business Warehouse as the connection type and enter a connection name. You can define the name for the connection following your own naming conventions (Figure 3).

Figure 3

Universe connection type

Next, you need to provide the connection details to your SAP system (Figure 4). You can set up a connection to a specific application server or use a message server with a logon group.

Figure 4

Connection details

For the Authentication Mode, you can select one of the following options:

• Use SSO when refreshing reports at view time: Use this option if you have configured your SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise with SAP as the authentication method or if you want to send the used SAP BusinessObjects credentials to the underlying data source. To use SSO, you need to configure the SAP Authentication on your SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise system. You can use SSO for the process of creating a universe when you log on to the Universe Designer with your SAP credentials.
  
  
• Use specified username and password: Select this option to use the connection details that you entered during the setup of the connection. This option allows each user viewing or creating an SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence report based on the universe to use the same credentials to authenticate against the underlying data source.
  
  
• Use BusinessObjects credentials mapping: This option allows you to use the credentials that are mapped in the Central Management Console for the user.

After setting the Authentication Mode, click Next to select the SAP NetWeaver BW query for the universe.

Step 3. Select an SAP NetWeaver BW query. View the list of available InfoProviders in the ($INFOCUBE) folder. Then browse the list of available SAP NetWeaver BW queries under each InfoProvider. Select an SAP NetWeaver BW query and click the Next button to go to the next step.

Step 4. Configure the connection parameters. You can use the Pool timeout field to configure the time that a connection is kept alive (Figure 5). I recommend that you use the default value (10 minutes). The pool timeout value is also relevant when you update your OLAP universe with changes made in BEx Query Designer. Because the interface involves metadata caching, you might not receive all the updates when you use a larger value for the pool timeout.

Figure 5

Set up the connection parameters

Step 5. Click the Finish button to return to the start screen for creating the universe. Before you click OK to create the universe, enter a name for the new universe. Click the Controls tab and take a look at the default settings for the query limits (Figure 6). Here you can set limits regarding the execution time and the query result set that is created on top of the universe. For this example, remove all the limits for the universe and then click OK to create the new universe.

Figure 6

Query limits

Step 6. The Universe Designer connects to your SAP NetWeaver BW back end using the OLAP BAPI interface to retrieve the metadata for the selected BW query (Figure 7).

Figure 7

OLAP universe elements

Step 7. To create a new SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence report based on the universe, you need to export it to your SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise system. Go to File > Export to open up the dialog to export the universe. The system asks you to save the universe first. Then the Export Universe dialog asks you to select a folder and the user groups for the universe (Figure 8). Select a folder location for your universe by using the Browse button and click OK. Now you have created your first OLAP universe on top of an SAP NetWeaver BW query and you can create a new SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence report.

Figure 8

Export a universe

Create a New SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence Report

SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence is a Web-based, ad-hoc reporting tool that is fully integrated into the SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise business intelligence portal (formerly InfoView). The easiest way to create a new SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence report is to log on to the business intelligence portal and start SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence from there.

Log on to with your SAP credentials using the SAP authentication. If you haven’t configured SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise with the SAP authentication, you need to make sure that your universe connection is configured to use the credentials provided as part of the connection. Navigate to the Document List or your Inbox (Figure 9).

Figure 9

The business intelligence portal main view

Click New to create a new report. The system asks you to select a universe from the list of available universes. Use the universe you created and the query panel appears (Figure 10).

Figure 10

The query panel that you use to create queries for your report

The query panel provides you all the elements from the universe, which you can now use to create a query that can be the basis for a new report. Add items to the Result Objects section to include them in your report. In the Query Filters panel you can create additional filters for your query. Note that these query filters are in addition to ones that you might already have created in the universe (e.g., prompts based on the variables in your SAP NetWeaver BW query). Include the following elements in the query panel: L01 Product group, L01 Distribution channel, L01 Product, L01 Calendar Year/Month, Net Sales, Net Sales Unit, Billed Quantity, and Billed Quantity Unit (Figure 11).

Figure 11

Add the result objects

Click the Run Query button in the top-right corner to execute your new query. Because the SAP NetWeaver BW query contains a variable, the system prompts you to provide the values for the L01 Product group. You can execute the query without providing a value because the variable in the underlying BW query is configured to be optional. If the underlying variable is mandatory, you first have to provide a value before you can run the SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence query. In addition, because the variable is optional, the list of values is not loaded automatically. After you run the query, the report comes up with a default table layout (Figure 12). You can now enhance your report.

Figure 12

Initial SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence report

Right-click the L01 Product group column and select Set as section, which then divides your report into groupings per product group (Figure 13). Remove the L01 Distribution channel column from the table via drag and drop. Drag the column header outside of the report to remove it from the table.

Figure 13

SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence report with sections

Now use the list of available templates by clicking the Templates tab and going to Report Elements > Tables > Crosstab and dragging and dropping a cross tab onto your table object (Figure 14). In my example, the cross tab allows me to look at the key figures broken down by products over a period of time, which is broken down by month and year.

Figure 14

Cross tab in SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence

Next, in the Templates tab, go to Report Elements > Charts > Bar and drag and drop a bar chart into your report. Click the Data tab to add the dimensions and measures to the chart (Figure 15). Drag and drop the distribution channel as a dimension and the net sales as measure to the chart.

Figure 15

Structure view

Select the table object and go to Align > Relative Position (Figure 16). Here you can define where to place the table relative to the chart or other elements of your report. You can set the table to always display below the chart, or you can set the chart to always display next to the table without overlapping (in case the table grows). Click OK, and then click the View Results button in the toolbar in Figure 15 to return to your report (Figure 17).

Figure 16

Relative position settings

Figure 17

Final report

Delegate Search

Before showing more SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence design features, I will show you a useful feature that you can leverage in the Universe Designer. The Universe Designer enables you to configure your list of values for your prompts to allow for a values search.

In my example, the underlying SAP NetWeaver BW query contains a variable, which results in a filter object with a list of values. In the example in Figure 7, you can see the LOV below the dimension object L01 Product group. One LOV definition is for the key value and the other is for the description. Double-click LovProduct groupBase and select the Properties tab (Figure 18).

Figure 18

LovProduct groupBase properties

The Delegate search setting offers two benefits: the values are not loaded automatically for the prompt that is being generated for your SAP variable (even if the prompt is mandatory), and the user can search for values while the system executes the search on the SAP NetWeaver BW back end. Think about situations in which you want to offer your users the functionality to specify a set of values as filters before running the report, but the list of possible values is very large. In such situations, you can use the Delegate search option and improve the overall performance of the complete workflow by preventing all values from loading.

Save the changes you made and export the universe to SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise by selecting the menu path File > Export so that you can make use of the changes in your SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence report. Before the export dialog appears, the system prompts you to save the universe.

After you have updated the universe and enabled the delegated search functionality, re-open your SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence report and refresh it. The system brings up the Prompts screen, which you can use to search the SAP system for valid members of the product group (Figure 19). The search dialog automatically searches the criteria entered in the key and the description of the members on your list of values. The dialog shows you the criteria and wildcard options that you can use.

Figure 19

Prompts dialog with delegated search options

Track Data Changes

Track data changes is a new feature of SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence XI 3.x that allows you to highlight changes in the data of your report on each refresh. You can define the base level of the data for your report, and then on each report refresh, the system compares the data against the base level of data, highlighting any changes. This is useful in scenarios in which you have a report that includes a time-dependent set of data and you want to see the changes that a different key date would have on the data (e.g., your sales forecast).

I’ll now show you how you can use the functionality of track data changes with a key date variable and time-dependent data in Web Intelligence using data from your SAP NetWeaver BW system. I created a universe on top of an SAP NetWeaver BW query that contains two time-dependent elements:

• A key figure with a time-dependent currency conversion
  
  
• A time-dependent hierarchy structure

If you are using a universe with a key date variable, you have an additional icon available in the toolbar when you create a new query on top of the universe that allows you to set the properties for the key date variable. This symbol is only visible in the query panel when your underlying universe contains a key date variable from the SAP NetWeaver BW query. Click the icon for the key date properties to produce a pop-up screen similar to Figure 20.

Figure 20

Set the key date properties

Here you can configure two options for the key date variable. You can set a specific date that the report uses for the key date variable each time the report is refreshed. Set the check box Prompt users when refreshing data to ask users to enter a new date value each time the report is refreshed. In my example, I used the value for January 17, 2009, as the value for my key date variable to execute the initial report. I selected the check box so that on the next refresh of the report I can set a new date value.

My report shows a hierarchy with three levels (Europe is level 1, North and South is level 2, and individual countries are level 3) with the order amount in Euros and the order amount in the original currency, USD, for 2009 (Figure 21). The exchange rate is a time-dependent exchange rate and the value of the Order Amount EUR value changes depending on when I execute the report. In my example, the user can set the key date for the report and see the changes in the values for the order amount in Euros. In addition to the changes in the currency exchange rate, the hierarchy is also a time-dependent structure.

Figure 21

Initial SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence report

Click the Track button on the toolbar highlighted in Figure 15. The system asks you to define the reference data (Figure 22). I am using the data from January 2009 as the reference data. I then refresh my report and use a date value from the year 2008 as the value for my key date variable.

Figure 22

Reference data for data tracking for 2009

When I refresh the report, it now shows the data for the date in 2008, which is the new value for the key date variable. The values for the Order Amount EUR have changed, and the changes are color coded (Figure 23). In my example:

• The values for FRANCE changed from SOUTH to NORTH
  
  
• The values for the Order Amount EUR from Germany, UK, and Spain decreased
  
  
• The values for the Order Amount in USD and EUR for Greece and Italy have increased

Figure 23

SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence report with tracked changes

Click the data tracking options icon to configure how the changes appear (Figure 24).

Figure 24

Options for data tracking

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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