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Will be heading to Amsterdam tomorrow to join the BI team @ SAP Insider.

If you would like to have a chat with me, please look me up at the BI site of SAP Insider where I most probably will be.

I will be presenting on Thursday afternoon the session: Are Legacy System Landscape Deficiencies Getting in the

Way of Your BI Upgrade?

When: Thursday, 13 June, 2013

Time: 14:45 - 16:00

Location : G106

Summary;

Upgrading BI systems to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 is not simple if you are running an aging BI software stack on

ancient hardware. This session provides expert recommendations to help you:

Assess your current BI landscape holistically – from a hardware and infrastructure perspective – so that you can

upgrade to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 without Herculean efforts

Take advantage of virtualisation to transform your legacy BI landscape while reducing costs

Align your organisation's deployment strategy with SAP's release and patch strategy

Hope to see you in the upcoming days @ SAP Insider 2013 Amsterdam

395 View s 0 Comments Tags: businessobjects, bi, sap, bi4, 4.0, bi4.0, analysis, bi4_upgrade, insider

SAP Insider 2013

Posted by Merlijn Ekkel Jun 10, 2013

Dear all,

I'm happy to inform you that we just realesed a new article in the BI4.x How To series.

The new document covers the upgrade of existing Auditing and Monitoring databases for use within BI4.x and can be

found via http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-42302

Kind regards

Merlijn

400 View s 0 Comments Tags: bi, 4.0, bi4.0, bi4_upgrade, monitoring, bi_platform, how , audit

New document released for the Upgrade to BI

Posted by Merlijn Ekkel Jun 7, 2013

Dear All,

This is the continuation of my previous blogs on BusinessObjects content management and Auditing

considerations. The topic of discussion is going to be System management procedure for BusinessObjects

deployments.

Managing overall BusinessObjects system involves various activities such as Content management, Instance

BusinessObjects Administration - Planning for SystemManagement

Posted by Manikandan Elumalai Jun 5, 2013

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=120 2/34

management, Content promotion strategy, Audit plan and finally the end user awareness.Below are list of

practices identified in system management process for each of its sub category.

System

Management

Content management Naming standards used for BI content (Universe,

reports, connections, folders, User and User

groups)

Set of required reports identified as per business

requirements

Folder Structure and the folder hierarchy

Group Structure and group hierarchy

Identified access levels and their appropriate

assignments to folder/groups

Instance management Instance limits to be set for the objects

Promotion strategy Methods for BI content promotion

Audit plan Audit considerations and enablement

User awareness End user training and knowledge acquisition

For detailed description about each category you can refer the blogs below

Content management

Business Objects Content Management Planning

Instance management

BusinessObjects Instance Management

Promotion strategy

SAP BusinessObjects - Lifecycle Management Console (BI4.0)

Audit plan

BusinessObjects Auditing - Considerations & Enabling

User awareness

Below startup materials could be useful for end users

SAP BusinessObjects BI launch pad

SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards

SAP BusinessObjects WebIntelligence

SAP BusinessObjects InformationDesign Tool

SAP BusinessObjects BusinessIntelligence platform

SAP Visual Intelligence

Hope you find this blog interesting. Thanks for reading.

819 View s 0 Comments Tags: bosystem_management, sap_businessobjects_business_intelligence_platform_4.0

New to SAP BI 4.1 is the integration with SAP Jam. The integration allows to bring business context to reports and

dashboards, while providing collaboration that is supported by data which exists inside SAP BusinessObjects

Enterprise.

In this post I like to highlight some of the things administrators need to know about the integration as well as describe

how to set up the integration between SAP BI 4.1 and SAP Jam. For a feature overview please see Make better

decisions by combining BI with social collaboration

What administrators need to know about SAP BI 4.1.and SAP Jam integration

Posted by Christina Obry Jun 4, 2013

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=120 3/34

A prerequisite for the integration is that each user must be registered in SAP Jam with a unique email address that

corresponds to the user's Enterprise email address stored with the user object. The email addresses will be

mapped between BI platform and SAP Jam. If the email address on the BI platform does not match to an email

address on your SAP Jam organization then the user will see the following error message in BI launch pad:

“SAML authentication failed. Detail: Could not find unique user with email [email protected] in company

'MyCompany'.”

Note, that Enterprise users can only change their email address on a BI platform account if the "Edit User Attribute

Right" was specifically granted to them; it is denied out of the box. This change was done in order to prevent users to

change their email address to impersonate another Jam user. In most customers cases this should not be a

problem as email addresses are often imported from an external source such as LDAP.

Additional two more security rights were introduced in BI 4.1 to allow fine grained control about who is able to view

and post comments on a particular report. These rights can be set on a folder or document level and are inherited in

the same way as other security rights.

Comment on documents right, determining on whether a user is allowed to comment on documents and

instances

View comments on documents right, , determining on whether a user is allowed to view comments on

documents and instances that

Now let’s look into the steps required to set up the integration. Before you begin the set up you need to ensure that

you have administrative rights on the BI platform as well as administrative rights to your SAP Jam organization.

1. Enable Jam Collaboration in Central Management Console (CMC)

a. Go to the Application page in CMC

b. Right click on Collaboration

c. Choose the Properties menu

d. Check the “Enable Collaboration” checkbox

e. Fill out the following information

Connection URL: This is the URL of your SAP Jam instance

Unique Identity Provider ID: This value will be associated with the certificate used to configure

integration on the collaboration application's administration console. It should be a unique value, for

example something like <CompanyName>_<SystemID>_<Client>

f. Press the Generate button under the Identity Provider Base64 Certificate. This will generate a certificate in

the Identity Provider Base64 Certificate field.

g. Copy the certificate in Identity Provider Base64 Certificate field in order to generate an OAuth Consumer

Key from your SAP Jam organization.

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

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h. Keep page open

2. Register a new SAML trusted IDP for SAP Jam

a. Log on to the Jam site and Navigate to the Administration page

b. On the left site, select SAML Trusted IDPs

c. Click on Register your identity provider

d. Fill out the following information

IDP ID: Fill in the same value as in the CMC Unique Identity Provider ID field

Allowed Assertion Scope: Set to Users in my Company

X509 Certificate (Base64): Paste in the Identity Provider Base64 Certificate value you copied from the

CMC

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

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e. Press Save

f. Press Register

3. Create an OAuth client for SAP Jam

a. On the left site of the Jam UI, select OAuth Clients

b. At the bottom of the page. Click Add OAuth Client

c. Fill out the following information

1. Name: Fill in the same value as in the CMC Unique Identity Provider ID field

2. Integration URL: A link to find out more about this application

3. X509 Certificate (Base64): Paste in the Identity Provider Base64 Certificate value you copied from the

CMC

d. Press Save

e. In the list of OAuth find the newly created OAuth and click on View

f. Copy the Key value

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

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4. Enter OAuth key in Central Management Console (CMC)

a. Go back to your Collaboration page in CMC

b. Paste the OAuth key from SAP Jam into the OAuth Consumer Key field

5. Set up the connection using proxy

a. Provide information about the proxy host in the HTTP Proxy Host and Port boxes.

In addition to the steps above, it needs to be ensured that BI platform has a valid certificate from an authorized CA in

order to successfully connect to SAP Jam as SAP Jam in a secured site and BI platform needs to retrieve the secured

content. If you do not have the certificate imported, you will see the following error when trying to use any of the

collaboration features.

“This error occurred: A problem occurred while connecting to SAP Jam servers. Check your connection settings, or

contact your system administrator.”

Below are the steps to export and import the certificate into the BI platform.

1. Export certificate from browser (Internet Explorer, other browsers work similar)

1. Open SAP Jam website in your browser

2. At the top of the browser, click on the “Lock” symbol to open the security report

3. Click on “View Certificatesd.

4. Go to the Details tab

5. Click on “Copy to File”

6. Follow the steps in the wizard to save the .cer file

2. Import the certificate to the keystore (for default tomcat; steps may vary on different web application servers)

a. Copy the .cer file to your BOE machine

b. Go to <InstallDir> \SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\win64_x64\sapjvm\jre\b in

c. In the command line run

"keytool -list -keystore ..\lib\security\cacerts"

See that you have x entries in keystore

d. In the command line run

"keytool -import -alias <alias> -keystore ..\lib\security\cacerts -file <your .cer file location>"

e. Repeat step c to confirm you have x+1 entries.

3. Restart Tomcat

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

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You should now be able to log on to BI launch pad and start collaborating.

4214 View s 5 Comments

Tags: collaboration, business_intelligence_(businessobjects), bi_launch_pad, business_intelligence, bi_platform, bi_launchpad,

sap_jam, sap_businessobjects_business_intelligence_platform_4.0

Introduction:Multitenancy management tool is built to use a single instance of BI 4.x runs on a server, serving multiple client

organizations (tenants). BI 4.x can be designed to virtually partition its data and configuration and each client can have

access to their own data only.

The SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform Multitenancy Management Tool is a Java-based program

that SAP OEM partners can use to standardize and automate the creation of objects and settings for new customers

in a multitenant BI platform deployment.

The traditional way of configuring a multitenant environment is to create separate user groups, folders for each tenant

and apply security manually, but the multitenancy management tool automates these steps and makes it easier to

create new tenants.

Setup:Let’s begin to configure a simple multitenant environment:

Step - 1: Create Tenant Template:

1. Create a user group name "$TemplateToken$".

2. Create a public folder named $TemplateToken$ atthe root level.

3. Assign required rights to "$TemplateToken$" user group on $TemplateToken$ folder.

Step – 2: Create Tenant Configuration file:

The tenant_template_def.properties file is located in the multitenancyManager folder at:

Windows: <InstallDir>\SAP BusinessObjects EnterpriseXI4.x\java\apps\multitenancyManager\jars\

Unix: <InstallDir>/sap_bobj/enterprise_xi4x/java/apps/multitenancyManager/jars/

Take a backup of the properties file and open the original one in a text editor.

Under (Mandatory) Name of the tenant being added, change the value for the tenant Name option to the name of

the new tenant you are defining.

Under (Mandatory) Template token identifier used for tenant name replacing, change the value for the

templateToken option to thestring used to identify your template folders and user group. Use the string

"$TemplateToken$," as we did in step - 1.

Under (Mandatory) Logon information provide CMS Server name, Authentication type, User name (an admin

user who has permissions to perform the task), its password.

Under (Optional) Document folder template, change the value for the templateContentFolder option to specify

the top-level template folder paths. Separate multiple values with a semicolon, and include the full path of the

public root folder.

Multitenancy Management tool setup, new features inBI 4.1

Posted by Sohel Ahmed Syed Jun 3, 2013

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=120 8/34

Save and close the tenant_template_def.properties file.

Step – 3: Run the Multitenancy Management Tool:

Open Command prompt and navigate to the location, <InstallDir>\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI

4.0\java\apps\

Type following command.

java -jar multitenancymanager.jar -configFile tenant_template_def.properties

Likewise you can simple change the value “Name of the tenant being added” as we did in Step – 2.2, save the

file and run the tool.

After the tool successfully finish creating the tenant logon to CMC, go to Multitenancy and you should see the

tenant name populated here.

Right click on the tenant name and go to properties. From here you can manage the number of concurrent logon

sessions.

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

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You can also manage concurrent user sessions from tenant_template_def.properties

You can add groups to tenant.

You can delete a tenant and all its associate infoobjects with the option to exclude certain infoobjects.

You can track system usage by tenant using auditing by enabling and configuring audit events as per the

requirements.

To determine which auditing event is generated by which tenant use 2 new lookup tables in the auditing

database: ADS_TENANT and ADS_USER.

For detailed overview please visit following blog:

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog/2013/06/18/overview-of-sap-bi-4x-multitenancy-management-tool

3588 View s 28 Comments Tags: bi, sap, management, 4.0, to, tool, config, how , 40, oem, 4.x, 4.1, multitenancy

Dear Folks,

This is the continuation of my previous blog on BusinessObjects Audit Universe and reports deployment here

SAP BusinessObjects 4.0 Auditor Configuration & Deployment End to End and is supposed to be

successor of this blog. I would like to talk about Audit considerations, how it works and the process of enabling

auditing in BusinessObjects.

As you all aware auditing enables us to have a detailed historical view of user and object interaction and the

system usage over a period of time. Based on the audit reports we can identify usage pattern of the business

community such as peak usage, unused reports and inactive users. Further this will help us to fine tune

BusinessObjects Auditing - Considerations & Enabling

Posted by Manikandan Elumalai Jun 3, 2013

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=120 10/34

environment for effective utilization.

Auditing considerations

While implementing Auditing requirements we should be in a position to consider the below factors.

By implementing System auditing we are imposing additional load to the system which need to be

considered during initial sizing exercises.

We should precisely identify the required system metrics without including redundant information from

audit tables as auditing unnecessary metrics will again increase system load.

How auditing works in BusinessObjects

Audit information will be collected from the servers which are enabled for their auditable actions. The collected

information will be stored in the form of audit log files in the BusinessObjects server locally. As per the polling

interval configured, the CMS would be collecting this log details and adds them in to audit database to make it

ready for reporting. Thus audit information will be always historical. If you want to extract the real-time

information of the repository CMS database will be the only source of truth.

Enabling/Disabling trace logs

To enable and disable trace logs at various levels refer the blog here Configuring trace Logs in

BusinessObjects 4.0

Enabling System auditing

For audit enablement we should always configure a database to hold the set of audit tables as a first step.

Subsequently we should identify list of actions to be captured and enable them as auditable. CMC is the place

where you need to do all these stuff.

Deployment of Audit Universe and reports

You can refer the blog here for as-is samples of Audit universe and reports and their deployment. SAP

BusinessObjects 4.0 Auditor Configuration & Deployment End to End. If required you can even customize and

develop your own set of reports on top of this.

Hope the blog is informative and helpful. Thanks for reading.

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=120 11/34

6274 View s 6 Comments Tags: bo4_auditor, sap_businessobjects_business_intelligence_platform_4.0

In my previous tutorial I already talked about how to change the name and URL of BI launch pad. Often this is not

enough and partners as well as customers would like to change the logo or even color scheme of BI launch pad. The

SAP BI 4.0 SP4 release introduced a branding and theming mechanism that will be maintained over patches.

Detailed documentation about how to customize BI launch pad, Cyrstal reports or OpenDocument can be found in the

SAP BusinessObjects BI Customization Guide (see Web Application Customization section). For this tutorial I like to

focus on BI launch pad customization only. Please note that knowledge of cascaring style sheets (css) is needed for

this customization. You can make changes as small as changing the logo files or as big as changing the entire color

scheme of BI launch pad, it all depends on how many styles you override.

Retrieve sample files

As this customization can be quite complex, we provide you with a sample customization as part of the installation

package. The template.zip file is located in the Collaterals\CustomizationTemplate folder of your installation package,

and contains the branding bundles (JAR files) to customize. This file is the starting point for customizing your web

applications.

1. Copy template.zip from the Collaterals\CustomizationTemplate folder of your installation package to a directory

on your local drive.

2. Extract the template.zip file

3. Once extracted navigate to the sub-folder SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\warfiles\webapps\BOE\WEB-

INF\eclipse\plugins of the extracted package

4. In that folder there is a com.businessobjects.webpath.InfoViewBranding.jar bundle, which contains a sample

customization. Using winrar, extract the com.businessobjects.webpath.InfoViewBranding.jar bundle

5. The sample files are located in web\sample folder. The sample contains sample images as well as a sample

css file to override the BI launch pad style as guidance. You can customize as little or as much as you like!

6. Open the customize.css file located in \web\sample\css folder using Notepad++ (or any other text editor)

Create customization files

It is recommended to start with a blank customize.css and add customized styles to the blank file using the sample

as guidance rather than modifying the sample customize.css file itself.

You can customize the favicon, logo, backgrounds, styles, and more. Most of these customizations involve changing

the CSS rules in the customize.css

file. All customizations must be made available in the web folder of

com.businessobjects.webpath.InfoViewBranding.jar to take effect. The web folder has to have the following sub-folder

structure:

\web

\css

customize.css

\images

favicon.ico

\theme

*.png, *.gif

1. Under the com.businessobjects.webpath.InfoViewBranding folder created from the extraction of the

com.businessobjects.webpath.InfoViewBranding.jar bundle, create the folder structure mentioned above

2. BI launch pad uses a few images as background for its UI, for this tutorial I have created a customized sub-set

of these images. Download the "BI launch pad background images in light red.zip". Extract the file and drop the

images the theme folder.

3. Create a new customize.css file in the css folder using Notepad++ (or any other text editor)

Customize BI launch pad logon page The following diagram show the elements customized in this activity, for reference purposes. The numbers in the

boxes refer to sections in the sample customize.css file. Our official documentation contains more detailed diagrams

if you like to customize more parts. For the cases that the color is defined as hex color, I have suggested a new color

value; feel free to use any value you like.

1. By using the sample customize.css file and the diagram below, add the new css styles to the new

Tutorial: Branding and Theming of BI launch pad

Posted by Christina Obry Jun 1, 2013

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=120 12/34

customize.css file.

Customize BI launch pad top part

The following diagram show the elements customized in the activity, for reference purposes. The numbers in the

boxes refer to sections in the

sample customize.css file.

1. By using the sample customize.css file and the diagram below, add the new css styles to the new

customize.css file.

Customize BI launch pad home page The following diagram show the elements customized in the activity, for reference purposes. The numbers in the

boxes refer to sections in the

sample customize.css file.

1. By using the sample customize.css file and the diagram below, add the new css styles to the new

customize.css file.

Customize BI launch pad Universal Repository Explorer

The following diagram show the elements customized in the activity, for reference purposes. The numbers in the

boxes refer to sections in the

sample customize.css file.

1. By using the sample customize.css file and the diagram below, add the new css styles to the new

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

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customize.css file.

Customize BI launch pad Menu

The following diagram show the elements customized in the activity, for reference purposes. The numbers in the

boxes refer to sections in the

sample customize.css file.

1. By using the sample customize.css file and the diagram below, add the new css styles to the new

customize.css file.

Customize BI launch pad Simple Dialogs

The following diagram show the elements customized in the activity, for reference purposes. The numbers in the

boxes refer to sections in the

sample customize.css file.

1. By using the sample customize.css file and the diagram below, add the new css styles to the new

customize.css file.

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

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Customize BI launch pad Large Dialogs The following diagram show the elements customized in the activity, for reference purposes. The numbers in the

boxes refer to sections in the

sample customize.css file.

1. By using the sample customize.css file and the diagram below, add the new css styles to the new

customize.css file.

Testing your customizations

Before performing customizations on your production systems, it is good practice to test your customizations first on a

test installation. In a default installation that uses the bundled Tomcat server, you can instantly see the effects of your

changes by making temporary modifications to the webpath.InfoViewBranding folders in the Tomcat work directory:

<INSTALLDIR>\SAP

BusinessObjects\tomcat\work\Catalina\localhost\BOE\eclipse\plugins\webpath.InfoViewBranding\web\ This folder

have the same structure as the branding resources contained in template.zip. Note: The Tomcat work directory is not

permanent and your temporary changes are deleted when patching. You may need to restart tomcat and clear your

browser cache to see the temporary changes.

Create the custumization bundle

1. Using Winrar open the sample com.businessobjects.webpath.InfoViewBranding.jar bundle

2. Delete the sample folder within the bundle

3. Add the your customized css and image folders and its underlying files under the web folder. Close Winrar

4. Copy the com.businessobjects.webpath.InfoViewBranding.jar branding bundle in the following location

<INSTALLDIR>\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\warfiles\webapps\BOE\WEB-INF\eclipse\plugins

Deploy custimization files In order for these changes to show in BI launch pad one has to run wdeploy.

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

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1. Stop Tomcat using the Central Configuration Manager

2. Use WDeploy to redeploy the BOE.war file on Tomcat. Wdeploy is available via the Start menu.

3. Wait for WDeploy to finish

4. Restart Tomcat

View customization

1. Clear your Browser cache in order to ensure that the browser consumes the new styles

2. Login to BI launch pad as Administrator.

3. Browse around to view the customization

14377 View s 97 Comments

Tags: business_intelligence_(businessobjects), bi_launch_pad, business_intelligence, bi_launchpad, oem_partners,

bi_launchpad_customize, sap_businessobjects_business_intelligence_platform_4.0

Partners and customers often have the desire to band and theme the BI launch pad to make it better fit into their

landscape. In this tutorial learn how to change the name and URL of BI launch pad. Also see Tutorial: Branding

and Theming of BI launch pad for more infromation on how to change the logo and color scheme of BI launch pad.

Modify BI launch pad name and default settings

1. Go to the following directory in your BI platform installation:

<INSTALLDIR>\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\warfiles\webapps\BOE\WEB-INF\config\custom

Note: It is important to use this directory. Never modify the properties files directly in the tomcat work directory as

they will be overridded during a patch or when re-deploying your web application.

2. Create a new file using Notepad++ (or any other text-editing utility)

3. Save the file under the following name: BIlaunchpad.properties

4. To include change the name of BI launch pad and the BI launch pad URL include the following properties (You

may choose any name)

# app.name is used in most locations in the application.

app.name=My BI launch pad

# app.name.short is used on the logon page.

app.name.short=My BI launch pad

# the name in the URL. It must start with a '/', and it must contain exactly 1 '/'.

app.url.name=/myBI

5. Save and close the file.

Deploy customization files

In order for these changes to show in BI launch pad one has to run wdeploy.

1. Stop Tomcat using the Central Configuration Manager

2. Use wdeploy to redeploy the BOE.war file on Tomcat. wdeploy is available via the Start menu.

3. Wait for wdeploy to finish

4. Restart Tomcat (Note: You can now access BI launch pad via http://<hostname>:<port>/BOE/myBI)

Additional information

In the same way that you customized the name of BI launch pad you can also customize other BI launch pad settings

such as whether to show the authentication method on the BI launch pad, cms default machine name and so on. A

list of customizable properties can be found in the Business Intelligence Platform Administrator Guide (section

18.2.1.2 BI launch pad properties; page 617)

Never modify the properties file in the

<INSTALLDIR>\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI4.0\warfiles\webapps\BOE\WEB-INF\config\default directory as

only changes in the custom directory will be maintained over patches.

6292 View s 1 Comments

Tags: business_intelligence_(businessobjects), bi_launch_pad, business_intelligence, bi_launchpad, bi_launchpad_customize,

sap_businessobjects_business_intelligence_platform_4.0

Tutorial: Customizing BI launch pad name

Posted by Christina Obry Jun 1, 2013

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=120 16/34

With SAP BI 4.0 one can customize the landing page of BI launch pad by creating a custom BI workspace, this can be

done by a user himself or an administrator can customize the homepage for a particular user group.

A BI workspace allows you to organize and display different BI platform data sources, such as CR or WebI reports,

hyperlinks, BI launch pad modules such as inbox or alerts, or external web pages, in a single view. With the ability to

set any BI workspace as custom homepage, you can bring the most relevant information to the attention of a

particular user group when they logging into BI launch pad.

You can also set the landing page to a particular folder.

In this tutorial learn how to change the BI launch pad home page for a user group.

Create a BI workspace

1. Login on to BI launch pad as Administrator

a. Note that you are seeing the default BI launch pad homepage

2. Open the BI workspace application

3. Create a new BI workspace document. For this tutorial you may create any BI workspace you like or follow the

steps a to e below for a very basic BI workspace.

a. Remove one of the column of the default BI workspace

b. Navigate to the BI launch pad modules

c. Drag the My Recently Viewed Documents, My Recently Run Documents and My Alerts into the first column

of the BI workspace

d. Navigate to the Document Explorer modules

e. Drag the Inbox module into the second column of the BI workspace. Resize the Inbox analytic to fit into the

entire column

4. If you also want to change the banding of BI launch pad, then follow this step otherwise you can move on to the

next step. In order for the custom homepage to inherit the BI launch pad branding styles, you need to match the

style of a BI workspace to the style of BI launch pad

Tutorial: How to customize BI launch pad home page

Posted by Christina Obry Jun 1, 2013

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=120 17/34

a. From the first tab of the workspace, click Properties.

b. In the Properties dialog select the icon of the option immediately before the (last) Default style option and

close the Properties dialog.

5. Save the BI workspace in any public folder. Remember where you save the BI workspace.

6. Logout of BI launch pad

Change the BI launch pad preferences for the Everyone user group

1. Login to CMC as Administrator

2. Navigate to the User and Groups page

3. Open the BI launch pad Preferences page for the Everyone group via the right click menu

4. Deselect the No Preferences Defined checkbox

5. Select home tab and browse to the folder where you saved the BI workspace that you created previously

6. Save & Close the BI launch pad Preferences page

7. Logout of CMC

Verify the custom homepage

1. Login on to BI launch pad as Administrator

a. Note that you are seeing the BI workspace that you have created as home page

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

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Additional comments

Via the BI launch pad Preferences page you are also able to change other preferences such as the default folder that

a user will be navigated to when they login to BI launch pad. You can also change which columns will be displayed in

the Document Tab and how many documents will be displayed per page.

As administrator you cannot define preferences for users, only for groups. When preferences have not been defined

for a group they are inherited from its closest parent. The closest parent is defined as the group(s) that the group is a

direct descendant of.

Default preferences out of the box are set on the Everyone group. Changing these preferences updates the default

preferences for all groups that do not have preferences defined for them or their parent groups.

Other related tutorials:

Tutorial: Customizing BI launch pad name

Tutorial: Branding and Theming of BI launch pad

8180 View s 16 Comments

Tags: business_intelligence_(businessobjects), bi_launch_pad, bi_platform, bi_launchpad_customize,

sap_businessobjects_business_intelligence_platform_4.0

This has to be my favorite tweet of this week from Angad Singh :

@c821311 @paulhawking we have learnt one good thing that we never gonna forget "Share Knowledge To Gain

Knowledge"

— Angad Singh (@tungals)

What a great concept to learn in school, something I wished to have learned many moons ago. I found this to be

such an inspirational and motivating tweet. Kudos to Angad, Tony de Thomasis and Paul Hawking for this.

Hence, I've written these documents on the new BI4.1 System Configuration Wizard and new BI4.1 Universe

Wizard. I've also written steps for an " in-place" install BI4.1 platform , and for Crystal Reports 2013 here and

BI4.1 Explorer Install update here

I am not an installation expert or BI Administrator, but in my own way, I've tried to share knowledge to gain knowledge.

Last September, I saw SAP's Ashish C Morzaria in person who said something to the effect "we're going to make it

easier for you to install BI4.1" and he was right.

I also hope you see the ease to install and upgrade to BI4.1. This doesn't replace the usual sizing, planning and

deploying of your platform, but I believe SAP has made things a lot easier in BI4.1.

BI4.1 Experience: Share Knowledge to GainKnowledge

Posted by Tammy Powlas Jun 1, 2013

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=120 19/34

As a BI4.1 ramp-up customer we were fortunate to experience customer validation so once BI4.1 became available

for ramp-up we were prepared to install the software the day it was released. During validation, SAP gave us three

different builds, which included updates from the previous builds. We had an excellent, responsive SAP customer

validation team, who always responded in 24 hours or less. It was interesting too to see how things progressed from

the first build to the last build.

As an example, one new feature, while working in the first customer validation build, was not "intuitive" to me. In the

second build, this was fixed. I found a small minor issue in the first customer validation build and this was corrected

in the second build. I also couldn't get something to work in the one of the BI client tools - and received fast help from

the SAP Customer Validation project team. They understood my feedback, and explained how it was currently

working, and it would be easier for the universe designer in an upcoming SP.

So I felt SAP was extremely supportive of the customer validation process, and took my feedback seriously. In some

cases it was implemented in future builds or it is coming in the future.

Source: SAP

The above screen shot shows where "CUV" which is customer validation testing occurs. You can see that six sprints

have taken place already by the time the customer starts testing.

What is customer validation? Read more about it here in a previous blog. Last year we were also BI4 FP3 ramp-

up customers, and had to provide daily reports to our ramp-up coach. It took us a while to download, install and plan

the software. This year, thanks to customer validation, we were ready for ramp-up on day one.

If you decided to participate in customer validation, you do have to commit your own time and schedule, and create

test cases and have regular calls with SAP. There is a commitment of work on your side. You cannot take the

product to production with customer validation software. However for the ramp-up program, you work with SAP to

outline a plan to go to production with the ramp-up software.

I'll share more of my experiences with BI4.1 more on SCN, so I too can "gain knowledge".

2163 View s 0 Comments

Tags: sapmentors, sapmentor, crystal_reports, businessobjects_explorer, bi_platform, semantic_layer, bi41_upgrade

I was working on an interesting case where a customer was looking to switch the default CMS database (SQL Server

for Windows) to an SAP database. The customer was using SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.0 SP4, which is the

version that supports SAP HANA for the CMS. The Administrator Guide has a section that describes what you need to

do to select HANA for the CMS database. Although the procedure is documented, I couldn't find a step-by-step guide,

so I figured I'd write about it.

In addition to BOBJ 4.0, you also need a HANA database and the HANA client. If you want to see the database

objects, you also need HANA Studio. You can download client and Studio from the HANA Developer Center.

Note that these steps are only for Windows. The procedure applies to BusinessObjects BI Platforms 4.0 SP4. Newer

versions will likely allow you to use HANA as the default CMS database.

Changing Your CMS Database to SAP HANA

Posted by Jose Ramos May 31, 2013

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=120 20/34

Step 1: Create a HANA User for BOBJ

Assuming that you have administrative rights on your HANA database, create a new user called "BOEUSER". This

user will own the CMS tables.

Step 2: Create a System ODBC Data Source Name for HANA

1. Open the ODBC Administrator. It is located in Control Panel | Administrative Tools.

2. Add a new System DSN using the HDBODBC driver. Call this DSN "Business Objects HANA CMS" and enter

the appropriate server location to connect.

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Step 3: Switch the CMS Database

1. Launch the Central Configuration Manager (CCM) using the Start menu.

2. Right-click on Server Intelligence Agent (SIA) and select Stop from the popup menu to stop that service.

3. Once the service is stopped, right-click again on the SIA and select Properties from the popup menu.

4. The SIA properties dialog appears. Select the Configuration tab and click the Specify button.

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5. Choose to Copy data from another Data Source and click OK.

6. You are asked to specify the source and destination data sources. Click Specify.

7. Choose SQL Server (ODBC) as the connection method and click OK.

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8. Select the SQL Server data source name (BusinesObjects CMS 140) and click OK.

9. Enter the credentials to login to the SQL Server CMS database and click OK.

10. Enter the cluster key and click OK.

11. You are now back at the dialog to specify the source and destination data sources. Click the Browse button.

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

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12. Choose SAP HANA database (ODBC) as the connection method and click OK.

13. Select the HANA data source name created earlier (BusinesObjects HANA CMS) and click OK.

14. Enter the credentials to login to the HANA database. Make sure to specify the user BOEUSER you created in

Step 1. Click OK.

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

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15. Enter the cluster key and click OK.

Again, you are back at the dialog to specify the source and destination data sources. The field "Get data from"

should read "BusinessObjects CMS 140" and the field "Copy to the following data source" should read

"BusinessObjects HANA CMS".

16. Click OK to begin the process. You will be warned that all BOBJ tables will be deleted from the database. Click

Yes.

BusinessObjects will now create and populate the CMS tables in the HANA database.

17. Click OK when the procedure completes.

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18. You can now start the SIA service. Right-click the SIA and select Start from the popup menu.

You're done! You can now close the CCM.

Viewing the HANA CMS Tables This step is optional, but if you want to see the tables that were just created in your HANA database, you can query

them using HANA Studio:

2882 View s 15 Comments Tags: hana, business_objects_bi, cms_database

Pritesh Taylor of SAP provided this webcast to ASUG this week. He wrote about how SAP is taking proactive

measures to deliver product quality software here.

He explained that SAP creates a global quality plan, with one quality lead from each product area. SAP has domain

experts. SAP started this with BI4 FP3. Pritesh is the quality lead for BI4.1. These are my notes that I took as I

listened to the webcast.

Agenda:

Testing Focus and Quality Levels

Learn How SAP Addresses Quality in BI4

Posted by Tammy Powlas May 30, 2013

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=120 27/34

Quality Levels Illustrated

End to End Tests

BI4 FP3 and beyond Test Approach

Top Quality Strategy Enhancements

Upcoming Quality Strategy Investments

Question & Answer

Testing Focus and Quality Levels

Figure 1: Source: SAP

Figure 1 provides the testing types and focus. “Smoke” type testing includes logon and logoff. SAP has a build

master with a virtual team, release management and review critical matters.

Build Acceptance is automated with high level workflows not experience issues, focusing on first outer experience

with 50 tests per product

A “malbug” is a defect must be fixed in 24 hours, and it is tracked closely.

Pritesh said they have a “Quality first” mentality.

Area Acceptance includes core testing, with no high impact failure. Each product area works separately where teams

can only push their code lines if testing is successful. The product has to remain stable and not impact other teams.

They target that testing is 100% automated.

With defect verification includes when the defect is fixed, determine risk and impact assessment and determine if

new regressions. This is used to decide what best course of action. They use a defect severity matrix to determine

priority of defects.

Feature verification includes a focus on new features to test.

With validation, it includes complex data. They include several types of testing so can finish in a sprint

Legacy regression testing includes a focus on end user functionality so users can upgrade “without disruption”.

With System Validation they execute testing with products as a whole and product interaction, 3rd party platform

support and language testing – usually executed manually

Quality Levels Illustrated

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

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Figure 2: Source: SAP

Figure 2 was the result of a build of slides, starting with planned tests all the way through final acceptance.

End to End Tests

Figure 3: Source: SAP

Figure 3 shows end to end tests. These are not all the tests, according to Pritesh. Enterprise deployment scenarios

include complex customer scenarios – various SSO, methods of sign-on and includes a complex environment set up.

It often includes 20 different configurations, frequency and scope depends on what feel needs to be changed.

With Language Testing, they ensure product is translated correctly - special tagging, and the UI is corrected given the

translation string – language specialist will review the strings.

Performance & Reliability includes workflow has acceptable performance and reliable testing, version to version and

build to build comparison. The key is to test workflows don’t slow user. The multi-user testing includes running

without error with 24-72 hour reliability load testing, simulating a real world situation.

Platform Support includes any given release and each product team will determine impact. Higher risk platforms are

global.

BI4 FP3 and beyond Test Approach

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

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Figure 4: Source: SAP

With BI4 FP3 SAP shifted to agile and quality approach. This is further discussed in Pritesh's blog above.

Release cycles are in sprints, sprints are in waves.

They have one "hardening" wave to finalize.

New features – any new feature – must include a feature verification quality level – feature validation quality level

before wave completes. It can’t span multiple waves.

The purple includes high quality, where they share with internal / external (customer validation)

Within each wave they run legacy regressions.

On the left of Figure 4 is recurring where build acceptances are executed daily

Global acceptance goal is to meet quality goals. At the last week of each sprint they lock the code line and shift to

global acceptance mode. Any regressions found must be fixed before moving to next sprint.

Pritesh defines quality targets – include specific KPIs around performance and capabilities; these targets are agreed

to by the areas.

Top Quality Strategy Enhancements

Figure 5: Source: SAP

The upper right of Figure 5 shows the “Continuous improvement life cycle” where they identify areas to improve,

prioritize – go through root-cause, and execute.

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

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Throughout various stages of life cycle they have the “drive to improve”

Partner testing is where SAP invites partners onsite to validate upcoming features –upgrade, migrations, SDK, etc.

He said feedback from partners has been great and SAP analyzes feedback on how to incorporate into product.

The Customer Scenario testing team is in Bangalore. This team acquires key customer data and workflow and tests

them. They also do the following:

Execute customer tests

Not introduce customer regressions

Looking for more data and testers

When there is a customer escalation, they look at why was missed in testing.

Defect thresholds are defined as a calculated # of defects fixed in hardening week – if surpassed and team pulls the

line to stop new feature development to address defects. They ensure no huge backlog at the end, with a “Quality first

mentality”.

Patch to Patch Forward Fitting is new in BI4 SP6 where all fixes from patches of older SP’s are added. SAP has

received good feedback on this.

Upcoming Quality Strategy Investments

Figure 6: Source SAP

Figure 6 shows enhancements for continuous integration where tests are automatically executed.

With Code Coverage Analysis, the goal to see what source code is tested. They are starting a proof of concept with

4.1 release in BI platform

With Defect Projection Models, they are looking at defect trends, put into HANA to summarize to suggest which areas

for testing focus – roll out this year and next year

Question & Answer (a subset):

Q: When start the new forward fitting?

A: BI4 SP6 start the patch to patch forward fitting process – fixes from previous get included

Q: Samples provided do not stay current between versions. Is there a clean way to uninstall/roll back to remove a SP?

A: Install team is taking a look; create backup of CMS and FRS before start install to help with rollback. Product owner

needs to comment

Q: What is being done to improve quality of Information Design Team?

A: Doing root cause analysis on defects

Q: Is there a way to volunteer for testing?

A: You can be part of the customer validation program and provide feedback or partner testing to come onsite. For

Customer scenario testing – contact Pritesh

Other: There were several questions about the forward fitting strategy; Christopher Vozella suggested attending this

ASUG webcast on July 30: BI4 Maintenance Demystified

Additionally, on July 29 there is an ASUG webcast titled Exterminate Bugs Before you Upgrade: Building an Automated

Regression Test Strategy with BI4 with SAP's James Rapp

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=120 31/34

798 View s 0 Comments

Tags: sapmentors, bi4, sapmentor, bi_platform, semantic_layer, asug_w ebcast, bi4_quality, customer_validation,

partner_testing

I am very happy to officially announce the release of Phase 2 of SAP’s BI Platform Pattern Books as delivered

by my colleague

In this second phase, the Pattern Book has focused on how to deploy SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 release

with SBO Mobile BI and SBO Explorer on Windows operating system and using SQL Server for CMS

repository.

Deploying SAP BI Platform is often a challenging task. This book intends to address the challenges and

provide guidelines to best practices with intuitive step by step instructions on how to deploy SAP

BusinessObjects BI 4.0 server and it’s components into a real world system landscape on Microsoft Windows

operating system.

Phase 2 SAP BI Pattern Book focuses on;

Installing SQL Server middleware including OLAP data source configuration with SSO

Setting up authentication (SAP & Windows AD) to integrate with customer’s existing infrastructure

Configuring Web Server (Apache) including reverse proxy and Web Application Server (Tomcat) cluster

setup

Installing SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 cluster

How to add SAP BusinessObjects Explorer into SAP BI platform cluster

Setting up SAP BusinessObjects Mobile BI and

A troubleshooting section

Links for the SAP BI Pattern Books;

Main Page

Deploying SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 on Windows

Deploying SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 on Linux

Feel free to use the content presented in the Pattern Book to deploy your own system.

Feedback can be provided to the original post: http://scn.sap.com/blogs/sathishrajagopal/2013/05/23/announcing-

the-launch-of-sap-businessobjects-bi-platform-pattern-books-phase-2

Merlijn

1019 View s 0 Comments

Now Available: SAP BusinessObjects BI PlatformPattern Book for Windows

Posted by Merlijn Ekkel May 27, 2013

One of the announcements at ASUG Annual Conference was the release Technical Whitepaper: Virtualizing SAP

BusinessObjects BI 4 on VMware 5 by Ashish C Morzaria of SAP. You can also go to sap.com/bivirtualization for

the short cut link.

Additionally, right before ASUG Annual Conference we had a customer connection session with SAP's Nadine Engler,

moderated by ASUG Volunteer Kevin Geiger, who is a BI Platform ASUG volunteer. I wrote about this here but in

case you want to watch the webcast recording it is available here:

https://sap.emea.pgiconnect.com/p73854725/

The customer connect is a way to influence SAP in the short-term. It is a great opportunity and I encourage you to

check it out.

As for BI-platform related sessions at ASUG Annual Conference, I summarized a few of these here at this link prior

to conference. Now, I am including links to the presentations if you want to review (BI Platform only).

Session Name Presentation Link

Future of BI, Announcement and Round-up of BIPlatform Content at ASUG Annual Conference - ICYMI

Posted by Tammy Powlas May 26, 2013

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=120 32/34

Best Practices for Deploying BI4 Infrastructure &

The Art and Science of Sizing and Architecting SAP

BI 4 Deployments Correctly

Link

BI4 Maintenance Demystified Link

The Future of Business Intelligence at SAP

BusinessObjects BI

Link

Avoid Paying The Virtualization Tax: Deploying

Virtualized BI 4.0 The Right Way

Link

ASUG Influence: SAP Business Objects BI 4.0

Platform and Solutions

Link

Demystifying Authentication and Single-Sign-On

(SSO) Options in Business Intelligence

Link

If You Haven't Upgraded to SAP BusinessObjects

BI Platform 4.x, What Are You Waiting For?

Link

Sadly I didn't see many of these in person but I heard good feedback from many that the sessions were good and the

Future of BI session was "standing room only". Speaker Ty Miller slides are quite detailed and I encourage you to

check them out.

The ASUG BI Platform Influence Council also influenced the new System Wizard BI 4.1. Check it out here. Greg

Wcislo's slides on SSO are very detailed too.

ICYMI - in case you missed it, like I did. Special thanks to ASUG volunteers Kevin Geiger and Derek Loranca

for working this track and our speakers for providing this content to ASUG.

Appendix:

Stephanie Redivo has arranged the following ASUG Roadmap webcasts - you do not need to be an ASUG

member to register but you do need an SMP logon:

Title: SAP NETWEAVER BUSINESS WAREHOUSE PRODUCT ROAD MAP

Date: June 13

Time: 1:00 PM Eastern

Abstract:

The SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse Product Road Map webinar will

outline the current and future capabilities.

Speaker: Heiko Schneider, SAP Product Manager for SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse

Direct Link to register (Service Marketplace Logon required):

https://websmp101.sap-ag.de/~sapidb/011000358700000305862013E/

Title: SAP HANA PRODUCT ROAD MAP WEBINAR

Date: June 20

Time: 1:00 PM Eastern

Abstract:

In this webinar you will learn about the current and future

capabilities of SAP HANA

Speaker: Michael Eacrett, SAP Product Manager for HANA

Direct Link to register (Service Marketplace Logon required):

https://websmp109.sap-ag.de/~sapidb/011000358700000506602013E

ASUG Webcast covering one of the topics above (you do need to be an ASUG member to register:

Title: BI4 Maintenance Demystified

http://www.asug.com/events/detail/BI4-Maintenance-Demystified

1383 View s 0 Comments

Tags: sapmentors, bi4, sapmentor, sso, bi4_upgrade, bi_platform, bi_roadmap, asug2013, bi41, bi4_sap_sso, bi_virtualization

The basics of SAP BusinessObject Intelligence Platform Publication in my earlier blog. This post outlines a few

useful tips to consider when working with publications. I will look at three different aspects: Source documents,

Dynamic recipients and publication performance.

Tips and Tricks for SAP BusinessObject IntelligencePlatform Publication

Posted by Christina Obry May 23, 2013

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=120 33/34

Source documents

It is recommended to view and schedule dynamic content documents individually before you add them to a

publication. Publication uses scheduling as a means of creating the personalized documents, hence ensure that you

can view, refresh and schedule each publication document on its own. If you can view and schedule dynamic content

documents successfully, the data source connection is working properly and the source document data can be

refreshed when the publication is scheduled. If you cannot view and schedule dynamic content documents, ensure

the data source connection settings are correct.

Use publication log files to troubleshoot errors in failed publications. When you schedule publications to run, log files

are generated that record any errors that may occur when the publications are processed. To view all log files for a

publication instance, click Actions > History. On the "History" page, click the instance link in the Instance Time column.

Try to avoid unnecessary data refreshes. If a data refresh is unnecessary for a dynamic content document, in the

"Source Documents" section, clear the Refresh At Runtime check box for that document. This will improve overall

publication performance. Also consider to use the best bursting mode for your publication. For more information on

bursting modes read my previous blog entry.

If you are using parameter-based personalization for Crystal reports, set parameters to default. Parameter-based

personalization may lead to slower publication performance. It is highly recommended that you personalize Crystal

report publications by mapping fields to Enterprise recipient profiles or to dynamic recipient personalization values.

However, if you need to personalize Crystal reports using parameters, in the "Personalization" section, set

parameters to Default.

Dynamic Recipients

In general, it is recommended that you sort dynamic recipient sources according to the recipient ID column. This is

especially

important when you are running a high-volume publication or when you enable One database fetch for each batch of

recipients because it can reduce the number of deliveries for recipients who have multiple personalization values.

For Crystal report dynamic recipient sources, ensure the database configuration information is correct. In the CMC,

select the dynamic

recipient source and go to Manage > Default Settings to ensure the following:

In the "Database Configuration" section, the database logon information is correct and Use same database

logon as when report is run is selected.

In the "Parameters" section, all parameters have parameter values, and all Prompt when viewing check boxes

for parameters are cleared.

Also, if you use Crystal report dynamic recipient sources, consult your administrator to ensure the Report Application

Server (RAS) is configured correctly. The RAS must be configured to read at least the same number of database

records as the number of recipients in the dynamic recipient source. For instance, to process a dynamic recipient

source with data for 100,000 recipients, the RAS must be set to read more than 100,000 database

records.

Publication Performance

Further I want talk about how you can improve the performance of a publication.

Let’s start with the Adaptive Processing Server (APS). If both CPU and memory for the Adaptive Processing Server are

heavily utilized during publication runs, then move the Adaptive Processing Server to a faster machine that has more

available CPUs and SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform 4.0 SP4 or later installed. The server will

automatically scale to use more CPUs. Also it is recommended to isolate the Publishing Service and the Publication

Post Processing Service on dedicated Adaptive Processing Server instances and remove unused services hosted on

the server. Each service will consume more shared resources (request thread pool, memory, and CPU consumption)

on the Adaptive Processing Server, and publishing performance may

improve.

There are a few considerations to keep in mind regarding the Publishing Service on the APS. Horizontally "scaling

out“ of the Publishing Service across multiple APS instances (on one or multiple machines) will enable more

publication instances to be processed concurrently. In contrast, a single publication job (for example, one with

1,000,000 recipients) is not shared across Publishing Services hosted on different APSs and horizontally scaling out

the Publishing Service will not improve processing time for a single publication, regardless of the number of

recipients. For publications with many recipients, vertically scale the APS on machines that have more CPUs and

RAM. This will enable the Publishing Service to concurrently process more recipients

and the APS to generate more jobs.

Because publishing is a disk-heavy process, use a machine with fast I/O or SAN disks for the FRS and use the

publishing cleanup option for a large publication that does not need redistribution or to view artifacts in the report. To

automatically clean up do not select the default destination.

For Crystal report publications select One database fetch for each batch of recipients if you do not need to apply

unique refresh security for each recipient. Database access will be batched into multiple concurrent, smaller queries.

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

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For Web Intelligence publications select One database fetch for all recipients or One database fetch per recipient.

When you select One database fetch for all recipients for a large publication, to break up the database query into

multiple smaller atomic queries, enter

-Dcom.businessobjects.publisher.scopebatch.max.recipients=<integer>

on the command line of all APSs that host the Publishing Service.

Last I want to mention a few tips regarding the Publishing Post Processing Service. The Publishing Post Processing

Service is called when the Package as ZIP File check box and/or the Merge Exported PDF check box is selected or

when custom post-processing plugins are enabled on a publication. For publications with both check boxes selected,

you must create additional Publishing Post Processing Services to improve publication processing time. Also the

amount of work the Publishing Post Processing Service receives is limited by how the Publishing Service is scaled.

Horizontally scaling out the Publishing Post Processing Service spreads the ZIP- and PDF-merging workload across

multiple Publishing Post Processing Services hosted on different Adaptive Processing Servers.

An interactive diagram showing the interaction of platform components when a scheduled publication of a Crystal

Reports 2011 report is run, can be found in this BI tutorial.

3729 View s 6 Comments Tags: business_intelligence_(businessobjects), publications

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