SAP Business Objects Input Document V3

SAP Business Objects

Innovation for Agile Results

SAP Business Objects

Topics

BOBJ Introduction

BOBJ Overview

Crystal Reports

Exporting Output from Crystal Reports

Scheduling Crystal Reports

Dashboard Reports

What is SAP BOBJ?

• BOBJ, stands for Business Objects its the leading BI (business intelligence) company which has been acquired by SAP lately. SAP Business Objects BI (also known as BO or BOBJ) is a suite of front-end applications that allow business users to view, sort and analyze business intelligence data.

• The suite includes the following key applications:

• Crystal Reports - Enables users to design and generate reports

• Web Intelligence - Provides a self-service environment for creating  ad hoc queries and analysis of data both online and offline

• Explorer - Allows users to search through BI data sources using an interface. Users do not have to create quires to search the data and results are shown with a chart that indicates the best information match.

SAP Business Objects

SAP BOBJ OVERVIEW

SAP BOBJ ARCHITECTURE

SAP Business Objects BI Launch Pad

BI launch pad (formerly known as Info-view) is the standard web portal for users of the SAP Business Objects Business Intelligence (BI) platform. BI launch pad provides an improved user interface and additional options for interface customization.

CMC – Central management console with this

List of activity involved in SAP BOBJ end user oriented.

- Login into the BI Launch pad- Home page view of BI Launch Pad- Viewing a report - Scheduling a report in BI platform- Changing report parameter - Exporting a report output using BI launch pad .

SAP Business Objects BI Launch Pad - Initial home page for BI Launch pad

SAP Business Objects

List of Application in BI Launch pad

• Analysis edition for OLAP• BI Workspace • Crystal report for enterprise • Explorer • Information Steward• Module • Web intelligence

This above application can be directly opened in browser and we can work on it . Report which are developed using above application are save directly into the BI platform and can be accessed via URL

SAP Business Objects

Applications - Which are listed in SAP BI Launch Pad

SAP Business Objects

Crystal Report Overview:SAP Crystal Reports software is the de facto standard in reporting. By using SAP Crystal Reports, we can create powerful, richly formatted, dynamic reports from virtually any data source, delivered in dozens of formats, in up to 24 languages. It turns almost any data source into interactive, actionable information that can be accessed offline or online, from applications, portals and mobile devices.

Versions: Crystal Report 2013 Crystal Report 2011 Crystal Report 2008

Data Sources: Native, ODBC, OLE DB, and JDBC connectivity to relational, SAP Tables clusters and functions, SAP Info sets, SAP BW MDX Query, SAP Operational data store, Universes, OLAP, web services, XML, Text files, enterprise data sources, and salesforce.com.

SAP Business Objects

Crystal report Databases :PostgreSQL, Sybase, IBM DB2, Ingres, Microsoft Access,

Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL and Oracle Crystal report read-only report viewing: The new RPTR format

provides a read-only RPT export option, giving you the confidence that users won’t be able to modify reports.

Typical Crystal report Output shown below : (using SAP Crystal 2013)

SAP Business Objects

Exporting Output from Crystal Reports:Open, view, explore, save, and share reports from your desktop – all without IT support even while working offline. • Drill down into charts and table summaries for a 360-degree view of your

data• Narrow your data selection with dynamic sort buttons, parameters, and

prompts• Make informed decisions with a better view of your data and what-if

scenarios• Share files directly from within the SAP Crystal Server for secure Web access• Capture, save, and export relevant data views to PDF and Microsoft Office

formats

We can export Crystal Report output into below file formats:Crystal Report (.rpt)PDFMicrosoft Excel (97-2003)Microsoft Excel (97-2003) Data-OnlyMicrosoft Excel Workbook Data-OnlyMicrosoft Word (97-2003) - EditableRich Text Format (RTF)Separated Values (CSV)XML

SAP Business Objects

Below Picture shows list of formats available while exporting a report in Crystal Report

SAP Business Objects

Scheduling a Crystal Report• The user would like to select required report for scheduling, • Right click on a report and select "Schedule" from the drop down list of

options provided.• This would open the ‘Schedule’ screen and display a list of schedule options

like below, which the user would work through and populate, finally click on Schedule button.

• You can schedule an object to automatically run at specified times. When a scheduled object runs successfully, an instance is created.

• An instance is a version of the object that contains data from the time the object ran.

• You can view a list of instances in an object's history. If you have access rights to view objects on demand,

• you can view and refresh any instance to retrieve the latest data from the data source.

• Scheduling and viewing instances ensures that objects have the most up-to-date information available for viewing, printing, and distributing

SAP Business Objects

To schedule an object :

For object options with a default setting, you can keep the default or change the setting when scheduling an object.

1. On the Documents tab, right-click the object to schedule and select Schedule.

2. In the "Schedule" dialog box, click a category in the navigation list, and then set options in that category for the object.Repeat this step for each category that you want to set scheduling options for.

3. Click Schedule. The "History" dialog box appears, displaying your scheduled job as an instance with a status of Running.

SAP Business Objects

SAP Business Objects - Dashboards

SAP Business Object Dashboards Dashboards is a drag and drop visualization tool designed to create interactive analytics for powerful, personalized dashboards. Dashboards is data visualization software that allows you to create and export interactive dashboards. These dashboards contain various components, such as charts, graphs, and buttons, that are bound to data sources. These components display the data in a compact and visual manner, which can then help the dashboard consumer see trends and make informed business decisions.

The available editions of this product are the following: SAP Business Objects Dashboards; SAP Crystal Dashboards,

departmental edition; SAP Crystal Dashboards, personal edition; and SAP Crystal Presentation Design. In previous releases, these editions were known as Business Objects Xcelsius Enterprise, Xcelsius Engage Server, Xcelsius Engage, and Xcelsius Present, respectively.

Data sources: SOAP-based Web services , Microsoft Excel 2010

(32-bit)/2007/2003, SAP Crystal Reports via Live Office*, XML, Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services 2005, Adobe LiveCycle Data Services, Flash Variables, any ODBC data source via SAP Crystal Reports Server Web Service Design Tool*

SAP Business Objects

Key Capabilities Business Object Dashboards: Drag and drop dashboard designer with prebuilt templates Easy to understand visualization components for every business user Flexible deployment options including portals, SAP Business Objects BI

platforms, MS Office applications, and PDFs Static or live data via multiple data connectivity options Real-time enabled dashboards through direct integration with SAP

Business Objects Event Insight. Current Version SAP Dashboard Design 4.1 Monitor performance across your organization with key performance

indicators (KPIs) visualize trends and use “what if” analysis to understand the impact of

business change Consolidate reports and live data from multiple sources into a single

dashboard Share dashboard views online or via familiar tools such as Microsoft

Office and Adobe PDFs

SAP Business Objects

Picture below shows a Typical Dashboard created using Dashboard Design Tool 4.x