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SAP Business Intelligence Quick Start Guide
SAP Business Intelligence Quick Start Guide

SAP Business Intelligence Quick Start Guide: Actionable business insights from the SAP BusinessObjects BI platform

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Profile Icon Vinay Singh
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Paperback Feb 2019 262 pages 1st Edition
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Arrow left icon
Profile Icon Vinay Singh
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Paperback Feb 2019 262 pages 1st Edition
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Renews at ₹800p/m
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SAP Business Intelligence Quick Start Guide

Overview of SAP BusinessObject Business Intelligence 4.2

This book will take you through the concepts related to SAP Business Intelligence (BI) and the tools associated with the SAP BusinessObjects BI platform 4.2. While we start with basic concepts and understanding the platform, and gradually progress to deeper insights into the various tools offered by the platform. The book offers a good overview of all the tools with examples of how to use the functionalities offered by each tool.

This chapter provides a high-level overview of SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.2. We will walk through SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.2 and its benefits, identifying the components of SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.2 and enterprise data sources for BI reporting tools. We will learn about the SAP BusinessObjects BI platform and different BI tools that are available to use in a business scenario. We will learn how to...

BI and its benefits

BI is a strategic and reporting tool with sets of methodologies and processes for transforming data into meaningful insights, such as sales reports, slice and dice finance reports, and predictive analysis, to support decision making.

Some of the benefits are as follows:

  • Decreased query and reporting time
  • Identifying and track key performance metrics against their direct competitors and the overall market
  • It is fast at providing reports, performing analysis, and planning
  • It helps you make better business decisions
  • It directly helps to reduce costs, which leads to higher revenue for an organization

The SAP BusinessObjects BI platform provides an enterprise BI with systems that are scalable, flexible, and adaptive. They have a service-oriented architecture (SOA) that allows us to deploy and standardize SAP BusinessObjects BI implementations. SAP offers both...

Components of SAP BusinessObjects 4.2

SAP BusinessObject BI platform 4.2 is a reporting and analytics platform that targets business users. It is an innovation platform that simplifies, enhances, and extends the capabilities of BI. It consists of a number of reporting applications with which a user can discover data, create applications and dashboards, and perform analytics to derive business insights. The platform ensures increased responsiveness, reduced costs and workload, and helps organizations to make better decisions.

We need to understand the various tools available in SAP BusinessObject 4.2 to perform reporting. There are multiple management tools, platform services, and client tools in SAP BusinessObjects 4.2 that support the entire range of user reporting, queries, analysis, and performance management.

Some of the salient features of the SAP BI platform are as follows...

Enterprise data sources for BI reporting tools

There are many data source options for SAP BusinessObjects 4.2. You can get data for reporting from nearly all possible real-world sources. In the following diagram, there is a typical scenario for data sources for SAP BusinessObjects 4.2:

In this book, we will focus on the following important data sources:

  • SAP HANA
  • SAP Business Warehouse (BW)
  • SAP BusinessObjects Universe
  • Files
In general, Universe and semantic layers are used interchangeably. Both are common business terms meaning a collection of corporate data. In our case, in addition to Universe, SAP HANA views and SAP BW queries also qualify as semantic layers.

A semantic layer in SAP BusinessObjects BI enables the following:

  • A single user experience across all data
  • Consistency
  • Ease of consumption by applications and tools
  • Business user, who is self-sufficient
Semantic...

Creating a BEx query to directly access SAP BW as a data source

You can again use the sample data from eFashion that we have downloaded earlier. We will refer the dataset from eFashion, you can choose cube of your own that is available in your system:

  1. Start BEx Query Designer and connect to the SAP BW system when asked to provide login credentials.
  2. Create a new BEx Query using the Info Provider eFashion cube. Move the characteristic store (technical name = EF_STORE) to the Rows section.
  3. Use the basic key figures, amount sold (EFAMTSOLD) and quantity sold (QTY_SOLD), in the Columns section.
  4. Save the query in the role folder.
  5. Execute the query in the BEx Web Analyzer to view the data and see if it is correct.
  6. Make the necessary changes in the BEx query definition to enable users of your report.
  7. To select the data related to specific countries states (EF_STATE). Save the query and...

Local data sources

Files, although normally not the optimal choice, can be used to directly feed the reporting tools and Universes. Most reporting tools can directly access file sources, such as CSV and XLS file types. In addition, Universes can get data from files and then feed the reporting tool indirectly.

We have seen many customers use this option in combination with other data sources (such as DW, SAP HANA). A typical use cases is reading the actual sales figures from data mart, whereas the target values are read from spreadsheets.

What is the prerequisite for installing SAP HANA Live?
You need SAP HANA Appliance Software Support Package Stack 08 or higher, or SAP HANA Studio Software Support Package Stack 08 or higher. You can use the Software Update Manager (SUM) for SAP HANA to catch up with the recent updates if SAP HANA Appliance software is already installed.
...

Summary

With this chapter, we laid the foundations for the book. The intention was to quickly go through the basic concepts and refresh users who are already familiar with SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.2. By now, we should have learned the basics of BusinessObjects 4.2 and the different tools available to use in a business scenario. We also learned how to access various data sources with and without a SAP BusinessObject Universe. We will use these data sources, connections, and business layers in the upcoming chapters.

In the next chapter, we will learn how to create a basic workbook with SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft Office, followed by creating a presentation using BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft PowerPoint.

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Key benefits

  • Get up and running with the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform
  • Perform effective data analysis and visualization for actionable insights
  • Enhance your BI strategy by creating different types of reports and dashboards using SAP BusinessObjects

Description

The SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform is a powerful reporting and analysis tool. This book is the ideal introduction to the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform, introducing you to its data visualization, visual analytics, reporting, and dashboarding capabilities. The book starts with an overview of the BI platform and various data sources for reporting. Then, we move on to looking at data visualization, analysis, reporting, and analytics using BusinessObjects Business Intelligence tools. You will learn about the features associated with reporting, scheduling, and distribution and learn how to deploy the platform. Toward the end, you will learn about the strategies and factors that should be considered during deployment. By the end, you will be confident working with the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform to deliver better insights for more effective decision making.

Who is this book for?

This book is for Business Intelligence professionals and existing SAP ecosystem users who want to perform effective Business Intelligence using SAP BusinessObjects.

What you will learn

  • Work with various tools to create interactive data visualization and analysis
  • Query, report, and analyze with SAP Business Objects Web Intelligence
  • Create a report in SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise
  • Visualize and manipulate data using an SAP Lumira Storyboard
  • Deep dive into the workings of the SAP predictive analytics tool
  • Deploy and configure SAP BO Intelligence platform 4.2

Product Details

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Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Feb 27, 2019
Length: 262 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781789346206
Vendor :
SAP
Category :
Languages :

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Product Details

Publication date : Feb 27, 2019
Length: 262 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781789346206
Vendor :
SAP
Category :
Languages :

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Table of Contents

13 Chapters
Section 1: Introduction to SAP Business Intelligence Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Overview of SAP BusinessObject Business Intelligence 4.2 Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Section 2: Data Visualization, Analysis, and Reporting Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
SAP BusinessObject Analysis Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
SAP BusinessObject Design Studio Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
SAP BusinessObject Web Intelligence Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
SAP BusinessObject Crystal Reports Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
SAP BusinessObject SAP Lumira Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
SAP BusinessObject Predictive Analytics 2.0 Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Section 3: BI Platform Features and Deployment Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
BI Platform Features Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
BI Platform Deployment Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Other Books You May Enjoy Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
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