Xcelsius Dashboards on SAP NetWaver BW Implementation Best Practices

Patrice Le Bihan, SAP Intelligence Platform & NetWeaver RIG, Americas Dr. Gerd Schffl, SAP Intelligence Platform & NetWeaver RIG, EMEA Raghu Ganesh, SAP Intelligence Platform & NetWeaver RIG, APJ

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Agenda

1. SAP BusinessObjects Xcelsius Enterprise Overview 2. Using Xcelsius with SAP NetWeaver BW
Query as a Web Service Live Office SAP NetWeaver BW Connection

3. SAP NetWeaver BW Connection in Detail

Demo Tips and Tricks Where to Find further Information

SAP AG 2010 / 1

SAP BusinessObjects Xcelsius Enterprise

What it is
Xcelsius is a tool for rapid development of visualizations and highly interactive BI Dashboards through a flexible and easy to use point and click interface Tool of choice for BI dashboards solution Key component of a BI strategy Highly visual and interactive user interface Simple and intuitive dashboards for casual BI users: executives, managers and operational staff

Provides the big picture : A clear overview of the business performance Summarized data and key performance indicators

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SAP BusinessObjects Xcelsius Enterprise

What it is not
Xcelsius is not a comprehensive BI tool
Not a reporting tool for detailed operational reporting No built-in paging No export to Excel or PDF Not an ad hoc or OLAP analysis tool Analysis paths are predefined by dashboard author Not an application building tool No state management No built-in persistence

To provide the next level of detail :

Use embedded hyperlinks to detailed views for contextual drill down Examples : InfoView openDocument URL to WebI Report-to-Report Interface (RRI) URL to BEx Web Analyzer reports

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SAP BusinessObjects Xcelsius Enterprise

Elements of Xcelsius Design Time
Publish To:
Infoview Dashboard Builder SAP NetWeaver Portal Crystal Reports 2008 Microsoft Office Adobe PDF HTML

Run Time
Xcelsius Flash

Excel Embedded

logic defined in Excel is converted to Adobe Flex

http / web services Connectivity

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SAP BusinessObjects Xcelsius Enterprise

Intuitive Dashboard Design Environment
Xcelsius enables creating dashboards and visualizations by Free-form layering a variety of visualizations on a canvas Customizing visualizations Setting fine-grained control over eventing between visualizations and defining data bindings Compiling solution into flash format makes deploying to various environments easy
Select from Extensive List of UI Elements

Free-form Canvas Layout

Eventing and Data Modeling Layer

Customize Visual Properties

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Agenda

1. SAP BusinessObjects Xcelsius Enterprise Overview 2. Using Xcelsius with SAP NetWeaver BW
Query as a Web Service Live Office SAP NetWeaver BW Connection

3. SAP NetWeaver BW Connection in Detail

Demo Tips and Tricks Where to Find further Information

SAP AG 2010 / 6

Xcelsius and SAP NetWeaver BW

Options for SAP NetWeaver BW data access
Three implementation options: Universe Queries via Query as a Web Service Live Office retrieving data from Crystal Reports or Web Intelligence
CRYSTAL REPORTS UNIVERSE WEB INTELLIGENCE

Xcelsius Dashboard

Direct access via BI Consumer Services SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform (BusinessObjects Enterprise)
BICS API ODS OLAP BAPI

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SAP NetWeaver BW

Xcelsius and SAP NetWeaver BW

Query as a Web Service
Universe Queries via Query as a Web Service

Live access to BW data Leverage Semantic Layer from Universe Universe based on a BEx query, InfoCube or BW data manager (via Data Federator) Uses BOE for administration and authorization Easy Integration into Infoview Access to non BW data

Xcelsius Dashboard

UNIVERSE

Use this option for

OLAP BAPI

SAP and non-SAP data Existing BusinessObjects environment SQL Access to BW or Universe off an InfoCube

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SAP NetWeaver BW

Xcelsius and SAP NetWeaver BW

Query as a Web Service

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Xcelsius and SAP NetWeaver BW

Live Office
Live Office retrieving data from Crystal Reports or Web Intelligence

Xcelsius Dashboard

Documents are usually scheduled to avoid live access to BW Access to SAP R3/SAP ERP via Crystal Reports Leverage Semantic Layer from Universe Universe based on a BEx query, InfoCube or BW data manager (via Data Federator) Uses BOE for administration and authorization Easy Integration into Infoview Access to non BW data

CRYSTAL REPORTS

WEB INTELLIGENCE

SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform

ODS OLAP BAPI

Use this option for

SAP and non-SAP data Existing BusinessObjects environment Scheduled report instances

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SAP NetWeaver BW

Xcelsius and SAP NetWeaver BW

Live Office

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Xcelsius and SAP NetWeaver BW

SAP NetWeaver BW Connection
Direct connector to BEx queries

Consume BEx Queries and Views Support of all variable type (incl. personalization) No limitations in query features used BW authorization enforced Free characteristics list of values for filtering

Xcelsius Dashboard

SAP NetWeaver platform integration

BEx Web Runtime

Dashboard authorization Favorites and Roles Transport capability (integrated into DW workbench) Translation of texts Access through SAP NetWeaver Portal using BEx iView Does not require BOE HTTP / Web Services

Available with SAP NetWeaver 7.01 SP5 BICS API Use this option for

Pure SAP environment (no BOE) Multilingual requirement

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SAP NetWeaver BW

Xcelsius and SAP NetWeaver BW

SAP NetWeaver BW Connection
Xcelsius Enterprise

BEx Queries & Views

SAP AG 2009. All rights reserved. / Page 13

Agenda

1. SAP BusinessObjects Xcelsius Enterprise Overview 2. Using Xcelsius with SAP NetWeaver BW
Query as a Web Service Live Office SAP NetWeaver BW Connection

3. SAP NetWeaver BW Connection in Detail

Demo Tips and Tricks Where to Find further Information

SAP AG 2010 / 14

Demo

Xcelsius Best Practices

SAP NetWeaver BW Specific
Be careful with existing BEx queries, potentially too large result sets Use Filters and Variables as Input Values to reduce the amount of data Use data from multiple queries, all from the same SAP NetWeaver BW system Aggregate on the back end Key figures can be retrieved as raw numbers or formatted strings Add debug and runtime information to the dashboard with URL parameters, during development No built-in tree control for hierarchy support, but partners options available Xcelsius does not support every Excel function and does not support Macros or VB Script

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SAP NetWeaver BW Connection

Performance Analysis
Use URL parameters known from BEx Web: &Profiling = X: display the runtime statistics (Java, OLAP, Data Manager) directly from the dashboard &Trace=X: record an RSTT trace directly from the dashboard &Debug=X: Get information about the Java call stack (mainly for developers) Further information can be gained from standard tools such as Http Watch.

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Resources

SAP Public Web

SAP Developer Network (SDN): www.sdn.sap.com/irj/boc/xcelsius Xcelsius 2008 Best Practices:
http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/a084a11c-6564-2b10-79ac-cc1eb3f017ac

Implementation Options for Xcelsius on BW: http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/x/wADHC

Xcelsius 2008 and BW with Live Office and QaaWS:
http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/11528

Xcelsius 2008 and SAP NetWeaver BW Connection:

http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/x/EoBVC

Related SAP Education and Certification Opportunities

www.sap.com/services/education/catalog/businessobjectstraining/index.epx

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Thank You!
How to contact us: Patrice Le Bihan, patrice.le.bihan@sap.com Dr. Gerd Schffl, gerd.schoeffl@sap.com Raghu Ganesh, raghu.ganesh@sap.com

Copyright 2010 SAP AG All Rights Reserved

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