Migrating BEx-based Information Spaces to BusinessObjects 4.0

Sometimes in software it can feel that you take two steps forward and one step back.

One example of this is with BEx-based Explorer Information Spaces when migrating from XI 3.1 to BO 4.0. In 4.0, SAP removed the ability to create information spaces against the legacy universe (unv) and instead required everyone to use the new universe format (unx).

On the surface this lack of support for the legacy universe didn’t seem to really be a problem because BusinessObjects 4.0 provides a painless way to migrate universes from the legacy unv to unx format.

What I didn’t realize initially until a few months ago was that this WAS be a big problem.  A big problem for customers who were creating Information Spaces based on BEx queries and Infocubes.

I’d like to share with you my journey to understand what is really required to move my Bex-based Information Spaces to BusinessObjects v4.0.

Explorer, BEx and Unx

Explorer is NOT an OLAP-aware product, therefore is doesn’t understand hierarchies, so in XI 3.1 the unv would flatten the hierarchies for you can generate a flattened hierarchy as L00, L01, L02, L03, etc. There are some advantages to this approach, but there are obvious drawbacks as well.

With BusinessObjects v4.0, SAP rolled out the idea of a transient universe, such that if you wanted to create a WebIntelligence report you didn’t have to create a universe first. WebIntelligence would create a universe on the fly and a hierarchy is treated as a single column with the ability to use +/- to expand and collapse. (You can read more about WebIntelligence and BICS connectivity here.)

If  you try and convert an XI 3.1 universe based on a BEx query to a unx, it gives you the following error:

Now What?

The only 2 options I came up with to overcome this challenge were:

  • Use WebIntelligence (unv) to generate an Excel file and have Explorer index the xls file.
  • Leverage a Multi-Source relational connection to  connect to the the BEx cube and hierarchy relationally

Approach 1 – Excel Output

The approach I took here was to use the legacy unv file to create a WebI report.  I would then schedule this WebI report and generate an Excel file.  The Excel file would overwrite to ‘source’ Excel file of the Information Space.

To set this up, I created the WebI report with no header and a table that starts at position (0,0).  This table will easily export to Excel.

Sample WebI output prepped for Excel

Next, export the results to Excel 2007 format (xlsx)

Resulting WebI output in Excel

I then uploaded the xls file the BI Launchpad and used it as a source for my Information Space.

 

Once Explorer was able to generate the information space the way I wanted it, I was read to schedule the WebIntelligence report to Excel output.

Information Space based off an Excel file

Now, look at the properties of the Excel file, because we will need this when scheduling our WebIntelligence report.

Find the FRS location of the Excel File

I can now schedule WebIntelligence to run on a schedule and since I know the physical location of the Excel file in the FRS.

In my case the directory is: D:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\FileStore\Input\a_053\035\001\74549\   and the file name is:  work order excel-guid[e93a2669-0847-4cd2-b87d-390beb1c956c1].xlsx.

I can use that file name in the WebIntelligence scheduler and write over the source xlsx file for my information space.

When scheduling the file make sure and select the following:

  • Recurrence – chose the frequency that makes sense for you.
  • Formats – chose Excel.   (The default is always WebI.)
  • Destinations – chose File System.  Do NOT keep an instance in the history.  Use the xlsx directory and filename.
Select the correct parameters in the recurring schedule

As a last step, I would then schedule Explorer to reindex the Information Space after the file was changed and all will be good.

Scheduling Indexing for Explorer

Now the information space should be generated and everything should work just fine.

I must say that at first I really struggled to get this technique to work.  I’m not sure if my WebI output file was too large or if there was some other type of problem.  I spent hours (and hours and hours) trying to troubleshoot why this wasn’t working.  After speaking with technical support and having them attempt the same process, we thought that there was some type of incompatibility between the Excel files generated by WebIntelligence and the Excel format required by the Information Space for indexing.

There were a couple of different errors I encountered.  A few times I forgot to specify Excel as the output type so I got this error:

The only way I was able to fix the error was to restart my Explorer services and reschedule the WebI report and make sure it was exporting in Excel format.

Another error I got was when I didn’t properly exit the information space before attempting to reindex it.  In that case I would get an indexing error and see this when opened up the information space through “Manage Spaces”.

I found that this method of solving the issues was somewhat flaky.  Sometimes I found that after WebIntelligence overwrote the Excel file, Explorer is not longer able to index it.  It’ was very frustrating and technical support was only able to provide limited support because this is not the recommended solution for the problem.

So what did SAP recommend?  They suggested a much less elegant but more robust and fully supported approach — a multi-source universe.

Approach 2 – Multi-source Solution

This solution is less straightforward, but I was able to get it working and SAP says that this is the only solution that’s officially supported.

There are three things we need to do:

  1. Generate the flattened hierarchy lists and load them into another database (e.g. SQL Server)
  2. Read the SAP Note 1656905 about creating a unx universe from a BW Infocube
  3. Link the two systems via a multi-source connection

In order to generate the flattened hierarchy, you must use the legacy unv universe against your Infocube.  The ability to flatten a hierarchy is not available in a unx universe.  (SAP says that BICS is not there to flatten the hierarchy and there are no plans to enable it because then it’s no longer a hierarchy.  Bummer.)

Next, create a WebIntelligence report based on a legacy unv universe.  Add all levels of the hierarchy to the report and run the report.  Once you have the report, export the results to an Excel file and load them into a relational database.

I created a table called: tblPCHier

Flattened BW Hiearchy in SQL Server

Next, I imported the Excel output into my new database table:

BW Hierarchy is loaded in SQL Server

Note:  You need to watch out for accidental duplicate names a lower levels of the hierarchy.  Because WebIntelligence will automatically try and aggregate multiple values, you need to be aware that if the child nodes have the same name but a different parent value, the child nodes will roll up and display and aggregated value within Explorer.  If this is not what you want, then you will want to make sure that the child node names are unique.

Next we are ready to go into the IDT (Information Design Tool) and create our multi-source universe.  Follow the instructions listed in the SAP Note 1656905 to understand how to create a unx on top of a BW Infocube.

Once our BW star schema has been added to our data foundation, we can add another connection to our other datasource, the relational database, so we can bring in our hierarchy.

Lastly, join the column from the BEx fact table (SAP) to the key of my hierarchy table (SQL Server).

When our multi-source universe is complete we should see a connection to SAP, a connection to a relational database, a data foundation and a universe.

Completed unx components

Here is a preview of my hierarchy table from within the IDT:

View of flattened Hierarchy

So now we just need to verify that everything we need is in the universe.  The big challenge being that not everything from BEx is available in a unx.  Here are some of the things we lose when we go to a relational universe:

  • Calculated Key Figures
  • Restricted Key Figures
  • Variables
  • Conditions
  • Unit / Currency Conversion
  • Hierarchies (which we know about)
  • Custom Structures
  • Time Dependent Objects

I suggest you commit this list to memory.

In one case I had over 50 calculated key figures that I needed to map into Explorer and therefore recreating the logic in SQL was difficult and tedious.

In that case I had measures that included some time dependent calculations:

  • Total AR
  • Current AR, Over 30 days, Over 60 days, Over 90 days, Over 120 days
  • Current Debit, Debit over 30, Debit over 60,  Debit over 90,  Debit over 120
  • Current Credit, Credit over 30, Credit over 60 and Credit over 120

In BEx, I had implemented exit variables to do dynamic time calculations.  Now I need to do the same thing for Explorer.

To accomplish this, I built SQL Server Views which dynamically calculated values such as Last Day Previous Month and Last Day Previous Month Previous Year.  I could then use these dynamic calculates in my universe.

Equivalent userexit logic in SQL Server

Although I included these views in the data model, I did not need to join them to anything.

These views were simply used to dynamically generate a date value which was used to restrict the queries to the correct data elements.

Here is a look at the measures that were created in the universe (click on the image to enlarge):

Measures within the Universe

Here is a screenshot of the WHERE logic for “Total AR, Last Month”:

WHERE Logic for restricted key figure

Here is some of the logic spelled out.

WHERE logic for “Total AR” that leverages curDate()

@Select (ZFIAR_C01\Clearing/Reverse/Posting Dates\Posting date in the document) <= curDate()
OR
(Select (ZFIAR_C01\Clearing/Reverse/Posting Dates\Clearing date) > curDate()
OR
Select (ZFIAR_C01\Clearing/Reverse/Posting Dates\Clearing date) < {d ‘1900-01-01’}
)

WHERE logic for “Total AR, Last Month” that leveages Last Day Prev Month view

@Select (ZFIAR_C01\Clearing/Reverse/Posting Dates\Posting date in the document) <= @Select(SQL\V Last Day Prev Month\Last Day Prev Month)
OR
(Select (ZFIAR_C01\Clearing/Reverse/Posting Dates\Clearing date) <= @Select(SQL\V Last Day Prev Month\Last Day Prev Month)
OR
Select (ZFIAR_C01\Clearing/Reverse/Posting Dates\Clearing date) < {d ‘1900-01-01’}
)

If you have to do a lot of this type of time-based calculation logic, you might also want to review some of my previous blogs on the topic.  You don’t necessarily have to create views in the database to do the time calculations:
http://trustedbi.com/2009/12/29/timeseries1/
http://trustedbi.com/2010/01/06/timeseries2/
http://trustedbi.com/2010/01/18/timeseries3/

Cavet

This method of implementation is not for the faint hearted.  I can potentially mean a lot of work.

I would like to highlight some important considerations:

  • If your hierarchies are change on a regular basis, you will need to automate the updating of the SQL Server table which contains the hierarchy.
  • If you have a lot of calculated key figure which will need to be recreated within SQL.
  • Any logic you built into variables or user exits may need to be recreated within SQL.

Given these constraints it’s hard for me to endorse converting all your Explorer information spaces to BusinessObjects v4.0 without first understanding the complexity of your Infocubes. The good news is that SAP BusinessObjects v4.1 will overcome these limitations.

Try the Excel method first.  It’s worth a shot.

 BusinessObjects v4.1 to the Rescue

Recently in a What’s New in Explorer 4.1  ASUG call, SAP announced that in BusinessObjects 4.1, unv files will be supported.  This is great news.  Of course that begs the question.  If unx is the way forward, how will we flatten our SAP hierarchies in the future?

SAP BusinessObjects 4.1 is currently in ramp-up and the latest information on Service Marketplace says that it is targeted to exit ramp-up on November 10, 2013.  As always, this date is subject to change.

On additional piece of advice, if you are curious to learn about future releases and maintenance schedules, I suggest you check out this site on Service Marketplace: https://websmp108.sap-ag.de/bosap-maintenance-schedule Although these days are only planned dates, they are useful to have when planning system maintenance and upgrades.

Hope you’ve found this helpful.

«Good BI»

3 replies on “Migrating BEx-based Information Spaces to BusinessObjects 4.0”

  1. 4.0 SP6 will also support UNV if you can’t wait for 4.1

    Enter this in CMC -> Applications-> Explorer
    com.sap.explorer.unv.enabled=true

    Great explanation.

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