David Taylors Business Intelligence Blog

Happy Friday!  Hope you’ve had a great week…

A Little Help from My Friends

Ever feel like you need a little help?  I do all the time… and I really appreciate all my other friends out in the blogosphere who help me along the way.  When it comes to working with SAP BusinessObjects, there are two things that I always have trouble finding from time to time.  Where do I find the SAP BusinessObjects Software and the Documentation?  There are lots of links to choose from within the SAP Service Marketplace and so you don’t accidentally get lost, I recommend you add two shortcuts to your browser..

All SAP BusinessObjects Software

For access to all releases of the SAP BusinessObjects Product Suite including all the EPM, GRC and Information Management solutions, go to:
http://service.sap.com/bosap-downloads

All SAP BusinessObjects Documentation

For access to all the documentation of all the current and past releases including release notes, user guides, administration guides, glossaries, reference guides, go to:
http://help.sap.com/businessobject/product_guides/

If you have some favorite SAP BusinessObjects links that you think others should know about, feel free to post them here as a reply to this post.

«Good BI»

If your like me sometimes you want to skip all the marketing hype and just see a demo.  Here is a nice demonstration of the core features of the SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.0 product suite.  If you do not use BusinessObjects today or are evaluating Business Intelligence solutions, you can use this demonstration as a way of helping you set your expectations of what is available from Business Intelligence solutions today.

Having a Look Around

This Harbor Tour (or Harbour Tour for an Canadian friends) is a quick way to get familiar with SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.0.  If you are already using BusinessObjects XIr2 and want to see the new features in XI 3.0, these new features can be accessed in the section, What’s New in BusinessObjects XI 3.0.  You can also download a PDF of new features here.  Let me know your thoughts about the demo.

Highlights

Here are some of the quick highlights of the BusinessObjects XI 3.0 platform that you might not already be familiar with.

• New look and feel user interface that supports copy & paste
• Single Platform for all reporting
• Integration between Xcelsius and Crystal Reports
• Improved Crystal Reports Viewer
• Online and Offline Adhoc Analysis
• Full Lifecycle Management

Evaluating Business Intelligence Solutions

When evaluating BI Solutions, you need to determine what the true business needs are and how you will be using Business Intelligence to solve true business issues.  Can the solution deliver results?  If you are part of IT, your tendency might be to shield the vendors from your business users.  If you do, you are making a mistake.  Check out my previous post about treating your BI Vendor as a Strategic Partner.  Does your Business Intelligence vendor want to partner with you or sell you on the coolest gadget?

«Good BI»

I came across a recently technical support article that I felt was so important,  I wanted to pass it on to anyone and everyone who might be upgrading their SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1 environment to SP2.  If you try the installation, BEWARE!  Without following the advice below you might find that it takes several hours!  Below are the instructions I gleaned for a recently published technical article.

SP2 Is Slow to Install

Installing XI 3.1 Service Pack 2 on a Windows environment may take a long time (several hours) to complete and here’s why.

• The problem is with the process of the MSP (Microsoft Patch) installer that we are using for the SP2 install on Windows platform.
• The install/validate check routine in this process takes approximately around 80% of the install time.
• When using this installer the process to find and replace a large amount of files takes a long time.

Workaround

As the main bottleneck in the Install process is a MSFT Install/Validate check routine, the workaround is to skip the check by performing a Silent Install
There is a significant reduction in the total time taken.   NOTE:  We can skip the check only on MSI 3.x., the silent install does not help on MSI 4.x.  Please refer to the installation guide for xi31_sp2_install_en.pdf and refer to page 21.

Regarding how to run in Silent mode:

1. We need to  generate an ini file firstly with the command line: setup.exe -w <response filepath>\<filename>.ini
2. Next,  run the silent install with the command line: setup.exe -r <response filepath>\<filename>.ini where <response filepath> is the path to the .ini file you created created in step 1.
3. You then need to run the silent install with the commandline:  setup.exe /qn+

This runs the installer with all default options and automatically redeploys the war files to the BOBJ-installed Tomcat

Caution:
Note that because the Install/Validate check routine is skipped in order to improve performance, there is a potential scenario where the machine may run out of resources e.g. lack of disk space, partway through the installation. In such a scenario, the system should be rolled back to where it was before originally, and the appropriate logs will be made (assuming logging was enabled).

Limitation of workaround

There were changes between MSI 3.x and MSI 4.x, such that the MSFT Install/Validate check routine is also always executed in machines with MSI 4.x, regardless of whether it is a GUI or Silent installation. Accordingly, the silent install does not help if the MSI 4.x has been installed on the Windows.  Regarding how to know the version of MSI installed on the computer currently, we may right click the file C:\windows\system32\msiexec.exe, choose “Properties”, check tab “Version”, or you can run, from the commandlilne, “msiexec /?” and hit enter. There is no way to downgrade the MSI from 4.x to 3.x except re-installing Windows.

SAP Note 1356691 for the XI 3.1 Service Pack 2 Install and Deployment Guide PDF. The section for Silent Install begins on page 21.

SAP BusinessObjects Wants Your Input!

The SAP BusinessObjects Product team is looking for your input!  In less than two months, SAP BusinessObjects Users from around the world will be decending on Dallas Texas for the annual SAP BusinessObjects User Conference.  This year, the SAP BusinessObjects is introducing the concept of a product council, where you can provide feedback into the product.  You will get a chance to see how other companies are leveraging SAP BusinessObjects products.  Now is your opportunity to tell them what you love and what you hate…  knowing that feedback will make it’s way back to the product team.

This is a Start

Personally I think this is a great start, but I wish that SAP would send all the product managers and program managers to the conference so that they can speak face-to-face with customers.  Back in the 90’s when I was working with Lotus products, they had a huge annual conference in Orlando and their entire product development team was onsite and had lots of informal one-on-one time with customers.  As an end-user, I loved that.  Even if they weren’t able to address my problems at least I felt I had been heard.

Influence Sessions

SAP is taking a slightly different tact.  They are creating a “council” that will work to gather all the feedback that SAP BusinessObjects users give.  They will consolidate and prioritize the issues and work with the SAP BusinessObjects Product Development team to improve future product releases.  The Influence sessions will include:

Business Objects Enterprise Council – to discuss administration, security, platform features and versioning/change management within the Business Objects Enterprise solution.

Xcelsius Council – to discuss  issues surrounding the new integration with Excel, document areas for improvement, identify issues that are occurring with the system.

WebI Council -was formed last year and will be presenting an update of their work and where their recommendations fit into future SAP BusinessObjects product releases. A portion of the presentation will also include a discussion of migration from Deski to WebI.

Designer Council -  with no major changes in Designer since 1999 (yep, that’s 10 years!), the semanic layer is an area of upcoming innovation and redesign.  Make sure your voice is heard!

Data Management Council – will provide customers with the means for constructive dialog with SAP BusinessObjects regarding their use and implementation of the Data Services product. The Influence Council will provide SAP BusinessObjects with feedback from its users about proposed changes, integrations, or new features in future Data Services releases.

So Let Your Voice Be Heard

Plato said:  Necessity is the mother of invention.  I can tell you through my many years of experience that the best product features and innovations come from solving real-world customer problems. Therefore I strongly encourage you to attend the 2009 SAP BusinessObjects user conference and take full advantage of these Influence Council sessions.  You may be the reason behind the next major innovation at SAP BusinessObjects!

Click here for more information…

«Good BI»

On August 5, 2009, the SAP BusinessObjects Innovation Center announced a prototype for moving Sets Technology directly into the Semantic Layer.

Potential Future of Sets

Since the EOL announcement of BusinessObjects Performance Manager and two of the three analytic engines, Process Analysis and Predictive Analysis, there has been an ongoing question on the future of Set Analysis.  I have long been an advocate of the incredible power and importants of sets to help customers get a better understand of how data is changing under the covers.  If you have 100 more customers, that’s great… but how many did you lose and how many did you gain?  You may have lost 50 and actually added 150.  What about my “Gold” Customers?  How many new Gold Customers do I have?  Where did they go?  Did they become Silver members?

We have many customers who have successfully implemented Set Analysis; however the solution had not had significant R&D investment for some time and was tied to the legacy metrics engine of Performance Manager.  How could this technology be integrated into the new XI 3.X platform?

Sets and the Semantic Layer – I’m in Heaven

The Innovation Center has delivered a prototype which show Sets integrated directly into the Semantic Layer.  This prototype is a plug-in to the universe that allows you to create these “sets” , static or dynamic – all in the query panel.  Semantic layer sets lets customers leverage the complexity of  sets natively within that environment.  This is a huge step forward.

Check out the 15 minute video on the SDN website

You can see that this implementation can support all the classic calendar sets which will support of joiners, leavers, stayers, which are at the core of Set Analysis.  In this labs implementation there is support for both Visual Data and Visual Sets; however I hope this is expanded in the future to support Freehand SQL and an imported list.

I think this is a fantastic new innovation and needs to be added to the core product ASAP.  If you think so too, let your voice be heard:  http://sets.uservoice.com

I’ll keep you up-to-date with additional innovations around sets and may provide some additional posts on this topic if there’s interest.  Let me know.

«Good BI»