I was reviewing my SAP Support Portal Newsletter after returning from vacation and discovered that SAP has released SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 Service Pack 06 – Full Build. I really wasn’t expecting that — but I was happy to see it. It sure beats worrying about the correct ‘upgrade path’ to such as the complications associated to moving to SP5.
XI 3.1 SP6 has released on all the standard platforms: Linux on IA32 32bit, HPIA_64, HP-UX on PA-RISC 32bit, AIX 32 Bit, Solaris on SPARC 32bit.
Although I’ve been actively using v4.0 for a while, I know that many SAP Analytics customers haven’t yet made the transition to v4.0.
I would definitely like to hear from customers who are still waiting to make the move to find out where the hesitation is. From what I understand most of the core stability issues have been resolved.
Highlights on XI 3.1 SP6
The big standout I saw was support for Windows Server 2012, which I had been asked about several times and I’m glad to see it’s there.
This release also fixes an outstanding issue with the length of the opendocument URL character limit of 2083 characters, which can be an issue if you are doing a lot of document to document hyperlinking.
If you are interested in additional details around what’s new, you can find that here:
http://help.sap.com/businessobject/product_guides/boexir31SP6/en/xi31_sp6_whats_new_en.pdf
You can also find the PAM document here:
https://websmp107.sap-ag.de/~form/sapnet?_SHORTKEY=00200797470000096350&_SCENARIO=01100035870000000202&
Other Notables for XI 3.1
Know your dates and deadlines. You need to plan to be off XI 3.1 by the end of 2015 and that’s not very far away.
Release to Customer:09/30/2008 General Availability:09/30/2008 End of Mainstream Maintenance:12/31/2015 End of Priority One Support Phase:12/31/2017
It’s hard to believe it’s been 7 years already! I’m feeling old.
Are You Getting Notifications?
If you have access to SAP Support, then you should also be taking advantage of regular alert notification emails that you can proactively receive from support. You can sign up for them here:
http://service.sap.com/notifications
You can define exactly what products you want to receive notifications about.
Here is a video tutorial that walks you through it.
Don’t delay. Sign up today.
«Good BI»
“plan to be off XI 3.1 by the end of 2015” well I’m just completing a project at a client who is using good old version 6.5! Hate to think what they’re upgrade path will be like.
Al, I’ve just done a 6.5 to BI4 upgrade. It wasn’t pleasant!
The major features that we were looking forward to in SP6 were the support for newer IE browser versions, support for Java 7 and the .xlsx export feature. However, in our testing we discovered that the .xlsx export feature didn’t work. That’s pretty bad testing on SAP’s part. We are currently waiting for FP6.1 which says will correct the problem.
Have you actually tried downloading the SP6 full build software from the SAP Marketplace and installing it?
I only ask because, I’ve just built a VM, commenced with the installation of the Server tools and everything was fine… Oh wait, no, I’ve got no SIA….
I’ve now reverted back to my snapshot of the VM prior to the installation and installed SP5 full build, SIA present straight away. Installing SP6 patch now….
Hi Ian… sorry for the late reply. Make sure that when you download the SP6 build you download it from the Installations section of the support site, NOT the packages and patches location.
I checked with support and they confirmed that sometimes customers go to the wrong location.
Hi David, It’s not quite as simple as that… I’d downloaded the full build (I’ve had to talk many of my clients through the differences previously) but the issues I had when performing a ‘default install’ were that the passwords I’d used for the Administrator and the database users, were throwing back error messages from the installer. As a workaround for this, I installed SQL Server 2008 beforehand and created the databases, ODBC connections etc and then tried the same installer package… this time it worked. It just doesn’t ‘out of the box’ unless you have a DB client already installed.
Both my BI4.0 SP06 and XI3.1 SP6 test machines are fine now, I’ll see what I can break during testing, but I can already confirm NO ISSUES with Java v7 update 21 or Internet Explorer 10 😀 on either platform
Hi Dave,
Thank you for the post. Curious to know the difference between full build and patch build. I contacted SAP for XI 3.1 SP6 full build and was told it doesn’t exist. Our system is going to upgrade from XI 3.1 SP2 to SP6. What is the best upgrade path?
Thanks,
Wendy
Hmm. I double-checked with support and they told me it did exist. I would recommend just installing the patches to move from SP2 to SP6. You don’t need to do a full install from scratch.
Hi David,
I am afraid SAP removed the “SBOP ENTERPRISE (SERVER) XI 3.1 SP6 WINDOWS (32B)”file (51045551.ZIP) from the link you published. Do you know by chance anu other URL for this SP6 full build? I would save a lot of time, I have BO XI 3.1 installed on a VM, just moving from the original XI 3.1 install to SP3 took me half of a day… and before the end of the day when I tried to apply SP5, it said very clearly that it cannot be installed on top of current version (that would be SP3)… 🙁
Thank you, David!
That’s strange for you. I was able to log onto service marketplace > Installations and Upgrades > “B” > “SBOP…” and download it. The SP6 build is in 3 parts. The three parts are 51045551_1.zip, 51045551_2.zip, 51045551_3.zip.
David – Agreeing with Virgil here, clicking the link, Logging in with SUID and password and following what Virgil did, I get this:
Error Message – ObjectID not existant
What happened?
ObjectID not found in R/3
What can you do?
Check your ObjectID
Error code: SAPSMPDL2-20130726153420-0014
Error details: 10021DD9-702/1A053/3162-63F0D6C5-3CB8B45-2992EF
Service Name: SAPIDB
Service Server: SAPSMPDL2
Process-ID: 5392
Thread-ID: 4424
Sorry for any inconvenience.
Your SAP Service Marketplace Team
But, it’s there in the way you suggested… How odd!!
Some of the major issues with BO XIR3.1 SP6 is given in the link below:-
http://www.forumtopics.com/busobj/viewtopic.php?t=213101
Question: we are actually on BO XI 3.1 SP3. Is it possible to upgrade directly to SP6? Which would be the correct upgrade path for upgrading from SP3 to SP6?
Thanks and best regads,
James
Dear David,
I don’t see BOE XI 3.1 SP7 Support Platforms for HPUX version 11.31, anywhere???
And this makes me worried to think whether HPUX OS version 11.31 is supported with it or not?
Can you please share your insights, if any?
Look forward to hearing from you soon.
Regards,
GAURAV