Post on 06-Nov-2014
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6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 1/32
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Continuing with my earlier blog on System management planning ( http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-
platform/blog/2013/06/05/businessobjects-system-management) this blog is going to be about BusinessObjects
Content Management planning. I have already written a blog on content management here
(http://blogs.hexaware.com/business-objects-boogle/business-objects-content-management-planning) but in this
blog I have provided detailed analysis on Content plan along with it's implications.
Managing BI content in BusinessObjects is one of the interesting and challenging tasks for every BusinessObjects
Architect/Administrator. Proper content management will help Administrator and Application support team to
manage their environment effectively as it has direct implication with Content promotion, Instance management and
Security model across different environments.
In general Content management plan would be handy in following scenarios
- In a brand new BusinessObjects implementation project
- In a migration project where the content is poorly managed or virtually no content management strategy
- In a maintenance project where there is frequent addition of BI content without proper folder setup
In easier terms content management is a process of organizing BusinessObjects Folders, reports, connections
and universes so as to manage the BusinessObjects environment without any complication. Let us see how it helps
each targeted user group
Benefits for BusinessObjects Administrators
- Helps to understand the Folder hierarchy and how security is being implemented at various levels.
- Increases manageability to cope up with new BI content addition as well as existing access amendment.
Benefits for BusinessObjects End-users
- Increased the pervasiveness of the BusinessObjects to the user community
- Helps users to identify their intended BI content without any assistance from Expert users/Administrators
Major Steps to be considered for proper content management plan
- Organizing BI contents by folders
- Organize User groups/Users as per the organizational hierarchy or organizational preference
- Identify required access levels for each user category
- Allowing access through categories if not the Folder based authorization is not sufficient
- Creating profile based report subscription if end users need personalized reports
Key findings from Content Management plan
- Different type of objects that needs to be managed by the system and their volume will be identified.
- The number of consumers (users) of the system will be identified.
- Which user group requires access to which object and their level of access will also be validated
- Naming conventions and standards to be used for managing the uniformity of the content.
- Proper User group hierarchy and folder hierarchy
- List of rights (Access level) needed for each user group based on their functionality.
Hope this blog gives you an idea about how to manage BusinessObjects contents in high level. In my upcoming blogs
I am planning to write more in detail about Content management plan, Custom access levels, Security model design
and implementation.
Looking for your comments/Inputs/Suggestions. Stay tuned!
855 View s 3 Comments Tags: bo_content_plan
BusinessObjects Administration - ContentManagement Plan
Posted by Manikandan Elumalai Jan 6, 2014
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 2/32
First of all , “Happy New Year” to all of you.
During my recent experience, I came across a scenario where client requirement was to install SAP BOBI 4.0 SP4
without using integrated DB2 9.7 installation and we need to install separate DB2 9.7 database with some
additional requirements. I did not come across any document which gives exact steps to be followed in such a
scenario. So, I thought of writing a blog to help colleagues who has similar requirement.
Here is the detailed scenario for SAP BOBI 4.0 SP4 installation:
1. Install SAP BOBI 4.0 SP4 on UNIX platform.
2. Don't use integrated DB2 database that's come bundled with SAP BOBI 4.0 SP4. Because SAP BOBI installer does
not give you the option to specify in which fi le system you want to install database or how you want to design
architecture of your database fi le system. SAP BOBI installer installs the database in the same fi le system
where you install BOBI.
3. Database Version: DB2 9.7
4. Use separate tablespaces for CMS and Audit database.
5. Use separate schemas for CMS and Audit database for additional security.
6. Database will be owned by db2<sid> user and SAP BOBI will be owned by <sid>adm user.
Prerequisite
1. Download Media for SAP BOBI 4.0 SP4.
2. Download DVD for DB2 9.7 as per flavor of UNIX.
3. Download latest SWPM in order to create db2<sid> and <sid>adm user. Note: We can also create these users
manually using operating system commands but we need to set all environment variables manually. However,
SWPM will automatically set all environment variables while creating the users.
4. Decide <SID> to be used for database and BOBI system.
5. You can create same fi le system for BOBI as a standard Netweaver system except few changes.
a. Create /usr/sap/<SID> fi le system. This fi le system will be used as installation directory for BOBI.
b. Database File system:
i. /db2/db2<sid> (DB2 Software)
ii. /db2/<SID> (DB2 Client)
iii. /db2/<SID>/sapdata* (Data File system)
iv. /db2/<SID>/log_dir (Online Logs)
v. /db2/<SID>/log_archive (Offl ine Archive Logs)
6. Please make sure that ulimit should be set as unlimited before starting the installation.
7. Please make sure that below environment variable should be set before installation.
a. LANG - en_US.UTF-8
b. LV_ALL – en_US.UTF-8
c. These environment variables can also be set in fi le .sapenv_<hostname>.sh & .sapenv_<hostname>.csh
under user <sid>adm home directory. Note: Please make sure that operating system should support UTF-8
character sets.
8. Please follow installation guide for more prerequisites.
9. Create db2<sid> and <sid>adm user using latest SWPM. (Choose following option in SWPM screen: Generic
Installation Options – IBM DB2 for Linux, UNIX and Windows- Preparations- Operating System Users and
Groups) Note:
While creating users and groups, you can also specify User ID’s & Group ID’s if you have specific numbers
allocated for UID’s & GID’s.
10. By default, home directory of <sid>adm user will be created under /home which will use root fi le system. This
has a l imitation, because BOBI installer creates LCM repository under home directory of user from which
installation will be started. In this case, it is <sid>adm user. So, please make sure that you use different home
directory so that it should not use root fi le system. E.g: If you are install ing BOBI under /usr/sap/<SID> then you
can specify home directory of <sid>adm user as /usr/sap/<SID>/<sid>adm while you are creating user.
Process
DB2 Installation
1. Database Software installation: Create db2_software directory under /db2/db2<SID> directory.
2. Start DB2 installation with root user. Go to DB2 9.7 RDBMS DVD (E.g. Path for DB2 installation on AIX- <fi le
system path to DVD>/DB2_LUW_9.7_FP8_RDBMS_AIX__HP__SOL_/AIX_64/ESE/disk1)
BOBI 4.0 Installation with separate DB2 Database &Customize database requirement
Posted by Sunny Pahuja Jan 2, 2014
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 3/32
3. Run script db2setup. Choose: Install Now under DB2 Enterprise Server Edition Version 9.7 Fix
Pack8
4. When asked to enter installation directory, please enter /db2/db2<sid>/db2_software, similar to standard
installation of db2 by sapinst. Note: I have mentioned only the important steps in db2 installation screens and
other steps are simple and does not require much planning.
5. You should choose option create db2 instance when asked about set up a DB2 instance.
6. Choose partitioning options for DB2 instance. Generally, if database resides on one machine then we should
choose Single Partition instance.
7. When asked about DB2 instance owner then enter existing user as db2<sid>.
8. When asked about prepare DB2 tools catalog then Choose option Prepare the DB2 tools catalog.
9. Follow the installation screens to complete the installation of database software.
10. Once the installation is complete, logon to db2 database with db2<sid> user. Run command db2 connect to
<SID>. It will show you the version of db2 software.
11. Install DB2 license as per SAP note 816773.
Post Database Installation
1. Create database with db2<sid> user using command: db2 CREATE DATABASE <SID> AUTOMATIC STORAGE YES ON
'/db2/<SID>/sapdata1','/db2/<SID>/sapdata2','/db2/<SID>/sapdata3','/db2/<SID>/sapdata4' USING CODESET
UTF-8 TERRITORY US COLLATE USING IDENTITY Note: You can create database on different fi le system layout i.e.
on different sapdata's as per the requirement. Please make sure that while creating the database you are not
connected to database.
2. Set parameter SPM_NAME to null otherwise you will face error during BOBI installation. Command- db2 update
dbm cfg using SPM_NAME NULL
3. As per the requirement, we want to create separate schema for CMS and Audit.
Prerequisite of Schema:
1. In DB2, schemas are database users. So, in order to have separate schema for CMS and Audit, we need to
create OS users.
2. Create home directory for CMS and Audit users. In our case, CMS user is sapcms and Audit user is sapads.
You can create directory /db2/sapcms and /db2/sapads
3. Create users at operating system using operating system util ity and assign groups similar to db2<sid>
user. Make sure that while creating users, you specify home directory as we created in previous step.
4. Once users are created, please login with users as it will ask you to change passwords.
5. In order to have same environment variable for sapcms and sapads user as db2<sid> user, copy .sapenv,
.sapsrc, .dbenv, .dbsrc & profile fi le from home directory of db2<sid> user to home directory of sapcms
and sapads user.
6. Change permission of /db2/sapcms & /db2/sapads directory and their contents to sapcms:db2<sid>adm
& sapads:db2<sid>adm respectively.
7. Compare environment variable of user sapcms & sapads to that of user db2<sid> and it should be same.
Create Schema's
1. Create schema in db2 with command: db2 create schema SAPCMS authorization & db2 create schema
SAPADS authorization Note: Schema name should be same as the name of users created on operating
system.
2. You can verify schemas in the database with command: db2 select schemaname from syscat.schemata
Create Tablespaces
As per the requirement, we want to create separate Tablespaces for CMS and ADS.
CMS Tablespace:
1. Let us consider that we want to create CMS tablespace with name PSAPCMS
2. Login with user sapcms and create tablespace with command: db2 "create tablespace PSAPCMS managed
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
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by database using (FILE '/db2/<SID>/sapdata1/db2<sid>/NODE0000/<SID>/PSAPCMS.container000'
1024M, FILE '/db2/<SID>/sapdata2/db2<sid>/NODE0000/<SID>/PSAPCMS.container000' 1024M, FILE
'/db2/<SID>/sapdata3/db2<sid>/NODE0000/<SID>/PSAPCMS.container000' 1024M, FILE
'/db2/<SID>/sapdata4/db2<sid>/NODE0000/<SID>/PSAPCMS.container000' 1024M) extentsize 2
prefetchsize automatic dropped table recovery off autoresize yes maxsize none"
CMS Temporary User Tablespace
During BO installation, it will ask for temporary CMS user tablespace. You can create this tablespace with
any name and in this case, we are creating this tablespace with name TEMPCMS. Create temporary user
tablespace with command: db2 "create user temporary tablespace TEMPCMS managed by database using
(FILE '/db2/<SID>/sapdata1/db2<sid>/NODE0000/<SID>/temp_cms' 1024M)" Note: You can add as many
containers as you want with different size & location of container fi les as well. Also, this tablespace will be
created with default page size of 4K.
Audit Tablespace
Please note that Audit tablespace needs page size of 8K for BOBI installation. By default, page size of default
buffer pool will be 4K. So, we need to create new buffer pool with page size of 8K.
Buffer Pool
1. Login with user sapads on database.
2. Create buffer pool with command: db2 "create bufferpool <name of buffer pool> immediate PAGESIZE
8K"
Create Audit Tablespace
Let us consider that we want to create Audit tablespace with name PSAPADS.
Login with user sapads and use below command to create tablespace
db2 "create tablespace PSAPADS PAGESIZE 8K managed by database using (FILE
'/db2/<SID>/sapdata1/db2<sid>/NODE0000/<SID>/PSAPADS.container000' 1024M, FILE
'/db2/<SID>/sapdata2/db2<sid>/NODE0000/<SID>/PSAPADS.container000' 1024M, FILE
'/db2/<SID>/sapdata3/db2<sid>/NODE0000/<SID>/PSAPADS.container000' 1024M, FILE
'/db2/<SID>/sapdata4/db2<sid>/NODE0000/<SID>/PSAPADS.container000' 1024M) extentsize 2 prefetchsize
automatic dropped table recovery off autoresize yes maxsize none BUFFERPOOL <name of buffer
pool>"
Note: Please make sure that while creating audit tablespace, you need to give name of buffer pool created
above.
You can verify tablespaces and their owners with command: db2 select owner, tbspace from syscat.tablespaces
In order to check properties of new tablespaces, please use command db2 list tablespaces show detail
Enable archiving for db2 database with command: db2 update db cfg for <SID> using LOGARCHMETH1
DISK:/db2/<SID>/log_archive
Note: You need to take offl ine database backup after activating logging.
By this, configuration of database is complete and we can start installation process of BOBI.
BOBI Installation
1. Login with <sid>adm user
2. Set environment variable LANG & LV_ALL to en_US.UTF-8
3. Set ulimit to unlimited.
4. Set environment variable LIBPATH= /db2/db2<sid>/sqll ib/lib64 in .sapenv_<hostname>.sh &
.sapenv_<hostname>.csh in home directory of <sid>adm user
5. Start the installation from BOBI DVD with command: ./setup.sh InstallDir=/usr/sap/<SID> Note: Installation
software will create sap_bobj directory under /usr/sap/<SID>. Please make sure that you should not create
separate fi le system as /usr/sap/<SID>/sap_bobj for installation, as installation program will not be
successful and it will not copy some library fi les due to some limitations at perl script level.
6. Once installation is started, on next screen, you can select setup language. By default, it will be English.
7. Enter Destination Folder, by default it will take path of InstallDir that we have given while starting installer.
8. After this, installer will perform prerequisite checks. If all checks are successful then it will allow proceeding
to next step.
9. Accept copyright warning and licensing agreement.
10. Enter product key code that you got while you bought the l icense of BOBI.
11. Select all languages that you want to install for BOBI. By default, it will be English.
12. Select “User Install”. You can refer to installation guide for difference between User Install and System Install.
13. Select Install type as “full”.
14. When installer asks about database option. Then choose “Use an existing database”.
15. Select CMS database type as “IBM DB2”.
16. Select Audit Database type as “IBM DB2”.
17. When installer asks about Java web application server, you can choose option according to your requirements
whether to install Tomcat application server or manually deploying fi les to As Java system. In this case, we
used Tomcat application server which installer installs.
18. Choose Install and use subversion.
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19. Enter SIA name and port number. By default port number will be 6410.
20. Enter CMS port. By default port number will be 6400.
21. Enter Administrator account password and cluster key.
22. Enter CMS repository database information. You need to enter database alias name (SID of the database that
was installed previously), username will be sapcms and password of the user.
23. Enter Audit database information. You need to enter database alias name (SID of the database that was
installed previously), username will be sapads and password of the user.
24. Enter connection port, shutdown port and redirect port. By default, it will be 8080, 8005 & 8443 respectively.
25. Enter HTTP listening port. By default, it will be 6405.
26. Enter repository port and user password. By default, repository port will be 3690.
27. On next screens, if you want to connect BOBI to SMD agent and wily introscope then you can choose these
options and it will take you to next screens if you want to configure them. You can also choose option “don’t
configure” if you want to skip this.
28. Now, you can start the installation process. This process will take some time. Once installation will complete
successfully, you can login to CMS with url http://<hostname>:8080/BOE/CMC. Use administrator user and
password to login.
Post Installation
1. If you want to check the version of BOBI, then go to <installation directory>/InstallData and open fi le
inventory.txt. It will give you the version of BOBI system installed.
2. You can run diagnostic check to verify the installation. Login to CMC, Go to monitoring and then Probes. And
run all diagnostic checks. Initially, some checks related to Crystal Reports Service might fail.
3. You can also check whether all services are running fine or not. Go to Server nodes and select Servers l ist. If all
services are in green then system is working fine.
4. Install License key.
By this way, installation of BOBI 4.0 where database is separately installed with customized requirements is
complete.
Please note that you should follow BOBI installation and administrator guide also for the installation. This blog
alone will not serve the purpose.
Cheers..
Sunny
Disclaimer: This Blog is the personal Blog and only contains my personal view s, thoughts and opinions. It is not endorsed by my
employer nor does it constitute any off icial communication of my employer.
1331 View s 1 Comments
Tags: businessobjects, 4.0, bi4.0, db2, bobj, db2_luw , business_intelligence, bi_platform, db2_9.7, businessobjects_w idgets,
sap_businessobjects_business_intelligence_platform_4.0
in my Previous blogs i showed how to install the SAP HANA Server and also installing the Client tools
SAP HANA SP07 Installation
Installing SAP HANA Client on BI4.1 Server
And this is the 3rd Step is to test the Connectivity between our HANA SP07 server and BI4.1, our test will go take 2
steps
A. Creating the ODBC
B. Creating the Connection in IDT (Information Design Tool), Next blog
Start Creating the ODBC
1. Open the the 64bit ODBC
Testing HANA Client on BI4.1 Server
Posted by Amr Salem Dec 28, 2013
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 6/32
2. Click Add and Select HDBODBC from the list
3. enter the required information (ODBC Data Source Name, and HANA Server and Port Number)
4. Click Connect to Test the Connection, Enter a valid HANA username and password
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
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5. The Connection Test says "Connect Successful"
6. Click Ok, and Again Click ok to add the ODBC Data Source to the system DSN
Now we have successfully added a new Valid HANA ODBC Connection to our ODBC System DNS, we can use this to
Connect to SAP HANA from the IDT which i will show in another blog
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 8/32
Regards
Amr
798 View s 12 Comments Tags: hana, client, odbc, bi4.1
Hello Again everyone,
after my first post about installing SAP HANA SP07 Installation Server, Today i thought to give you a guide about
installing the Client software on the BI4 Server so we can later start creating and modeling our first universe on SAP
HANA
1. Browse the installation folders for the proper Client tools matching your platform, here my BI41. Platform is on a
Windows Server so i browse to HDB_CLIENT_WINDOWS_X86_64
2. Run the hdbsetup.exe
3. a Windows Warning, Click ok to run
Installing SAP HANA Client on BI4.1 Server
Posted by Amr Salem Dec 28, 2013
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 9/32
4. the SAP HANA Installer is starting
5. Select if a new installation or its an Update, and also Check the path where you will install the Client
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6. Ready for the installation, Click install
7. it took less than a minute for me to get it successfully installed
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
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Congratulations, now we have the SAP HANA Client Successfully installed, in my next blog I will show how we test the
connection between the HANA Server and the BI4.1 Platform
Regards
Amr Salem
1208 View s 0 Comments Tags: hana, client, bi4.1
Hi Community,
I would like to highlight Some common mistakes we tend to make for report tool selection (Web Intelligence & Crystal
reports)
Problem 1: Hundreds of pages in SAP Business Object Web Intelligence
some of the users are more comfortable working in excel and handling detail level of data,
Once we finalize SAP Web Intelligence as our tool based on the business requirement/need ad hoc analysis and
interactive reporting
what the expectation of user is to show thousands of rows of detail level data in web intelligence report
Web Intelligence is capable of doing Ad hoc Analysis ->YES,
Interactive Reporting -> YES ,
Ability to Bring Thousands of Rows of Data -> YES
But Thinking about practicality How can we navigate thousands/hundreds of pages in Internet Browser
What is the right tool ?
If possible split the requirement to satisfy through SAP Business Objects Analysis edition for Microsoft office for
familiar user experience and SAP Web Intelligence for more ad hoc and interactive reporting
Problem 2: Using Crystal reports for data extraction
Some users develop complex crystal report schedule it to folder in file system as excel format (data dump), this data
is extracted through macros for another report processing,
What is the right way of doing it?
Data Extraction should be avoided through crystal reports, use intended ETL tool for the Extraction Transformation
and Loading in to DB, If Final reporting requirement is pixel perfect, high formatting then crystal report is the right tool
Problem 3: Integrating BO with BEx and need of detailed/granular organization wide data and overcoming data
retrieval limitation
(Requirement 1: Need to send summarized values in PDF and do ad hoc analysis)
Reporting tool selection
Posted by Radhakrishnan Guhan Dec 18, 2013
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 12/32
Some users requires to see detail level of data with all objects in BEx with multi level hierarchy enabled which brings
huge volume of data and cause data limit error
Alternative approach
Splitting the Detail data based on key groups and showing summarized data based on groups header, thus avoiding
to load all detail data at once
To view the detail level for each group we can use open document linked to each group header, which in turn pass
prompts to web Intelligence to display detailed data only relevant to that group and with another open document we
can navigate back to crystal reports
Tool Selection
Design Crystal Reports to show summarized data based on key groups or business areas, and
using open document to integrate Crystal reports for Enterprise and SAP BO Web Intelligence
From Crystal reports users can navigate to Web Intelligence to view detail level data for that group by passing
prompts
Audience
1) Summarized Data in crystal reports can be scheduled to mail as PDF for Executives
2) Detailed reporting through Web Intelligence can be consumed by Middle Management with some ad hoc analysis
These Problem and Requirement are for example purpose only
Please share/Comment on your Ideas, Problem faced in tool selection and how it is solved so that it will be very
useful for Reporting community
I will add it to the list and please do suggest for all BI reporting tools
Use the tool selection guide to choose your reporting tool wisely, think in the shoes of user and also think about
right way of doing it
Some useful links
Selecting the Right SAP Business Objects BI Client Product Based on your requirement for SAP BW customers -
By Ingo Hilgefort
SAP BusinessObjects 4.0 - Selecting the Right BI Tool
Choosing the Right SAP Business Objects BI Client - By Blair Wheadon (Updated October 2013)
Choosing the Right SAP BusinessObjects BI Client
940 View s 1 Comments
Tags: crystal, w ebi, reports_for_enterprise, w eb_inteligence, sap_bi_tool_selection, reporting_tool_selection,
right_w ay_of_doing_it, linking_crystal_and_w ebi, bo_4.0_w ith_bex
Hi All,
We all know that we can schedule a document in InfoView/ BI Launchpad, so that the document is refreshed
automatically at specified time intervals.
Here, are some of the errors we come across while scheduling.
1. address error. CrystalEnterprise.Smtp: (501)
Cause: Resulted when unrecognized group name is used in the From/To Address when sending a report
as an email attachment (excel/pdf).
Solution: Valid address format is "[firstname].[lastname]@domain.com"
2. login error. CrystalEnterprise.DiskUnmanaged: Logon failure: unknown user name or bad
password.
Causes:
The username or password could be incorrect or invalid.
Insufficient rights for the location to which the report has been scheduled.
Solution:
Provide the correct credentials while scheduling the report.
Ensure that you have sufficient access rights for the location to which you have scheduled the report, and
then re-schedule.
Schedule errors in Business Objects
Posted by Vandana T Dec 16, 2013
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
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Thanks,
Vandana
519 View s 0 Comments
It has been a number of weeks since I last posted on Performance Testing in BI 4.1 ... I could make excuses but let
me just apologize and move forward with the interesting concepts contained herein.
This last blog in the series will demonstrate how to customize a JMeter test plan for use with Analysis for
OLAP. The workflow leveraged in the test plan (found here for those who haven't read the previous posts)
creates an Analysis Workspace based on a HANA Calculation View, adds a dimension, and inserts a bar
chart. The fact that it is based on HANA has no impact on the test plan and those of you using SQL Server
Analysis Services or SAP BW can utilize this equally well.
Let's start by reviewing the state of the transaction controller that handles the Analysis for OLAP logic:
In order to work with A-OLAP we need to extract 3 values from different iterations of the mddesigner.jsf
method. This is the java server face that implements the Multi-Dimensional (i.e. OLAP) designer in the
browser. To begin, we need to pull a request token value out of the first request. We also need the java server
face View State, which we saw previously in the BI 4.1 logon process. You can count on this parameter being
present any time you see a request with a .jsf extension.
Let's jump in to the first regular expression extractor, which I've labelled requestToken:
This token value represents a user session on the Analysis APS. Specifically, the Multi-Dimensional Analysis
Service or MDAS is the process that the requestToken corresponds to. The format of an MDAS request token
would look something like this:
ghQbjqT3erhH9j71IBfbVw==
For ease of copying the regular expression that is used in this extractor is:
name="designerForm::requestToken" value="(.+?)"
This tells JMeter to look for a value in a hidden form called designerForm::requestToken and extract it for
Performance Testing in BI 4.1 - Analysis for OLAP
Posted by James Rapp Dec 9, 2013
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 14/32
later use. You don't need to remember much about this method other than it is the first instance of
mddesigner.jsf called and we need both the requestToken and ViewState to be returned from it. This first
request is invoked with the bttoken we extracted from our initial logon and after that we solely use the 2 MDAS
specific values.
Next we need to attach a 2nd regular expression extractor to the same instance of mddesigner.jsf and
retrieve the JSF View State. I talked about this as part of the logon to BI 4.1 (you can find the write up here)
but in short, the value helps the application server keep track of which requests are related to specific clients.
It looks something like this:
j_id23
The regular expression extractor for ViewState is as follows:
and our regular expression is:
name="javax.faces.ViewState" id="javax.faces.ViewState" value="(.+?)"
You could probably get away with a shorter regular expression but for completeness I like to get the entire XML
pair. Once this is complete, we can use the text replacement process I explain in this SCN Document to
update the successive mddesigner.jsf calls to work with our distinct session.
After sorting out those details, we're left with one final piece of dynamic data to extract. I mentioned above that
we will be inserting a chart into this workspace, and the last thing we need to extract are the images
associated with the bar chart. The chart is comprised of 2 elements, [1] an overview, and [2] the main pane as
shown below:
The result of this is that we need to retrieve 2 different images, and this is the first time I will cover extracting
multiple values from the same response so pay attention !
We now attach our final regular expression extractor to the instance of mddesigner.jsf immediately preceding the
MDAnalysis.chart requests. I mentioned the 2 elements of an A-OLAP chart, so we can expect to see 2 distinct calls
to MDAnalysis.chart. A-OLAP refers to the image content as a payload, so that's what we'll name our regular
expression extractor. First, we'll configure the extractor as follows:
There is one important caveat here, in that we must check the standard Body of the response, as opposed to the
unescaped Body I normally use. The reason is that there are escaped URL characters in the payload string, such as:
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 15/32
MDAnalysis.chart?payload=6b9627b3&
If we use the unescaped version of the response body our regular expression will not match anything. An example of
the payload is:
6b9627b3
As I noted above, this response is going to contain 2 payload values and we need to instruct JMeter to save both of
them. In the past, we've always used Match No. 1, indicating that JMeter should save the first instance of the regular
expression that matches (if we knew that we always needed the 2nd instance of a regular expression, for example,
we would use 2 instead). Here we will use a value of -1 for Match No. instructing JMeter to save ALL occurrences of
the matching regular expression. If the regular expression matched 100 times, JMeter would create 100 instances of
the payload variable for us to refer to later.
Now that we have both instances of the payload, we need to tell JMeter where to use them. We will apply the payload
to the 2 instances of MDAnalysis.chart in the proper order. I admit that this tripped me up the first time I tried it, so let
me share some of the methodology with you as well. The 2 instances of payload will be stored by JMeter in the
format:
${payload_1}
${payload_2}
The 2 chart values that these variables correspond to are:
designerForm:HorizontalBarChart1_main
designerForm:HorizontalBarChart1_overview
In the image above, I have labelled the overview as #1 and the main pane as #2 ... I did this for a reason. The
requests are logged inversely, that is, the request for ${payload_2} / designerForm:HorizontalBarChart1_main
actually comes first! I was able to determine that was the case by looking at a Fiddler capture of an interactive request
I performed in my browser:
Here, the payload of the main pane is 6b9627b3 and the payload of the overview is 4265525a. By reviewing the
response body of mddesigner.jsf I can see the order these 2 values are delivered in:
1. MDAnalysis.chart?payload=4265525a&component=designerForm:HorizontalBarChart1_overview
2. MDAnalysis.chart?payload=6b9627b3&component=designerForm:HorizontalBarChart1_main
I am therefore able to determine that the overview is ${payload_1} and the main pane is ${payload_2}. Thus, the 2
instances of MDAnalysis.chart end up looking like this:
Main Chart:
Overview Chart:
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
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Once these steps are complete, you have a fully functional test plan that tests 3 different BI Clients! You can use the
View Results Tree and Debug Sampler explained on the Performance Testing Wiki - Description of JMeter core
components section to ensure your getting the desired results. Here is an example of what your View Results Tree
might look like:
Note that I can see the actual image that was returned by the MDAnalysis.chart method to see that it matches what
you would find in your browser. Similarly, you can do this to confirm report data is coming back as opposed to an
error message.
I welcome your feedback on what BI Clients or Platform operations you would like to see documented next. I hope
this blog series has given you an understanding of how powerful JMeter can be when used properly, and that
performance testing is within your grasp regardless of how large or small your organization is. By leveraging
performance testing in an appropriate manner we can all deliver better BI and do justice to this wonderful and
expansive suite of tools.
1039 View s 0 Comments
Tags: businessobjects, analytics, analysis, bobj, business_intelligence, bi_platform, 4.1, bi41, performance_testing,
sap_businessobjects_business_intelligence_platform_4.0
Hello,
here you find one of my two security approaches for the Business Objects 4.1 Environment.
Functional / Access Approach
Groups: F_Reporter F_Scheduler F_PowerUser A_Marketing A_Sales A_Production
Folder Top Level AL_F_Reporter
(*1)
AL_F_Scheduler
(*2)
AL_F_PowerUser
(*3)
View_This_Only(*4) View_This_Only View_This_Only
Marketing (AL_F_Reporter) (AL_F_Scheduler) (AL_F_PowerUser) AL_A_Marketing
(*5)
- -
Sales (AL_F_Reporter) (AL_F_Scheduler) (AL_F_PowerUser) - AL_A_Sales -
Production (AL_F_Reporter) (AL_F_Scheduler) (AL_F_PowerUser) - - AL_A_Production
(**) Notes:
(*1) = like "Edit Query", "Create New Report", "Delete Report"
(*2) = like "Schedule Document to run","Schedule to Destination"
(*3) = like "Create User","Add User to Group""Delete Objects"
Business Objects 4.1 - Security Approach - Functional/ Access
Posted by Sebastian Pakulat Dec 5, 2013
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 17/32
(*4) = like "View Objects" at Object (Top Level), without inheritance
(*5) = "View Object"
This Posting comes from my Personal SCN/SDN AdventureTime Blog.
Kind regrads,
Sebastian
941 View s 1 Comments
Tags: intelligence, bi4, business_intelligence_(businessobjects), analytics, 4.0, analysis, bi4_upgrade, business_intelligence,
bi_platform, sap_businessobjects_business_intelligence_platform_4.0
I recently gave a SAP internal presentation on What's new in 4.1 SP2 Promotion Management and the
main highlight was on performance improvement. While the performance still not as comparable to
the Upgrade Management Tool or the old Import Wizard, the improvement is significant that I'd like to
share. Here's my summary of the improvements:
1. The web based Promotion Manage tool in the CMC is bounded by the web 20 minute time-out: it is important to
understand that when using this tool, promotion management does a lot of executions on the web application
server: the executions include object dependency and security dependency calculations. The effort of these two
main tasks can grow as more contents are added to the job during creation. So in the Add object UI, from the
time you selected the contents to add to seeing these content being added to the job, promotion management
has a 20 minute window to
complete the tasks of object dependency and security calculations. If the amount to time taken is greater than 20
minutes, you will get a time-out
message, and if you are not patient enough to be at your computer when this happens, your job creation will fail,
because you were not present to click on the "Continue" button to extend the web session timeout. Our P&R
development team has done a profiling on this area and have improved how
dependency and security calculation are done. In the past, we had recommended that you don't add more than
100 objects at a time, with SP2 I was able to add over two thousand objects containing WebI reports. We'll
continue to verify the number of objects of different types and will provide proper guidance in the documentation
later.
2. Use the Command Line Interface (CLI) to promote larger sets of content: This feature is often overlooked but
can get around the web 20 minute time-out by running the job creation and promotion from a command prompt.
When running from the command prompt (Windows or UNIX), there is no worry of running into the 20 minute
time-out issue because you are not running inside a web browser and there is no web application server to
interact with. The CLI is flexible but not very user friendly. You will need to select the objects you want to include
in a promotion management job in a SQL statement. The biggest advantages, I'd say, are that you have more
control to not include dependencies and securities in your job, and you can promote way more objects than you
have ever done before. I'll share what we have accomplished later on in this blog, but why would you not want to
include dependencies or security in your job, you might ask? You might not need to include dependencies
because you are quite familiar with the objects you are selecting, and you can express subsequent queries to
select those dependencies. Remember, I am mentioning this to shorten the amount of time to do promotions.
If you are not comfortable turning dependency calculation off, you can still have them on and let Promotion
Management do the dependencies calculation for you, and take the hit on execution time. Similarly, why would I
turn off Security calculation? I would say that I need to promote with security because my security model has
changed between my source and target system. But in most times, this would not change for most users. Also,
security is usually on the folder and not on the reports, so it's best to first promote the folders with security (by
doing this first, the number of content in a job should be smaller), and then promote the content in the folder
without security. You'll see significant time saving. Here is an example of a query to select all the content in the
folder ABC and its subfolders:
exportQuery1=SELECT TOP 10000 static, relationships, SI_PARENT_FOLDER_CUID, SI_OWNER, SI_PATH FROM
CI_INFOOBJECTS,CI_APPOBJECTS,CI_SYSTEMOBJECTS WHERE (DESCENDENTS("si_name='Folder
Hierarchy'","si_name='ABC' and si_kind='Folder'")) AND si_kind='Folder'
Now to the test results we have done using the CLI: Prior to 4.1, we could barely promote a thousand
agnostic objects at a time, using the CLI, with security and dependencies off. In 4.1 SP2, with the same
settings, we were able to promote a hundred thousand objects successfully in about 11 hours. (Agnostic
objects such astext, xls and pdf files are used to eliminate external factors, and please note that results
differ depending on hardware, network latency, and object kinds and sizes)
Promotion Management (LCM): BI 4.1 SP2 has lots ofperformance improvements
Posted by Kai Chan Dec 3, 2013
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 18/32
3639 View s 8 Comments Tags: businessobjects, bi, management, performance, lcm, promotion, best, practice, 4.1
The SAP BI Platform Support Tool is a brand new application designed by SAP Active Global Support for the BI
Platform 4.0 & 4.1 landscape. The tool allows BI Administrators, Product Support, and consultants to easily scan the
BI topology and quickly understand how the system is configured and how it is being utilized. Pre-defined thresholds
are evaluated by the support tool’s analyzer engine and if problems are detected, the BI administrator is alerted and
made aware of the problem before it becomes a system outage. Knowledge base articles and SAP notes are
recommended automatically and current environmental risk levels are assessed providing guidance on the most
important actions to take in order to best optimize the system for performance and stability.
In this session, learn how to get the most value out of the BI Platform Support Tool straight from the developers
themselves.
This webinar session will be held on:
Start: December 3, 2013 10:00 AM (CT), 11:00 AM (ET), 9:00 AM (MT), 8:00 AM (PT)
End: December 3, 2013 11:00 AM (CT), 12:00 PM (ET), 10:00 AM (MT), 9:00 AM (PT)
SIGN UP FOR THE FREE WEBINAR BELOW:
http://www.asug.com/events/detail/BI-Platform-Support-Tool-Deep-Dive
FOR MORE INFO AND TO DOWNLOAD THE BI PLATFORM SUPPORT TOOL:
SAP BI Platform Support Tool - Business Intelligence (BusinessObjects) - SCN Wiki
Some highlights of this ASUG webinar include:
SAP E2E Trace Wizard
SAP BI Platform Support Tool (Feature Pack 1) -ASUG Deep Dive Webinar (Dec 3rd)
Posted by Toby Johnston Dec 1, 2013
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 19/32
New JQuery Powered Landscape Report
Alert Summary & Landscape Analysis
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 20/32
1325 View s 7 Comments
Tags: businessobjects, bi4, business_intelligence_(businessobjects), analytics, 4.0, bi4.0, troubleshooting, analysis,
bi4_upgrade, monitoring, business_intelligence, bi_platform, root_cause_analysis, ew a, rca, earlyw atch, e2e, best_practice,
sap_earlyw atch_alert, sap_businessobjects_business_intelligence_platform_4.0, dianostics, end_to_end_tracing,
e2e_trace_analysis, adaptive_processing_server
There are few basic concepts which impact Session management in Business Objects:
1. Logon Token
This is created by the application ( both InfoView and CMC) when the users first log into the system.
The expiry for this token is eight hours. Configuring the token duration is not supported.
Configuring whether to use this token is optional (enabled by default (true)). When this token is used
the user will be silently logged back on to the system for the lifetime of the token.
2. Web Session (Http Session/ Tomcat Session)
Lifetime of the web session is defined in the web.xml of each web-app (InfoViewApp.war,
InfoViewAppActions.war, PlatformServices.war, AR.war and so on).
The default time-out value for each web-app is 20 minutes.
It is strongly recommended that when updating the time-out value for 1 web-app that all other web-
apps are updated to an equal value.
3. Enterprise Session
InfoView will ping the Central Management Server (CMS) every two to three minutes.
The enterprise session will stay active for 10 minutes past the last ping from the client.
4. CMS Failover Token
The default time-out is 30 minutes. This value can be configured through the CMS command line but it
is strongly recommended that this value is not updated. Other BOE servers and applications use this
value therefore updating this may produce unexpected timeout behavior.
Please Note that after the web session has timed out the silent logon does not return the user to their
previous state.
Other impacts on Business Objects session management
There are additional processes that impact the session management.
The first is that the client pings the CMS every two to three minutes to keep the enterprise session
alive.
When the web session has terminated this ping stops. At this point the enterprise session will wait for a
period of 10 minutes. This is described as the idle time-out period.
Following the 10 minute idle time-out period there is an additional period of zero to 10 minutes (this
Session Management Bible
Posted by Onkar Velhal Nov 27, 2013
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 21/32
process runs every 10 minutes) while the enterprise session is invalidated.
Once the enterprise session has been invalidated the current CMS enterprise session is returned (CMS
session count drops).
Important Point:
It is recommended that the Idle Session Timeout value always exceeds the ping time.
Therefore the minimum recommended value for the Idle Session timeout is four minutes.
Once the enterprise session has been invalidated the CMS failover token will time-out after 30
minutes.
To summarize: Once the web session has terminated (timed out) there is an additional 50 minutes on
the CMS before the user is actually timed out.
This assumes that the Default Token is disabled. If the default token has been enabled the user will be
silently logged back on after this point (up to the lifetime of the default token – eight hours from when
the user originally logged on).
User activity that interacts with the server during the 50 minutes period will re-create the enterprise
session. In the users perspective they would be silently logged on to InfoView, even with the default
token disabled.
The user will see some loss of state as this stored in the previous web session.
ExampleWeb Session time-out (in .war file(s)) = 20 minutes
Logon Token = disabled
1. After 20 minutes of in activity the client stops pinging the CMS. State information will be lost at this
point.
2. Enterprise session stays alive for a period 10 minutes after last ping.
3. The enterprise session is invalidated after a period of 0-10 minutes. At this point the CMS session
count drops.
4. The CMS Failover token times out after 30 minutes.
5. The InfoView user experiences the time-out after a total of 70 minutes.
Source:
BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.0 - InfoView and Central Management Console Session Management
Some Discussions:
Sessions remaining active in CMC
CMC Sessions - what constitute a session?
Sessions refresh in CMC not working properly
CMC Sessions
Multiple Sessions in CMC for the same user
CMC sessions shows that Administrator has 2 sessions
How to change session timeout settings in BO BI 4.1 SP1 for both launchpad and CMC
In Crystal Server CMC, how do I release session licenses?
Sessions kill and timing BI 4.0
Please feel free to comment and add more value to this post.
Regards,
Onkar
1649 View s 1 Comments
Tags: bi, management, 4.0, session, launchpad, infoview , 3.1, timeout, cmc, failover, mangement, timeout.
Hi everyone,
Like many of you, I watched the SMP waiting for the new version of SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.1 SP02. And it
is finally available ... and in time !
As a reminder, SAP BusinessObjects Maintenance schedule is available with the quick link:
http://service.sap.com/bosap-maintenance-schedule (PDF)
Installing SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 SP02
Posted by WILLIAM MARCY Nov 22, 2013
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 22/32
It's Christmas before time ! What makes it so special Service Pack? It includes improvements in performance and especially adds new features
as expected by many customers such as the grouping value in Web Intelligence (available in Desktop Intelligence
but not anymore in Web Intelligence until now), use and re-use prompt values with predefined cells and mainly
Excel datasource for Web Intelligence document over the Web !
Step by step installation/upgrade Before installing this service pack, you can take a look at these blog posts very useful to know the best practices for
updating your SAP BusinessObjects platform and mistakes to avoid.
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Suite 4.1 SP02 Released by Patrick Perrier
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog/2013/11/22/sap-businessobjects-business-intelligence-suite-41-
sp02-released
Doing a full install for updating from BI4.0 to BI4.1? Think again... by Matthew Shaw
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog/2013/11/05/doing-a-full-install-for-updating-from-bi40-to-bi41-think-
again
Time to upgrade from SAP BI 4.1 SP01 to SP02 : 1h15
Launch the update (3 Go) as a local administrator
Check that all prerequisites are "success". Sometimes an error occured with "Pending reboot" os you'll to restart the
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
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server or find in registry key the term "Pending Reboot" and modify it only if it's necessary (Emergency case).
Read and accept license contract as usual.
Connect to the CMS with your administrator password.
Launch the update and wait.
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 24/32
Then, SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.1 SP02 is installed.
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 25/32
And finally it's done !
Connect to the BI Launch Pad or CMC to see the version updated (in Help menu) of your BI Platform to SP02. Enjoy
new features !
More blog posts are coming about new capabilities included in this new SP02 about
http://scn.sap.com/community/businessobjects-web-intelligence, http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform
and http://scn.sap.com/community/semantic-layer.
TEASER : Just for teasing, see the new datasource for a Web Intelligence document based on the Web application
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 26/32
Share your comments about this !
7450 View s 11 Comments Tags: bi4_upgrade, bi_platform, sp2, bi_platform_4.1, bi_platform;
Good Morning All!
SAP has released today, as planned in the Maintenance Schedule, SAP BI 4.1 SP02.
Update 25/11/2013: Great news! SAP has added today all of the SAP BI 4.1 Analytics tools with SP02 as a
full installation.
Here are some helpful documentations:
What's new in SAP BI 4.1 SP02
http://help.sap.com/businessobject/product_guides/sbo41/en/sbo41_whats_new_en.pdf
The much awaited Grouping Values!
"In a table in a Web Intelligence report, you can collect the values of a dimension into aggregated
groups. A variable object for this aggregated group is created in the Available Objects tab on the
Side Panel and allows you to manage the group configuration."
Update: Thanks to WILLIAM MARCY who has insights on some extra undocumented features!
See his post here.
Excel spreadsheet as a data source (see post http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-49324)
Re-use prompt values with predefined cells
SAP BusinessObjects BI Suite 4.1 SP02 Release Restrictions (Known Issues):
http://service.sap.com/~sapidb/011000358700001063182013E/sbo41sp2_rel_restric_en.pdf
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.1 SP02 Fixed Issues:
http://service.sap.com/~sapidb/011000358700001063172013E/sbo41sp2_fixed_issues_en.pdf
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.1 SP02 Upgrade Guide:
http://service.sap.com/~sapidb/011000358700001063192013E/sbo41sp2_bip_upgrade_en.pdf
From the document: "You can install the 4.1 SP1 or 4.1 SP2 update directly on a BI platform 4.0
installation. You do not need to install the 4.1 update first"
Update 06/12/2013: The SBOP Forward Fit Plan now provides the list of fixes included from previous
updates in SAP BI 4.1 SP02:
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.1 SP02 Install Guide:
Windows:
http://service.sap.com/~sapidb/011000358700001063062013E/sbo41sp2_bip_inst_win_en.pdf
Unix: http://service.sap.com/~sapidb/011000358700001063052013E/sbo41sp2_bip_inst_unix_en.pdf
As always from the SAP Help Portal: http://help.sap.com/bobip
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Suite 4.1SP02 Released
Posted by Patrick Perrier Nov 22, 2013
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 27/32
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.1 Supported Platforms (PAM): http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-41355
There are some important information here:
Windows Server 2012 R2: Supported
Windows 8.1: Supported
Internet Explorer 11: Not Supported - In a later SP
Support for JRE6 is deprecated as of December 31, 2013
Still no support of SQL Server 2012 SP1...
I'll be installing this update on my test VM straight away, hopefully it will all go well!
I'd be happy to hear your experiences with this update.
Thanks and good luck!
15708 View s 44 Comments
Tags: update, upgrade, excel, w eb_intelligence, w ebi, bi_platform, bi_4.0, group, patch, sp2, grouping, support_package,
sp02, service_pack, support_pack, bi_4.1
Hello Everyone,
Migrating from an older Version to SAP BI 4.1 is always a challenging task. In the last weeks i had a Migration
Assessment at customer Side from a very special Kind.
The Customer is using the Product BusinessObjects Enterprise 5.1.8. For those of you who dont know this kind of
Product, this was way before the "SAP World" within the BusinessObjects product line. In these days there was even
no Server. A real Client/Server Architecture was introduced with "BusinessObjects Enterprise XI" after the merger of
Crystal Decisions and BusinessObjects. Some time after the merger we had two different Platforms in our Product
Portfolio. "BusinessObjects Enterprise" and "Crystal Enterprise". With "BusinessObjects Enterprise XI" these two
Products became one and "BusinessObjects Enterprise" was decommissioned. As we know the Product today in
"SAP Business Intelligence Platform 4.1", "Crystal Enterprise 10" is still the base of this Product.
With "BusinessObjects Enterprise 5.1.8" we had the following Setup:
1. Three Repositories storing the Information
The "Security" Repository storing all your Users/Groups and Security Settings.
The "Universe" Repository storing your Universes.
These Days the Universes where stored centrally in the Database as Files - Not in a File based
Repository as we have it Today.
The "Document" Repository storing your "FullClient" Reports.
These Days the Reports where stored centrally in the Database as Files - Not in a File based
Repository as we have it Today.
2. Desktop Intelligence, or in these days "FullClient", was installed locally on all Users PC`s. Creating. modifying
and consuming Reports has been done with the "FullClient" - No Browser.....no fancy viewing capabilities as we
have them today in the BI LaunchPad.
3. Universe-Design-Tool, or in these days "Designer", was also installed locally on all Users PC`s who created
and maintained Universes.
4. Documents could be stored in their Repositories...but....it was more or less "Best Practices" to store them
locally. So you had a vast of "Reportjungles" througout the Company on local PC`s.
There is no much difference in point 2. and 3. compared to the last DeskI Release in SAP BusinessObjects
Enterprise XI 3.1 except that you can review reports in the "fancy" Browser way via InfoView. Even today in SAP
Business Intelligence Platform 4.1 you maintain the legacy .UNV Universes locally with the "Universe-Design-Tool"
and publish them to the Repository. Same way with the new .UNX Universes in the "Information Design Tool".
BOE 5.1.8 became GA at 11/28/2003 and went EOL at 09/30/2005. In these days we talked about an OS Level of (in
best case) WindowsXP....but the majority was Windows 2000. Thefeore it was even more interesting that both Clients
where running on Windows7 64 Bit at Customer side.
BOE 5.1.8 had also a Server part. But not many customers used it. We had already Web Intelligence (WebI 2.0) and
scheduling functionality with the "Broadcast Agent" (BCA). Please note: Both had to be licensed seperatly and
espeically the BCA part was everything but cheap. So Customers helped themselve with writing VBA based programs
including Scheduling capabilities.
Migrating to SAP BI 4.1 from BusinessObjectsEnterprise 5.1.8 - Lessons learned
Posted by Sebastian Wiefett Nov 20, 2013
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 28/32
Migration Path
As shown in this picture we can see that there is no direct Migration path possible. Only the Indirect Migration
path is available.
There are several Reasons why there is no Direct Migration path available. The most common one is that there
are to many Versions in between. In this Scenario we are talking about six Versions in between.
So what we did was installing a Sandbox with SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 SP6 Patch 2.
If you have the chance to use your "own" Environment for such a Migration i highly recommend to take the
latest Version of SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1. From there we have a direct Migration Option
available to SAP BI 4.1.
Migration progress Honestly, the Migration progress was pretty smooth. I had no issues Migrating the Content (Users, Groups,
Universes and Reports) from BOE 5.1.8 to BOE XI 3.1 SP6 Patch 2 using the Import Wizard.
Please note that we didnt changed, edited, modified any kind of Content in the BOE XI 3.1 System. We
migrated it to there 1:1 from the BOE 5.1.8 Source System. I encourage you to do the same. Do your
modifications on the Destination System only, the SAP BI 4.1 System.
From there we used the "Upgrade Management Tool" (UMT) from the SAP BI 4.1 Environment to migrate the
content 1:1 from the BOE XI 3.1 System to the SAP BI 4.1 Destination System.
If you keep the Migration Best Practices in Mind from SAP Note - 1904814 you wont face any major Issues.
Conversion progress We didnt migrated and converted the whole BOE 5.1.8 Environment of the Customer to SAP BI 4.1. It was a
Migration Assessment only to show that it is possible. Therefore we only migrated and converted a
representantive amount of Content.
Beside the fact that we dont need to convert the legacy .UNV Universes to .UNX we did it to show that it is
possible. If you dont need any feature of the new .UNX Universes you can keep your legacy .UNV Universes.
They will still be maintained and supported by SAP.
From the Report side we had a conversion success of 50 %. In my eyes this was pretty good because we
jumped over six Versions of an evolved Product. On the "Fully converted" Reports we had to do some slight
visualization rework meaning we had to adjust some Picures, Table sizes and Date formats. Everything else
was fine.
From the "Not converted" Reports we had to rework the "Linked Dimensions". With "Linked Dimensions" you
do the same as with "Merged Dimensions" in WebI. You link two Queries based on two Data Provider over a
Dimensions together. I found it strange that the RCT wasn`t able to convert this feature. After breaking these
linked Dimenstions we where able to convert the Reports. Afterwards we but back this Feature using "Merged
Dimensions" in WebI.
Since SAP BI 4.1 you are able to convert the Reports on the same Environment. Meanting the RCT can
connect to your SAP BI 4.1 System as Source and Destination. Prior you where only able to connect to your
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
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older Source Environment (f.e. BOE XI 3.1) and to your Destination Envrionment (f.e. BI 4.0).
Lessons learned
During the whole Migration i came to the following Lessons learned.
1. Disable UAC when using the RCT.
Disable the UAC from Windows when using the RCT. In my case the RCT didnt start and came up
with a JRE Error. Even when using the Function "Run as Administrator" i had no chance.
2. "General Supervisor" required in BOE 5.1.8
When using the Import Wizard to migrate your Content from BOE 5.1.8 a user with the Profile
"Supervisor" is not enough. "General Supervisor" is required. Please see SAP Note - 1810054.
3. RCT is throwing the Error "Failed: Error on Migration Engine" when trying to convert a Report.
When the RCT can`t convert a Report for any Reason it sometimes comes up with the above Error.
This is reported as a Bug and is currently under Investigation. Please see SAP Note - 1883831.
4. RCT Audit Universe not working on shipped Sybase SQL Anywhere 12.0 Database.
We used the shipped Sybase SQL Anywhere 12.0 Database for CMS and Audit Repository within
SAP BI 4.1. We also wanted to use this Database for the RCT Audit Table. You can see in SAP
Note - 1846268 How to configure the RCT Audit Universe and i highly encourage you to do so. It
gives you great information about the conversion progress and if you have problems the possible
Solutions or Workarounds.
Anyhow we didnt managed to make it run. I read some Forum posts that there are no issues with
MS SQL Server or even a MS Access DB. I can`t confirm that this is a bug or more just a
configuration Issue. As a quick Workaround you should go for a MS Access DB or MS SQL Server.
5. Installation Order for the DCP
"DCP" stands for "Desktop Intelligence Compatibility Pack". The DCP won`t bring you DeskI back
but it is a good Feature to maintain and edit your DeskI Reports in SAP BI 4.1 to be able to convert
them into WebI. If you want to use the DCP you have to consider a special Installation Order (As
back in the SAP Integration Kit days). You can find this Order in SAP Note - 1939383. This is also
mentioned in the DCP User Guide.
Conclusion I wrote this Blog to show you that such a legacy Version isn`t a Showstopper to move on to the latest Version
of SAP BI. I m pretty sure that you won`t face this Kind of Scenario quite often outside in the Field. But if you, i
hope this Blog helps you a bit to migrate this legacy Deployment to SAP BI 4.1.
Something i didnt mentioned in this Blog, but you should thing about it, is Education and Training. If you make
such a huge Step in your Company all the involved people need adequate Education. There are very less points
where you can compare this Version of the product with the Latest. All your involved Users such as End-
Users, Developers, Administrators should be attend the required Trainings to have the latest Know- How of the
Product and close the (huge) Knowledge gap between BOE 5.1.8 and SAP BI 4.1.
If you need more Information about migrating to the latest Version SAP BI 4.1 this Page is the Best Place to
Start with:
http://www.sapbusinessobjectsbi.com/upgrade/
Regards
-Seb.
2336 View s 3 Comments Tags: businessobjects, bi4, upgrade, migration, bobj, bi4_upgrade, legacy, bi4.1
REWIND
The “Desktop Intelligence Compatibility Pack” will be delivered in Fix Pack (FP) 6.1 which is to be installed
over Desktop Intelligence XI 3.1 SP6 desktop product. When installed, it will allow the Desktop Intelligence
reports, users, universes and database connections to be managed by the BI 4.1 platform. The estimated
release date is mid-year in 2013.
Desktop Compatibility Pack (DCP) with SAP BIPlatform 4.1 SP1
Posted by WILLIAM MARCY Nov 19, 2013
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 30/32
The goal is to allow Desktop Intelligence users and content to move to BI 4 as easily as possible. The
Desktop Intelligence Compatibility Pack helps in scenarios with reports are difficult or costly to convert to
Web Intelligence.
Source :
http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-31798
BACK TO THE FUTURE
Now, I want to show what's really "DCP" (Desktop Intelligence Compatibility Pack) with DESKI integration in SAP
BusinessObjects BI 4.1. Let's have some fun.
Version management First of all, you'll have to check your version of each component such as Desktop Intelligence Client Tools XI 3.1 SP6
FixPack 6.1 and SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 Server component.
Be curious about DESKI in BI 4.1 If you are a little bit curious about the return of Deski, you'll see in CMC a Desktop Intelligence Application. BUT,
there's no possible configuration, just user security to control access for users.
Desktop Intelligence This is the first funny thing to do, you have to open Desktop Intelligence and work as usual with a document (.REP) in
DESKI XI 3.1 SP6 FP 6.1.
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 31/32
Test that your document is working fine, once done I know you want to export it to BI 4.1 CMS....SO LET'S GO !
Connect to the BI 4.1 CMS In Desktop Intelligence application, there's an option wich allow you to "Login as...", do it.
Connect to your CMS and you'll see that you'll be able to connect to a 4.1 deployment. Make a test with a 4.0 version or
Desktop Intelligence lower than SP6 FP 6.1 and a pretty error will occur. Magical.
At the end, you can export your document to the CMS in personnal folders or public folders depends on security.
See the magic in BI Launch Pad Now, you can see the magic works. Connect to BI Launch Pad where the document was saved and you'll see your
document recognized as a Desktop Intelligence document....But, without properties or anything else. It is just placed
right in front of you and you can do nothing more.
6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN
http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 32/32
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If you want to actualize or schedule your document, you'll have to re-open it in Desktop Intelligence application.
Nothing less, nothing more.
Important behaviour To succeed this tutorial and use DCP, you'll have to install both client tools XI 3.1 SP6 FP 6.1 AND BI 4.0 or BI 4.1
Client tools. This is not shown anywhere but you have to believe me, you have to install both.
Don't bet on "DCP" to keep your Deski documents alive, this feature is only there to facilitate your migration project
and nothing more. We must not forget that a migration project is often associated with a project to convert your Deski
(.REP) documents to Webi (WID).
See it in action
More ressources
Deski and Webi - scope of features
http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/BOBJ/Deski+and+Webi+-+scope+of+features
Convincing Reasons to Move to Web Intelligence
http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-10978
Managing the Conversion from Desktop Intelligence to Web Intelligence
http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-21103
1430 View s 0 Comments Tags: intelligence, businessobjects, analytics, desktop, deski, bi4.1, xi4, dcp
0:00 / 2:08
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