This article will describe mostly about the new functionality introduced by SAP in Business Objects latest version 4.1
article depicts comparison and difference about the BO 3.1 and BO 4.1 and i have tried to incorporate some videos from SAP to help you to understand more insight on each of the tool.
Below table describes the major changes or difference between the previous version and latest version SAP Business Objects 4.x
before to that the new BO software suite is called SAP Business Objects Business Intelligence Platform 4.1
| 3.X | 4.X | |
| Name Changed | WebIntelligence | Interactive Analysis |
| Web Intelligence Rich Client | WebIntelligence Desktop | |
| InfoView | LaunchPad | |
| Xcelsius Dashboard | DashBoard Design | |
| SAP dashboard Builder | Bi Workspace | |
| Voyager | Advance Analysis Web addition | |
| New Tools | ||
| Information Design Tool | ||
| Monitoring | ||
| Upgrade Managment Tool |
Below are the tools now bundle with SAP BO 4.0 installations:-
• Life Cycle Management Tools:- Don’t need separate installations .Purpose of this tool is to provide seamless movement of BO reports from one environment to another environment ,version controlling, also with LCM once deployed version can be restore to previous state.• Language Packs• Mobile Server Support• Support to various ERP system: SAP, SAP BW, Sibel etc and portals sharepoint• SAP Dashboard Design (Xcelsius support)• Data Federation; Enables multisource universe by distributing query across disparate databases.• SAP BW publishing servers: The ability to publish reports to SAP BW no longer requires a separate installation.• Integration to SAP Solution Manager and Diagnostic Applications
Three new tools that has been introduced are:-
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Upgrade management Tool: -
This tool is intended to perform up gradation to newer version of BO. It allows you to perform Incremental of complete upgrade. And if you want to migrate BO repository from one system to another system use LCM life cycle management.SAP BO provides direct functionality to upgrade to BO 4.0.But requires update to be in stagesBO 6.5-->BO XIR2--> BO4.0
Information Design tool: -
This is one of the major release in BO 4.0 that has really changed the BO universe used to work. The key change is Information design tool allows multiple Connection to a single universe. Means you can federate the data from multiple databases. And this has become possible due to Data Federator engine that SAP has made available in BO4.x servers.Below are the major key functionality introduced of universe in BO4.x Information Design Tool (IDT):-1. As discussed Multisource universe.2. Connection to SAP Net weaver database. Universe data foundation can be created as star schema from InfoCubes, InfoProvider, VirtualProvider just as for any relational connection.3. OLAP support of universe with enhanced functionality. Universe will be created for Microsoft Analysis OLAP cubes all the dimension and measure and hierarchy will be created. This type of universe is termed as dimensional universe.
4. Several designers can work on the same project at the same time and can share and synchronize their universe resources.5. Connection management extended.6. Resource sharing is possible now.one can create many business foundation layer on single create one data foundation layer.7. Security Editor for universe metadata. Easier to manage.8. LOV can now be shared across multiple Business Layer and same LOV can be used for different Filters and Prompts.Now universe file will be of .UNX extension. And can have one data foundation layer .dfx to many Business Foundation layer .bfx on it. .UNV extension universe which was created before BO XI R2 and 3.X can be easily converted and used here. In fact BO 4.X has the universe design tool, universe created from UDT can also be converted to .UNX format.
Monitoring: -
This is the new functionality that has been introduced in BO4.x for Administrator to monitor server and BO performance .there is a dedicated dashboard to measure the runtime and historic KPI’s of the system.System administrators can use the tool to identify if a reporting application is functioning normally and if the response times are as expected. Key functionality to Monitoring is test system and probe that allows admins to take the dry run of the BO system to check the workflow.
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Auditing: - Existing auditing functionality is enhanced to include new database schema for better reporting of the audit events.
Licensing: - A new Licensing model has been introduced SAP BO BI model platform its role based-
BI Analyst:-For content designer
BI Viewer: - For end user.
Connection: - New connection parameter
Existing connections to the following data sources continue to work but you cannot create new connections to them:
- MS SQL Server 7.x●
- MS SQL Server 2000●
- MySQL 4●
- Oracle 9●
- Informix Dynamic Server 7.3●
- Informix Dynamic Server 2000●
- Sybase Adaptive Server 12●
- Teradata V2 R6●
- RedBrick Decision Server 6.x●
- DB2 UDB for OS/390 v7SAP
Below is the video from SAP that comprises what new changes and functionality are there is SAP BO WebIntelligence 4.x :-
DashBoard Design (Xcelsius):-
- Query Designer similar to WEBI reports. Dimension and Measure can be directly used in the Dashboard Design (Xcelsius) along with filter, Prompt and list of Values.
- Dedicated Component for Query refresh and prompts. There is a separate category in component browser for query refresh and prompt values.
- Direct component binding. Values from database can now be directly bound with the Component itself. With such type of binding component will be able to show values in Preview mode only.
- Lifecycle Management can now support Dashboard Design (Xcelsius) and while performing Migration can check for all the dependencies. With connection, universe, SAP Bex queries etc.
- As in earlier version for design .xlf files and for deployment .SWF files were there. But in SAP BO 4.x only one file will be generated so when file is open with dashboard designer the file be open in edit mode and whatever changes made to that file will be directly reflected to flash file underneath so no separate deployment of .SWF file needed.
Below is the video that shows the latest functionality with Dashboard Design Tool in SAP BO 4.x tool:-
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