9.2 Integration with SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
SAP BusinessObjects BI provides rich data visualization capabilities. The platform consists of both on-premise and cloud-based solutions. In this section, we’ll focus on SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft Office, which is an extension of the SAP BusinessObjects platform geared toward tactical reporting.
9.2.1 SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft Office
SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft Office is a Microsoft Excel add-in that helps to seamlessly connect two different data sources such as SAP Business Warehouse (SAP BW), SAP HANA, SAP S/4HANA, and so on, and perform Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) analysis. It also allows you to embed live queries in PowerPoint for presentations with real time data. This tool is a great tactical reporting solution because it allows you to connect to SAP S/4HANA data sources and allows you to analyze the data in real time. With options to drag and drop to perform OLAP analysis functions such as slice and dice, filtering, and drilldown, it’s the perfect tool to start analysis at a high level and identify the business issues and drill down to the lowest level to pinpoint the root cause.
Moreover, for business users who are comfortable with using Microsoft Excel for their everyday work, SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft Office is the tool of choice because they can start using the tool within a few hours of training. This tool is a business-driven tool where business users can perform self-service reporting with almost no dependency on an IT team.
Based on authorization, you can access predefined reports using SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft Office and perform detailed analysis on the data. If you’re an advanced user, the tool allows you to create your own reports with multiple data sources and save it back to the server for access by a larger audience.
There are three prerequisites before you can start using SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft Office to analyze SAP S/4HANA data:
- You need to have Microsoft Office installed on your computer.
- You need to install SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft Office.
- You need to install SAP GUI.
After all these prerequisites are met, you’re ready to start using the tool to analyze SAP S/4HANA data in real time.
We’ll now do a deep dive to see how to connect to SAP S/4HANA using SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft Office.
9.2.2 Connecting with SAP S/4HANA Using SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft Office
To get started with using SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft Excel, you need to go to the Windows Start menu and click on the program Analysis for Microsoft Excel.
After the program has started successfully, you should be able to see the following three tabs: Analysis, EPM, and Data Manager (Figure 9.5). The EPM and Data Manager tabs are relevant to SAP’s Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) tools and not relevant to our current discussion topic.
Figure 9.5 Analysis for Microsoft Office Add-in
Now to connect to an SAP S/4HANA data source, you need to click on Open Data Source on the Analysis tab, as shown in Figure 9.6.
Figure 9.6 Select Data Source
You’ll now get a prompt to Logon to SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform (see Figure 9.7). You need to log in to this prompt when you’re trying to access a predefined report in the SAP BusinessObjects BI platform. Because we’re trying to create a new report, we can skip this prompt.
Figure 9.7 Skipping the SAP BusinessObjects BI Login
After you click Skip, you’ll get a prompt to select your SAP S/4HANA instance. Select your instance, and click Next. You’ll immediately get a prompt to enter the client you’re connecting to, username, and password for the client (see Figure 9.8). After successful authentication, you’ll be logged in to SAP S/4HANA.
When you’re logged in, you can search any Core Data Services (CDS) views, which are predefined in SAP S/4HANA. One important point to note here is that you’ll be able to see only those CDS views for which annotation @Analytics.query is set as true. Figure 9.9 shows a search for all the views with “ZSFIN_M01” in the query name.
Figure 9.8 Logging In to SAP S/4HANA
Figure 9.9 List of Available CDS Views for Reporting
Alternatively, instead of searching by name, you can go to the Area tab to search by different functional areas (see Figure 9.10).
Figure 9.10 Browsing Available Reports by Area
You can now double-click on any CDS view (denoted by the cube icon) or query on the CDS view (denoted by the table and cube icon) to open a report.
Note
The difference between a CDS view and a query on a CDS view is that the CDS view is the data provider that is getting data in real time from SAP S/4HANA, whereas the query is an SAP Business Explorer (SAP BEx) query that is used to enrich the CDS view with additional calculations.
In the next screen, you can request any mandatory or optional prompts as defined in the CDS view by selecting from the list or entering the prompt values and clicking OK (see Figure 9.11).
Figure 9.11 Prompts Screen
Then the report opens with real-time values from SAP S/4HANA per the definition in the CDS view (see Figure 9.12). You can now start your analysis by slicing and dicing the data.
Figure 9.12 Real-Time Analysis for a Microsoft Office Report on SAP S/4HANA
9.2.3 Integration of SAP S/4HANA Analytics and SAP Lumira
SAP Lumira is a self-service data visualization solution that empowers business users to create a compelling dashboard for business presentations. SAP Lumira allows you to create a storyboard that leverages interactive graphs, charts, and maps, and it provides a flexible framework for extensibility. As a result, unique analytics needs of a customer can be solved by extending the product. SAP Lumira is natively integrated with a wide variety of SAP and non-SAP data sources. To connect to SAP S/4HANA, SAP Lumira leverages the SAP BW Data Acquisition Connector. Using this connection, SAP Lumira connects to SAP S/4HANA CDS views in real time.
After connecting to a CDS view, you can define the rows and measures on which you want to perform the analysis. The generated dashboard can either be stored in the SAP BusinessObjects server for a large audience to view or can be emailed as a PDF or an attachment for a larger audience.
There are two prerequisites before you can start using SAP Lumira to analyze SAP S/4HANA data:
- Install SAP Lumira.
- Make sure the SAP BW Data Acquisition Connector extension is installed in SAP Lumira.
Now that the prerequisites are met, we can see how to connect to SAP S/4HANA from SAP Lumira via the same view we used with SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft Office. Then we’ll discuss the similarities and differences of the two methods.
To get started with using SAP Lumira, you need to go to Windows Start menu and click on the program SAP Lumira. On the SAP Lumira welcome screen, you need to click on File • New (see Figure 9.13).
Figure 9.14 shows the screen in which you select the type of connection SAP Lumira needs to create with the data source. As mentioned earlier, SAP Lumira leverages the SAP BW connection to connect with SAP S/4HANA. Select Download from SAP Business Warehouse and proceed.
The SAP BW Data Acquisition Connector screen requires server details, client ID, and credentials based on which it will connect to SAP S/4HANA and list all the CDS views for the analysis (see Figure 9.15). Language is an optional prompt, which, by default, will be English. After filling up all the details, click on Connect.
Figure 9.13 SAP Lumira Home Screen
Figure 9.14 Choosing Download from SAP Business Warehouse
Figure 9.15 Inputting Server and Credential Details
After you successfully connect, similar to SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft Office, you can view the list of available CDS views or search the exact view you want to analyze. In Figure 9.16, the CDS views are listed by Info Area. You can see the Flight (by Airport) and Available Flights views, which we connected to using SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft Office earlier.
Figure 9.16 SAP BW Data Acquisition Connector
You can then click on either the CDS view (denoted by the cube icon) or query on the CDS view (denoted by the table and cube icon) to open up a report. On selecting the view, a prompt screen will pop up with all mandatory and optional prompts (see Figure 9.17). You need to select at least all the mandatory prompts to proceed.
Figure 9.17 Prompts
Unlike SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft Office, which opens the report with all the dimensions and measures right after prompt selection, SAP Lumira provides another option to choose the dimensions and measures you want to analyze with. In the next step, you can choose the dimensions and measures you want to analyze by selecting and then using the right arrow key to move the dimensions and measures on the left to the Create Your Lumira Dataset pane on the right (see Figure 9.18).
After your dimensions and measures are chosen, you’re ready to dive into the data analysis (see Figure 9.19).
Figure 9.18 Dimensions and Measures Selection
Figure 9.19 SAP Lumira: Ready for Analysis