6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 1/32

Getting Started Newsletters Store

Products Services & Support About SCN Downloads

Industries Training & Education Partnership Developer Center

Lines of Business University Alliances Events & Webinars Innovation

Log On Join UsHi, Guest Search the Community

Activity Communications Actions

Brow se

BI Platform 255 Posts 1 2 3 4 5 6 … 17

PreviousNext

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

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 4/32

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.

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 5/32

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

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 7/32

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

6/3/2014 BI Platform | SCN

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 10/32

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

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 11/32

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

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 13/32

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&amp

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&amp;component=designerForm:HorizontalBarChart1_overview

2. MDAnalysis.chart?payload=6b9627b3&amp;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

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 16/32

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

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 23/32

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

http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog?start=45 29/32

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

Follow SCNSite Index Contact Us SAP Help Portal

Privacy Terms of Use Legal Disclosure Copyright

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

On explique : Le DCP 4.1 (Desktop Compatibility...

1 2 3 4 5 6 … 17

PreviousNext