dr. bjarne berg comerit
DESCRIPTION
Xcelsius , Web Application Designer, or SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer: A Detailed Guide to Choosing the Right Tool for Your Dashboarding Needs . Dr. Bjarne Berg Comerit. In This Session …. You will see three demos of different dashboarding tools - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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© 2011 Wellesley Information Services. All rights reserved.
Xcelsius, Web Application Designer, or SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer: A Detailed Guide to Choosing the Right Tool for Your Dashboarding Needs
Dr. Bjarne BergComerit
In This Session …
• You will see three demos of different dashboarding tools• Learn how to build Web application designer, Xcelsius® (now
called SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards), and SAP NetWeaver® Visual Composer dashboards (three demos)
• Learn when to pick one dashboarding tool over another• Find out the limitations of each tool and what skill sets are needed
to be successful
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What We’ll Cover …
• Introduction• SAP Web application designer overview• Xcelsius overview• SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer overview• Lessons learned and limitations• Wrap-up
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The Big Picture …
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Since there are varying experience levels in the audience, we assume no prior knowledge in either SAP BusinessObjects or SAP BEx tools and will cover all from a high-level standpoint
We will take a closer look at each tool in the demo sections
With the merger between SAP and Business Objects, we got access to new “best-of-breed” tools
Source: SAP
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The SAP BI legacy SAP Business Explorer (SAP BEx) tool includes the Web template development environment known as Web Application Designer (WAD)
This tool has been used extensively by the SAP BI community for the last 10 years
SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer is part of the SAP NetWeaver Composite Environment (SAP NetWeaver CE) and is not affected by the new SAP BusinessObjects tool set
The SAP NetWeaver Legacy Toolset
Source: SAP
What We’ll Cover …
• Introduction• SAP Web application designer overview• Xcelsius overview• SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer overview• Lessons learned and limitations• Wrap-up
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Web Application Designer
OLAP Processor
Web Application DesignerBEx Analyzer/Query Designer
Web Service
Charting Engine
Dashboards and Web Templates
HTLM Templates InfoProvider
Web application designer is an intuitive tool to build powerful Web applications and to interact with portals and custom templates
BW queries can be manipulated in Web application designer for better display
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The Web Application Designer Template
Web application designer templates can be simple or complex – Think of Web application designer as a complete Web
development environment
Web templates are used to simplify navigation, add graphs, and create dashboards
Basic dashboards can be developed in a few hours and provide low cost dashboards with total flexibility and native connectivity to SAP NetWeaver BW
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The Web Application Designer Template — EditsOnce a Web template is developed, it is easy to edit it. You can change graphs, and present the data from a query in many ways. We can add navigation items (buttons, listbox, radio buttons) to make the dashboards more interactive.
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Web Application Designer Template — Changing Graphs
Plan on spending a substantial amount of time with your user
acceptance team to validate the way you present data
By clicking on a chart item and selecting “Edit” you can use a wizard to modify the graph type. There are almost 100 pre-delivered graph types.
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Web Application Designer Template — Controlling Properties
An item can be displayed with scrolling, headers, and navigation features turned
“off/on” in a code-free development environment
Every object can be controlled in-detail in the property pane
The available properties depends on the type of object:• List box • Analysis item• Chart item• Document• Label
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Web Application Designer Template — The Use of Queries
Do not develop dashboards on basic queries without performance testing them. You should consider using a
naming convention for queries used in Web application designer to avoid
people changing them
Once you have built a Web template, it is easy to copy it and change the data provider or query that are being used
The developer's favorites, history, and InfoArea are displayed, and the queries are organized by roles as configured in BW
Step-By-Step Demo of Web Application Designer
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Example 1: Building a Web Application Designer Template — Getting Started
Step-1: Create a blank template
Step-2: Drag an analysis item into the canvas
Step-3: Create a data provider called “DP-1” based on a query
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Building a Web Application Designer Template — Adding Buttons
Step-4: Assign the analysis item to the data provider
Step-5: Add a button group. We will add one button for printing in PDF and one for jumping to a detailed Web query
Step-6: Use the wizard to create button-1: Export the template to PDF
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Building a Web Application Designer Template — Adding Commands to Buttons
Step-7: Navigate to the command in the Wizard (we will export the Web template to PDF).
Benefit: Using the Wizards, we do not have to write any code
Step-8: We link the command to the analysis item. We can change paper size, orientation, headers, or footers, and allow for an export dialog panel to be displayed when the user presses the button.Note: This is the same command we use to export the template to Excel.
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Building a Web Application Designer Template — Testing the Functionality
Step-9: Save the Web template
Step-10: Click “Run”
Step-11: Try the new PDF button
Step-12: Since we set this up in step 8, the user sees a dialog panel and can control their own layout
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The Result
If you have an idea on how a BI Web site should work, you can probably do this in Web application designer
In the next example, we will use a button to jump to a detailed query
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Example 2: Adding a Jump-to from Web Template to Web Query
Step-1: We use the second button from the previous example and call it “start analysis”
Step-2: We use the command Wizard and select the “transfer state” option. This transfers the navigational status between the Web items
Step-3: Select the item we want to “jump-to”
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Testing the Functionality
Step-4: We have linked the Web template to the internal link, the data provider and the analysis item – the work is all done!
Step-5: We save the template, and run it to test the new functionality
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The Result
Step-6: We can jump between templates and queries to see details
Key concept: Web template for management and easy navigation, Web queries for other users
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Summary — Web Application Development (WAD)
BENEFIT: Web application designer can be used to create powerful, custom cockpits and dashboards with custom features. You are not confined to standard SAP functionality
DRAWBACK: Requires more technical skills to develop good dashboards
What We’ll Cover …
• Introduction• SAP Web application designer overview• Xcelsius overview• SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer overview• Lessons learned and limitations• Wrap-up
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Xcelsius
Dashboards can be built using Xcelsius (now called SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards)Xcelsius was launched in March 2010, and is the flagship product for data visualization and dashboards
Web application designer is not enhanced further beyond SAP
NetWeaver 7.1.
Adding Interactivity in Xcelsius
To make dashboards useful for more than one person, you should plan to offer navigation and interactivity instead of static images and graphs
Adding Interactivity in Xcelsius (cont.)
Xcelsius — The Basics and Options
Xcelsius — Some SAP SDN Examples
Source: Chintan Doshi, SAP sdn, 2010
Xcelsius — Some SAP SDN Examples (cont.)
Source: SAP
What We’ll Cover …
• Introduction• SAP Web application designer overview• Xcelsius overview• SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer overview• Lessons learned and limitations• Wrap-up
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SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer is a browser-based modeling and design tool for rapid application development in a code-free development environment
SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer Is a Tool to Visualize the Data
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SAP and VC:"With the new version of SAP NetWeaver CE 7.2, you are able to design and develop your "own practices" as business rule-based, SOA-enabled, composite business processes & applications with the Eclipse-based SAP Developer Studio" - SAP AG, 2010 (sap.com)
There Are Two “Versions” of SAP NetWeaver Visual ComposerSAP NetWeaver Visual Composer 7.0 is for SAP BI development, 7.2 is for the Composite Environment (CE). There are different SDN forums and blogs for each – This can be confusing!
Our Target Dashboard
We will build a dashboard based on two queries called country and customer view, and present this with tables and graphs as well as navigational links between them (passing variables between the queries)
SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer — Building a Complete Dashboard
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SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer 7.0 and Xcelsius
SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer 7.01 (or 7.02) SP5 or higher allows you to use existing Xcelsius UI controls and use them inside SAP NetWeaver Visual ComposerYou can also use any Flex component made by Adobe Flex Builder (Flex 2 SDK)You can download flash objects and “how-to” on http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/16871
External Web services such as email, stock quotes, news services, and weather maps can also be integrated into your SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer cockpit
External Web Services
Each Web service may require different input, so you have to spend some time trying out what works for your site and how to format it
External Data Providers — Web Services
What We’ll Cover …
• Introduction• SAP Web application designer overview• Xcelsius overview• SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer overview• Lessons learned and limitations• Wrap-up
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BW DF Fascade
Data Federator
RDBMS Analytic Engine
OLAP BAP I ODBOXMLA
UniversesQT ODA
SQL Access MDX Access
WebI XcelsiusQaaWS
BWA
SAP BusinessObjects Integration Options — BICS Connector!
• Notice that DF Facade and SAP BusinessObjects Data Federator are separate products that are currently licensed separately from the SAP NetWeaver BW licenses
40WebI = SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence, BWA = SAP NetWeaver BW AcceleratorSource: SAP AG, Dec, 2010
DF Facade
What Tool to Select
• All SAP tools have strength and weaknesses• This is a subjective summary of each of the major dashboard
tools
End User
Power User Author
IT Developer Graphing Navigation
External data
External web
services Simplicity OLAPAd-Hoc
queryingWeb Application DesignerDashboard Designer (Xcelsius)
Visual Composer
Interactive Analysis (WebI)
CapabilitiesDevelopmentTool
Long-term
Stategy
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What We’ll Cover …
• Introduction• SAP Web application designer overview• Xcelsius overview• SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer overview• Lessons learned and limitations• Wrap-up
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Resources
• Xcelsius® sample dashboards www.sdn.sap.com/irj/boc/xcelsius-samples
• SAP BusinessObjects Community and blogs www.sdn.sap.com/irj/boc
• Evan Delodder and Ray Li, Creating Dashboards with Xcelsius: Practical Guide (SAP PRESS, 1st Edition, 2010).
• Carsten Bönnen and Mario Herger, SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer (SAP PRESS, 1st edition, 2006).
• How to Integrate Visual Composer Applications and BEx Web templates www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/
uuid/ad182ac7-0a01-0010-4fb8-8a4d217b19c1?QuickLink=index&overridelayout=true
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7 Key Points to Take Home
• There is more than one tool for dashboarding, plan accordingly• RAD is always the preferred development methodology• Xcelsius (now called SAP BusinessObjects Dashboard) will be the most
common dashboarding tool for most companies (90% probability)• Ad-hoc analysis (SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence) is a great ad-
hoc tool with some graphical capabilities It is not a dashboarding tool
• Web application designer is a good tool for IT developers, but does not have as many Web 2.0 features as Xcelsius, nor is the dashboards as interactive and flexible
• SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer is an option for simple dashboards• Spend about 25-30% of the project on designing and User Acceptance
Testing (users don't know what they want until they see it)
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DisclaimerSAP, R/3, mySAP, mySAP.com, SAP NetWeaver®, Duet™®, PartnerEdge, and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Wellesley Information Services is neither owned nor controlled by SAP.