SAP Business Intelligence Quick Start Guide

Book description

Designing and deploying solutions using the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform 4.2.

Key Features

  • Get up and running with the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform
  • Perform effective data analysis and visualization for actionable insights
  • Enhance your BI strategy by creating different types of reports and dashboards using SAP BusinessObjects

Book Description

The SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform is a powerful reporting and analysis tool. This book is the ideal introduction to the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform, introducing you to its data visualization, visual analytics, reporting, and dashboarding capabilities.

The book starts with an overview of the BI platform and various data sources for reporting. Then, we move on to looking at data visualization, analysis, reporting, and analytics using BusinessObjects Business Intelligence tools. You will learn about the features associated with reporting, scheduling, and distribution and learn how to deploy the platform. Toward the end, you will learn about the strategies and factors that should be considered during deployment.

By the end, you will be confident working with the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform to deliver better insights for more effective decision making.

What you will learn

  • Work with various tools to create interactive data visualization and analysis
  • Query, report, and analyze with SAP Business Objects Web Intelligence
  • Create a report in SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise
  • Visualize and manipulate data using an SAP Lumira Storyboard
  • Deep dive into the workings of the SAP predictive analytics tool
  • Deploy and configure SAP BO Intelligence platform 4.2

Who this book is for

This book is for Business Intelligence professionals and existing SAP ecosystem users who want to perform effective Business Intelligence using SAP BusinessObjects.

Publisher resources

View/Submit Errata

Table of contents

  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright and Credits
    1. SAP Business Intelligence Quick Start Guide
  3. Dedication
  4. About Packt
    1. Why subscribe?
    2. Packt.com
  5. Contributors
    1. About the author
    2. About the reviewer
    3. Packt is searching for authors like you
  6. Preface
    1. Who this book is for
    2. What this book covers
    3. To get the most out of this book
      1. Download the color images
      2. Conventions used
    4. Get in touch
      1. Reviews
  7. Section 1: Introduction to SAP Business Intelligence
  8. Overview of SAP BusinessObject Business Intelligence 4.2
    1. BI and its benefits
    2. Components of SAP BusinessObjects 4.2
      1. Central Management Console
      2. Central Configuration Manager
      3. Lifecycle Management
    3. Enterprise data sources for BI reporting tools
      1. Information Design Tool
        1. Creating a Universe with the IDT
          1. Getting started with the tool
          2. Creating a new relational connection
          3. Creating a shortcut in our local folder
          4. Creating a single source data foundation
          5. Creating a new Business Layer with a file 
          6. Creating a query on the Business Layer using Query Panel
    4. Creating a BEx query to directly access SAP BW as a data source
      1. Displaying the SAP HANA view using the SAP HANA live browser
    5. Local data sources
    6. Summary
  9. Section 2: Data Visualization, Analysis, and Reporting
  10. SAP BusinessObject Analysis
    1. Introduction to SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft
    2. A basic workbook with SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft
      1. The list of groups 
        1. The Data Source group 
        2. The Data Analysis group 
        3. The Combine and Display groups 
        4. The Insert and Tools groups
      2. Creating a SAP BusinessObjects Analysis workbook 
      3. Creating a SAP BusinessObjects Analysis workbook based on an existing BEx query
        1. Report to report interface 
    3. SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft PowerPoint
      1. Inserting a data source in a workbook
      2. Creating a PowerPoint presentation using SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for PowerPoint
      3. Creating a PowerPoint presentation using analysis for PowerPoint based on SAP BW data 
    4. Summary 
  11. SAP BusinessObject Design Studio
    1. Introduction to SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio
    2. Interface elements of SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio
    3. Working with the design tool 
    4. Design Studio architecture
      1. Deployment platform as BI
      2. Deployment on SAP NetWeaver
      3. Deployment on SAP HANA
      4. Architecture for local mode
    5. Use case – creating an analytical application
    6. Summary 
  12. SAP BusinessObject Web Intelligence
    1. Introduction to SAP BusinessObjects WebI
      1. Reporting with SAP BusinessObjects WebI
      2. Querying with SAP BusinessObjects WebI
      3. Analyzing with SAP BusinessObjects WebI
      4. WebI calculations
      5. Groups and sorts
      6. Other features 
      7. Application modes
    2. Creating a WebI document based on an existing Universe 
      1. WebI document based on SAP HANA view
    3. Summary 
  13. SAP BusinessObject Crystal Reports
    1. Introduction to SAP Crystal Reports 
      1. Toolbars in SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise
      2. Data sources for SAP Crystal Reports 
      3. Data grouping and sorting
    2. Creating a report in SAP Crystal Reports 
      1. Creating the report with SAP HANA view as a data source 
      2. Insight to Action
    3. Summary 
  14. SAP BusinessObject SAP Lumira
    1. Introduction to SAP Lumira 
    2. Use cases for Lumira 
      1. Data preparation 
      2. Prepare view
        1. Date panel
        2. Object Picker and column data manipulation panel
        3. Data manipulation panel 
        4. Data editing and cleaning panel
      3. Data filtering in columns and charts 
        1. Filter panel 
      4. Number and date formatting 
      5. Visualization and storyboards 
      6. Chart types in SAP Lumira
      7. Sharing the charts, stories, and datasets 
        1. Sharing charts 
        2. Sharing stories
        3. Sharing datasets 
        4. Sending charts by email 
      8. Introduction to SAP Lumira Cloud 
    3. Creating a SAP Lumira visualization 
      1. Creating a Lumira report based on the eFashion packages and Universe
      2. Creating a visualization using a SAP BW query
    4. Creating a SAP Lumira storyboard
    5. Summary 
  15. SAP BusinessObject Predictive Analytics 2.0
    1. Introduction to SAP BusinessObjects Predictive Analytics
    2. SAP Automated Analytics and Expert Analytics features 
      1. The data understanding phase 
      2. The modeling and evaluation phase 
      3. A classification example using Automated Analytics
      4. Model performance indicators 
    3. Automated Analytics – forecasting in SAP Predictive Analysis 
      1. Configuring the Modeler and exploring the data
      2. Building a classification model and analyzing the results
    4. Summary 
  16. Section 3: BI Platform Features and Deployment
  17. BI Platform Features
    1. Introduction to the BI platform features of SAP BusinessObjects 
    2. SAP BusinessObjects BI platform security 
      1. License type and access
      2. User rights and permissions
      3. Group hierarchy, groups, and subgroups
      4. Rights in the BI platform
        1. Object-level security
        2. Folder-level security
        3. Top-level folder security
        4. Access levels
        5. Inheritance 
      5. Document settings for mobile access 
      6. Web intelligence-specific settings for SAP BusinessObjects mobile and designing studio-specific settings 
    3. Scheduling and emailing an SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence Report
      1. Scheduling and sending a Webi document 
    4. Summary 
  18. BI Platform Deployment
    1. Introduction to BI platform architecture 
      1. SAP cloud strategy – BI solutions 
        1. SAP Analytics Cloud
        2. SAP Lumira
        3. SAP BW/4HANA 
        4. SAP Crystal Reports
    2. SAP BusinessObjects BI4 for cloud deployment options
      1. SAP BusinessObjects on SAP HANA
    3. BI platform system overview
      1. SAP BusinessObjects 4.2 – deployment 
        1. Central Management Server database requests and system and API calls
        2. Centralized versus decentralized
        3. Agile Visualization functions and components
        4. SAP BusinessObjects Lumira
        5. SAP BusinessObjects Explorer
        6. SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for OLAP
        7. SAP BusinessObjects Predictive Analytics
      2. Dashboards and applications 
        1. SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio
        2. SAP BusinessObjects dashboards 
        3. Reporting in the BI platform
        4. SAP BusinessObject Web Intelligence
        5. SAP Crystal Reports
        6. Universal semantic layer 
        7. Benefits of business views
    4. Overview of the BI platform suite 
      1. Client-tier components for integration 
      2. Information Design Tool
      3. Data-tier components for integration 
      4. Processing-tier components for integration 
      5. Storage, management, and web-tier components for integration
      6. SAP BusinessObjects platform – a tool for integration
        1. Web interfaces
        2. Semantic layer
        3. Report content types
    5. Summary
  19. Other Books You May Enjoy
    1. Leave a review - let other readers know what you think

Product information

  • Title: SAP Business Intelligence Quick Start Guide
  • Author(s): Vinay Singh
  • Release date: February 2019
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781789346206