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Showing posts with label BI News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BI News. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
SAP BusinessObjects Useful Links
SAP BusinessObjects Links
SAP® BusinessObjects Community: http://sdn.sap.com/irj/boc
SAP® BusinessObjects Notes: https://sdn.sap.com/irj/boc/notes
SAP® BusinessObjects Articles: https://sdn.sap.com/irj/boc/articles
SAP® BusinessObjects Forums: https://sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/forums
SAP® BusinessObjects Community: http://sdn.sap.com/irj/boc
SAP® BusinessObjects Notes: https://sdn.sap.com/irj/boc/notes
SAP® BusinessObjects Articles: https://sdn.sap.com/irj/boc/articles
SAP® BusinessObjects Forums: https://sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/forums
Saturday, February 27, 2010
SAP Revamps BusinessObject SaaS BI Suite
SAP yesterday announced a significant upgrade of its BusinessObjects BI OnDemand offering that both consolidates the vendor's software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings and presents simpler interfaces for novice business intelligence users. SAP has yet to define pricing and detail expected data integration options, but the new platform could well extend SAP's lead in SaaS-based BI.
The upgraded SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand unites and replaces two formerly distinct offerings: CrystalReports.com, the company's simplest and most popular SaaS offering, which has more than 200,000 subscribers; and the previously-available version of BI OnDemand, which was based on the vendor's on-premise SAP BusinessObjects XI BI suite. The new service delivers a single environment in which users can harness online versions of familiar tools, including Crystal Reports for reporting, Web Intelligence for query and analysis, Xcelsius for dashboarding and data visualization, and SAP BusinessObjects Explorer for fast, in-memory data analysis. For novice users who might not be familiar with these tools, the new service greets users with hand-holding wizards said to simplify data access and analysis.
"This new offering delivers a very intuitive, guided workflow for people of any expertise level," said Marge Breya, an executive vice president at SAP. The backbone of the service is a simple explore-report-share workflow. In the exploration phase, users can find and blend data from their own desktops and corporate sources without being an information management guru, according to the vendor. Wizards suggest appropriate data integration steps. Data from centralized sources can be refreshed automatically because the system relies on linked references to dynamic data rather than copies that quickly fall out of sync. In the reporting phase, users are ushered -- in business language rather than BI jargon -- to the right tool for the desired task, be it reporting, dashboarding, ad-hoc query or analysis. In the sharing phase, new social-casting options let users publish and embed reports and data visualizations much as they would Flickr photos or YouTube videos. And the sharing options include external blogs, wikis and Web sites as well as internal blogs and intranets. SAP executives said security settings, revocable access privileges, tracking and auditing features will ensure appropriate use of data.
"People share data today, but they do it in ways that aren't tracked or controlled through cutting, pasting, exporting and emailing," said David Meyer, a senior vice president at SAP. "This is a fluid system that lets you collaborate, but you can also report on, audit and control how information is accessed and used."
With more than 260,000 current subscribers to its services, SAP leads the SaaS-based BI market. Executives stressed that this puts the company is a unique position to blend the strengths of on-premise and on-demand software. Illustrating the benefit, users of on-premise Crystal Reports software have long been able to push a single button to publish reports on CrystalReports.com. Missing from today's formal announcement was news that the next major "Aurora" release of the on-premise BusinessObjects XI suite, which is expected in the second half of this year, will be loaded with similar report and data-visualization publishing options. And where today the service has simple FTP and browser-based options to upload data, coming releases promise much more.
"We have prior art around connectivity from our BI clients into the cloud... and over the next couple of months there will be a lot more details around APIs for pushing data into the system from any programming language or app," Meyer said. The design target, he added, is for on-premise updates on a factory floor, for example, to show up in cloud-based dashboards without human intervention.
As with any SaaS offering, key attractions include low cost and rapid deployment, SAP said. But also missing in today's announcement was detail on the pricing of the new service. A free Personal Edition will be limited to 10 megabytes or 2,000 rows of data. An Essential edition will grant up to 2 GB of storage and will be geared to individuals, work groups and departments. An Advanced edition will be aimed at companies integrating on-premise data sources and requiring advanced security and more storage (up to 5 GB). Current CrystalReports.com and BI OnDemand subscribers will be upgraded under their current contracts, and they'll gain access to all the new tools, wizards and workflows at no additional charge.
Add-on features will include hosted, large-scale data warehouses, a development environment and single-sign-on capabilities. A small minority of SAP's current BusinessObjects BI OnDemand customers use these advanced data warehousing services. But this segment is quickly growing, according to SAP, fueled in part by partners such as Oco, a SaaS-based data warehousing vendor that offers prebuilt models and analytics for areas such as supply chain optimization and profitability analysis. Oco uses SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand for reporting and analysis. Joining yesterday's announcement, an Oco executive said the combination of on-premise and on-demand BI has been a boon to larger customers including Welch's (grape juice products) and Fidelity Investments.
"These companies have existing, on-premise BI technology, but we come into play when they encounter new areas where they want to get a business analytics solution quickly up and running," said Anil Chitkara, Oco's senior vice president of market development.
The latest upgrade of SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand is currently accessible in English at BIonDemand.com. French, German, Spanish and Japanese versions are expected in the second quarter.
The upgraded SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand unites and replaces two formerly distinct offerings: CrystalReports.com, the company's simplest and most popular SaaS offering, which has more than 200,000 subscribers; and the previously-available version of BI OnDemand, which was based on the vendor's on-premise SAP BusinessObjects XI BI suite. The new service delivers a single environment in which users can harness online versions of familiar tools, including Crystal Reports for reporting, Web Intelligence for query and analysis, Xcelsius for dashboarding and data visualization, and SAP BusinessObjects Explorer for fast, in-memory data analysis. For novice users who might not be familiar with these tools, the new service greets users with hand-holding wizards said to simplify data access and analysis.
"This new offering delivers a very intuitive, guided workflow for people of any expertise level," said Marge Breya, an executive vice president at SAP. The backbone of the service is a simple explore-report-share workflow. In the exploration phase, users can find and blend data from their own desktops and corporate sources without being an information management guru, according to the vendor. Wizards suggest appropriate data integration steps. Data from centralized sources can be refreshed automatically because the system relies on linked references to dynamic data rather than copies that quickly fall out of sync. In the reporting phase, users are ushered -- in business language rather than BI jargon -- to the right tool for the desired task, be it reporting, dashboarding, ad-hoc query or analysis. In the sharing phase, new social-casting options let users publish and embed reports and data visualizations much as they would Flickr photos or YouTube videos. And the sharing options include external blogs, wikis and Web sites as well as internal blogs and intranets. SAP executives said security settings, revocable access privileges, tracking and auditing features will ensure appropriate use of data.
"People share data today, but they do it in ways that aren't tracked or controlled through cutting, pasting, exporting and emailing," said David Meyer, a senior vice president at SAP. "This is a fluid system that lets you collaborate, but you can also report on, audit and control how information is accessed and used."
With more than 260,000 current subscribers to its services, SAP leads the SaaS-based BI market. Executives stressed that this puts the company is a unique position to blend the strengths of on-premise and on-demand software. Illustrating the benefit, users of on-premise Crystal Reports software have long been able to push a single button to publish reports on CrystalReports.com. Missing from today's formal announcement was news that the next major "Aurora" release of the on-premise BusinessObjects XI suite, which is expected in the second half of this year, will be loaded with similar report and data-visualization publishing options. And where today the service has simple FTP and browser-based options to upload data, coming releases promise much more.
"We have prior art around connectivity from our BI clients into the cloud... and over the next couple of months there will be a lot more details around APIs for pushing data into the system from any programming language or app," Meyer said. The design target, he added, is for on-premise updates on a factory floor, for example, to show up in cloud-based dashboards without human intervention.
As with any SaaS offering, key attractions include low cost and rapid deployment, SAP said. But also missing in today's announcement was detail on the pricing of the new service. A free Personal Edition will be limited to 10 megabytes or 2,000 rows of data. An Essential edition will grant up to 2 GB of storage and will be geared to individuals, work groups and departments. An Advanced edition will be aimed at companies integrating on-premise data sources and requiring advanced security and more storage (up to 5 GB). Current CrystalReports.com and BI OnDemand subscribers will be upgraded under their current contracts, and they'll gain access to all the new tools, wizards and workflows at no additional charge.
Add-on features will include hosted, large-scale data warehouses, a development environment and single-sign-on capabilities. A small minority of SAP's current BusinessObjects BI OnDemand customers use these advanced data warehousing services. But this segment is quickly growing, according to SAP, fueled in part by partners such as Oco, a SaaS-based data warehousing vendor that offers prebuilt models and analytics for areas such as supply chain optimization and profitability analysis. Oco uses SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand for reporting and analysis. Joining yesterday's announcement, an Oco executive said the combination of on-premise and on-demand BI has been a boon to larger customers including Welch's (grape juice products) and Fidelity Investments.
"These companies have existing, on-premise BI technology, but we come into play when they encounter new areas where they want to get a business analytics solution quickly up and running," said Anil Chitkara, Oco's senior vice president of market development.
The latest upgrade of SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand is currently accessible in English at BIonDemand.com. French, German, Spanish and Japanese versions are expected in the second quarter.
IBM Releases Cognos Analytics Upgrades
Over the last two years the Dow Jones Industrial Average has ranged between 14,000 and 6,600 and the cost of oil has ranged between $140 and $35 per barrel. Corporate finance types have barely kept up. No sooner are budgets and projections created than they end up in the digital equivalent of a waste basket.
Aiming to provide better coping mechanisms, IBM today introduced improved IBM Cognos tools designed to support faster, more flexible financial analysis. The elements of the three-part release include new scenario-planning options, new financial consolidation capabilities, and new pre-built models for vertical-industry scenarios.
It has always been possible to create scenarios in the IBM Cogno TM1 in-memory analysis tool, but an upgrade released today supports unlimited, dynamic hierarchies that let planners consider a range of possible scenarios in their budgets and forecasts.
"It's very common for companies to consider new groupings of products, product lines and market areas to focus on growth and profit," said Doug Barton, vice president, financial performance management at IBM. "Before you make any final decisions, this new TM1 capability lets you look at multiple scenarios to consider all the financial implications."
A key point is that these scenarios can be retained in a personal sandbox environment or shared with others to encourage collaboration. They can also flexibly become the adopted approach to organizing budgets and plans. The scenario approach lets executives quickly respond as conditions change.
The new financial consolidation capabilities delivered in today's IBM Cognos 8 Controller release include enhanced allocation and formula-calculation features said to easy financial reporting. In addition, the vendor has also gone beyond conventional, pixel-perfect "blue book" reporting by enabling financial results to be published through the TM1 analysis engine. "This will enable analysts to use TM1 to derive new insights on operations so they can look at trends in detail," Barton said.
The new pre-built blueprints introduced today address product profitability analysis, demand planning for the consumer packaged goods industry, and development of executive dashboards for insurance underwriting. The blueprints give companies a head start on building company-specific analytic solutions, but are they extensible and upgradable as the underlying BI tools change?
"When we release a new version of TM1, the models customers have created with their own hierarchies and data based on these blueprints will automatically upgrade as customers would expect," Barton said. "If we create a new version of a blueprint to introduce new capabilities, that's when it will be up to the customer to decide whether they want to rebuild to weave new capabilities into their solutions."
IBM Cognos customer Quiznos, a fast-growing restaurant chain with more than 5,000 outlets, is using the TM1 analysis engine to simplify financial reporting and planning. "With the new IBM Cognos software, all of our business units will be able to use the same assumptions and the same drivers when building budgets and making key financial decisions," stated Michael McConnaughey, financial systems applications developer at Quiznos. "Teams will also be able to view business variances and use predictive insights to understand the impact on the organization."
The IBM Cognos TM1 and Controller upgrades, and the new industry templates are all available immediately.
Aiming to provide better coping mechanisms, IBM today introduced improved IBM Cognos tools designed to support faster, more flexible financial analysis. The elements of the three-part release include new scenario-planning options, new financial consolidation capabilities, and new pre-built models for vertical-industry scenarios.
It has always been possible to create scenarios in the IBM Cogno TM1 in-memory analysis tool, but an upgrade released today supports unlimited, dynamic hierarchies that let planners consider a range of possible scenarios in their budgets and forecasts.
"It's very common for companies to consider new groupings of products, product lines and market areas to focus on growth and profit," said Doug Barton, vice president, financial performance management at IBM. "Before you make any final decisions, this new TM1 capability lets you look at multiple scenarios to consider all the financial implications."
A key point is that these scenarios can be retained in a personal sandbox environment or shared with others to encourage collaboration. They can also flexibly become the adopted approach to organizing budgets and plans. The scenario approach lets executives quickly respond as conditions change.
The new financial consolidation capabilities delivered in today's IBM Cognos 8 Controller release include enhanced allocation and formula-calculation features said to easy financial reporting. In addition, the vendor has also gone beyond conventional, pixel-perfect "blue book" reporting by enabling financial results to be published through the TM1 analysis engine. "This will enable analysts to use TM1 to derive new insights on operations so they can look at trends in detail," Barton said.
The new pre-built blueprints introduced today address product profitability analysis, demand planning for the consumer packaged goods industry, and development of executive dashboards for insurance underwriting. The blueprints give companies a head start on building company-specific analytic solutions, but are they extensible and upgradable as the underlying BI tools change?
"When we release a new version of TM1, the models customers have created with their own hierarchies and data based on these blueprints will automatically upgrade as customers would expect," Barton said. "If we create a new version of a blueprint to introduce new capabilities, that's when it will be up to the customer to decide whether they want to rebuild to weave new capabilities into their solutions."
IBM Cognos customer Quiznos, a fast-growing restaurant chain with more than 5,000 outlets, is using the TM1 analysis engine to simplify financial reporting and planning. "With the new IBM Cognos software, all of our business units will be able to use the same assumptions and the same drivers when building budgets and making key financial decisions," stated Michael McConnaughey, financial systems applications developer at Quiznos. "Teams will also be able to view business variances and use predictive insights to understand the impact on the organization."
The IBM Cognos TM1 and Controller upgrades, and the new industry templates are all available immediately.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Evolution of the BO XI platform – from XI R2 to XI 3.1 SP2
Where were we with XI R2:
• Change to Crystal service-oriented platform (Crystal 10 architecture)
• Ability to plug Crystal Reports, Web Intelligence, Desktop Intelligence, OLAP Intelligence, Dashboard Manager, Performance Manager directly into the framework
• Single repository, security, system management, publishing, portal
• Infoview (Replaced old BO Infoview and Crystal ePortfolio)
• Central Management Console (CMC)
• Import Wizard (upgrades from BO 5, 6, XI, Crystal 8.5, 9, 10)
• Desktop Intelligence (new name for BO full client + ability to query and display Unicode data)
• Publishing, Encyclopedia, Discussions, OLAP Intelligence, Performance Management
• Changes to Data Integrator, Composer, Metadata Manager
XI 3.0
• All administration moved to the Central Management Console – CMC – with new GUI
• Bulk action support in CMC
• Central Configuration Manager – CCM is still there (to manage multiple nodes) with 2 entries : Tomcat & SIA
• Server Intelligence Agent (SIA) – handles service dependencies
• Server Intelligence in CMC – clone server deployments
• Repository Federation – replicate repository on other BO cluster
• Repository Diagnostic Tool (Infostore vs FileStore – repair inconsistencies between CMS database entries and files in FRS)
• Improved Import Wizard
• Web Intelligence Rich Client (offline viewing of WebI reports, no session timeout)
• Data change tracking in Web Intelligence
• Designer – “Database delegated” projection on measures
• Universe based on stored procedures
• Prompt syntax extension (persistent/primary_key undocumented features, finally!)
• Personal data provider – combine data from Excel, text, csv and get into a single report
• Smart cubes – support for non-additive measures (percentages, ratios) and RDBMS analytical functions
• Multi language support – dimensions, measures, prompts automatically localized to report viewer’s language
• Native Web Intelligence printing (without PDF)
• Enbed image in Web Intelligence report
• Hyperlinks dialog box makes links easy to create – syntax generated by WebIntelligence (remember opendocument()?)
What’s new in XI 3.1
• Support for multi-forest Active Directory authentication
• IP v6 support
• Lifecycle Management Tool (LCMBIAR files, replace Import Wizard)
• Saving Web Intelligence documents as CSV (data-only files) – new sheets for every 65K rows of data
• Web Intelligence Autosave
• “Begin_SQL” SQL prefix variable
• Prompt syntax extension (support for key-value pairs!)
• Business Objects Voyager enhancements
• Live Office enhancements
• WebIntelligence – Automatic loading of cached LOVs, interactive drag-drop, report filter bar, cancel refresh-on-open
What’s new in XI 3.1 SP2
• WebIntelligence Input controls
• OLAP universe based access to SAP BW using MDX
• BI services – expose WebIntelligence document components as web services
• Query on Query
• Fold-unfold UI improvements
• New SDKs – WebI Calculation Extension Points, Custom Data Provider plugin, Interactive viewing extension and integration points
• New universe SQL parameter SMART_AGGREGATE allows using most detailed aggregate tables
• @Prompt editor in universe Designer
• Backward compatibility is broken. Web Intelligence documents created using BO XI 3.1 SP2 cannot be opened in BO XI 3.1
• Change to Crystal service-oriented platform (Crystal 10 architecture)
• Ability to plug Crystal Reports, Web Intelligence, Desktop Intelligence, OLAP Intelligence, Dashboard Manager, Performance Manager directly into the framework
• Single repository, security, system management, publishing, portal
• Infoview (Replaced old BO Infoview and Crystal ePortfolio)
• Central Management Console (CMC)
• Import Wizard (upgrades from BO 5, 6, XI, Crystal 8.5, 9, 10)
• Desktop Intelligence (new name for BO full client + ability to query and display Unicode data)
• Publishing, Encyclopedia, Discussions, OLAP Intelligence, Performance Management
• Changes to Data Integrator, Composer, Metadata Manager
XI 3.0
• All administration moved to the Central Management Console – CMC – with new GUI
• Bulk action support in CMC
• Central Configuration Manager – CCM is still there (to manage multiple nodes) with 2 entries : Tomcat & SIA
• Server Intelligence Agent (SIA) – handles service dependencies
• Server Intelligence in CMC – clone server deployments
• Repository Federation – replicate repository on other BO cluster
• Repository Diagnostic Tool (Infostore vs FileStore – repair inconsistencies between CMS database entries and files in FRS)
• Improved Import Wizard
• Web Intelligence Rich Client (offline viewing of WebI reports, no session timeout)
• Data change tracking in Web Intelligence
• Designer – “Database delegated” projection on measures
• Universe based on stored procedures
• Prompt syntax extension (persistent/primary_key undocumented features, finally!)
• Personal data provider – combine data from Excel, text, csv and get into a single report
• Smart cubes – support for non-additive measures (percentages, ratios) and RDBMS analytical functions
• Multi language support – dimensions, measures, prompts automatically localized to report viewer’s language
• Native Web Intelligence printing (without PDF)
• Enbed image in Web Intelligence report
• Hyperlinks dialog box makes links easy to create – syntax generated by WebIntelligence (remember opendocument()?)
What’s new in XI 3.1
• Support for multi-forest Active Directory authentication
• IP v6 support
• Lifecycle Management Tool (LCMBIAR files, replace Import Wizard)
• Saving Web Intelligence documents as CSV (data-only files) – new sheets for every 65K rows of data
• Web Intelligence Autosave
• “Begin_SQL” SQL prefix variable
• Prompt syntax extension (support for key-value pairs!)
• Business Objects Voyager enhancements
• Live Office enhancements
• WebIntelligence – Automatic loading of cached LOVs, interactive drag-drop, report filter bar, cancel refresh-on-open
What’s new in XI 3.1 SP2
• WebIntelligence Input controls
• OLAP universe based access to SAP BW using MDX
• BI services – expose WebIntelligence document components as web services
• Query on Query
• Fold-unfold UI improvements
• New SDKs – WebI Calculation Extension Points, Custom Data Provider plugin, Interactive viewing extension and integration points
• New universe SQL parameter SMART_AGGREGATE allows using most detailed aggregate tables
• @Prompt editor in universe Designer
• Backward compatibility is broken. Web Intelligence documents created using BO XI 3.1 SP2 cannot be opened in BO XI 3.1
Friday, July 25, 2008
Business Objects Reloads Mid-Market Product Line
Business Objects Reloads Mid-Market Product Line
7/23/2008
By Stephen Swoyer
With new releases of two of its signal SME offerings on tap this week, Business Objects -- now an SAP AG company -- hopes to build on its success in the small to mid-size company market. The rules of the mid-market game are changing, but one thing hasn't changed: SME customers -- much like their larger enterprise brethren -- are still wild about reporting. It's the bedrock of BI, after all.
That's why Business Objects -- which spent more than $800 million five years ago to acquire one of the best-known reporting brands on the market -- thinks it has an ace up its sleeve. With the release this week of revamped versions of its Crystal Reports Server and Business Objects Edge products, officials are pulling out all of the stops to burnish the company's mid-market credentials.
Prior to SAP's acquisition, Business Objects fired off several successful mid-market offerings. It released Crystal Reports Server (a version of Crystal Reports that was packaged, tweaked, and configured for SMEs), Business Objects Edge bundle (a mid-market-ready version of its Business Objects enterprise software stack), and launched several initiatives (including its Business Objects Rapid Marts -- basically, out-of-the-box data marts that provide turnkey integration with popular data sources such as SAP). James Thomas, vice-president of business intelligence tools -- and long-time Crystal Reports point-person -- with Business Objects, claims that his company knows SME customers: seven-eighths of its customer base is technically part of the mid-market....... more look at ... Click right click new window
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