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Naeem Hashmi
SAP GO-Live Call April 11, 2002
Chief Technology Officer Information Frameworks Tel: 603-432-4550 Cell: 603-661-6820 Email: nhashmi@infoframeworks.com http://infoframeworks.com
Naeem Hashmi Integration 3rd Party Tools with SAP BW 1
rd 3
Agenda
Anatomy of BI Tools Data Access Interfaces in SAP BW (Pro and Cons) 3rd Party Reporting Tools and SAP BW Challenges in integrating 3rd Party tools with BW What SAP or 3rd party vendors can do to address SAP BW Integration Issues Q&A
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Distribution Engine
Presentation
Data Storage
Tools provide several Data Management layers Each layer impacts overall performance
Copyrights 2002: Information Frameworks. Naeem Hashmi Integration 3rd Party Tools with SAP BW 3
SAP BW Interfaces
SAP certifies 3rd Party tools for individual Interface/Version
Source: SAP
Integration 3rd Party Tools with SAP BW 4
Data Storage
Naeem Hashmi
MDX Dataset
OLAP ENGINE
Application Server
ODBO
Query Cubes
InfoCube
MOLAP Cube
ODS Object
DATABASE SERVER
Source: Business Information Warehouse for SAP by Naeem Hashmi, Prima, 2000
NOTE: Understand that in BW you never access the physical database when accessing through these APIs.
Copyrights 2002: Information Frameworks. Naeem Hashmi Integration 3rd Party Tools with SAP BW 6
Source: Business Information Warehouse for SAP, Naeem Hashmi, Prima 2000 Copyrights 2002: Information Frameworks. Naeem Hashmi Integration 3rd Party Tools with SAP BW 7
Naeem Hashmi
PolyVista
ANALYST
Business Objects BusinessQuery Cognos PowerPlay Crystal Analysis PolyVista
POWER USERS
Crystal Enterprise IBI WebFOCUS MIS Alea, SAS Enterprise Guide PolyVista
INDIVIDUAL
Brio.Report Crystal Enterprise IBI
PRODUCTION
Crystal Enterprise IBI
Naeem Hashmi
BW20.SCM Langenfeld, Germany-based company known for its EIS and custom development environment
Products:
dynaSight, inSight BW-ODB 1.2 inSight 2.35 BW-ODB 2.0 dynaSight 3.0 BW-OBI 2.0 dynaSight 3.0 Custom application development for building specialized views of information Multiple integration points with SAP R/3 BAPIs and SAP BW ODBO Application integration with SAP SEM for write-back and SAP R/3 via RFC (NC*) No production reporting or out-of-the-box tool for business users Small company size and low visibility in North America
Certification:
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
* NC = Not Certified
Copyrights 2002: Information Frameworks. Naeem Hashmi Integration 3rd Party Tools with SAP BW 10
Products:
Certification:
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Products:
Certification:
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Products:
Certification:
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Products:
Certification:
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Products:
WebFOCUS, Business Intelligence Dashboard, Maintain, ReportCaster, Two-Way Email, Reporting Agent, Power Reporter, Managed Reporter, ivision for Financial Analysis, i-vision for HR Analysis, i-vision for Sales and Distribution Analysis
Certification:
BW-ODB 2.0 WebFOCUS for SAP Release 4.3
Strengths:
Operational and enterprise reporting for SAP R/3 and SAP BW i-vision reporting solutions for SAP R/3 and BW Performance and scalability for broad production/enterprise reporting
Weaknesses:
Limited ad-hoc reporting and analysis Lack of usability for interactive report analysis
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Products:
PolyVista 1.2
Certification:
None
Strengths:
Strategic data analysis data mining OLAM, OLAP, and Visualization Performance and scalability to handle vary large data volumes
Weaknesses:
Limited to Microsoft OLAP environment Not a data access and query tool No SAP BW API certification
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Strengths
Custom application development Integration with BAPI and ODBO Integration with SEM for write-back Operational reporting for SAP R/3 Usability of Brio.Enterprise for manipulation and formatting Integrated reporting and analysis Specialized query interface Publishing information to users Complete ETL, mart, tools Strong analysis and mobile abilities Good visualization and customization Integration Workplace, BW, R/3 Operational and BW reporting Operational and BW reporting i-vision solutions for R/3 and BW Scalability and performance Very Strategic and Analytic Scalability and performance Dynamic Visualization
Naeem Hashmi
Weaknesses
Limited reporting and ad-hoc analysis Low visibility and small company size in North America Separate product for SAP R/3 and BW Limited interactive analysis for BW Outdated Rapid deployment template for SAP Additional cost for BusinessQuery No SAP R/3 reporting Limited reporting via PowerPlay External marts/catalogs needed for reporting External marts needed for applications Minimal direct sales and consulting presence Limited interactive analysis for BW Limited ad-hoc reporting Lack of usability for interactive report analysis Limited to Microsoft OLAP Platform Limited Ad-hoc or production reporting
Integration 3rd Party Tools with SAP BW 17
Crystal Decisions
Information Builders PolyVista
Leveraging SAP documents to further investigate third-party integration points and certification and validation:
OLAP BAPI for BW 2.0B April 2000 OLAP ODBO for BW 2.0B 2000 OLAP ODBO for BW 1.2B 1998 Business Object Repository Programming Interface 3.0D & 4.0B 1998 Workplace Certification 2.1 2000 * Workplace - Web Application Integration (WP-WAI)
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Products/Interface Name
dynaSight 3.0 Brio.Enterprise for SAP BW BW Connect 5.1.1 PPDS ODBO for BW Release 1.0
SAP
2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0
BW-ODB
Comshare
Crystal Decisions
Decision 2.5.1
Crystal Enterprise mySAP 2.0
1.2
2.0
Information Builders
MIS SAS Viador
2.0
2.0 2.0 1.2 2.0 3.6-4.6 4.0/3.1 2.1
ArcPlan
ESRI Brio Technology Crystal Decisions
Source: SAP
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20
PolyVista
Schema Active Visualization
OLAM OLAP
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Performance
3rd Party Tools have their own Data Management Layers to manage entire BI environment while BW has its own - no pass through capability.
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So what we do now?
Forcing SAP to allow BW DBMS level access is not going to work Integrating 3rd Party Tools with BW has to do with your Information Delivery Architecture rather to force fit a tool with BW If BW is in your long term strategy, define a balanced Information Delivery strategy
Balance Traditional DW and BW usage Exploit Hub and Spoke Services (BW3.0B) to build traditional DBMS data marts for 3rd Party tools data access
Work with SAP to enhance Hub& Spoke services to address 3rd Party data access issues, for example, flattening of hierarchies.
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Q&A
Which 3rd Party BI products are you using? What are the major issues that you are facing when using these tools against BW? Who are the end-users? What do you expect from SAP on 3rd Party BI tools Integration? More?
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