Exercise Objectives
In this exercise, you will build a report to analyze the data from a CUBE calculation view modeled in SAP HANA Studio.
Business Example
You have been tasked to create a flexible report in Analysis for Microsoft Excel that can be used to show the sales to the US customers with the possibility to drill-down by any customer and product attributes.
Note:
In this exercise, when values include ##, replace these characters with your own student number
1. Start Analysis for Microsoft Excel.
2. Insert a new Data Source based on the SAP HANA calculation view CVC_US_SALES_##.
Use the following logon details:
Field Value
Connection HTTP_HANA
User STUDENT##
Password Training1
3. Display the measures by Delivery Charge.
4. Break down the Delivery Charge by Product Group Name.
5. Remove Delivery Charge and break down the Product Group by customer Location but put the Location attribute in the columns to create a cross tab report.
Unit 5 Solution 5
Create a Report with SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft Excel
Exercise Objectives
In this exercise, you will build a report to analyze the data from a CUBE calculation view modeled in SAP HANA Studio.
Business Example
You have been tasked to create a flexible report in Analysis for Microsoft Excel that can be used to show the sales to the US customers with the possibility to drill-down by any customer and product attributes.
Note:
In this exercise, when values include ##, replace these characters with your own student number
1. Start Analysis for Microsoft Excel.
a) On the Windows desktop, navigate to Start → All Programs→ SAP Business Intelligence→ Analysis for Microsoft Excel
2. Insert a new Data Source based on the SAP HANA calculation view CVC_US_SALES_##.
Use the following logon details:
Field Value
Connection HTTP_HANA
User STUDENT##
Password Training1
a) From the Excel toolbar, choose the Analysis tab.
b) On the Analysis ribbon, choose Insert Data Source.
c) From the menu, choose Select Data Source.
d) At the next prompt, choose SKIP to avoid logging on using the BusinessObjects Platform connections.
e) At the next prompt, choose the connection provided in the table and choose NEXT.
f) At the next prompt, enter the user and password provided in the table.
g) Choose the Area tab.
h) Expand your folder and select your calculation view.
3. Display the measures by Delivery Charge.
a) Drag the Delivery Charge attribute from the Data Source pane to the Rows.
The measures are now split by the two types of Delivery Charge.
4. Break down the Delivery Charge by Product Group Name.
a) Drag theProduct Group Name attribute from the Data Source pane to the Rows.
The measures are now split by Delivery Charge and Product Group.
5. Remove Delivery Charge and break down the Product Group by customer Location but put the Location attribute in the columns to create a cross tab report.
a) Drag Delivery Charge from the Rows to the Data Source pane to remove it from the results.
b) Drag Location attribute from the Data Source pane to the Columns to see a split of sales of product group by city.
SAP Crystal Reports
SAP Crystal Reports is a well-established tool used to develop very sophisticated business reports. Its key strength is that it allows the developer to create a report with precise formatting. It is a tool that allows the developer to create intelligent reports with dynamic content. For example, when sales figures are low the reports can include additional
breakdown figures to explain the situation. Reports are of a professional standard so they can be presented for external consumption, for example, to present shareholder information on the company’s web site.
SAP Crystal Reports can consume SAP HANA data directly using ODBC or JDBC drivers. This can be done either directly from the database tables or from the Information Views.
Figure 101: Crystal Reports Enterprise
SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence
SAP Web Intelligence (Webi) is a powerful report building tool that is aimed at the business user who would like to use a self service BI tool. Web Intelligence, usually referred to as Webi, is ideal for creating ad-hoc reports and its simple user interface has been welcomed by many business users who enjoy being able to create their own reports without the need for specialist BI skills.
Unit 5: Running Applications on SAP HANA
Figure 102: Web Intelligence and HANA
Reports are created using a drag and drop approach, and the interface, which is aimed at a business user, is very easy to use. Webi is often positioned as an ad-hoc reporting tool used to build queries for one time use. However, many of our SAP customers tell us that Webi is the most important reporting tool in their organization due to its power and its ease of use.
Until recently Webi was one of the few tools that could not directly connect to SAP HANA, therefore a universe was always needed to act as the communication layer between Webi and SAP HANA. However, since Business Objects 4.2 and SAP HANA SPS10, Webi can connect directly to SAP HANA and a universe is not needed.
The following list outlines the two modes required when connecting to SAP HANA:
● Online mode
Webi is always connected to HANA to ensure great performance by pushing down processing to HANA.
● Direct Access mode
Webi grabs data from HANA and can then go offline, processing is done in Webi
Note:
With regards to SAP HANA hierarchies, it should be noted that because online mode only uses a relational connection, SAP HANA hierarchies will be flattened and treated as dimensions. With direct access mode, which can use OLAP connections, the SAP HANA hierarchies are structurally preserved and appear in the Webi Query Panel as hierarchies.
SAP Lumira
SAP Lumira delivers beautiful analytics, allowing you to easily convey and share knowledge in the following ways:
● Use beautiful and intuitive data visualization templates, Lumira lets you focus on telling your story.
● Share visualizations and insights in the cloud with everyone and without having to sacrifice performance, security, or functionality.
● Combine and mashup all your data with simpler, error-free data prepping workflows.
Sophisticated charts and visualizations to illustrate hidden insights where tabular reports are not effective.
Figure 103: Data Search and Exploration - SAP Lumira
SAP Lumira is a self-service solution that allows analysts and decision makers to access, transform, and visualize data. The SAP Lumira desktop experience is used to prepare data from multiple sources, visualize it, and then compose stories from those visualizations that can be shared with other decision makers using the SAP Lumira server and cloud platforms that provide browser and mobile based experiences to further analyze data and collaborate with colleagues on datasets, stories, and other business intelligence artifacts.
Unit 5: Running Applications on SAP HANA
SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio
Figure 104: SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio
SAP Design Studio is the flag-ship dashboard/cockpit development tool that is used to develop powerful mashups for desktop and mobile devices. SAP HANA can provide data directly to the dashboards for real time insight.
Connecting SAP BI to SAP HANA
Almost all reporting clients and tools are able to connect to SAP HANA directly. The reporting tool that cannot directly connect to SAP HANA is:
● SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards
For this tool we first need to create a Universe. Each reporting tool connects to SAP HANA using either:
ODBC — generic relational JDBC — JAVA relational ODBO — multi-dimensional
BICS — SAP proprietary for multi-dimensional
Some tools offer a choice of connectors, for example with Crystal you can use either a JDBC or ODBC connector.
The query language used depends on the reporting tool used and the connection type. The query languages are:
SQL — for relational models
MDX — for multi dimensional models
LESSON SUMMARY You should now be able to:
● Connect SAP Business Intelligence Tools to SAP HANA
Unit 5: Running Applications on SAP HANA