SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio Document Version: What's New Guide: SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio

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SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio

Document Version: 1.2 - 2013-11-12

What's New Guide: SAP

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1 About This Guide

This guide lists new and modified features in SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio that have been implemented since the previous release. It also lists new and modified chapters of the documentation.

Tip

To help you find chapters in the relevant documentation guides, the headings of new and modified features in this guide are identical to the headings in other guides, where features are described in detail.

What's New Guide: SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio

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2 About the Documentation Set

The documentation set for SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio comprises the following guides and online help products:

Tip

The guides and tutorials are regularly updated and enhanced. Make sure that you have the latest version by checking the SAP Help Portal on a regular basis.

Administrator Guide

The Administrator Guide contains detailed information that a user needs to install, configure and manage SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio. The guide is available on the SAP Help Portal at

http://help.sap.com/boad

Application Designer Guide

The Application Designer Guide contains the conceptual information, procedures and reference material that an application designer needs to create analysis applications. The guide is available on the SAP Help Portal at http:// help.sap.com/boad

End User Guide

The End User Guide contains procedures and background information for users working with analysis applications. This guide is available on the SAP Help Portal at http://help.sap.com/boad.

Developer Guide

The Developer Guide: Design Studio SDK contains procedures, reference material and background information for developers to enable them to create 3rd party components with the Design Studio SDK and enhance the analysis applications with custom components. The guide is available on the SAP Help Portal at http://help.sap.com/ boad.

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What's New Guide

The What's New Guide lists new and modified features in SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio that have been implemented since the previous release. The guide is available on the SAP Help Portal at http://help.sap.com/ boad

Online Help

The online help contains the same information as the Application Designer Guide. Click Help Help Contents

to open the guide in the design tool.

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3 New and Modified Features in Design

Studio

This section provides a list of new and modified features in the design tool. You can find more detailed information on the features in the Application Designer Guide: Designing Analysis Applications.

3.1 Support for Universes as Data Sources

By using SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence as your Design Studio platform means that not only can you use BW and SAP HANA data sources for your applications, but also queries that are based on universes. You create universe data sources by selecting a universe connection that your administrator has set up and by building queries using the Editing Query Specification dialog box.

Note

The documentation chapters for the universe-based data sources are integrated into the SAP BusinessObjects Application Designer Guide (beginning with the chapter Adding a Data Source).

3.2 Crosstab Component

The Crosstab component has been enhanced with the following properties: ● conditional formatting visible

This property specifies whether conditional formats (exceptions) that have been defined in the BEX Query Designer or in SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for Microsoft Office (Analysis), are shown in the crosstab.

● navigating hierarchies enabled

This property specifies whether the application user can expand or collapse hierarchy nodes, if the crosstab contains one or more hierarchies or hierarchical structures. If this property is set to false, the hierarchy expand/collapse icons (plus and minus symbols) are not shown in the crosstab. However, the end user can still see that there is a hierarchy because of the indentation of the nodes and leaves.

● sorting enabled

This property specifies whether the end user can sort columns. If the property is set to false, the icons for sorting are not shown in the column headers.

● column resizing enabled

This property specifies whether the end user can resize columns by double-clicking on the right border of the column header. If this property is set to false, the hover spot for the double-click resize will not be available. ● column widths

With this property it is possible to set the column widths of the crosstab. A valid column width setting consists of two parts: the column index and the column width.

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3.3 Filter Panel Component

The propertyMode has been added to the Filter Panel component. With this property, the application designer can decide which functions are available to the application user in the filter panel at runtime:

● filtering ● navigation

● filtering and navigation

In other words, this property provides generic drill-down functionality.

3.4 List Box Component

There is a new property Multiple Selection in the List Box component that enables you to filter data sources by multiple members.

3.5 Selecting Multiple Components in the Editor

When working on your application in the editor, you can select (and move) multiple components by holding the CTRL key while clicking.

3.6 Properties of the Application

There are two new events (properties) available for the application: ● On Variable Initialization

This event can be used to set query variables. ● On Background Processing

This event can be used to load data sources in the background. Although you can use every method in the API, we recommend using this event with the methods for the data source alias.

To trigger this event, it is mandatory use the the script method doBackgroundProcessing. This method executes the contents of the event.

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3.7 Properties of the Data Source Alias

There is a new event for the data source alias called On Result Set Changed. The assigned script to this event is executed if the result set for the data source is changed during a roundtrip.

3.8 API Reference

The API reference has been enhanced as follows:

New Methods

The following methods are new:

● Methods relating to the object Application: ○ doBackgroundProcessing

● Methods relating to the object Component: ○ hideLoadingState

○ showLoadingState

● Methods relating to the object DataSourceAlias: ● ○ activateHierarchy ○ collapseNode ○ copyFilters ○ deactivateHierarchy ○ expandNode ○ getDimensionText ○ isInitialized ○ isResultSetEmpty ○ onResultsetChanged ○ setDrillLevel

● Methods relating to the object Crosstab: ○ isColumnResizingEnabled ○ isConditionalFormattingVisible ○ isHierarchyNavigationEnabled ○ isSortingEnabled ○ resetAllColumnWidths ○ resetColumnWidth ○ setColumnResizingEnabled ○ setColumnWidth

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○ setConditionalFormattingVisible ○ setDefaultColumnWidth

○ setHierarchyNavigationEnabled ○ setSortingEnabled

● Methods relating to the object List Box: ○ getSelectedTexts

○ getSelectedValues ○ setSelectedValues

3.9 Export to Microsoft Excel

Enables the user to specify and export a crosstab from the SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio into Microsoft Excel.

You can now export specified data from a crosstab from the SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio into Microsoft Excel. The following file formats are supported:

● CSV

● Microsoft Excel 2004 (.xls) ● Microsoft Excel 2007 (.xlsx)

Note

The documentation for Export to Microsoft Excel is integrated into the Application Designer Guide: Designing

Analysis Applications in the chapters Scripting for User Interaction Enablement and API Reference.

3.10 Chart Component

In the Components view, the Chart component has been enhanced as follows: ● New chart types

You can now work with the new Dual Axis Chart type. ● Enhanced chart properties

You can now display the values in the chart area, change the legend position of the chart, change the chart background color or reset it to the default theme color and use the data selection dialog box to add more data selections to charts.

Axis scaling: You can now define the minimum and maximum range for each axis in all charts except 100% Stacked Chart, Radar Chart, and Pie Chart. In a dual axis chart, you can define the minimum and maximum range for each of the dual axes.

Scatter Chart: You can now work with two measures irrespective of the location. You can also set the legend color, shape, and tooltip properties using dimensions.

Bubble Chart: You can now work with 3-4 measures and set the bubble size and width.

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4 New and Modified Features in Analysis

Applications

This section provides a list of new and modified features for users working with analysis applications on desktop browser and mobile devices. You can find more detailed information on the features in the End User Guide: SAP

BusinessObjects Design Studio.

4.1 Adjusting Column Width for Crosstab Header Columns

for iPad Applications

If the content of a column in the displayed crosstab is larger or smaller than the calculated column width, you can adjust the column width to the width of the cell content.

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5 New Features for Developing Extensions

This section provides a list of new features for developing extensions with the Design Studio SDK. You can find more detailed information on the features in the Developer Guide: Design Studio SDK.

5.1 Developing Extensions with Design Studio SDK

In addition to the standard palette of components in Design Studio, you can develop 3rd party components with the Design Studio SDK and enhance your analysis applications with custom components. Using SAP

BusinessObjects Business Intelligence as your Design Studio platform, you can store and provide access to the analysis applications containing the 3rd party components.

You can find more detailed information on the features provided by the Design Studio SDK in the Developer Guide:

Design Studio SDK.

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6 New and Modified Administration Options

in Design Studio

This section provides a list of new and modified options for administrators. You can find more detailed information on the options in the Administrator Guide: SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio.

6.1 Activating the Query Runtime Statistics

Design Studio now supports the query runtime statistics of SAP NetWeaver BW - provided that you are using SAP NetWeaver as the platform. The query runtime statistics enable you to find out how much time is required to execute certain user actions in Design Studio and in the BW analytic engine. You can activate the query runtime statistics for a particular object (query or InfoProvider) and analyze the statistics.

6.2 Configuring the Portal for Display of Analysis

Applications

By default, the portal uses Internet Explorer quirks mode, which cannot properly render HTML5 Web applications like the analysis applications of Design Studio. To avoid this, you can either use the unified portal framework page instead of the standard portal framework page, or embed the page with the analysis application in a headerless popup window.

6.3 Extensions Deployment

In addition to the standard palette of components in Design Studio, you can install 3rd party components developed with the Design Studio SDK. Adding these 3rd party components, known as SDK extensions, to your Design Studio installation enables you to create and execute local analysis applications containing these SDK extensions.

Before application users can launch analysis applications containing SDK extensions from the BI platform, you need to deploy these locally installed extensions to the BI platform.

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6.4 Adding Users to the Design Studio Administrators

Authorization Group

Before application designers can add or remove SDK extensions on the BI platform, you need to add the designers to the Design Studio Administrators group on the BI platform.

6.5 Creating Universes for Use in Analysis Applications

SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio 1.2 enables you o use universe queries as data sources for analysis applications. You create the universes using the Information Design Tool (IDT) and publish them to the BI platform.

Note

The BI platform server needs to be SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence 4.1. If you want to use universe queries as data sources in your analysis applications, you cannot use SAP BusinessObjects Business

Intelligence 4.0.

In Design Studio you can use universes that meet the following prerequisites: ● relational universes

● single-source universes

● universes with Microsoft SQL or Sybase IQ as underlying database

6.6 Adding View Rights for Universe Data Sources

If your application users and your application designers want to work with analysis applications based on universe data sources, you need to assign your users the necessary view rights in the Content Management Console on BI platform 4.1. With universe data sources, you need to assign the access level View On Demand for the required universe and also for the corresponding relational connection used by this universe.

6.7 Configuring the Hosts File for Universes

If your application designers want to use universe queries as data sources in their analysis applications and you are using a BI platform server with an IP address (usually a fenced virtual machine), you need to add the following mappings to the hosts file:

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● IP address - fully-qualified host name of BI platform ● IP - host name of BI platform

6.8 Configuring the BI Platform for Display of Analysis

Applications on iPhones

Before application users can see analysis applications on their iPhones (using the mobile app of the SAP BusinessObjects Mobile solution), you need to change a property in the zen.properties file on the BI platform server.

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7 New and Modified Chapters in

Documentation

7.1 Script Processing Flow in Applications

In this documentation chaper, you will find a graphic that describes the processing flow for scripts, which an application designer creates and inserts into an analysis application. This technical background information helps designers to design and enable both navigation and user interaction within the application, in order to suit the relevant business needs.

7.2 Process Flow at Application Start

In this documentation chapter, you will find a graphic that describes the overall process flow in applications. It contains information about which application elements are initialized at a certain point in time, when scripts and dialogs are displayed and under what circumstances. This technical background information helps designers to design and enable navigation and user interaction within the application, in order to suit the relevant business needs.

7.3 Increasing Performance of Analysis Applications with

Multiple Data Sources

To prevent deadlock scenarios while processing multiple data sources, SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio processes all data source calls sequentially. This may reduce the performance of analysis applications that contain multiple data sources. However, there are several ways of designing these applications without reducing the performance.

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SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio Document Version: What's New Guide: SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio