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BI202

Best Practices and Tips for Best


Performance of SAP
BusinessObjects XI 3.1 on SAP
NetWeaver BW
The Good, Bad and the Ugly

Tom Turchioe, Product Management


Ashish Gupta, AGS – Business User
Ingo Hilgefort, Solution Management

October 2010
Disclaimer

This presentation outlines our general product direction and should not be relied on in making a
purchase decision. This presentation is not subject to your license agreement or any other
agreement with SAP. SAP has no obligation to pursue any course of business outlined in this
presentation or to develop or release any functionality mentioned in this presentation. This
presentation and SAP's strategy and possible future developments are subject to change and
may be changed by SAP at any time for any reason without notice. This document is provided
without a warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to, the implied
warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. SAP
assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions in this document, except if such damages
were caused by SAP intentionally or grossly negligent.

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 2


Agenda

1. Introduction

2. Overview
 SAP BusinessObjects Client Tool Overview – pick the right tool for the job

3. “News You Can Use”


 BW and BW Query Design items
 Good – tips, tricks and best practices to optimize your deployment
 Bad – ways to work-around trouble spots
 Ugly – what not to do & how to do it right

4. Conclusion
 Links to companion white papers on SDN

5. Q & A

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 3


Introduction

Product Version
 The recommendations in this presentation are based on SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1
 Some of these recommendations will change with SAP BusinessObjects XI 4.0 (independent
of SAP NetWeaver BW release)

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 4


The importance of SAP NetWeaver 7.0 EhP01

The first integration improvements between SAP and SAP BusinessObjects products
are realized with the release of NetWeaver 7.0 EhP1.
 NetWeaver 7.0 EhP1 is the prerequisite for the following SAP BI Solutions:
 Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC) based on NetWeaver 7.0 EhP1

 SAP BusinessObjects Explorer version 1.0 and 2.0

 Native access of SAP BusinessObjects Xcelsius via BICS

 Better Support for Web Intelligence via OLAP Universes

 Improved MDX Interface

 Direct Access to BW 7.01 via SAP BusinessObjects Data Federator.

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 5


Agenda

1. Introduction

2. Overview
 SAP BusinessObjects Client Tool Overview – pick the right tool for the job

3. “News You Can Use”


 BW and BW Query Design principles
 Good – tips, tricks and best practices to optimize your deployment
 Bad – ways to work-around trouble spots
 Ugly – what not to do & how to do it right

4. Conclusion
 Links to companion white papers on SDN

5. Q & A

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 6


SAP BusinessObjects BI Solutions
Deliver Business Insight and Enable Effective Analysis

SAP BusinessObjects BI solutions provide business users with access to unified information
through a broad suite of BI tools for confident decision making and alignment across people
and teams on a single, scalable BI platform

Dashboards and Interactive Advanced


Reporting Data Exploration
Visualization Analysis Analysis

How do I access How do I visualize How do I answer ad How do I determine How do I find
and transform data for better hoc questions and trends from complex immediate answers
corporate data into decision making? interact with historical data and to business
highly formatted information? possibly make better questions?
reports for greater forecasts?
insight?

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 7


Mapping the Right Tool to the Right Scenario
Supporting an Enterprise BI Strategy

Ad Hoc
OLAP Query & Production
Professionally Exploration Analysis Dashboards
Analysis Reporting
Informed

Executives,
Managers
SAP Crystal
Business Reports
Objects Xcelsius
Explorer

Information
Consumers Web
Intelligence
Voyager /
Business
Business Explorer
Analysts (BEx) /
Analysis

Technically Full Interactive Experience, Responsiveness Limited


Capable

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 8


The Right Experience for the Full Range of
Business Roles

SAP
Crystal Web
BusinessObjects Xcelsius Analysis
Reports Intelligence
Explorer

• Search and explore • Pre-built report from • Easy to use data • Online and offline • Advanced analysis
data static to visualizations reporting capabilities capabilities
• Common “Google” parameterized • Compelling • Powerful ad hoc • Full hierarchy
style user experience layouts interactive reporting capabilities awareness
• Limited analysis • Operational reporting dashboarding type of • Limited advanced
functionality analytics analysis capabilities

User skill set (Consumer)

Information consumer

Executive or Management

Business Analyst

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 9


Agenda

1. Introduction

2. Overview
 SAP BusinessObjects Client Tool Overview – pick the right tool for the job

3. “News You Can Use”


 BW and BW Query Design items
 Good – tips, tricks and best practices to optimize your deployment
 Bad – ways to work-around trouble spots
 Ugly – what not to do & how to do it right

4. Conclusion
 Links to companion white papers on SDN

5. Q & A

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 10


Business Intelligence Green Fields
Common Risks

No common terminology, will only know No prior experience with BI tools


SAP terms  Hard to get beyond operational/regulatory
 What is the meaning of “report”, “BI”, reporting
“dashboards”  Lots of customer education required, lack of
 Dimension vs. Characteristic product knowledge
 Measure vs. Key Figure  Clarification of key business intelligence concepts
are likely to be necessary
 Tendency to put the data source central, rather
than the end user report

Expectation that Web Intelligence should Assumption we just connect up to existing


replace BEx Analyzer BEx Queries
 Lack of product knowledge  Product may not support all elements of the
 Misunderstanding of product portfolio and existing BEx queries well
roadmap  Violates the BI principle of working backwards
 SAP doesn’t dictate moving all your analysts off from report requirements
BEx Analyzer at all  BEx queries need to be purpose-built, tuned, and
 Web Intelligence is not an OLAP interface potentially aggregation added
 Confusion of intended audience

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 11


Business Intelligence Green Fields
Common Risks

Minimize movement
of data especially for
workflows that use
MDX access to BW
Avoid client side
filtering…
…push that down to
the BEx query level
where possible

MDX Overhead Increases as The Number of Cells Increase


© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 12
Best Practices for BEx Query Design

 Overall recommendation
 BI Queries are recommended as data sources for SAP BusinessObjects BI Tools
 BI Queries offer a flexible extension to the data modeling environment and require less
effort to change than InfoProviders
 BI Queries offer significant functionality to create customized data sources that meet end-
user requirements, such as Calculated Key figures, Restricted Key figures and SAP
Variables.

 You do NOT need a BI Query for every report


 Focus the implementation strategy on limiting the number of BI Queries that share
common elements
 Build a small set of BEx queries focusing on sharing common elements
 The BI Client tool and report definition is the primary influence factor on how much data is
being retrieve from SAP NetWeaver BW
 In some situations extremely large queries and universes can adversely affect
performance

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 13


Best Practices for BEx Query Design

 Placement of Characteristics / Key Figures - no direct impact on generation of Crystal


Reports reports
 “Allow External Access” option should be set in the properties of the BEx query
 For large sets of key figures, use option - “Use Selection of Structure Members”
 Leverage the capabilities of the Restricted Key and Calculated Key Figures where possible
 As part of the underlying BI query, they will be processed by the BW back end
 Can be shared across queries, minimizing development downstream
 Leverage SAP Variables as part of the BW Query
 Can be shared across queries, minimizing development downstream
List of Values are being generated automatically

 Time based structures / calculations
 Leverage EXIT Variables as part of the BW query
 Data Level Security & BW
 Use BW authorizations for data level security

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 14


Best Practices for BEx Query Design
SAP NetWeaver BW Query vs. InfoProvider

BI metadata feature SAP OLAP BAPI support level


Characteristics (incl. Time and Unit) InfoCube/BI Query
Hierarchies InfoCube/BI Query
Basic Key Figures InfoCube/BI Query
Navigational Attributes BI Query only
Display Attributes InfoCube/BI Query
Calculated Key Figures / Formulas BI Query only
Restricted Key Figures BI Query only
Custom Structures BI Query only
Variables BI Query only

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 15


“Good” – Tuning, Configuring & Best Practices
Common Across All Tools

 Building High Performance BI Reports


 Design reports to fetch smaller sections of data by breaking it in smaller parts
 The report can be partitioned using filters on calendar dates or segments on a dimension

 SAP BEx Query as entry point in a one (BEx query) to many (reports / universes) relationship
 Customers can leverage their existing investment with SAP BusinessObjects BI Tools

 Push “work” down the stack as much as possible

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 16


“Good” – Tuning, Configuring & Best Practices
Crystal Reports

 Crystal Reports is able to connect to SAP NetWeaver BW and SAP ERP


 Crystal Reports provides you the options to leverage SAP ERP or SAP BW or even
combine those

 Crystal Reports is able to leverage a parent child relationship for external hierarchies
 In case the hierarchy is changing there is no need to re-design the report

 Integration of Crystal Reports into SAP NetWeaver BW Translation and Transport Mechanism
 You can leverage common SAP NetWeaver mechanism to globalize and
administrate your Crystal Reports based content

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 17


“Good” – Tuning, Configuring & Best Practices
Xcelsius

 Xcelsius is providing several choices for data connectivity to SAP ERP and SAP BW (Live
Office, Query as a Web Service, Direct SAP NW BW connectivity)
 Customers can leverage live or pre-scheduled reports with SAP ERP and SAP
NetWeaver BW

 Direct connectivity for SAP NetWeaver BW does support BEx Query Conditions and Display
Settings
 Xcelsius is able to leverage more of the underlying BEx query compared to Crystal
Reports and Web Intelligence

 Integration of Xcelsius into SAP NetWeaver BW Translation and Transport Mechanism


 You can leverage common SAP NetWeaver mechanism to globalize and
administrate your Xcelsius content

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 18


“Good” – Tuning, Configuring & Best Practices
Web Intelligence

 OLAP Objects not inserted in Web Intelligence query don’t have direct impact on the query
 Only use needed objects; results in leaner MDX that performs better (< XI 3.1 SP3)
 Starting with Service Pack 03 make use of Query Stripping

 Retrieving large List of Values (LOV) can result in prompts taking more than a few seconds
 Improve prompt loading by using optional prompts
 Use „Delegated search‟ to limit the data loaded in prompt LOV

 Minimize data fetch during report refresh by using Guided Navigation


 Use „Drill‟ and „Report Linking‟ in Web Intelligence reports

 Store Scheduled Report Instances for large and long running reports
 Scheduled instances effectively cache data in the report, improving open and filter
performance.

 Characteristics filtered in Web Intelligence reports should be filtered on indexed values


 Filtering on indexed values avoids the need to resolve member captions to member
unique names, boosting performance
© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 19
“Good” – Tuning, Configuring & Best Practices
Web Intelligence

 Leverage Query Stripping with Service Pack 03


 The query issued by Web Intelligence to the OLAP universe will only request the
information rendered/presented to the user on the report

 Reporting against Large Data Set with Master Data Columns: re-factor query into multiple
sub-queries
 Separating constant Master data from details records improves query performance

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 20


The “Bad” – Requires a Workaround
Common Across All Tools

 Except Analysis none of the SAP BusinessObjects BI Client tools in the XI 3.1 release do
support Exceptions defined in the BEx Query
 Each of the BI client tools is providing you with similar functionality

 Except Analysis and Xcelsius none of the SAP BusinessObjects BI Client tools in the XI 3.1
release do support Display Settings defined in the BEx Query, such as scaling factors or
number of decimals
 Each of the BI client tools is providing you with similar functionality

 Except Analysis none of the SAP BusinessObjects BI Client tools in the XI 3.1 release allow a
selection of elements from a custom structure
 Selection can only be done based on descriptions not based on technical names

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 21


The “Bad” – Requires a Workaround
Crystal Reports

 Custom Structures are represented as single fields without the actual technical names for the
structure elements
 The structure is available but you can not select specific elements of a structure

 List of values for variables / parameters are static in Crystal Reports Designer
 Values are dynamic in InfoView – remember that Crystal Reports Designer is a
Design environment (do you really need all members ?)

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 22


The “Bad” – Requires a Workaround
Xcelsius

 Xcelsius is offering hierarchies as part of the direct SAP NetWeaver BI connectivity but there
is no hierarchical visualization component available out-of-the-box
 There are hierarchical visualization offered by several partners on SAP EcoHub

 Xcelsius dashboards using the direct SAP NetWeaver BI connectivity will NOT work hosted in
the BusinessObjects Enterprise system (as of Xcelsius 2008 SP2)
 Xcelsius dashboards using the direct SAP NetWeaver BI connectivity need to be
hosted inside of SAP NW BW.

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 23


The “Bad” – Requires a Workaround
Web Intelligence

 Custom Structures are represented as single fields without the actual technical names for the
structure elements
 The structure is available but you can not select specific elements of a structure

 Keyfigure of type TIMS (time) are not properly supported to reflect the data type
 You can leverage the Formatted Value or use formulas in the Web Intelligence
report

 Scheduling a Web Intelligence report does not provide the option to enter user and password
 You can configure server side trust using SNC

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 24


The “Ugly” – No Workaround availaible
Common Across All Tools

 Except Analysis and Xcelsius none of the SAP BusinessObjects BI Client tools in the XI 3.1
release do support Conditions defined in the BEx Query
 No real workaround possible. Results in all the data being transferred to the client
tool

 Except Analysis none of the SAP BusinessObjects BI Client tools in the XI 3.1 release do
support the option to create a report based on master data (vs. data in the InfoProvider)
 No real workaround possible. Only data available in the InfoProvider is shown.

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 25


The “Ugly” – No Workaround availaible
Crystal Reports

 Manually created filters or parameters are not passed down to the server, instead they
become client side filters / parameters
 Instead of manual filters or parameters make use of variables in the BW query

 Crystal Reports 2008 is always using NON EMPTY, means reports based on master data
(e.g. Balance sheet based on complete hierarchy) are not possible
 No real workaround possible

 Only a single Keydate variable per BW query is supported


 No real workaround possible. Your query needs to leverage one single / global
keydate

 Hierarchy Node variables are shown as flat list in Crystal Reports Designer
 No real workaround possible. Remember that Crystal Reports Designer only shows
the values for the “default” hierarchy

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 26


The “Ugly” – No Workaround available
Xcelsius

 Xcelisus dashboards based on the direct SAP NetWeaver BW connectivity can not be
launched from SAP BusinessObjects InfoView
 Xcelsius dashboards using direct SAP NetWeaver BW connectivity need to be
stored and launched from SAP NetWeaver BW

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 27


The “Ugly” – No Workaround available
Web Intelligence

 Avoid Building large Web Intelligence reports (large in size)


 Documents over 200 MB in size can impact the performance
Optimal size should be between 5 to 10 MB

 Web Intelligence is always using NON EMPTY, means reports based on master data (e.g.
Balance sheet based on complete hierarchy) are not possible
 No real workaround possible
 Web Intelligence supports only a single Keydate variable per BW query / Universe
 No real workaround possible. Your query needs to leverage one single / global
keydate
 Universe Designer does not support time dependent meta-data
No workaround possible. Universe Designer will leverage the system date

 Default Values for Variables are used, even when explicitly removed from the list of values
 No workaround possible
 Recommendation is to remove the default value from the variable

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 28


Agenda

1. Introduction

2. Overview
 SAP BusinessObjects Client Tool Overview – pick the right tool for the job

3. “News You Can Use”


 Common “need to know” BW and BW Query Design items
 Good – tips, tricks and best practices to optimize your deployment
 Bad – ways to work-around trouble spots
 Ugly – what not to do & how to do it right

4. Conclusion
 Links to companion white papers on SDN

5. Q & A

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 29


Summary

 Make sure you’re running the minimum suggested versions and fix packs

 Pick the right client tool based on target users and requirements

 Leverage the BEx Query as much as possible

 Push “work” down the stack as much as possible


 Avoid unnecessary data movement – filter and restrict data as close to data source as
possible
 Many common n-tier best practices apply here as well

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 30


Further Information

SAP Community Network


• SAP BusinessObjects Community (BOC)
• Whitepaper - Performance & Scalability Best Practices and Tuning
Recommendations for SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1 on SAP NetWeaver BW
• Appendix Slides
• SAP BusinessObjects BI Solution Architecture

© 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 31

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