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 5. Q & A Links to companion white papers on SDN 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 5. Q & A Links to companion white papers on SDN 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 Reporting Dashboards and Visualization Interactive Analysis Advanced Analysis Data Exploration How do I access and transform corporate data into highly formatted reports for greater insight? How do I visualize data for better decision making? How do I answer ad hoc questions and interact with information? How do I determine trends from complex historical data and possibly make better forecasts? How do I find immediate answers to business questions? 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 7
Mapping the Right Tool to the Right Scenario Supporting an Enterprise BI Strategy Professionally Informed Exploration OLAP Analysis Ad Hoc Query & Analysis Dashboards Production Reporting Executives, Managers SAP Business Objects Explorer Xcelsius Crystal Reports Information Consumers Web Intelligence Business Analysts Voyager / Business Explorer (BEx) / Analysis Technically Capable Full Interactive Experience, Responsiveness Limited 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 8
The Right Experience for the Full Range of Business Roles SAP BusinessObjects Explorer Crystal Reports Xcelsius Web Intelligence Analysis Search and explore data Common Google style user experience Limited analysis functionality Pre-built report from static to parameterized layouts Operational reporting Easy to use data visualizations Compelling interactive dashboarding type of analytics Online and offline reporting capabilities Powerful ad hoc reporting capabilities Limited advanced analysis capabilities Advanced analysis capabilities Full hierarchy awareness 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 5. Q & A Links to companion white papers on SDN 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved. / Page 10
Business Intelligence Green Fields Common Risks No common terminology, will only know SAP terms What is the meaning of report, BI, dashboards Dimension vs. Characteristic Measure vs. Key Figure No prior experience with BI tools Hard to get beyond operational/regulatory reporting Lots of customer education required, lack of product knowledge 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 replace BEx Analyzer Lack of product knowledge Misunderstanding of product portfolio and roadmap SAP doesn t dictate moving all your analysts off BEx Analyzer at all Web Intelligence is not an OLAP interface Confusion of intended audience Assumption we just connect up to existing BEx Queries Product may not support all elements of the existing BEx queries well Violates the BI principle of working backwards from report requirements BEx queries need to be purpose-built, tuned, and potentially aggregation added 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 enduser 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 Characteristics (incl. Time and Unit) Hierarchies Basic Key Figures Navigational Attributes Display Attributes Calculated Key Figures / Formulas Restricted Key Figures Custom Structures Variables SAP OLAP BAPI support level InfoCube/BI Query InfoCube/BI Query InfoCube/BI Query BI Query only InfoCube/BI Query BI Query only BI Query only BI Query only 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 5. Q & A Links to companion white papers on SDN 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