Sunday, January 13, 2013

What will be BEx replacement?

Actually question should be what is BEx replacement? This is due to upcoming end of maintenance of BEx. Also customers are considering this and they are slowly moving towards replacing BEx by other reporting tool. What I experienced so far at different customers following are options when you would decide to go for non-SAP provenience tool:

Microstrategy, Cognos, QlikView, Tableau

If you would go for SAP provenience tool this would be mostly about BusinessObjects portfolio. From these tools most similar to Bex is toll called SAP BusinessObjects Analysis. There is a huge similarity because Analysis same as BEx Analyzer are encapsulated into MS Excel as add-ins. Furthermore almost all features of BEx are supported although SAP claims that Analysis is not BEx replacement. I assume this is mostly they want to leave open doors to other BusinessObjects tool which customer can choose from. 



 
There are two separate editions of Analyses available. First is edition for Microsoft Office supporting PowerPoint and Excel. It is called SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for Microsoft Office (abbreviation AO, SMP component: BI-RA-AO-XLA Excel Addin, Secondary Components: BI-RA-AO-PPA Powerpoint Addin). 2nd there is a web version which is called SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP.

Few words about history of the tool: Analysis came with SAP’s acquisition of BusinessObjects. After this acquisition it got the name "Voyager" – its OLAP version. During consolidation of BO tools and their integrating into SAP portfolio the name was changed to "Pioneer". Which was tool combining Voyager’s user interface with OLAP capabilities of BEx. Afterwards new name was chosen "Advanced Analysis" which got finally shortened to simply "Analysis."

What are the objects that you can in this tool report on? Those are BEx Queries, query views and BW InfoProvider as data sources. There is a so called “ribbon” available with AO functions in MS Excel. From the ribbon following functions are available: 

 
  • Data Source – you can open data provider here called data source (e.g. BEx query)
  • Undo – un/redo last actions
  • Data Analysis – invoke prompt (a.k.a. selection screen), filter/sort/ data, create local calculations
  • Display - do formatting, totaling
  • Insert Component – like charts
  • Tools – further formulas/calculations maintenance
  • Planning - optional
  • Design Panel – design your local report layout (add characteristic or key figure – here called measure)
  • Settings
Where to download it?
https://service.sap.com/swdc -> Support Packages and Patches -> Browse Download Catalog -> SAP BusinessObjects portfolio -> SBOP ANALYSIS MS OFFICE

Useful links related to Analysis:

General information about SAP BusinessObjects Analysis can also be found in SDN:
1476674 - SBOP ADV. ANALYSIS OFFICE - First Customer Shipment(FCS)
1466118 - Hardware & Software requirements for Advanced Analysis
1518359 - SAP BusinessObjects Analysis Office Release schedule
1786370 - Which version of Advance Analysis for MS Office (32xbit and 64xbit) to download
1740317 - Analysis Office 1.3: Release Note for SP 5
1779713 - Analysis Office 1.3: Release Note for 4 hotfix 1
1740316 - Analysis Office 1.3: Release Note for 4
1740315 - Analysis Office 1.3: Release Note for 3
1740314 - Analysis Office 1.3: Release Note for SP 2
1740313 - Analysis Office 1.3: Release Note for SP 01
1739153 - SAP BW Backend requirements for Analysis Office 1.3
1698669 - Analysis Office 1.2: Release Note for SP 8
1739684 - Analysis Office 1.2: Release Note for SP 7 hotfix 1
1698668 - Analysis Office 1.2: Release Note for SP 7
1698667 - Analysis Office 1.2: Release Note for SP 6


PS: In case of BEx Web Application Designer (WAD); here replacement’s well: SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio (formerly SAP ZEN). For info on its installation see here.

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