SAP BusinessObjects Mobile client

As of mid of March 2013 there is a SAP BusinessObjects Mobile client available for download. Basically following two major mobile platforms are supported:

·         android – android OS based mobile phones or tablets

·         iOS – apple’s: iphone, ipads

·         Windows Mobile – based phones and tablets

·         Blackberry – based phones and tablets

·         Symbian – based phones

Mobile clients are applications for the mobile device that needs to be downloaded to each mobile device. The clients are providing an access to SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) documents from mobile devices. By BI documents are meant as such: Web Intelligence documents and Crystal report documents.

Current version of SAP BusinessObjects Mobile is 4.2.4.

To be able to use Mobile client application you need to deploy SAP BusinessObjects Mobile server. The server part is basically Web application server. It performs receiving of the requests sent by mobile client and passing them to the SAP  BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) platform server. Also receiving the response (e.g. Web Intelligence or Crystal Report report’s output data) from the BI platform server and sending it back to the SAP BusinessObjects Mobile client.

See further materials or what do you need to know while developing SAP BOBJ mobile apps:

help.sap.com/bomobile

help.sap.com/bomobileandroid

help.sap.com/bomobileios

1822390 - SAP BusinessObjects Mobile v4.2.4 client application for Android OS

1708298 - SAP BusinessObjects Mobile for Android User Guide

1719444 - SAP BusinessObjects Mobile for Android Release Notes

1708019 - SAP BusinessObjects Mobile Android 4.0.5 Security Guide

1696770 - SAP BusinessObjects Mobile (for iOS, Android) Security Guide

SAP BusinessObjects Mobile – download app for android

Apps by SAP AG – other android apps by SAP AG

Browser's support by SAP

As BW consultant you may wonder sometimes what web browser are supported in BW/BI area. As web access is used also in other SAP solutions we can extent the topic of browser support to functionalities witch utilize different User Interface (UI) technologies. Over the time SAP has developed a many of UI technologies. Just to mention a few:

·         Web Dynpro ABAP (BC-WD-ABA)

·         Web Dynpro Java (BC-WD-JAV)

·         SAP GUI for HTML (integrated ITS)

·         NetWeaver Business Client (NWBC) for HTML

·         Enterprise Portal End Users (Portal rendering and HTMLB for Java) or SAP NetWeaver Portal

·         Portal Administrator

·         BSP (Business Server Pages, incl. HTMLB for ABAP Design 2003 and 2008), BSP Extensions

·         SAP Interactive Forms by Adobe (SAP IFbA)

·         BI (BEx Web and BI Java)

·         Visual Composer Runtime (Desktop/Mobile)

·         Visual Composer Designtime

·         SAPUI5 , SAPUI Services

·         ICF System logon (BC-MID-ICF-LGN)

There are a tons of functionalities spread across different SAP solution which are even completely designed to be accessed via web. Therefore the browser support is very important.

In general currently SAP supports following browsers, always see particular SAP Note with the latest information about the browser. 

1/ Internet Explorer

1672817 - Internet Explorer for end users and administrators

1599159 – IE9 Release Note for Administrators

1583947 – Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Release Notes

2/ Mozilla Firefox

990034 - Firefox browser for end users and administrators

3/ Apple Safari

1634749 - Safari browser for end user and administrators

1446519 – Safari Restrictions for Unified Rendering and ACF

4/ Google Chrome

1655306 - Google Chrome for end users and administrators

Opera – is not currently supported by SAP applications. Only way how Opera is supported is that you can use it to browser SAP’s Service Marketplace (SMP). 

Detailed information about supported web browser (browser running on operating system versions) is available in the Product Availibility Matrix (PAM) on SAP’s Service Marketplace (SMP). Apart of PAM also check following main SAP Notes related to browsers:

1728946 - Central Browser Note for NetWeaver

1566444 - Main Browser Note for BS7i2010

1574357 - Main Browser Note for BS7i2011

1296419 - Main Browser Note for NW 2004

1296463 - Main Browser Note for NW 7.0

1296464 - Main Browser Note for NW 7.1

1509421 - Main Browser Note for NW 7.3

1793938 - Main Browser Note for NetWeaver 7.4

1403485 - Browser Support: Windows 7

More important SAP Notes for SAP BW:

1029680 - BEx Web applications Java: Limitations for Firefox

494689 - Web Browser compatibility of BW 3.0A and higher

321973 - Recommendations for the BW front end

338532 - BW 2.0B and 2.1C Web browser compatibility

More important SAP Notes per UI technology:

598860 - Browsers supported by BSP

1705067 - Known issues for Portal on Device

1716423 - SAPUI5 Browser Support for Mobile and Desktop Applications

Deactivating SAP functionality - hierarchical pricing

There might several reasons occur why customer and SAP would want to deactivate certain functionality provided with the software. From customer perspective: if there is more than one version of same functionality (e.g. old feature being replaced by new version of same thing) customer may want to employ new version of the thing and switch off the old one. In that case there are some customizing parameters provided (e.g. in form of tables, system profile parameters etc.) by SAP to support that kind of switch. Basically in this case it is up to the customer free will which version of the same functionality want to use.

However there might be cases that SAP wants to customer pursue to disable certain functionality. This is especially in case of patent infringement. Other organizations of individuals may claim ownership of ideas/algorithms etc. used in software. That would be typical case why software vendor would do that. Recently this happened for SAP’s solution like R/3, Enterprise, ECC, CRM, SRM, GTS.  They all are using so called hierarchical access feature in pricing and pricing-related functionality build into above listed solutions. There was a court trial being held between company Versata and SAP in the matter of hierarchical access feature. As the trail has been settled so far US customer of SAP are obligated to deactivate to this functionality. Herewith SAP is providing SAP Notes which automates deactivation of the functionality.

I’m not judging who is right or wrong in this case. However it is not beneficial for customer of both parties. As per this example it is obvious how monstrous, chaotic and messy are patents proceedings are and how time consuming it takes to settle it down.

For more information review following SAP Notes:

1600482 - Hierarchical access functionality (seems to be main note)

1645516 - Deactivation of hierarchical access functionality

1645515 - Deactivation of hierarchical access functionality

1643194 - Deactivation of hierarchical access functionality

1600091 - Deactivation of hierarchical access functionality        

1599403 - Deactivation of hierarchical access functionality

Retraction of data from BW to ECC CO-PA

Retraction is usually provisioning of data stored in BW system into its source systems. In general Retractor is functionality that transfers the data from the BW) back to a source system. By this we providing data already transformed and aggregated in some way back to the source system. Retractors are heavily used in ECC’s CO-PA (Controlling Profitability Analysis) module. Here actual data previously extracted to BW systems is used as reference data for generating new planning data in CO-PA module. E.g. retractor is used to transfer this planning data back to the source system as target values for the planning periods. Both type if data transfer is possible: PUSH – extraction triggered in BW and PULL extraction triggered in ECC.

Examples of other retractor applications: from BPS to PP module, BPC to CO-PA,..

How to prepare such a CO-PA extractor?

First we need to prepare BW query which will provide the data. Basically retractor in ECC will call this query and data from the query will be stored in ECC. Secondly we need to perform customizing in ECC. By customizing a mapping is meant between characteristics and key figures in query to fields (so called characteristics and value fields in CO-PA). The customizing is done in KELC transaction. 

How to perform retraction in ECC?

We use KELR transaction. This is PULL extraction. Here on selection screen we specify name for particular transfer of data. As well as RFC connection to BW system and technical name of BW query. Also we need to specify type of data (actual, plan etc.). Then we run it. Log (TA KELU) and other functionality (Cancel: TA KELS) is available as well.

For details refer to:

How to… CO-PA Retraction

540278 - Retractor: Changes to BW system after Customizing transport

Funny notes: No solution

By accident I came across one note today. The note is dealing with information for users how to proceed with coping of BW objects between different table spaces. 

Note 771191 - Copying BW objects to new tablespaces

Actually solution part of the note is quite funny. Is says:

(Consulting => Not a problem scenario => No solution)

Which reminds me of famous anonymous quote: no job, no money no problem :-)

Tracking improvements of help.sap.com

Some time ago I posted a blog about new design of help.sap.com. Well the design is not the only thing that was changed. Basically whole site was revamp with a lot of cool features. Here short list of them:

• navigation history by so called “pills”
• Printing/downloading documentation to PDF
• Mobile device support
• Full screen mode
• URL shortcuts e.g. /erp605 /erp606
• Web 2.0 features: feedback to pages, twitter integration, SCN integration
• Search engine changes: federated search at help.sap.com/search with possibilities like restricting search on Solution type, Version, etc; filtering by metadata; consolidation of identical search results (Show this topic in other releases)
• Multi language Display

I really like those changes, with them SAP is catching the latest trends in web and they really brings value for me as user of help portal.

To see whole story of features refer to following blog SAP Help Portal transformation series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Background on SAP Help Portal platform landscape and development process.

Tool Z_DOCU_CREATE_FROM_FILE

I recently came across few SAP BW notes on SMP like:

1683554        SAPI tasks for System Copy Automation   

1703068        System copy with archive

1632574        BW tasks for System Copy Automation

and I found ABAP tool called Z_DOCU_CREATE_FROM_FILE mentioned in these SAP Notes. The tool is used for automating ABAP’s messages creation while deploying Notes. Usage is of the tool very easy. As first you need to create ABAP report Z_DOCU_CREATE_FROM_FILE as itself. The source of the report is attached in those above mentioned Notes. Input parameter is transport request into which those ABAP messages will be stored into. Another input parameter is XML file attached in the Notes. The XML file has actually all the definitions of ABAP messages. 

Based on the XML file the will automatically create ABAP messages that are needed for particular notes.

Notice that to deploy messages further you need only to transport request where you stored he messages. The report Z_DOCU_CREATE_FROM_FILE doesn’t need to be transported to further systems in your landscape.

Notice that this tool is not similar to the open source SAP LINK which is full blown tool for sharing of ABAP codes. The Z_DOCU_CREATE_FROM_FILE tool at least in current stage (April 2013) supports just ABAP messages. See my blog post about SAP LINK.

Of course it is not similar to transaction SNOTE which deploys code correction contained in official SAP Notes.

Technical IOs for w-o DSO

There are many technical infoobjects in SAP BW. Basically they are not supposed to be used by BW developers while modeling the infoproviders. Instead they are needed to make BW functioning from technical perspective. 

Let’s take example of 0DATAPAKID IO. The IO is part of technical key in Write Optimized (w-o) DSO. Among this IO there are two more which combinations created technical key of w-o DSO:

Request GUID field (0REQUEST)

Data Record Number field (0RECORD)

The 0DATAPAKID or so called Data Package field is used to carry data package ID for particular record of data which is stored in the DSO. The package ID is calculated within the load to the DSO.

If you have very fresh BW system installation you may encounter following errors while loading the data:

Error in BW: error getting datapakid cob_pro

Message no. RS_EXCEPTION105

Error while extracting from source C9_MGATP (type DataStore)

Message no. RSBK242

Issue is caused by not active IO related to technical IOs in your system. In this case it was related to 0DATAPAKID. All that needs to be done is to activate the IO from business content.

Importance of BW objects – BI Admin Cockpit (TA RSTCIMP)

Define Importance is activity within installing BI Admin Cockpit. The Cockpit 

sometimes also known as BW Admin Cockpit (SMP component BW-BCT-TCT)

is BW’s functionality for monitoring of BW’s performance. The Cockpit enables 

you to see utilization of your BW systems in terms of data loading and query

runs.  It is based on the technical BI content for runtime and status data 

for BW objects and activities. It was previously in BW 3.x known as 

BW Statistics. 

You can setup the cockpit as per step-by-step guide in SAP Note: 934848 

collective note: (FAQ) BI Administration Cockpit. IMG path to set it up is as 

follows:

SPRO -> SAP NetWeaver -> Business Intelligence -> Settings for BI Content 

-> Business Intelligence -> BI Administration Cockpit.

Within the setup there is optional IMG activity (Define Importance, TA 

RSTCIMP), you can assign importance of BW objects. Importance is then 

useful while you analyze statistics data (for example for filtering or sorting).

You can set up the importance for following objects:

·         Queries

·         MulitProviders

·         InfoSets

·         InfoCubes

·         DataStore objects

·         Process chains

Importance is basically number from range 0-100. By default all the BW

objects are having importance value set to 50. You need to uncheck 

default value checker Inh (Inherit values from related objects) to enable 

yourself to enter different value. Data of importance is stored in table 

RSTCIMPDIR.  

Starting BPC 10 Web Client

I had brief look at BPC 10 NetWeaver version. BPC which stands for SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation is part of SAP EPM applications. BPC 10 requires an SAP BW 7.3 system as backend. You need to install BPC component CPMBPC into your ABAP stack to enable this functionality. BPC is written using Adobe Flex (an open source framework for building rich Internet applications that get delivered via the Flash Player or to desktops via Adobe AIR.) web front-end. MS Excel interface still remains for inputting and reporting data out of the system.

In order to connect to BPC you need to enable following services on ABAP stack in order to access BPC in TA SICF:

/default_host/sap/EPM_BPC/web - web client itself

/default_host/sap/poa - Base REST service (for Adobe Flex platform)

/default_host/sap/public/bc

/default_host/sap/bw/xml/soap/xmla/

Below see possibilities how to access BPC:

To launch the Planning and Consolidation Web Client or logon page of BPC 10:

Open a web browser and enter URL 

http://server.domain:port/sap/bpc/web/

where is the server name/IP address and port number of the Planning and Consolidation application server.

To launch BPC web reports via a URL link:

For NW version:

https://server.domain:port/sap/bpc/web?re=1#liveReport={report guid};cm={environment name}

For MS version:

https://server.domain:port/sap/bpc/web/#liveReport={report guid};cm={environment name}

How to recognize either your BW has BPC installed? Check following software component in BW backend e.g.:
CPMBPC    800    0007    SAPK-80007INCPMBPC    CPM Business Planning and Consolidation

See further useful info on BPC 10:

FAQ

BPC in nutshell
Learn more about Flex at flex.org