BW web applications: popup blocker activated

While using BEx web application like web reporting either ABAP or JAVA based user may encounter following massage displayed in web page:

A popup blocker is activated for URL 'http(s)://domain:’.

This prevents distributed session management (DSM) from functioning correctly.

The application will be closed. SAP Note 919196

Deactivate the popup blocker and restart the application.

This means that session management that manages user sessions of the BEx web app between client (web browser) and backend SAP system (BW) experienced issues. In most cases system tried to open a new popup window where some part of logic (e.g. logoff) was supposed to take place. However in case there is blocker enabled in the web server of the client it prevented the new popup to be opened and consequently that part of the logic wasn’t executed thus it all resulted in such a situation.

A quick win solution is either to deactivate the blocker or to put a domain of the SAP server to while list in the blocker. After implementing, one of the suggestion above and restarting the web browser the issue should disappear.

In addition, it is worth to point out that above-mentioned message can be disabled adding parameter "RSWR_CHECK_POPUP_BLOCKER" with the value "FALSE into RSADMIN table.

More information:

919196 - Dialog box blocker and Java/ABAP BEx Web applications

2405012 - BEx Web 7.3+: Disable Popup blocker message

ABAP web reporting URL parameters

Sometime back I wrote post about parameters of web reporting’s URL. That post was related to different parameters that we can employ into URL of web reporting based on JAVA or ABAP stack. In this post I want to list more parameter of ABAP based web reporting.

Recently I had to do stress tests of BW system. Most of my test cases involved web reporting. I need to quickly run multiple reports with deferent selection screen’s values. So I prepared simple HTML page where I put URL pointing to ABAP stack of the BW system. Each URL carried different parameter for BW report. Here are some of URL parameters I leveraged in my HTML page.

Parameters to address single value type of variable:

QUERY – mandatory parameter which tells the system which query to run

VAR_NAME_X – technical name of variable which is present on selection screen, where X is number to identity the variable

VAR_VALUE_EXT_X – value of variable on selection screen

Example of URL:

http://mybw.mydomain.com:8000/SAP/BW/BEX?&QUERY=Z_BW_QUERY&VAR_NAME_1=ZVAR1&VAR_VALUE_EXT_1=01.2014&VAR_NAME_2=ZVAR2&VAR_VALUE_EXT_2=01.2015

Parameters to address interval type of variable:

QUERY – see above

VAR_NAME_X - Technical name of the variable on report’s selection

VAR_VALUE_LOW_EXT_ X – "From" value for interval variable

VAR_VALUE_HIGH_EXT_X – "To" value for interval variable

Parameters to address select option type of variable:

QUERY – see above

VAR_NAME_X - see above

VAR_OPERATOR_X – Operator, following values are possible:

'EQ' = Individual value

'BT' = Interval

'LT' = Less than

'LE' = Less than or equal to

'GT' = Greater than

'GE' = Greater than or equal to

VAR_VALUE_LOW_EXT_ X - "From" value for select option variable

VAR_VALUE_HIGH_EXT_ X - "To" value for select option variable

VAR_SIGN_ X – in case it equals to 'I' values are included into the report’s output, in case 'E' found values are removed

Lastly I want to mention that as per my tests these parameters are valid for web reporting based on ABAP Stack of SAP BW.

More information:

Online docu: Transferring Variable Values

SAP BI web reporting URLs

Personalizing of BW reports running in JAVA web reporting environment

Recently one user ran into strange issue with standard report. He was able to run the report on one day with predefined layout and on another day the layout was gone and he was not able to get it to original report layout. For all other users report looked like before in its original layout. The issue was only occurring in web reporting on top of JAVA stack. In case the user ran in ABAP based web reporting or in BEX Analyzer the report was just fine.

There were other strange things popping up while making an attempt to run the report. In case user tried to make right click on the report he got errors like following:

Error: Variable Entry No variables available Cancel

Error: Incorrect Output Type on Rendering Context Menu Snippets (!= OUTPUT)

Issue is caused by the fact that user somehow managed to activate personalization on that particular report. He was perhaps clicking too much into the report (nervous finger problem) and he accidently clicked on context menu where he choose item “Personalize Web Application” and sub item “Personalize”. This caused that layout that was changed by him before was saved and every time he accessed the report he was getting different report that original report’s layout.

The issue was resolved by deactivating the personalization. It was very hard to manage to click on the context menu and to choose “Delete Personalization” but finally we have done that and it resolved the issue.

You can only face this issue in the system where personalization of web reports is active. You can check that by running program: RS_PERS_ACTIVATE. The program also enables switching the personalization on and off. Here’s how the program looks like when also all other personalization types are active:

SAP BI Export Library

An export of BI report’s output into the different format like PDF is very common. Also SAP’s reporting frontend’s tools are offering that. In case of web reporting based on JAVA stack an export functionality of reports is done by this library. For example BEx Broadcaster is creating PDFs documents also by the library. The BI Export Library is an alternative to Adobe Document Services (ADS). However in contrast to ADS you can use the Export Library only within application based on JAVA Stack. Technically the Library is delivered within Business Intelligence Java Components (BI-JAVA) BI-BASE-S and BI-WEBAPP.

To enable using of the Library you need to maintain field SAP_EXPORT_LIB in table RSPOR_T_PORTAL via TA SM30. By default the Library delivers only font for export TrueType font "Arial Unicode J". If you want to use other fonts you need to put them as files into the folder. Then maintain the directory name into the same table in field FONT_PATH. You can maintain also default font by specifying it in field DEFAULT_FONT I the same table.

For more details see:

1112132 - The SAP BI Export Library

SMP Component: BW-BEX-ET-WJR-EXP Export Services and Printing

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

Parameters of table RSFRONTENDINIT

Within this post I want to introduce few interesting facts about this table. A first fact (and very obvious one) is that table is dedicated to frontend requirements of particular BW system. The minimum frontend requirements for any backend Support Pack are stored here. Below see description of parameters stored in the table. Most of them are not documented at all. The case might be that are supposed to be used only internally by SAP. We all know that sometimes even internal settings may help in specific situations. That was also my motivation to write this blog post. 

I used to analyze SAP BW standard code in order to explore parameters meaning. Might be that I’m not always right about their meaning. Therefore I would encourage you to share your experience with the parameters. On other hand there is at least one SAP note discussing some of parameters - 1510916 - Collective Note: RS_FRONTEND_INIT parameters. Notice that in the most cases listed below parameters set to X means it is switch ON – enabled.

1.    Values in this table are being customized by calling transaction RS_FRONTEND_INIT.

2.    Table validation from Solution Manager (SolMan) – content of this table can be validated from SolMan by Configuration Validation functionality. By this values are compared and validated between one reference system and several target systems.

3.    Meaning of parameters: VER_MIN_ANA*:

a.    VER_MIN_ANA:        minimum revision of BExAddin.dll, e.g. 140

b.    VER_MIN_ANA_3X:   minimum revision of sapbex.xla

c.    VER_MIN_ANA_7X:   minimum revision of BExAnalyzer.xla

d.    VER_MIN_ANA_SAPBEX0: minimum revision of RRMX launcher (sapbex0.xla)

4.    Meaning of parameter ANA_CTX_SENS_DBL_CLK: activation of context sensitive double click functionality within navigation over hierarchy nodes in BW report’s output. 1345468 - BExAnalyzer: context sensitive double click on hier. nodes

5.    ANA_FLAG_EXAMPLE – setting of BEx Query Analyzer? , e.g. Y

6.    ANA_SINGLEDPREFRESH – If you have a workbook with several queries and you aim to refresh single query set this to X. , e.g. X

7.    ANA_USE_INPUT_TABLE - setting of BEx Query Analyzer, e.g. X

8.    ANA_USE_SIDGRID - setting of BEx Query Analyzer, e.g. X

9.    ANA_USE_TABLE - setting of BEx Query Analyzer, Performance improvement for frontend/backend communication, 1179647 - Performance: Network load in BEx Analyzer, e.g. X

10. BUFFER_CONTAINS_DATA – Special usage of note 1094799 - Corrections in the BEx Analyzer server runtime, e.g. X

11. OS_FLAG_EXAMPLE - ? , e.g. Z

12. QD_EXCLUSIVE_USER - setting of BEx Query Designer, used to restrict access to Query Designer 7.x. By this you can protect your BW 3.x based queries from accidental and unwanted migration to 7.x version. 962530 - NW04s: How to restrict access to Query Designer 2004s

13. QD_FLAG_EXAMPLE - setting of BEx Query Designer, ? , e.g. X

14. SERVER_VERSION – version of SAP BW backend, format: XXXYY, XXX – BW version, YY – Support Pack level, e.g. 70019

15. TEXT_VERSION - allows to force text cache update on all frontends, e.g. 0002

16. VER_ACT_ANA - actual version of BEx Query Analyzer, e.g. 140

17. VER_ACT_OS - actual version of BEx Query Analyzer, e.g. 0

18. VER_ACT_QD - actual version of BEx Query Designer, e.g. 229

19. VER_ACT_RD - actual version of BEx Query Report Designer, e.g. 132

20. VER_ACT_SEL - actual version of BEx Query Analyzer, e.g. 0

21. VER_ACT_WAD - actual version of BEx Web Application Designer, e.g. 154

22. VER_MIN_OS - minimum version Operation System, e.g. 0

23. VER_MIN_QD – minimum version of BEx Query Designer, e.g. 229

24. VER_MIN_RD - minimum version of BEx Report Designer, e.g. 132

25. VER_MIN_SEL - ? , e.g. 0

26. VER_MIN_WAD - setting of BEx Web Application Designer, e.g. 143

27. WAD_OBJ_VERSION - setting of BEx Web Application Designer, e.g. 3

SAP Chart Designer

SAP Chart Designer is a tool for defining customizing settings for the Chart Engine XMLCHART) of the IGS. You can model your new graph within this tool with all its properties and layout settings e.g. chart type, enter texts for the titles. Then you save your graph in this tool as XML file. You can now use this XML as the customizing input for your IGS chart, for example in your BSP application when using .

You can download this tool via SDN at this page.

There are two version of this tool depending on version of IGS: ChartDesigner640.exe and ChartDesigner700.exe.

SAP BI web reporting URLs

Usually end users are using SAP Portals (Enterprise Portal) or any other portal for accessing BI queries. You as a support consultant trying to solve incidents within queries often do not have a portal access therefore you need to access it via raw links or you use TA RSRT (Query monitor) in BI backend system to simulate query there. When user issue is linked with we reporting TA RSRT is not enough and most convenient way is to run query/query view/web template from via web browser. In order to obtain URLs it is good to start with TA RTST. In all versions of this TA you can choose a way how query data is displayed: LIST – classic raw ABAP report layout, BEx Analyzer – MS Excel layout and HTML – web reporting layout. In case you opt for HTML and execute some report, you can afterwards get a URL for this report. 

This functionality allows you to get this URL and run query or other query via URL easily.

If you ran your NetWeaver BI system on both AS stacks: ABAP and JAVA you have a web reporting in 2 favors:

ABAP web and JAVA web

URLs are different for those 2 stacks:

ABAP:

Query:
http://machine:port/SAP/BW/BEX?INFOCUBE=put_infoprovider_here&QUERY=put_query_name_here

Web template:
http://machine:port/SAP/BW/BEX?INFOCUBE=put_infoprovider_here&TEMPLATE_ID=put_your_web_tmpl_here

BEx "Report Designer" report:
ABAP Stack seems to be is not supporting "Report Designer's" report as following URL doesn't work for me:
http://machine:port/SAP/BW/BEX?INFOCUBE=put_infoprovider_here&REPORT=report_name_created_in_BEx_ReportDesigner

Broadcaster:

http://machine:port/SAP/BW/BEx?CMD=START_BROADCASTER70

JAVA:

General format of URL:

<PORTAL_PROTOCOL>://<PORTAL_SERVER>:<PORTAL_PORT> /<bi_launcher>?<param>=<value>

e.g. http(s)://machine:port/irj/servlet/prt/portal/prtroot/pcd!3aportal_content!2fcom.sap.pct!2fplatform_add_ons!2fcom.sap.ip.bi!2fiViews!2fcom.sap.ip.bi.bex?QUERY=put_query_name_here

Query:
param = QUERY

Web template:

param = TEMPLATE_ID

Query view in workbook:

param = QUERY_VIEW

Query view:

param = SOURCE_VIEW

Enterprise report (BEx "Report Designer" report:): 

param = REPORT

Workbook:

param = WBID

XCELSIUS DASHBOARD

param = DASHBOARD

Bookmark:

param = BOOKMARK_ID

Link to JAVA Portal, where you can choose query:

http(s)://machine:port/irj/servlet/prt/portal/prtroot/pcd!3aportal_content!2fcom.sap.pct!2fplatform_add_ons!2fcom.sap.ip.bi!
2fiViews!2fcom.sap.ip.bi.bex

- update 27.02.2017 - 
more JAVA stack related parameters added

- update 16.12.2015 - 
See post related to "ABAP web reporting URL parameters" as well.

Link to documentation:

Help.sap.com

1490646 - How to call 3.x ABAP Run-Time from BEx Query Designer 7.x