Being said that when it boils down to using BPC and creating custom dashboards on top of the data it is not that simple. It has restrictions and still in development phase. Below are the restrictions as per SAP
1. 2 Dimensions are required
2. Only 2 Dimensions can be used (1 on row, and 1 on column)
3. Dynamic ranges are not supported
4. The number of values being returned from the web service is in a static format
This also means we need to use web services to extract the data out of SAP BPC which in turn means developing web services for each and individual dashboard, results in longer overturn.
Advantage implementing BPC dashboard includes security inheritance. Since the provided BPC Services for Xcelsius Integration (SXI) components live within the BPC environment, all of the standard BPC security is inherited. If a user adds a component that attempts to access data values which the user is not privileged to see, those results are filtered out within BPC before the data is returned to the component. This maintains the same high level of security which is present throughout the BPC system.
Here I would like to discuss a different approach of extracting BPC data and representing it in form of an Xcelsius dashboard. Advantages include simplistic approach of creating reports and dashboards. Drilling down using extended hyper linking to Business objects web intelligence reports.
Disadvantages include BPC security model is not extended to dashboards. Also the data is extracted from a cube hence standalone and can only be compared to other source at report level. Other way is to extract the data to an EDW which leads to duplication of data.
SAP BPC with Microsoft uses Microsoft SQL Server Analytical services. For every shell defined there are multiple cubes generated in analytical services. From the BPC frontend when you login you choose one Appshell. When one uses live reporting it is in turn using MS SQL server reporting service. When you click on Insight within ISoft Web it shows you KPI metrics and dashboards however if you would like to have customized dashboard there is no direct way to design them. SAP Xcelsius has currently connectivity with SAP BPC though as mentioned before it is through web services and hence restrictions. Well the other way is to design a universe on top of the cube itself and create Xcelsius dashboards using QaaWS. Today we are going to investigate more on that.
Creating an OLEDB connection to the cube and create a universe on top of the cube. Create QaaWS or reports using the universe and use that as a data feeder to Xcelsius Dashboards
Start a universe session. Click on new universe. In the parameter create a new connection.
Give a name and then choose Microsoft Analytical services
OLEDB Provider. Though if you are using some other database i.e. MS SQL Server 2008 which is not mentioned in the list you may would like to check SAP for compatible drivers. (Most of the time OLEDB for MS Analysis Service 2005 would work for 2008 but it might be your bad day if it doesn’t)
Keep the authentication to use specified until and unless you have implemented Single Sign on and also you MS Server also connected to the LDAP or AD directory. Also you need rights on the cube you would like to access so ask you database administrator for rights.
What you see in the screenshot above are Appshells in form of databases, cubes namely finance and all, also you would see Dimensions which has been designed for slice and dice.
Now back to the universe , click next to continue and check the cube you would like you dashboard should extract the data from.
Test the connection and click Next to continue
Click finish to end the designing process
What you see in the universe panel is an OLAP cube universe.
Format the universe objects using naming conventions as per your requirement , save it and export it to the repository
Now open a QaaWS session
Use an enterprise account or an alias account in order to login.
You may further use the QaaWS as source for the dashboard
You may also extract data from the underline Database services rather than the analytical services using ETL tools like Data Services. Though this brings us to another topic of data duplication and further leads to maintenance and usability. Another disadvantage is redesigning the metrics and dimensions, including business rule as per the requirement. Well we will discuss about it some other day…
I hope you liked the topic.
Take care
-Phyxius
P.S http://freebusinessobjectsknowledge.blogspot.com/
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