Discover SAP BusinessObjects

Chris Dinkel has over 12 years of experience managing, developing, and implementing large-scale complex information systems. He has extensive experience in all phases of the SDLC of enterprise-wide data warehouses, Business Intelligence solutions, and custom client/server and Web applications. His prior background includes project management, ETL, business analysis, design, development, and administration of data warehouses supporting SAP, PeopleSoft, relational databases, and SAP BW/BusinessObjects systems. He has helped large and small enterprise customers to build robust reporting and analytic architectures that support operational, ad-hoc, and dashboard requirements. Chris has built hundreds of reports, analytics, metrics, and dashboards that are in use around the world today. He has worked in various business verticals including finance, energy, real estate, human resources, utilities, telecommunications, and technology for commercial and government organizations. JC Raveneau is a Product Manager at SAP with 15 years of experience in the software industry. After starting his career writing report structures with Easytrieve on IBM mainframes, the discovery of BusinessObjects 3.1 was relief. Since then, JC has been focusing on business intelligence, holding a number of positions in engineering and customer services. JC was the product owner for the BusinessObjects Enterprise pattern books and monitoring add-on prototype available from SAP. In his current role, JC facilitates the connections between the engineering stakeholders and customer feedback for BI products. JC holds a master degree in computer science from the EISTI in France Thierry Audas has been with Business Objects since 1995. After various senior roles in program and product management he started to focus on business intelligence (BI) solutions for SAP customers in the early 2000's. He worked extensively in BI, particularly focusing on providing SAP customers with best practices in mapping out BI strategies. Since the purchase of Business Objects by SAP, he has worked in a product marketing role and spends the majority of his time working directly with SAP customers to help them better understand how SAP BusinessObjects BI solutions work within their SAP environments to provide enhanced BI capabilities across the organization.

# 1 ... Preface ... 17 # PART I ... SAP and Business Objects ... 21 # 1 ... Why Business Intelligence Matters ... 23 # ... The Business Intelligence Fact Gap ... 24 # ... A Business Intelligence Definition ... 27 # ... How BI Can Help Your Organization ... 29 # ... Better Transparency of the Organization ... 29 # ... Running the Organization by the Numbers ... 29 # ... Helping You Hold on to Your Customers ... 30 # ... A Solution with Immediate Impact ... 30 # ... Increasing the Value of Your Business Process Automation Systems ... 31 # ... Key BI Functionality in the Market Today ... 32 # ... Database Management Systems ... 32 # ... Database Integration and Data Quality Management ... 33 # ... Reporting ... 33 # ... Query and Analysis ... 35 # ... Predictive Analysis ... 36 # ... Dashboarding and Visualization ... 36 # ... Performance Management Applications ... 37 # ... Information Infrastructure ... 39 # ... BI User Profiles ... 39 # ... Executives and Managers ... 40 # ... Business Analysts ... 40 # ... Information Consumers ... 40 # ... The Future of Business Intelligence ... 40 # ... Enterprise BI Deployments ... 41 # ... BI Standardization ... 41 # ... Convergence of BI and Performance Management ... 41 # ... Search-Based BI ... 42 # ... Collaborative BI ... 42 # ... BI Mash-Ups ... 42 # ... BI on Unstructured Data ... 44 # ... In-Memory BI ... 44 # ... OnDemand BI ... 44 # ... Summary ... 45 # 2 ... Business Objects: A Historical Perspective ... 47 # ... A Good Idea Can Go a Long Way ... 47 # ... Examining the Growth of Business Objects ... 50 # ... The Early Days ... 50 # ... A Story of Innovation ... 53 # ... Successful Merger and Acquisitions ... 54 # ... Business Objects in 2007 ... 55 # ... Summary ... 56 # 3 ... SAP and Business Objects: The Perfect Match ... 57 # ... Complementary Products ... 57 # ... SAP ERP ... 58 # ... SAP NetWeaver Platform ... 65 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise Performance Management ... 67 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence ... 69 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise Information Management ... 70 # ... Long-Time Product Integration ... 72 # ... Crystal Enterprise/mySAP Integration Kit ... 72 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise/SAP Integration Kit ... 72 # ... A Clear Market Leader ... 73 # ... Summary ... 74 # PART II ... SAP BusinessObjects Portfolio Solutions ... 75 # 4 ... Closing the Gap Between Strategy and Execution ... 77 # ... Your Organization s Performance: The Humbling Statistics ... 77 # ... How Organizations Close the Gap Between Strategy and Execution ... 79 # ... The SAP Advantage ... 80 # ... Case Study ... 83 # ... Summary ... 84 # 5 ... Business Intelligence and On Demand Solutions ... 85 # ... The Need for a Business Intelligence Platform ... 85 # ... Security ... 88 # ... Storage, Publishing, and Distribution ... 89 # ... Auditing and Monitoring ... 89 # ... High Availability and Performances ... 90 # ... General Administration ... 92 # ... Lifecycle Management ... 93 # ... Upgrade and Migration ... 94 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Solutions ... 95 # ... The Semantic Layer ... 96 # ... Enterprise Reporting ... 100 # ... Ad Hoc Reporting and Analysis ... 106 # ... Advanced Analytics ... 109 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Analysis ... 113 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Predictive Workbench ... 115 # ... SAP BusinessObjects SET Analysis ... 116 # ... Dashboards and Visualization ... 117 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Xcelsius Enterprise ... 118 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Dashboard Builder and BI Workspace ... 122 # ... Search and Exploration ... 123 # ... SAP StreamWork and SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand ... 125 # ... SAP StreamWork ... 126 # ... SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand ... 130 # ... Summary ... 139 # 6 ... SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise Information Management Solutions ... 141 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Data Services ... 141 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Data Integrator ... 143 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Data Quality Management ... 147 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Universal Data Cleanse ... 152 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Text Analysis ... 156 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Data Federator ... 163 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Metadata Management ... 166 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Rapid Marts Packages for PeopleSoft ... 170 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Rapid Marts for Siebel ... 172 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Rapid Marts for Oracle ... 174 # ... Case Study ... 179 # ... Summary ... 181 # 7 ... SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise Performance Management Solutions ... 183 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation ... 183 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Strategy Management ... 187 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Financial Consolidation ... 191 # ... SAP BusinessObjects XBRL Publishing ... 195 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Financial Information Management ... 200 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Intercompany ... 206 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Profitability and Cost Management ... 208 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Spend Performance Management ... 215 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Supply Chain Performance Management ... 219 # ... Case Studies ... 223 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Financial Consolidation ... 223 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Profitability and Cost Management ... 224 # ... Summary ... 225 # 8 ... SAP BusinessObjects Governance, Risk, and Compliance Solutions ... 227 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Risk Management ... 228 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Access Control ... 236 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Process Control ... 241 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Global Trade Services ... 247 # ... SAP Environment, Health, and Safety Management ... 251 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Sustainability Performance Management ... 256 # ... Case Studies ... 259 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Access Control ... 259 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Global Trade Services ... 260 # ... Summary ... 262 # 9 ... Solutions for Small Businesses and Midsize Companies ... 263 # ... Unique BI Needs of Small Businesses and Midsize Companies ... 263 # ... SAP Crystal Reports ... 264 # ... SAP Crystal Dashboard Design ... 268 # ... SAP Crystal Reports Dashboard Design Package ... 270 # ... SAP Crystal Reports Server ... 271 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Edge Business Intelligence (BI) ... 274 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Edge BI Standard Package ... 275 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Edge BI with Data Integration ... 277 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Edge BI with Data Management ... 279 # ... Conclusion on SAP BusinessObjects Edge BI ... 279 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Rapid Marts ... 280 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Edge Planning and Consolidation ... 281 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Edge Strategy Management ... 283 # ... SAP BusinessObjects OnDemand ... 285 # ... Case Studies ... 286 # ... SAP Crystal Reports and SAP BusinessObjects Xcelsius Enterprise ... 286 # ... SAP BusinessObjects Edge BI with Data Management ... 287 # ... Summary ... 289 # PART III ... SAP BusinessObjects Solutions for Non-SAP Customers ... 291 # 10 ... Customers with Previous Investments in SAP BusinessObjects ... 293 # ... Investment Protection ... 293 # ... Upgrade Considerations ... 295 # ... Access to a Complete Portfolio of Solutions ... 299 # ... Get More Value from SAP Enterprise-Ready Standards ... 302 # ... Case Study ... 305 # ... Summary ... 307 # 11 ... Customers New to SAP BusinessObjects Solutions ... 309 # ... The Safe Choice ... 309 # ... Blueprint for Adopting SAP BusinessObjects Solutions ... 313 # ... Where You Should Start ... 314 # ... How to Start ... 314 # ... Implementing BI ... 316 # ... Summary ... 317 # PART IV ... The Future of SAP BusinessObjects Solutions ... 319 # 12 ... SAP BusinessObjects Product Directions and Roadmap ... 321 # ... In Memory ... 321 # ... Extend the Reach ... 323 # ... Software as a Service and Cloud ... 326 # ... Social BI and Collaboration ... 327 # ... Summary ... 330 # 13 ... SAP BusinessObjects Innovation Center ... 331 # ... Customer-Driven Innovation ... 331 # ... Get Involved ... 333 # ... Summary ... 334 # ... Appendices ... 337 # A ... Glossary ... 339 # B ... Technical Landscapes ... 349 # C ... References ... 367 # ... Index ... 369