Thursday, December 8, 2011

Crystal Reports Enterprize 4.0 vs Crystal Reports 2008 / 2011

Folks,

You might have heard about Crystal Reports Enterprise 4.0. Initially I was in assumption that, it is similar to Crystal Reports 2008 with advanced options.

Later I came to now that, Crystal Reports 2011 is the upgraded version of Crystal Reports 2008.

Oh..then, you may ask a question to me, What's all about Crystal Reports Enterprise (CRE ) 4.0. I will refer as CRE 4.0

The CRE 4.0 is a new tool gets installed along with SAP BO BI 4.0

The CRE 4.0 is not a full pledge Crystal Reports tool. The tool is a limited version with lot of limited options. The CRE 4.0 just gives a look and feel about how crystal reports would look like.

For example,

  • Doesn't have pre-defined cross tab styles in CRE 4.0. But you can use pre-defined crsoss tab styles in Crystal Reports 2008 and Crystal reports 2011.
  • Doesn't have "Can grow" option for database objects. But you can do using Crystal Reports 2008 and 2011.
  • Doesn't have "Fit in Section" a property for sections. But you can do using Crystal Reports 2008 and 2011.
 I just find out few options when I had a chance to take look at those tools.

Please update if you  know any such differences.

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Monday, December 5, 2011

Life is easier in SAP BO 4.0 for Bex Queries Integration

Folks,

I got chance to look at SAP Business Objects BI 4.0. The look and feel is great.

Now I am going to discuss about How to create reports on top of SAP BEX Queries in BO 4.0.

Before we go ahead, Let's talk about how the reports can be created on top of BEX Queries in BO XI 3.1

In BO XI 3.1, here are the steps we follow:
  1. Identify the BEX Query
  2. Create a Universe
  3. Create a Universe Connection using SAP Client middleware and connect to it
  4. Universe imports the BEX Query objects such as Characteristics, Key figures and so on.
  5. If you observe there would be two dimension objects for each characteristic. They start with L00 and L01.
  6. L00 - is for aggregate level data   & L01 - is for detailed data
  7. Create WebI report on Top of Universe.
We cannot create Reports using WebI RICH Client on top of BEX Queries in BO XI 3.1

In SAP BO BI 4.0 - You can directly create WebI report on top of BEX Queries using WBEI Rich Client.
  1.  Identify the BEX Query
  2. Create a Universe Connection using SAP Client middleware and connect to it
  3. Open WEBI Rich Client
  4. Select the data source as connection which you created in Step2.
  5. The interface opens with list of all Characteristics, Key figures and so on
  6. The objects shows up in better way than BO XI 3.1. 
  7. Only one dimension object is shown for each characteristic. Hierarchies are displayed as a detail object. 
  8. When you select the detail object with a icon as hierarchies, the report takes care of alignment and formatting of Hierarchy.This is a great feature in SAP BO BI 4.0.
 Please post your comments if you like this post.

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Thursday, December 1, 2011

How to capture technical names and descriptions from BEX Query?

Folks,

Every one might have faced this issue. I too faced. After several searches in Google and with my peers, I came to know that there is no direct way we can capture BEX Query Meta data. ( I am not sure there might be a way, but at least I am not aware of).

After so much of struggle, I got a nice work around way to capture the meta data. I would like to share the same with you.


Let's go step by step:

Step1: Identify the BEX Query, for which meta data to be captured.



Step2: Use Snagit. ( If not available with you get it from www.snagit.com)

Snagit has a great feature, which captures a test in the selected screen. Once you select snag it select a area from which you want to capture text.

Step3: Snagit nicely captures the text from the selected area.


Step 4: The selected area of the text is as follows:

         [0XARLSUPP__0XADIVSUP] Supplier Diversity
         [0XARLSUPP__0XARWOMIND] Woman Owned
         [0XARLSUPP__0XARMINOWN] Minority Owned
         [0XARLSUPP__0XARSBUS] Small Business

         [0XSARBUYER] Buyer
         [0XSARBUYER__0XSARBUYORG] Buying Organization Obsolete
         [0XARMANORG] Management Organiz.
         [0XARORGSITE] Site
         [0XARCOCTR] Cost Center

         [0XARGLACC] G/L Account
         [0XSARDOCTYP] Document Type
         [0XSARAGID] Contract
         [0XSACSDAT] Contract Start Date

         [0XSACEDAT] Contract Expiry Date
         [0XSARINWOC] Invoice w/o Contract
         [0XSARFIDTYP] Transaction Type
         [0ASAPSPNR] WBS Element

         [0XSAPROJST] Project Status
         [0XSAPROJRSK] Project Risk
         [0XSAPROJPR] Project Priority
         [0XSAPROJPAD] Project Start Date

Step5: Select all areas as required and capture the metadata.

The above solution may not be the right one. At least it reduces lot of effort of manually capturing all such information. :)

Please post your comments if you like this work around :)

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