BI4 SP06 Install Warning Wait! What???

[Former Member]

So I had planned to apply SP06 but wait!

We have struggled with several issues in the series of patches for SP05, one patch seeming to introduce new problems that remain unresolved with OSS.  So the optimist in me said to move forward and apply patch 6, 7, 8 then SP06.

When I got to SP06 I get the warning below. The message provides a link to the forward fit plan but just dumps you out to the market place.

If you search for forward fit, you will get a bunch of junk in the results, but if you pay attention you will find a blurb about BI4 with a link to

1794398 - Forward Fit Plan: Which patches are included in each Support Pack for Business Intelligenc...

If you follow this document it has a link to an Excel spreadsheet that you will have to reenter your S number a few times..

An excel  spreadsheet?  Really?  (See screenshots below)

This says that SP06 contains BI4 SP5 5.1-5.5 and 4.4-4.11?

So it does NOT include SP05 patch 6,7, or 8 and where is BI4 Sp04 4.12-4.14 ever incorporated at all?

There is no other information in the excel worksheet or the referring document.

Is anyone else confused/frustrated by BI4 SP05 patches and this Forward Fit Plan?

What is a customer expected to make of all this?

SAP - please know that I appreciate you are trying very hard to delivery quality solutions to meet ever impatient demand, but I am getting patch fatigue.

I would much rather see enhancements and patches delivered for each specific BI tool like Design Studio has been done.

So if we want to update Olap for Analysis we don't have to also upgrade Dashboards or Webi.

So I guess I will not apply SP06 just yet and stay on SP05 Patch 8...?

Thanks

Lee Lewis

[CdnConnection · Accepted solution]

Lee,

     The forward fit document shows is that BI 4.0 SP6 includes up to SP4 + 4.11,and SP5 + 5.5.  If you have other patch like patch 6, 7 & 8 they are NOT part of SP6 so they will be removed.  If you need fixes in patch 6 then you will need to wait for patch 6.1 for SP6 before adding it to your server.

What patch do you require the major fix from the most ?

Regards,

Ajay

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thank you Ajay,

Our two biggest show stoppers that we have open OSS messages

1) BW user exit variables are ignored in Dashboards and Webis. Works with BeWeb and A-Olap and A-Office.  This is a big deal for us so we can identify the user executing the query and provide personalized content.

2) In Dashboards, Query Browser- Bex: when using a filter that has a prompt mapped to a cell in spreadsheet.  Before SP05 Patch4 we were able to pass to BICS the key value of the BW characteristic, now we must pass the text value else get the dreaded XLS0009 error. 

Will spare the gorey details, but this was a huge mess to discover.

Lee Lewis

[CdnConnection · Accepted solution]

Lee,

      What patch contains the fixes you require?  BI 4.0 w/ SP4 + or SP5 ?? .  Let me know the patch you require and I will suggest your best option.

Regards,

Ajay

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks Ajay,

This is the crux, I cannot get confirmation yet that these issues are resolved.  I am just trying to move ahead in good faith while waiting to hear back from OSS as to if these are bugs, problems with regressions or intended lack of functionality.

Lee Lewis

[CdnConnection · Accepted solution]

Lee,

     In that I would suggest staying with BI 4.0 w/SP6 for best results.  This is also the best version of get better support.   Other option is use your current install and capture some baseline issue and log them:

- Then take IMAGE Backup of the DEV BI 4.0 server.

- Update to SP6 and re-test the workflow, if work then move forward otherwise role back.

Always have DEV/TEST environment to test all the updates prior to moving to PROD.

Regards,

Ajay