BO dashboards connection to BODS

[vijy_mukunthan]

Dear Experts

  I am having a concern that is it possible that connecting BO dashboards to BODS. Both are under BI platform. My requirement is i am doing data migration from Non SAP to SAP. I am doing data analysis i want to show the data analysis in the form of dashboards. Is it possible?.

Regards

Vijay

[vijy_mukunthan]

Hi All

  The solution would be use a staging system to import the data to dashboards. This i will try. The possible tool would be either BO dashboards or information steward.

Regards

Vijay Mukunthan

[Former Member]

Hi Vijay,

Yes, You can develop dashboard on BODS Data.

There are various ways in which you can connect to dashboard , can please tell me what is your BODS Data Target? if it is SAP BW then you can create BEx Queries and on top of it you can create a dashboard.

Steps to do:

1. Create a Bex query in Business explorer

2. Create a Connection for Bex query using Information Design Tool in BO

3. In Dashboards, goto Query Browser and add Bex Query using connection you have created in above step.

Hope i have answered your question.

[vijy_mukunthan]

Hi Nirupa

  To answer you we are NOT using BW as our target. Our target is ECC 6 R/3 system.

Regards

Vijay Mukunthan

[Former Member]

Hi Vijay,

Now I am clear. So if your target is ECC, then it will be little bit long process to create dashboard from that data.

1. Create BAPI on top of ECC tables.

2. Create Crystal Report(using crystal 2011, it only supports Live Office) with fields required in the dashboard and save the report to BI Launchpad.

3. Insert the crystal report into your excel of the dashboard through Live Office (Note : Dashboards and Live Office version should be same)

4. Using the report data inserted into dashboard you can create your dashboard.

Live Office is a standalone BO tool. you need to install it separately. after installing you will find a tab "Live office" in  the excel sheet of the dashboard. By clicking on that tab, you will find options of inserting crystal and webi reports on the left top. If you find any difficulty or struck somewhere, just keep posting.

[nikhil_joy2]

Hi Vijay,

BODS is an ETL tool which is used for getting data from different sources into a target like your case with transformation and data cleansing capabilities. so connecting an ETL tool to BO dashboard doesnt make sense.

In your scenario, you have SAP target. So once the data is available in your target, you can obviously have your dashboard based on that data. If the target is BW system, go for BICS connection. If its possible to create universe, then go for it. Its depends on your scenario and convenience.

One more clarification. Are you looking for a dashboard showing the status of data load using BODS? if then you can query the target tables and use the meta data to create your dashboard.

Hi Arun,

PFB SAP tutorial explaining universe connection to dashboard in detai.

http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-21265

If you are in version below BO 4.0, the above option will not be there. instead you can use qaaws option to consume universe in dashboard.

Hope it helps.

Regards,

Nikhil Joy

[Former Member]

Nikhil,

I did not ask the question, seems addressed to a wrong person.

I know how to connect to universe from dashboard.

Arun

[nikhil_joy2]

sorry Arun.. wrongly addressed.. meant for shiva..

Regards,

Nikhil Joy

[vijy_mukunthan]

Hi Nikhil

  My view is different. what you are saying after the data loaded on SAP the loaded data can be quried to BO dashboard and show. My concern is i am extracting the data from multiple source at the time of data cleansing i want to show visually that these many data is irrelevant for migration or bad data or poor quality or need data correction at the time cleansing. These information i want to show as a dashboards.

One sample scenario is follows

For the migration of purchase order its mandatory that vendor should be available in target system. I want to show this information in the form of dashboards that how many vendors marked for deletion, how many vendors are not extended to purchase org, how many vendors are not valid for the creation of purchase order.

  Before the loading of data i want analyse that data show in the form of dashboards. Then i can come to conclusion that these many % of data is wrong i need to correct it before loading of data. This is one such scenario there are many scenario like this.

  So only i asking this case is it possible to show the data from BODS to BO dashboard. Some where i read from internet that the same BODS data source can be imported to BO dashboards or BO universe i don't no this part.

  Now i hope i have clearly explained my requirement. Is it possible to accomplish this mission.

Regards

Vijay

[vijy_mukunthan]

Hi Experts

  Can anybody thrown some light on this?.

Regards

Vijay

[nikhil_joy2]

Hi Vijay,

I believe you are talking about data validation. Before loading your data into target, you need to evaluate the reliablility of data. If i am not wrong, we already have a feature in BODS where we can define our own  business rules and view the result in dashboards. So no need of dashboard integration. However i am not sure about the level of complexity applicable for the business rules. I think you will get better inputs if you start a discussion in SAP BODS space.

http://scn.sap.com/community/data-services

Couldn't find a good document on this. You can start with the help document. refer 5th chapter in below doc "Data validation dashboard reports".

http://help.sap.com/459E0BE2-779C-4B7D-853B-65B6EE9FB73B/FinalDownload/DownloadId-6D70E606F414410AEC...

Hope it helps

Regards,

Nikhil Joy

[vijy_mukunthan]

Hi Nikhil

BODS is not suitable of giving information in the form of dashboards. Its very limited compare to BO dashboards. I know this can be achieved by information stewards. But we already have  BO dashboards licenses. We have to work only with BO dashboards to achieve my requirement. Is it possible to fulfill my requirement or some other tool in business objects can support?.

Regards

Vijay Mukunthan

[former_member190855]

Hi Vijay

One thought - you can load the data you want to validate to a staging database/ set of staging tables before loading them to data warehouse tables. You can create dashboards based off of these staging tables. In a second job, you can transfer the data from staging to data warehouse table.

If you want to make any changes to the data before loading, you can either do it directly in the source database or you can modify in the staging database before running the job to load to data-warehouse.

Let me know if you need more information about how to connect a dashboard to load data.

Hope this helps.

Thanks

Runali

[nikhil_joy2]

If Data validation dashboard in BODS will not satisfy your requirement, then as Runali suggested, having an intermediate staging tables/database accessible by SAP Dashboard is the only option i believe.

I would suggest you to start a discussion in BODS space. You will get quick inputs or alternatives if someone has implemented similar ideas.

Regards,

Nikhil Joy

[Former Member]

Information Steward may give you some solution.

BODS is a ETL tool. After you extracting the data, data will be in template tables.

And dashboard design or BO tools, can not connect to the template tables.

Once the data into Target system, they you can go for BO tools.

[vijy_mukunthan]

Hi All

  This discussion really got many new ideas to start.

@ Runali

  Your suggestion is very much valid to have a staging server from there i can connect to BO dashboard to view the data. My source is may be sap or non sap but target is always SAP ECC 6 not BW.

@ Rajendra

  I am not sure about BO dashboards connect to template table or not. Just now we have newly installed BODS 4.1 here will we try to connect to various other tools. Its will only a try as i need to explore a lot in this area.

Thanks for everybody for valuable suggestions.

Regards

Vijay Mukunthan

[Former Member]

Hi Vijay,

Don't think that's possible. What you can do is connect BODS to BO Universe and then to Dashboard. If you have BO Universe created you use many ways to bring the query to dashboard.

Arun

[former_member200473]

Hi Arun,

Could you please provide some documents or the link on same  topics(connecting BO universe to Dashboard)

Regards,

Shiva Sahu

[Former Member]

Hi,

Ok as far as I know there are three ways of connecting Universe to Dashboard.

1) Through Query Browser in the Dashboard designer

2) Through BIWS

3) Through QaaWS

In the first case open the dashboard on the left pane click on the Query browser > Add Query. You will be prompted for a universe. Select the universe and pull all objects you need. Link the Objects of the query to cells in dashboard spread sheet to the component (charts basically). In the second case create a webi report from queries > publish the webi as webservice > import the WSDL into QaaWs and link the cells to components in Dashboard.

Third is more relevant in old xcelsius software 2008 etc, where you create Qaaws connection to universe directly and pull all the objects into the spreadsheet software and link the cell to components.

What I have given is a high level over view, may be you want research more on these topics in depth to get a better understanding.

Hope this helps

Thanks,

Arun