Dashboard-->QAAWS-->WEBI-->BICS-->Bex(BW) OR Dashboard-->BICS-->BeX(BW)

[Former Member]

Hello experts!

I read a lot of information, but I cannot make my mind. We have our data in BW. We want to create a new dashboard with BO 4.0 SP05 patch 12.

Method #1:

The consultants that are working with us told us to Create a Webi over the Bex and the retreive the Data with QAAWS for the Dashboard.

Method #2:

The other way around is simply connect directly to BW from Dashboard.

As I understand, the only benefits using a Webi report is to schedule it to have a better performance for your Dashboard. Would it be the same if we would access the Bex directly from dashboard if the BeX has just been excuted in BW and still in the cache?

I have started to use BusinessObjects 4.0 in 2012 and did not have the chance to use older version. From what I have read, I am starting thinking there was some limitations in Xcelcius 2008 that forced people to use a Webi report to enhance the performance and features. If this is correct, then is there any reason to still use a Webi report to retreive data from a Bex in 2014?

Do you have any good arguments to not use a direct Bex connection and instead use a Webi Report with a QAAWS?

Also, do you know if there is now a way to publish a Dashboard in BusinessObject Platform if the Dashboard use a direct connection to BW?

Thanks all for your input!

[former_member182541 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

There is nothing much difference between the webi report and bw report. You can do pretty much the same calculation and stuffs more into BEx query compared to webi.

I would suggested you to go with "Query browser" connection where you can able to connect the query directly to the dashboard, when it comes to performance its much better compared to other connections.

Only pain point of using query browser you cannot your report as cross tab, where you can design or incorporate the report into the spreadsheet in horizontal or vertical. Apart from this if you still interested in using the webi between the dashboard and Bex query, I would you to go through the below links which can provide you some better clarifications on this.

BOBJ Tricks: Live Office vs. QaaWS vs. BI Services

Also, do you know if there is now a way to publish a Dashboard in BusinessObject Platform if the Dashboard use a direct connection to BW?

If you are going to use SAP BW Netweaver connection then you can publish the dashboard only in portal, using query browser you can publish it to BOE server.

Hope this helps!!!

--SumanT

[Former Member]

Hi Antoine,

Both have their own specialities and at the same time they have limitations.

It purely depends on your Dashboard designing to rely on LO connection or BICS (Query Browser).

I have few points when to use Live Office connection and BICS

•      Use Live Office when your query takes lots of time to refresh, we use LO in these scenarios such that we can schedule the webi reports and with live instances we can create the LO connection.
•     Use LO when you have a requirement to create a cross tab or other calculations and to restricts the no.of rows in the dashboards embedded excel sheet. This minimizes the load and improves your dashboard performance.
•   By using LO it increase the maintenance, we have to maintain the BeX queries at BW,Universe, Webi reports on repositiry and dashboards.

• We use BICS connection if our Bex Queries are staright forward for our dashboard requirement with minimal calculations at dashboard level.
• No universe is required only we need to create a connection.
• Migration is simple and no major steps are invloved like for LO, but we have some issue in Query Browser after the migration (which might be solved in the future service packs aor fix packs).
• Some times we might face issues with the date prompts with BICS connection.
• No offline data is shown if we get disconnected.

Strongly suggest if your dashboard design is simple then go for BICS and if you have many hierarchies drills and other complexities then better go with LO and keep all your complexities in the webi report or universe.

Regards,

Anjani kumar C.A.