Is EPM Connection Manager for BI 4.1 compatible with Analysis Office 2.1?

Hi all,

We have a project that is deploying BPC and EPM to our planning and consolidations users, as well as some BW reporting out of Analysis for Office. The project would like to have as 'seamless' an experience as possible across the EPM and AO Excel clients, so we were happy with where AO 2.1 was going in converging these tools.

The project now wants to explore publishing EPM workbooks to the BI LaunchPad. From my researching, and even a few E-Mails with SAP backoffice support guys, the answer I've gotten is we need to install 'EPM Connection Manager'.

We've attempted to install this and use it, however when I select New -> 'EPM Workbook' from BI LaunchPad, I receive an error message stating that it could not launch EPM, and them prompts me to download the 'old' (pre-AO 2.1) version of EPM.

Are we going about this the wrong way, or is this just a gap with the new converged AO 2.1 client? We realize we can save an 'AO Workbook' to the BI LaunchPad, but then it would seem that any BOE-managed EPM connection would not be recognized, or would it? Even the AO 2.1 admin and user guides make mention of EPM Connection Manager so that leads me to think that EPM Connection Manager should work.

FYI we are running BI 4.1 SP6 Patch 7, and BPC 10.1 on NW BW 7.40.

Any help would be appreciated!