Universe building strategy for SAP Infocubes and BW queries

[Former Member]

Hi All,

We are on BO XIR2.We have recently setup an SAP BI server and we are planning to build webi reports using BO.

In Universe designer,as of now we know of building one connection per BW query or Infocube

ie one universe per BW query or Infocube.

But this could result in huge number of connections and universes being generated depending on the number of reports.

Is there an alternative or better approach to minimize the number of universes to be created and maintained?

[IngoH · Accepted solution]

hi Rajesh,

you are correct that the connection is on a query level. You don't need a connection for every single report but you should also not go to the other extreme where you create one large query for all reports.

take a look at some best practices here:

/people/ingo.hilgefort/blog/2008/11/19/businessobjects-integration-with-sap-netweaver-bi--technical-material

Ingo

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thank Ingo. We have reviewed the best practices you have suggested and agree/understand that SAP suggested approach indirect access through BEx queries only. However, the situation we are faced with is below:

As a part of SAP BI7 implementation, the team has installed Standard business content for FI MM and SD modules and activated approx 120 standard BEx and WAD queries on BW side. Now the BO team have to deploy those queries/reports using BO for the End users. In this case, if we go by recommended indirect BEx access, it will result into too many connections and universes on BO side. Is there any other alternative?

Appreciate all your help so far.

Regards,

[IngoH · Accepted solution]

hi Rajesh,

the recommendation is clearly to leverage the BI queries (not the cubes) and create a small number of BI queries. There is no need to have one query for each report and should not also not build one query for all reports.

You should look for the common denominator for the queries and in that way to keep the number of queries and universes.

ingo

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Ingo,

I am facing a problem in retrieving the SAP BI infocubes in BO Universe Designer. I am able to build a designer on BI queries, but, when trying to build a universe on $INFOCUBE, I am not getting any list of infocubes in BO Universe Designer.

Currently, we have BO XI 3.1 installed and SAP Integration fix pack 3 and SAP BI on NW 04s. Can you please suggest any extra patch or software need to be installed on our BO Server/SAP BI Server.

Thanks in advance.

Sudheer.

[IngoH · Accepted solution]

Hi,

handled in a separate entry

Ingo

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Ingo,

We have the following scenario. We have around 11 Infocubes, DSO, Multi provider, Infosets for standard content and 120 Bex queries installed out of those. Now inorder to minimize number of universes we are planning to build 11 universes around the Infocubes. And we are planning to use olap intelligence for building reports for these 120 standard queries. So that these universes built would serve the purpose for future reporting requirements.

Kindly suggest the pros and cons on the above approach.

Regards

[IngoH · Accepted solution]

Hi Rajesh,

I assume you talking about Web Intelligence and not OLAP Intelligence.

the number of Universes really depends on your needs for reporting. if you have 11 cubes and planing to build 11 universes that tells me that you are just building a single query for each cube - which you will recognize later on can have an impact on the performance.

example:

If your Web Intelligence report is using 5 characteristics out of a query with 50 characteristics or if the query only would contain 10 characteristcs in the BI query - that can make a difference in performance.

You should look at some commonality in the reports and based on that decide how many queries you need.

Ingo

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi

Can I use DSO as a source, precisely am planning to create a query going against DSO and build the universe on top of it

Is it supported. Please let me know

thanks in advance

[IngoH · Accepted solution]

Hi Gowtha,

yes you can build a query against the ODS / DSO and use that query as entry point for the Universe.

Ingo

[IngoH · Accepted solution]

Hi Rajesh,

has this been resolved ?

thanks

Ingo

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Ingo,

It seems to be a weak point in the Integration between SAP BW and BO. In one hand we have a very powerful tool like BO that permit power users to query & report data with minimum database technical skills, and this is possible because the "semantic layer" support it. And in the other hand, SAP recommendation to still using BEx Queries cut the full potential of BO, reducing the advantage of quickly see results from "query&reporting" and quickly make adjustments that is very important in the whole analysis process (that is iterative). I think this is a very important thing that SAP guys should pay attention in order to not get resistant from SAP installed base customers in order to adopt BO.

Even though this weakness I think that BO adds a lot of value but the impact could be much better if the whole analysis process were simpler and faster with just one single tool instead of two.

Best Regards

Erick

[IngoH · Accepted solution]

Hi Eric,

there are different options available.

You can leverage the BI queries as a source, you can use the cubes as a source, you can go against the relational table schema in BW via relational access.

All of these items have advantages and disadvantage.

As an example when accessing the relational schema you are losing some of the typical OLAP features from BW like a restricted keyfigure or a calculated keyfigure.

When accessing cubes you are losing items as well - for example navigational attributes.

so you can see there are several options out there that customers can leverage.

Ingo

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi All,

I'm re-phrasing my question. My question is that SAP BI by default provides the BW or Bex queries for standard content to be installed directly. This is a Unique Selling Point of SAP BW.

How can we leverage the benefit of this in BO? By this I mean, If we start building universes upon these BW queries or Infocubes then we will loose the USP of BW as we have to re build the reports in web Intelligence for all the standard content as well. I'm looking for a procedure which will directly deploy BW queries as reports in BO.

Please let us know if there is any such tool or procedure that makes this possible.

Thank You.

Edited by: Rajesh Ragala on Mar 27, 2009 7:48 AM

[IngoH · Accepted solution]

Hi Rajesh,

I understand your point but keep in mind that you are looking right now at a solution that already existed before the acquisition. I would suggest you take a look at the Integration Roadmap in the NetWeaver BI area here in SDN

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/b00a1a75-c49d-2b10-0ebb-ecc80ab8...

You can see the areas of improvements for the future version.

Ingo

[former_member142702]

Hi Rajesh,

an option is to use SAP BW multiproviders/infosets in order to bundle results from different cubes in a way that you can reduce the number of BW queries you require to get the data you want. But at any case there is almost always a trade-off between performance and flexibility. A query with many key figures and/or dimensions is not a good practice when most of them are rarely used in your reports.

Regards,

Stratos