Xcelsius and BPC NW 7.5 integration

[Former Member]

Hi, Experts

Does anybody know is it possible to integrate Xcelsius with SAP BPC 7.5 through shared query engine?

Previously, integration between Xcelsius and SAP BPC was done only by EPM Connector.

From SP2 for Xcelsius, it became possible to directly load data from BEX Queries. Is it possible to create BEX Query on the top of BPC 7.5 Cube and then use it inside Xcelsius?

[esjewett · Accepted solution]

Hi Pavel,

Yes, this is possible - in fact there is already a query created on top of the BPC multi-provider that Xcelsius (Crystal Dashboard Design now, officially, I guess) should be able to access. However you will lose all BPC calculation capability, including account sign-flipping, dimension member formulas, and measures. More importantly, you will lose BPC's security protections.

If you can't or don't want to give up these advantages of using the standard integration of Xcelsius, can you share what issues you are having with using the EPMconnector.xlsx/ODBO option? Maybe we can help with those problems.

I should add, the BEx query approach does not go through the shared-query-engine, which is why you lose many of these BPC capabilities.

Ethan

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi, Ethan

>

> Yes, this is possible - in fact there is already a query created on top of the BPC multi-provider that Xcelsius (Crystal Dashboard Design now, officially, I guess) should be able to access. 
.....
> I should add, the BEx query approach does not go through the shared-query-engine, which is why you lose many of these BPC capabilities.

Ethan, could please explain what the query is it?

Concerning SQE, I didn't find anything in BEx. Meanwhile I don't understand how to directly connect to SQE from Xcelsius.

However, there's UJQ_SQE_TEST program and I found that it seems that in BPC 7.5 "BW Technical IDS" may be not changes after some changes in BPC like it was in BPC 7.0 (what makes possible to create BEx queries on the top of BPC cubes, bearing in mind lack of BPC functionality in BEx). But to directly connect to BEx queries from Xcelsius it will be necessary to have BICS, so SAP JAVA Application server is necessary. Otherwise, Universe would be necessary.

>

> If you can't or don't want to give up these advantages of using the standard integration of Xcelsius, can you share what issues you are having with using the EPMconnector.xlsx/ODBO option? Maybe we can help with those problems.
> Ethan

I understand that EPM Connector is a good way for integration but I need to estimate other variants. Meanwhile, EPM Connector isn't an option for other BOE products like Web Intelligence, Pioneer (Advanced Analysis), Crystal Reports

[esjewett · Accepted solution]

Hi Pavel,

Ethan, could please explain what the query is it?

There should be a single generated query on the BPC generated multi-provider in BW for each application. You can look for the query in RSRT - I believe you can't see it in the datawarehouse management view (RSA1). You are correct that you will be under the same restrictions connecting to this query using Xcelsius as you would with any other BEx query.

Concerning SQE, I didn't find anything in BEx. Meanwhile I don't understand how to directly connect to SQE from Xcelsius

There isn't a way to connect to the SQE directly from Xcelsius. The SQE is a native ABAP interface that manages access to application data within BPC. Accessing the SQE via the SAP RFC (remote function call) library is possible, as this is how the BPC .NET application server talks to the BW system, but I believe the connection to the BPC RFCs is encrypted and it is definitely not a supported API. Xcelsius does not connect to custom ABAP APIs via RFC, so it cannot connect directly to the SQE.

The ODBO connector can be thought of as sitting "on top" of the SQE, and provides an abstraction that Xcelsius and other tools can connect to.

If you were really determined to test a connection directly to the SQE, you could write your own ABAP wrapper and see how it goes, but I doubt that is worth the time.

Meanwhile, EPM Connector isn't an option for other BOE products like Web Intelligence, Pioneer (Advanced Analysis), Crystal Reports

I'm not entirely sure about this off the top of my head, but I believe that you can create a Universe that uses the ODBO connection (with the ODBO connector installed on the BOBJ Connection Service) and then connect to the Universe using Web Intelligence, Voyager, or Crystal Reports. I'm not sure about Pioneer, as it's not mentioned in the documentation. I believe that if you are using BusinessObjects user management you will have single sign-on with BPC using these tools.

Have you looked at the BPC NW 7.5 master guide that talks about the ODBO connector and the EPMconnector? It is available from the page [http://service.sap.com/~form/sapnet?_SHORTKEY=01100035870000726399&_SCENARIO=01100035870000000202&]

Ethan