Washington DC
SAP BusinessObjects
User Group: Meeting Moments
The Washington, DC SAP BusinessObjects User Group provides an avenue for information sharing with and among BI managers in the Washington metropolitan area. Meetings are free and open to anyone interested in extracting maximum value from their business intelligence investments. Attendees voluntarily come together to share information and learn from experts in the field. The biannual event is sponsored by SAP, 360Suite, Carahsoft, and cBEYONData.
More than 50 people attended a meeting of the Washington, DC SAP BusinessObjects Users Group on November 1, 2018 , including representatives from:
- U.S. Department of State
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
- U.S. Customs and Border Protection
- U.S. Department of Labor
- U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
- U.S. Department of the Interior
- Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
- Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service
- Federal Aviation Administration
- Library of Congress
- Fannie Mae
- American Forest and Paper Association
- American Red Cross
- Other organizations
I had the privilege of making two presentations on behalf of 360Suite, one about what’s new in Web Intelligence (WEBI) and another about what’s new in the BusinessObjects BI Platform. For the benefit of those who weren’t able to attend, here’s a quick recap of the material covered.
SESSION 1: What’s new in WEBI–BI 4.2 SP 06 and Beyond
In the first part of the first session, I addressed how new features/functionalities of BI4.2 SP06 impact the core capabilities of WEBI. Specific topics included:
- How the new WEBI interactive viewer significantly enhances the user experience
- How “Automatic Refresh” makes it effortless for users to get up-to-date data
- How advanced menu options make it possible to better display data
- How new charts and animation capabilities take the WEBI user experience to another level
- How time dimension innovations allow users to create time data elements and display them in WEBI reports
- How “View Time Security” takes care of user security on the fly
- How creating document indexes, or adding shortcuts to other reports within documents, can satisfy requirements to link reports
“I’m very happy to see how WEBI evolves with every release.”
Comment by U.S. Government Participant
Next, I covered some of the WEBI road map updates announced by SAP, including:
- Their plan to share the data models of WEBI document with other solutions (e.g., SAP Analytics Cloud)
- Their plan to continuously improve the core features of WEBI in upcoming product releases (e.g., BI 4.3)
- Activities related to homogeneous SAP BusinessObjects WEBI client plans, including proposals to move away from JAVA dependency, introduce FIORI themed interface improvements, achieve full parity with JAVA report panel, and more.
SESSION 2: What’s new in the BusinessObjects BI Platform–BI 4.2 SP 06 and Beyond
In the second session, I discussed how BI4.2 SP06 impacts the Business Objects BI Platform, with a focus on the best new features, including:
- Security enhancements associated with SAML 2.0
- Simplified installation process
- Improvements to the Fiori Launchpad
- GDPR message notification improvements
- Licensing enhancements
- Audit DB changes that help store more information related to things like GDPR compliance
Finally, I reviewed SAP road map updates related to new themes and features planned for BI 4.3, including:
- The BusinessObjects suite release and maintenance schedule
- Three themes of the BI 4.3 release: 1) Hybrid; 2) Enterprise Readiness; and 3) User Experience
- A plan to replace the existing BI Launchpad with a new Fiori-themed BI Launchpad
- User management improvements
- A plan to tightly integrate BusinessObjects and SAP Analytics Cloud with PUSH mechanism added
- Improvements in areas such as auditing, promotion management, monitoring and version management, overall installation process, security (SSO), and commentary services
- A plan to remove a list of products and functionalities
An Enthusiastic Reception
Meeting participants were universally enthusiastic about the new features of BI 4.2 SP06 and planned features of BI 4.3. Some expressed a hope that SAP will push innovation even further, for example, by adding geo mapping capabilities and making it possible to schedule Lumira Designer data sources overnight.
“We were originally planning to delay the upgrade and after seeing your presentation we are going to immediately upgrade to BI 4.2 SP06.”
Comment by U.S. Government Participant
An Open Invitation
The next meeting of the Washington, DC SAP User Group will take place sometime in the spring of 2019. If you are a BI manager working in the DC metropolitan area, we hope you will add it to your calendar when the date is announced. Although the agenda has yet to be finalized, it may include a presentation on SAP Lumira–Discovery and Designer–based on popular demand. Regardless of how things shake out, the next meeting of the Washington, SAP User Group promises to provide another opportunity to connect with fellow BI managers and stay on top of current developments related to SAP BusinessObjects. Add your mobile phone number in the field below to receive an invitation by text.
