By Dr. Berg
A few years back, I saw a great presentation by Joerg Boeke that covered QaaWs and decided to give it a try -- and it worked!! In this blog and will cover the steps so that you can also leverage this data access feature.
Background
As we now have BICS connectors for Xcelsius and soon will have it for WebI as well in BI-4.0, some have asked if we can still use QaaWs in BOBJ. The answer is yes. However, it is a solution that has some limitations.
QaaWs with BW does not have good support for hierarchies. Also, the work built cannot be easily shared with others and access has to be managed, often case-by-case and query-by-query. The benefit of QaaWs is that it is a web 'standard' and has been available for quite some time. So let us take a step-by-step look on how you can use QaaWs for your Xcelsius dashboards:
STEP-BY-STEP
A. Universe Designer
1. Create Universe
Connect to the SAP NetWeaver BW system
Navigate by InfoCube and select query
Input connection settings (i.e., when data is retrieved)
2. Give the universe a name and save the definition
B. Connectivity — QaaWs
3. Log on to QaaWs and give the service a name. - This name is seen in Xcelsius. Make sure the name is logical and includes time (i.e., Mfg_costs_2010)
4. Click on the universe you created and select the fi elds you want to make accessible in the web service
5. Keep the web service as “lean” as possible. Too much data will perform poorly
6. Preview the web service and publish (get an URL) I.e., http://Bobj:8080/dswsbobj/qaawsservices/portal_2009?def
C. Xcelsius
7. Go to Data Manager and click Add --> Query as a Web Service
8. Paste your URL from Step 6
9. Click on the Definition tab and give your dashboard a name
10. Click the Usage tab and select Refresh On Load
11. Link the QaaWs data to the cell range where you want the data in Xcelsius, and connect your new dashboard to that cell range
12. Click Preview and log on when prompted
13. Publish dashboard to media (i.e. Web, PDF etc.)
So, if your organization is waiting to implement BI-4.0 or you simply don't have an upgrade on the planning horizon, this is an option, but not the only one. There are still MDX/ODBO/OLAP universes for those a bit less adventurous.
-- Dr. Berg