In this fourth demo, of the BusinessObjects tools, we look at the web based OLAP tool called Analysis for OLAP. This five minutes demo show the use of drill-downs, conditional formatting, adding calculations, filtering, basic graphing and more, so that you can see how this tool may work in your organization.
By Dr. Berg
Background
Our friend BEx Analyzer, the Excel based interface to SAP BW, is now a teenager. Since 1999 it has served BW uses with On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) and is today adopted in thousands of companies world-wide. However, now is the time for a change.
BEx Analyzer is now being replaced by the much more functional BusinessObjects Analysis tool. This tool comes in two editions: the OLAP edition and the MicroSoft edition.
Basically, the 'OLAP' edition is the Web interface replacing the BEx Web reporting and the MS edition is replacing the Excel based BEx Analyzer interface. It is important to note that this does not affect the 3rd BEx tool, Web Application Designer templates (yet).
A cool thing is that we now also get to query BW via PowerPoint (really!), and we also get much more control over the output and query manipulations in Excel. So, this is a great upgrade to the older tools. However, there are also some other names we have to clarify. If you have heard about Voyager, Pioneer, Advanced Analysis, don't worry, it is all "Analysis" now. So forget the other confusing names (four names in 24 months, really!)
DEMO- SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 Analysis for OLAP
I n this demo we take a look at Analysis for OLAP. It is a web based client tool that helps you view multidimensional data that can then be personalized through the use of filters and conditions for specific information. This data can later be viewed in a multitude of different tables and charts and be broadcasted and/or shared.
NEWS: Ipad vs. Android for BusinessObjects tools - Live Session at Insider Learning Network - on 3/20
On the 20th of March, I will be hosting a live online Q&A on Insider Learning Network on BusinessObjects reporting for handheld devices. This is a practical discussion of some of the finding from in-depth testing we did at ComeritLabs with all the tools on Android and Ipad tablets. Watch the BI/BW Forum (bit.ly/BI-BWForum) for more details.
Dr. Berg
Tool Summary
To keep things in perspective, below is a summary chart to see what each tool is intended for, who should be doing the development and the core capabilities. This is by nature subjective, but should provide some basic comparison of the tools.
