Transcript Click edit Master title slide - Lenoir

Distributing Reports With SAP
Information Broadcaster: Do’s,
Don’ts, and Real-world Lessons
Dr. Bjarne Berg
Comerit Inc.
© 2005 Wellesley Information Services. All rights reserved.
What We’ll Cover
•
Overview
•
The Broadcast Wizard
•
Scheduling by PowerUsers via BEx Broadcaster
•
Broadcasting to the Portal
•
Broadcaster Advanced Options
•
How to make it work in practice
•
Wrap up
2
What Is BEx Information Broadcasting?
•
•
•
It’s a standard part of SAP BW 3.5 and higher
It lets you send “reports”, i.e.,
 Bex Queries
 Workbooks
 Web Applications
To...
 Email addresses, BW users, BW roles
 SAP Enterprise Portal Knowledge Management folders
 SAP Enterprise Portal Collaboration Rooms
Note
You can define and deploy iViews based on the resulting KM /
Collaboration documents, if you wish!
3
What Is BEx Information Broadcasting? (cont.)
•
Broadcasts can be configured to run:
 Once only
 On a schedule basis (every day, week, month)
 During specific timeslots defined by the administrator
 Or any time (if you allow)
 When an event occurs i.e. when an “exception” occurs,
 As part of a process chain
•
You tell the system whether to send:
 A link to regenerate the query, etc. based on live data, or
 A standalone (pre-calculated) version of the item
 There are several format and compression options
Key concept: Push Vs. Pull.
Broadcasting is a Push tool
4
Why Is Broadcasting So Valuable?
• It...





Note
Reduces the time users spend looking for information
Improves the like likelihood that users will use your BI data
Expands the reach of BI data to non-BW users as well!
 Particularly, non-BW users
Makes BW data available for users on the go
Lets you link your BW and Portal systems together!
 Users can collaborate, integrate BW content with other
enterprise and Web content, etc.!
“Casual” users, non-BW users, travelling users,
and executives are all prime candidates for
broadcasted reports!
5
Different Needs and Tools
The information needs of the user communities are different
KPI & Scorecard
Formatted
• Simple
• Easy to view
• Limited nav
• Aggregates
Flat Reporting
• Formatted
• Print
• Form based
• Static
• Predictable access
OLAP Reporting
• Drill Down
• Slice and Dice
• Analyse
• Data Mining
• Search and discover
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What We’ll Cover
•
Overview
•
The Broadcast Wizard
•
Scheduling by PowerUsers via BEx Broadcaster
•
Broadcasting to the Portal
•
Broadcaster Advanced Options
•
How to make it work in practice
•
Wrap up
7
The Broadcast Wizard - ad hoc scheduling
You can access the Broadcast Wizard from the context menu in a query
The Broadcast wizard is a
tool for end users to
distribute queries, and
workbooks to single
individuals or larger
audiences through email
or the enterprise portal
8
Step 1 – Choose an Output Format
Independent HTML file
We can use this option to send a single HTML file (standard static web page).
This is an easy way to send webpages that can be used by handheld devices
(i.e. Blackberry or PocketPCs), and also by custom web applications.
The report is a snapshot vs. "live" data
9
Step 1 – Choose an Output Format (cont.)
HTML as Separate MIME Files
This option results in a set of individual files
for each web item in your report.
The benefit of this standard web format
option is that it optimizes reuse of objects,
as images are cached in the browser after
being accessed for the first time.
10
Step 1 – Choose an Output Format (cont.)
Online links back to current Data
The link back to the on-line source (requires recipients to log on with a username and
a password to see the content, but can see the latest data). This is the most secure
method for protecting the access to your date. However, the recipient must have online access back to your system, have a username and password.
The recipient may not see the same as what you believe you sent him,
since the data may have been refreshed since you sent the broadcast.
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Step 1 – Choose an Output Format (cont.)
Depending on how
your mail system is
setup, this is what
a recipient of an
on-line web link
might see.
Text can also be
added by the
sender
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Step 1 – Choose an Output Format (cont.)
Zipping the files reduces size of the distribution files and help network traffic:
1.
It is very good for MIME files, which tends to be many and relative large.
2.
Not a good option for handhelds (requires unzipping, and several read steps)
3.
Normally not needed for single HTML files unless the report is very long
4.
Reduces network traffic and the size of the mail in the mailboxes.
13
Step 2 – Identify Recipients and Enter a Message
Enter one or more email
addresses, a subject, and
body.
The 'importance' level
will flag the email for
delivery to your recipient.
Click Continue to save
and schedule the
broadcast to execute
later…
OR
Click Schedule to execute
the broadcast once only,
during the next available
processing window and
exit...
Adding comments in the 'contents' area will make the
query much more understandable to your recipient…
14
Step 3 – Define A Name For the “Broadcast Setting”
•
•
•
This is the name under which your settings are stored
Save this If you want to execute this broadcast more than once,
enter save your settings
You can retrieve these settings later.
Tip
Define groups of settings for reports you send repeatedly (e.g.,
weekly status reports, month-end financial reports, etc.)
15
Step 4 – Tell the System When to Schedule the Broadcast
We can schedule the job
to run every time the
infocube is changed (the
process chain has run)
We can limit the users to
when they can schedule
jobs to avoid stress on the
system. We can provide
multiple pre-defined times
when they can schedule the
reports.
We can also allow the
users to create their own
scheduling times (Only
authorized users see this)
Setting up pre-defined
'windows' of time is a
developer's job.
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Broadcast Wizard Demo
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What We’ll Cover
•
Overview
•
The Broadcast Wizard
•
Scheduling by PowerUsers via BEx Broadcaster
•
Broadcasting to the Portal
•
Broadcaster Advanced Options
•
How to make it work in practice
•
Wrap up
18
The BEx Broadcaster
BEx Broadcaster is another way you can access tools to broadcast queries,
workbooks and web apps. It is typically given to the powerusers or developers,
since it have more options and requires slightly more skills.
You can get to the BEx Broadcaster through:
The Query Designer
The Web Application Designer
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Regular Scheduling by PowerUsers using BEx Broadcaster
Through the regular BEx Broadcaster more advanced users or developers can
broadcast content to specific BW users, roles, email addresses or email groups and
set language. You can also make the broadcast user specific.
Another feature is that you can authorize access through another user (if permitted).
The output formats are the same as in the broadcast wizard.
20
BEx Broadcaster - Exception Reporting
If a certain exception has
occurred, or if a certain level has
been reached, you can make the
broadcaster send you an
exception report.
First you have to define
the exceptions for the
query and make the
exception 'active'.
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BEx Broadcaster - Exception Reporting
In BEx Broadcaster we can select the pre-calculation tab and ask to be alerted only
when we reach a certain minimum level of the exception.
Key concepts: Don't spend time monitoring 'business as usual'
activities, only get alerted when exceptions occur And don't
search for exceptions, send them automatically to you.
22
BEx Broadcaster - Filters
If you pre-calculate the queries, you can allow the recipient to navigate the reports by the
characteristics you select. When doing so, you have to include a navigation block in the
web template so that user can actually use the navigation features you have enabled
Don't
The more items you include, the larger the size of the broadcast
Forget items. This is not a 'big-deal' if you are mailing to a few of users, but
for thousands of users daily, you should select these items carefully.
23
BEx Broadcaster - Filters
If you pre-calculating a web template, you have the ability to specify a control query to
be used in the pre-calculation of the navigation filters. This is a great feature, when
you have specific queries that contains the navigation filers that you want to
broadcast.
The benefit of the Filter Navigation tab is that you can select which
items you want to enable, without having to create new queries.
24
BEx Broadcaster - Web Application Designer and Portal
You can also use the web application designer to pick up queries and publish the
applications to the portal or the BEx Broadcaster
25
What We’ll Cover
•
Overview
•
The Broadcast Wizard
•
Scheduling by PowerUsers via BEx Broadcaster
•
Broadcasting to the Portal
•
Broadcaster Advanced Options
•
How to make it work in practice
•
Wrap up
26
Why Broadcast to the Portal vs. Email?
•
More powerful
 Users can comment, rate, and discuss the broadcasted assets
 You can place the assets in iViews on cockpits/dashboards
 You can integrate the assets with other Portal content!
 Portal users without a BW user id can now access BW content
 Broadcasted assets are included in TREX searches
•
More user friendly
 Users can subscribe/unsubscribe themselves!
•
Easier, more flexible administration
 You can leverage the Portal’s access control lists/capabilities
 No email address lists to maintain - users sub/unsubscribe
 Avoids the email glut, and the BW/network performance hit!
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Broadcasting to the Portal
•
The Broadcast options are similar to the email distribution. You have several choices:
1 - Deploy via KM “Favorites”
2 - Deploy via a KM Folder
3 - Deploy Via Collaboration
4 - Deploy via the “BW Showcase” role
5 - Deploy via a custom iViews that you define
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Using BEx Broadcaster to send items to the Portal
You can broadcast the content to the portal at fixed intervals and have the content
instantly available through independent web pages. You can also broadcast to the
portal through links back to your system
There is a demo role available in SAP Enterprise Portal version 6.0. You can use
this role for your publishing to the portal or enhance it anyway you like.
The role is available under com.sap.ip.bi.business_explorer_showcase
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Sending items to a KM folder, Content directory or iView in the Portal
KM Folders and Portal roles appears as
targets within the Broadcast Wizard and Bex
Broadcaster...
You broadcast the content to a personal
portfolio of a user, or a portfolio shared by a
set of users i.e. knowledge management
folders.
You can see all KM folders and broadcast
directly to any of them.
Users can subscribe to the broadcasts and be
notified when the content is updated:
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Deploy Via the “BW Showcase” Role
•You
don’t have to go
through KM or
Collaboration...
 Use
the special “SAP BW
Showcase Role”
 com.sap.ip.bi.business
_explorer_showcase
 You
can use this role for
your publishing to the
portal or enhance it
anyway you like.
31
What We’ll Cover
•
Overview
•
The Broadcast Wizard
•
Scheduling by PowerUsers via BEx Broadcaster
•
Broadcasting to the Portal
•
Broadcaster Advanced Options
•
How to make it work in practice
•
Wrap up
32
Why is Broadcasting so all encompassing?
BW is an integrated
decision support
system with a high
degree of flexibility.
Therefore the
broadcaster has to
function for a variety
of purposes and for a
diverse audience.
Today, broadcaster
supports everything
for portals, PDAs,
alerts and email to
caching and
Knowledge
Management.
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Broadcast Process Flow – Three Key Avenues
Broadcast
tools
Bex Broadcast
Wizard
One-time, immediate
broadcasts
Broadcast
“engine”
Bex Broadcaster
Scheduled
Broadcasts
Event triggers
for broadcasts
1
2
3
Broadcast
sent immediately
to the Portal
or Email
Job added to
SAP BW Job
Scheduling
Broadcast
registered
with BW Alerting
Broadcast
targets
Email
Recipients
Portal
Collaboration Room
Portal KM Folder
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Security and Encryption
Controlling who can schedule ad-hoc, or through the BEx Broadcaster is a
critical maintenance issue. You can control the user's ability to schedule the
reports, through the new authorization object S_RS_BCS (the administrator still
uses the standard S_RS_ADMWB object).
You also have new broadcast settings for the RSADMWBOBJ field. These
settings include: Maintain/Delete (23), Display (03) and Execute/Schedule (16).
Activate Secured Socket Layer (SSL) 2.0 or
higher in your browser and use HTTPS as a
protocol for you browsers to encrypt and secure
your web content. This is not an SAP function,
but standard Microsoft browser web options.
35
Process chains and Timepoints
You can also assign broadcast event to process chains. First you create a variant
with and assign it to the infocube. The event in the process chain will trigger the
broadcast event.
Creating timepoints
Background jobs can be created (transaction SM36) to schedule any jobs starting
with the text "TP_BROADCASTING_". This is to allow users to broadcast at certain
time points. Under SM36 start the condition,
select the date and time when the job starts,
select the periodic flag and define
it as hourly, daily, weekly, monthly
or other.
Timepoints controls when end users can
schedule broadcasts. This is used to avoid heavy
scheduling during data loads or times when
many users are accessing the systems.
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Creating Timepoints
Creating timepoints
Background jobs can be created (transaction SM36) to schedule any jobs starting
with the text "TP_BROADCASTING_".
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Creating Timepoints
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Broadcasting using the Reporting Agent to external applications
You can also use the traditional reporting agent to mail pre-calculated reports to a
variety of targets including 3rd party portals such as Plumtree.
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Workbook pre-calculation - what do you need?
Use transaction RSPRECADMIN in the BW administrator workbench to
get to the pre-calculation settings. You also need one server with:
1.
2.
3.
MS-Office XP (or .net framework version 1.1 or higher)
MS-Excel-2000 (or higher)
SAP BW workbook pre-calculation services (on standard BW install
CDs). Note: servers with this installed will be visible under the transaction 'RSPRECADMIN' and
you can also perform server load balancing.
4.
GUI v. 6.20 with BEx (or higher)
This is not needed for standard
broadcasting of web queries or web
applications, only for workbooks.
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Cool programs for Managing Broadcaster
There are some programs that can help you manage the SAP BEx
Broadcaster :
RSRD_BOOKMARK_REORGANISATION is a program which can be used
for reorganizing and deleting bookmark IDs and view IDs that were
created for Information Broadcasting by the system and are no longer
needed.
RSBCSRE03 - Deleting email logs created by broadcaster.
In large BW systems with many users and frequent
broadcasts, the logs can be really big and should be
deleted periodically
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Transaction codes for Managing Broadcaster
You also have transaction codes for helping you debug and monitor the
logs in SAP BEx Broadcaster:
Transaction Codes
RSRD_LOG - This displays all logs for BEx Broadcaster settings. Logs
are only written for scheduled settings and not for settings executed
directly.
RSRD_START - Using transaction RSRD_START, you can execute (and
therefore debug for test purposes) any settings. Make sure that the
indicator for executing settings online is activated.
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Portal Integration - Issues
If you broadcast to your own web "report center" that users can acess form the portal, the
portal takes “control” of the pages hosted by BW. This prohibits interaction between
pages contained within the frameset by changing the document.domain property of the
launched page
The Solution
Understanding Try/Catch :
Soultion by David Cole
Must be addressed on the
frameset page
http://www.devguru.com/Technologies/ecmascript/quickref/try...catch.html
More on Cross Frame Scripting With IE :
http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/om/xframe_scripting_security.asp
Place this function in the
frameset ONLOAD event 43
What We’ll Cover
•
Overview
•
The Broadcast Wizard
•
Scheduling by PowerUsers via BEx Broadcaster
•
Broadcasting to the Portal
•
Broadcaster Advanced Options
•
How to make it work in practice
•
Wrap up
44
Deciding Who Should Be Allowed to Do What - Governing Council
Target
There are many options and decisions to be made on who should be able to access
all the Broadcast features. A good approach to decide how gets access and also
when to create any timepoints is to create a Governing Council of a few managers
and developers
Regular
users
Power
users
Authors
Developers
BW
Admins
Email





Portal
-
-/








-
-/



-
-


One-time





Schedule using
pre-set timepoints





-
-/



Tools
Bex Wizard
Bex Broadcaster
Process Chains
Scheduling
•
Free schedule
45
Spam filters and server blockers
Users that create a high volume of emails may be automatically blocked by spam filters in
the browsers and mail servers. You will have to make sure that the internal email system
have flagged you as a valid email broadcaster.
Review regularly that mail systems such as Yahoo, Google, AOL,
Microsoft and others have not flagged all your emails as spam.
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Management of Timepoints
Be careful to not add all your broadcasts
to the end of process chains. Large
systems with hundreds of infocubes may
be 'bogged down' with lengthy process
chains that slows down the whole load
processing.
Good timepoints may be 6-8 am when
the load jobs are finished and before a
large numbers of users accesses the
system.
Another good time may be at the end of weekly, or monthly loads on the
weekend (i.e. Saturday or Sunday mornings).
The key is to balance the times when jobs can be executed. If this is not carefully,
all users tends to schedule their broadcast between 7 and 9 am each morning.
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Avoiding Volumes of Junk
Users have a tendency to schedule queries for distribution and never disable the
schedule after it has started to run. This creates mountains of junk that few actually
use.
Users who don't want a broadcast tends to simply
delete it, or create a program/agent that automatically
removes the email.
So, how do you know if anyone reads the broadcasts?
A process to review and control internal "spam-kings'
have to be established. Hint: use the transaction codes
'SCOT' and 'SOST' to monitored SMTP mails.
A periodic review of scheduled broadcasts
should be performed by the developers to see
if there are any candidates for deletion.
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Push Vs. Pull - Change in Mentality
Users have a to change their mentality to stop reviewing everything that is
'business as usual'. The Push mentality requires that users plan for what is
important to them and set up fixed sets of reports that are used to manage the
business.
In general the push approach reduces the time users spend looking for
information and provides them with more time to examine data that really
matter to them.
You should carefully consider using the BEx Broadcaster for the core reporting
that is done through any handheld computer devise. This will simplify the
security setup and also increase the speed of any report (will be viewed on the
device instead of accessing back to the source system through limited
bandwidth).
Casual users and executives are prime
candidates for broadcasted reports
49
KPI and exception reporting
A major challenge in setting up the BEx
Broadcaster for exception reporting is
the definition of what an exception is.
This is setup in the query and used by
the broadcaster.
If the query does not
define the exception the
way that a user wants it, it
is not available to broadcast
as an exception.
Issue
Exception reporting require that a query is executed and 'evaluated' to
see if it should be broadcasted. This overhead can be substantial if you
have a high number of users 'monitoring' different queries
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Exception Reporting Demo
51
What We’ll Cover
•
Overview
•
The Broadcast Wizard
•
Scheduling by PowerUsers via BEx Broadcaster
•
Broadcasting to the Portal
•
Broadcaster Advanced Options
•
How to make it work in practice
•
Wrap up
52
"Sneak peek" at Broadcaster in BI 7.0
New Object Types
 Query Views
 Formatted Reports
New Distribution Types
 Master Data based broadcasting- Broadcast
to recipients derived from BW master data
and optionally adapt the output format for
each recipient
 Exception broadcasting - Create Alert
settings based on defined exceptions
 Integration into SAP Alert Framework & UWL
New Output Options
 Printers
 PDF Files
 Cache
Source: SAP AG
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7 points to take home
1. Do not schedule all your broadcasts after a process chain has completed. It
is tempting but may slow down nightly data loads.
2. Control the times users can run reports to avoid too high stress on the
system.
3. Segment the broadcast tools based on the user roles and level of training.
4. Monitor the logs carefully and make sure that "spam-kings" are controlled.
5. Do not give free scheduling to a high number of users.
6. Be aware that spam filters may catch many of your broadcasts.
7. Broadcasting to a portal simplifies the distribution, but be careful with links
to workbooks.
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Resources
•
SAP Developer Network
"New
BI Capabilities in SAP NetWeaver" Version 2.0, June 30, 2005
Broadcasting
with SAP NetWeaver '04, Eric Schemer, Glenn Leslie
and Oliver Mayer -- TechEd 2004.
Information
Broadcaster with SAP BW, Katie Beavers,
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/servlet/prt/portal/prtroot/com.sap.km.cm.docs/library/events/asug-biti03/Information%20Broadcasting%20with%20SAP%20BW
•
BW Expert (bwexpertonline.com)
“BEx
Information Broadcasting in SAP BW 3.5 Puts Users Front
and Center”, Glenn Leslie, August 2005
55
Your Turn!
Questions?
Dr. Bjarne Berg
[email protected]
56