Transcript Troubleshooting Your Domino HTTP Server Crashes and Hangs

Distributing Reports With SAP
Information Broadcaster: Do’s,
Don’ts, and Real-world Lessons
Dr. Bjarne Berg
Lenoir-Rhyne College
© 2006 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
• A look at new Broadcasting features in the next release
• 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
• Email addresses,
BW users, BW roles
• SAP Enterprise
Portal Knowledge
Management folders
• SAP Enterprise
Portal Collaboration
Rooms
Note
You can also define and deploy iViews based on the
resulting KM / Collaboration documents
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?
 Reduces
the time users spend looking for information
 Improves
the like likelihood that users will use your BI data
 Expands
 Makes
the reach of BI data to non-BW users as well!
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.!
Note
“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
• A look at new Broadcasting features in the new release
• 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.
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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
• If you want to execute this broadcast more than once, with
these settings, you can save the settings.
• You can retrieve the settings later.
Tip
Define groups of settings for reports you send repeatedly
(i.e., 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 predefined 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
• A look at new Broadcasting features in the next release
• 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 concept: 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
D
o
n
'
t
The more items you include, the larger the size of the broadcast
F
o
r
g
e
t
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.
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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
• A look at new Broadcasting features in the next release
• Wrap up
25
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”
4 - Deploy via the “BW Showcase” role
2 - Deploy via a KM Folder
5 - Deploy via a custom iViews that you define
3 - Deploy Via Collaboration
27
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_e
xplorer_showcase
You
can use this role for
your publishing to the portal
or enhance it anyway you
like.
30
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
• A look at new Broadcasting features in the next release
• Wrap up
31
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.
32
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.
34
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.
35
Creating Timepoints
Creating timepoints
Background jobs can be created (transaction SM36) to schedule any jobs starting with the
text "TP_BROADCASTING_".
36
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.
IMPORTANT: “Old Reporting Agent scenarios still run in NetWeaver 2004s. However, the Reporting
Agent will not be developed any further and is removed from the 2004s Workbench. You can now only
reach the Reporting Agent using transaction code REPORTING_AGENT” – SAP Dec. 2005
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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. MS-Office XP (or .net framework version 1.1 or higher)
2. MS-Excel-2000 (or higher)
3. 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.
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Transaction codes for Managing Broadcaster
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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Cool programs for Managing Broadcaster
There are some programs that can help you manage the SAP BEx Broadcaster :
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
Latest News: With SAP NetWeaver 2004s, there is a new transaction RSRD_ADMIN
(or rsa1 -> Administration -> Broadcasting), where you can view your schedules. 42
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
• A look at new Broadcasting features in the next release
• Wrap up
43
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
Scheduling
Process Chains
Free schedule
44
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.
47
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
48
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.
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
I
s
s
u
e
49
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
• A look at new Broadcasting features in the next release
• Wrap up
50
New Broadcaster features of BI 2004s
New Object Types
You can broadcast BEx query views and formatted
reports (“reports”) in addition to Web applications,
queries and workbooks. Reports are a new BEx
object type developed within the new BEx Report
Designer tool.
New Output Formats
New output formats are based on the distribution
type you select. But, you now can broadcast web
documents as PDF files.
51
New Broadcaster features of BI 2004s
New Distribution Types
You can broadcast to any printer using Adobe’s
PDF, Printer Common Language (psl) or Post
Script (ps). (hint: Set up the printers under
tools CCMS  print).
You to broadcast user-specific information based
on attributes in the master data attributes using a
distribution list in BI (bursting of emails). The
information can be controlled by the system so
that users only see data related to them.
52
New Broadcaster features of BI 2004s
Exception broadcasting is now available in the
Broadcaster. Create the exceptions in the query
designer and select distribution type in the broadcaster.
You can also use additional distributions types
(subordinate) and create rules for when the exception
report is “monitored”/executed. Exceptions can be
based on single events or levels of any performance
measure.
NOTE: To manage all alerts and workflow tasks from a single location, an alert
is integrated with the portal’s universal worklist the “central alert framework” of
NW application server.
You can use multiple distribution type to create a setting
that broadcasts many channels (i.e. the printer and the
portal).
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New Broadcaster features of BI 2004s
To increase the performance of key queries, you can fill
the OLAP Cache, or the MDX Cache. This is useful if you
have large numbers of users accessing a query, or you
have a query that accesses a high volume of data.
The Fill Precalculation Store distribution type allows you
to precalculate Web templates, and the Precalculate Value
Set option you to fill pre-calculated value set variables
with values for characteristic values. The pre-calculated
value sets are then available as variable values in BEx
queries.
BREAKING NEWS: Reporting agent “goes-away”. The old Reporting Agent you
could pre-calculate the data of a template and access it through the URL . It
could not broadcast queries, workbooks or web templates by email or to KM
folders.
SAP Dec. 2005: Old Reporting Agent scenarios still run in NetWeaver 2004s. However, the
Reporting Agent will not be developed any further and is removed from the 2004s Workbench.
You can now only reach the Reporting Agent using transaction code REPORTING_AGENT
54
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
• A look at new Broadcasting features in the next release
• Wrap up
55
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.
56
Resources
• Dr. Bjarne Berg’s resource site
http://csc-studentweb.lrc.edu/swp/Berg/BB_index_main.htm
• 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
57
Your Turn!
Questions?
Dr. Bjarne Berg
Director of BI, MyITGroup Ltd.
[email protected]
http://csc-studentweb.lrc.edu/swp/Berg/BB_index_main.htm
58