BOE310

SAP BusinessObjects Business

Intelligence Platform:
Administration and Security

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.
PARTICIPANT HANDBOOK
INSTRUCTOR-LED TRAINING
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Course Version: 17
Course Duration: 2 Day(s)
Material Number: 50156649
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Contents

vii Course Overview

1 Unit 1: SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

3 Lesson: Identifying the Components of the SAP BusinessObjects

Business Intelligence BI Platform
15 Lesson: SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise – Private Cloud Edition
(BOE PCE) New Option

29 Unit 2: Content and Objects in the SAP BusinessObjects Business

Intelligence (BI) Platform

31 Lesson: Viewing Objects in the BI Platform

37 Lesson: Organizing Objects in the BI Platform
39 Lesson: Managing BI Content Life Cycle
49 Lesson: Working with BI Workspaces

63 Unit 3: User and Group Security in the SAP BusinessObjects Business

Intelligence (BI) Platform

65 Lesson: Setting Up Users and Groups

71 Lesson: Administering Rights

85 Unit 4: Application Security in the SAP BusinessObjects Business

Intelligence (BI) Platform

87 Lesson: Customizing and Securing the Fiori BI Launchpad

91 Lesson: Securing the Web Intelligence Application
93 Lesson: Delegating Control

99 Unit 5: Content Distribution Using Scheduling

101 Lesson: Scheduling Objects

113 Lesson: Managing Calendars
117 Lesson: Managing Report Usage

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Course Overview

TARGET AUDIENCE
This course is intended for the following audiences:

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viii © Copyright. All rights reserved.
 UNIT 1 SAP BusinessObjects Business
Intelligence (BI) Platform

Lesson 1
Identifying the Components of the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence BI Platform 3

Lesson 2
SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise – Private Cloud Edition (BOE PCE) New Option 15

UNIT OBJECTIVES

● Define Business Intelligence

● Describe how SAP BusinessObjects platform fits into the Business Intelligence solutions
● Describe how SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise – Private Cloud Edition (BOE PCE) fits into
the cloud strategy
● Define the benefits of SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise – Private Cloud Edition

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Unit 1: SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

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 Unit 1
Lesson 1
Identifying the Components of the SAP
BusinessObjects Business Intelligence BI
Platform

LESSON OVERVIEW
This lesson describes business intelligence, its benefits, and introduces the SAP
BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform.

LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Define Business Intelligence
● Describe how SAP BusinessObjects platform fits into the Business Intelligence solutions

Overview of Business Intelligence

By understanding Business Intelligence (BI), you will better comprehend how SAP
BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) solutions address the BI product spectrum.
Gartner Inc., a research and advisory firm that helps clients leverage technology, coined the
term “Business Intelligence” in the late 1980s. Business Intelligence, as defined by Gartner, is
an iterative user-centered process that includes accessing and exploring information,
analyzing this information, and developing insights and understanding that lead to improved
and informed decision making.
BI usage crosses the spectrum of users, both internally and externally throughout any
enterprise, and includes rank-and-file workers, executives, analysts, and knowledge workers.

Examples of BI Applications

● Generating a class list for a training session.

● Creating an employee performance review.
● Scheduling in a healthcare setting.
● Manufacturing computer parts.

Benefits of Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence provides insights that enable business managers to make tactical
decisions, as well as to establish, modify, or tune business strategies and processes in order
to gain competitive advantage and improve business operations and profitability.

Key Benefits of Business Intelligence

● Identify and track key performance metrics against their direct competitors and the overall
market.

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Unit 1: SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

● Improve customer service and target high yield accounts.

● Streamline operations and improve supplier and warehouse operations.
● Identify successful marketing campaigns.
● Improve response time to market trends and customer requests.
● Decrease query and reporting time.
● Reduce cost and anxiety over compliance.
● Deliver true cost of goods and services.
● Reduce strain on IT departments.

SAP Analytics Business Intelligence Strategy and Direction

The analytics landscape is changing where organizations have large on-premise investments,
new IT spending is moving to the cloud, and analytics innovation is in the cloud. Artificial
Intelligence (AI) Augmentation will create $2.9 trillion of business value in 2021. As AI
technology evolves, the combined human and AI capabilities that augmented intelligence
allows will deliver the greatest benefits to enterprises (Source: Gartner Inc. Press Release,
August 5, 2019). SAP Analytics Cloud is the strategic analytics platform for all SAP business
applications moving forward which includes Augmented Analytics, Enterprise BI Platform and
Powering the Intelligent Enterprise Suite.

Figure 1: SAP Analytics and SAP BusinessObjects Working Together

SAP BusinessObjects on-premise solutions works with SAP Analytics Cloud in a Hybrid
Analytics scenario. In the long term, SAP has strategically positioned SAP Analytics Cloud as
the Augmented Analytics tool. Meanwhile, SAP continues to deliver innovations with SAP
BusinessObjects 4.3 as part of a hybrid Analytics configuration. This configuration allows SAP
Analytics Cloud to access on-premise Universes and Web Intelligence Documents as a data
source.

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 Lesson: Identifying the Components of the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence BI Platform

Figure 2: SAP Analytics Hybrid Strategy

Figure 3: Live Data Access for Universes

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Unit 1: SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

Figure 4: Consume Web Intelligence Data Model in SAP Analytics Cloud

Figure 5: SAP BusinessObjects BI Suite

The SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform is supported by a robust and scalable service oriented
architectural framework based on open source Common Object Request Broker Architecture
(CORBA). CORBA offers protocols that deliver end user BI workflows and technical back-end
processes.

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 Lesson: Identifying the Components of the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence BI Platform

Figure 6: SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.3 Architecture

About the Business Intelligence Platform

The Business Intelligence (BI) platform is a flexible and scalable solution for delivering
information to end users, in multiple forms including dashboards and interactive reports, via
any web application—intranet, extranet, Internet, or corporate portal. The platform delivers
tangible benefits extending across and beyond the organization, as an integrated suite for
reporting, analysis, and information delivery. It also provides a solution for increasing end-
user productivity and reducing administrative efforts. For example, it is used to distribute
weekly sales reports, to provide customers with personalized service offerings, or to integrate
critical information in corporate portals.

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Unit 1: SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

SAP Business Intelligence Strategy

Figure 7: Strategic Focus on Analytics Solutions

Business Intelligence Strategic Areas

The following are Business Intelligence strategic areas.
Enterprise BI
● Ubiquitous for all users and landscapes:
- BI on mobile, cloud, on-premise.
- Ready for global operation.
- Flexible access to Enterprise governed data.
● Collaborate across the organization:
- For anyone across the organization - individuals, teams, or department.
- Active sharing and collaborative decision making.
- Consistent and engaging experience.
● Scalable:
- Scalable, secure, and mission critical.
- Open platform to extend and embed.
- For any size business, deployment, or organization.

Agile Visualization
● Unleash users' creativity:
- Unlock hidden patterns in data.

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 Lesson: Identifying the Components of the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence BI Platform

- Build beautiful, custom visualizations and stories.

- Bring together corporate and personal data.
● Agility for the business:
- Download and use quickly – no IT involvement needed.
- Access and work with almost any data source independently.
- Personal edition for free – both desktop and cloud.
● Able to leverage IT expertise:
- Connect back to, and leverage, IT infrastructure.
- View, publish, and synchronize desktop data and visualizations from SAP Lumira, fully
leveraging SAP S/4HANA.
- Optimized for Big Data

Advanced Analytics
● Increase Return on Investment (ROI) and minimize Total Cost of Ownership (TCO):
- Gain the competitive advantage: Get up and running quickly, low learning curve
- Predict to solve difficult business problems
- Application in every industry or line of business (LOB)
- Intuitive for business users, yet robust enough for data scientists
● Predict and act faster than ever before:
- Predictive solutions built to leverage Big Data and SAP S/4HANA in-memory platform.
- Open and extendable - leverage custom code or thousands of open source predictive
workflows.
● Deploy predictive solutions anywhere, anytime:
- Leverage existing data sources, from local to the enterprise data warehouse.
- Share predictive insights easily within your LOB or with the entire enterprise.
- Integration with SAP S/4HANA-based applications and LOB solutions.

Cloud
● Faster and more accurate decisions:
- SAP Analytics Cloud: a complete Software as a Service (SAAS) built on the SAP HANA
Cloud Platform.
- Leverage on-premise pre-aggregated data anywhere, anytime, and on any device.
- View, publish, and synchronize desktop data and visualizations from SAP Lumira, fully
leveraging SAP S/4HANA.
● Broaden deployment options:

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Unit 1: SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

- Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Alibaba.

- Partner Solutions; your own hosted environment.
- SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud.
● Drive lower TCO:
- Turn-key BI packages.
- Multi-tenant private and public cloud support.

Big Data
● Explore new opportunities:
- Help businesses leverage more data to have a comprehensive view of their business by
analyzing previously discarded data.
- Agile data preparation on Big Data sources brings Apache Hadoop to the business user.
- Expand the 4 Vs of Big Data (Volume, Velocity, Veracity, and Variety) with a 5th,
Visualize
- Capitalize on Gartner’s prediction of the Big Data Discovery by focusing on
interoperability with Predictive Analytics.
- Big Data analytics on Apache Hadoop alone, or combined with SAP S/4HANA to
leverage in-memory capabilities for real-time analytics.
- Message the ‘whole-suite’ benefit, from data services to SAP S/4HANA, IQ, the BI
platform, and SAP Lumira.
● Embrace new emerging data sources:
- SQL-like access via JDBC drivers offers opportunities to embrace emerging big data
sources with existing investments.
- We will selectively extend the support to big data sources based on their technical
maturity and market demand with the universe SDK and SAP Lumira open access SDK
being available for sources not supported out of the box.
- Tailored user experience, depending on the data source, makes it easier for end users
to navigate structured on semi-structured sources (for example, Graph or NoSQL).

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 Lesson: Identifying the Components of the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence BI Platform

SAP Business Intelligence Platform

Figure 8: BI Platform Layers

The SAP professional grade Business Intelligence (BI) platform allows customers to leverage
virtually any data source, structured, or unstructured. The Semantic Layer facilitates data
access for business users, allowing them to access, analyze, and visualize data sources,
without any knowledge of the underlying data structure. The BI platform provides all the tools
you need to securely publish, distribute, and administer your business intelligence. With client
tools for self-service, dashboards and apps, and reporting, users will have the tools they need
to access and use the information they need to make better informed decisions. Finally, your
BI content is securely accessible virtually anywhere on desktops, mobile devices, browsers,
and various desktop tools and portals.

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Unit 1: SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

SAP Business Intelligence Suite

Figure 9: SAPBI Portfolio 2020

Agile Visualization
Agility for business analysts and business users provides the following benefits:
● Discover trends, outliers, and areas of interest in your business.
● Adapt to business scenarios by combining, manipulating, and enriching data.
● Tell your story with self-service visualizations and analytics.
● Forecast and predict future outcomes portfolio.

The portfolio includes the following:

● SAP Lumira Discovery
● SAP Analysis (OLAP Web)
● SAP Analysis Edition for Microsoft Office

Note:
SAP Lumira Discovery is deprecated in 2024. After that date, SAP Lumira
Designer is positioned as the on-premise Agile Visualization \ Dashboarding tool.

Dashboard and Apps

With Dashboards and Apps, you can build engaging visual dashboards:
● Powerful environment to build interactive and visually appealing analytics.

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 Lesson: Identifying the Components of the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence BI Platform

● Rich set of controls, for example, buttons, list boxes, dropdown, crosstabs, and charts.
● Use custom code to extend and build workflows.

The portfolio includes the following:

● SAP Lumira Designer
● BI Workspaces

Reporting
Reporting leads to high productivity design for report designers:
● Quickly build formatted reports on any data source.
● Securely distribute reports both internally and externally.
● Minimize IT support costs by empowering end users to easily create and modify their own
reports.
● Enhance custom applications with embedded reports.

The portfolio includes the following:

● SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence
● SAP Crystal Reports

LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Define Business Intelligence
● Describe how SAP BusinessObjects platform fits into the Business Intelligence solutions

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Unit 1: SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

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 Unit 1
Lesson 2
SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise – Private
Cloud Edition (BOE PCE) New Option

LESSON OVERVIEW
This lesson describes SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise – Private Cloud Edition (BOE PCE), its
benefits, and cloud strategy.

LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Describe how SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise – Private Cloud Edition (BOE PCE) fits into
the cloud strategy
● Define the benefits of SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise – Private Cloud Edition

SAP Analytics Business Intelligence Cloud Strategy and Direction

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform 4.3 (BI 4.3) is available as a managed
private cloud solution named SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise - Private Cloud Edition (BOE
PCE). BOE PCE runs on the same software used by on-premise BI 4.3 with identical user
interfaces.

Figure 10: New Journey to Cloud Strategy

SAP will continue to enhance SAP BusinessObjects BI Suite (BI 4.3) in the subsequent
releases until the end of 2027, providing one of the longest maintenance timelines in the
industry. The product will then evolve into a managed cloud subscription only, as part of the

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Unit 1: SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise, Private Cloud Edition (BOE PCE). BOE PCE allows customer
options to shift their on-premise workloads to a managed cloud environment and will continue
to evolve and be supported beyond 2027. In addition, BOE PCE also provides the option to
leverage existing on-premise investments from the managed cloud environment:
● SAP BOE Live Data Connect enables a live connection to on-premise data sources and
allows customers to reuse existing data, queries, and security without moving the data to
cloud. BI 4.3 allows customers to use both universes and Web Intelligence data models to
build SAC Stories.
● SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.3 allows administrators to easily onboard on-premise users to
the cloud and to keep them synchronized with their identity provisioning system.

Figure 11: SAP BI Strategy

Overview of SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise – Private Cloud Edition (SAP BOE

PCE)
Here are some of the key benefits:
● Always the latest version of SAP BusinessObjects BI available on a yearly update cycle
● 2-tier landscape: Test/Development and Production by default, with optional additional
tiers
● Pre-configured hardware landscapes optimized for performance
● Choice of hyperscaler infrastructure includes Azure, AWS, Google…
● End to end Service Level Agreements (SLA) 99.7% for Prod High availability, back up and
restore includes within standard service scope
● Opportunity to modernize the SAP BusinessObjects deployment, such as consolidate into
one global instance, rationalize unused resources, simplify Lifecycle Management (LCM),
and adjust license mix

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 Lesson: SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise – Private Cloud Edition (BOE PCE) New Option

Figure 12: What is SAP BusinessObjects Private Cloud? (1)

Commercially, the BOE PCE offers customers the opportunity to cancel their existing on-
premise agreement and replace with a simple cloud subscription (per user or concurrent
user). The subscription includes the software licence + infrastructure + operational services
required to run SAP Business Objects.

Figure 13: What is SAP BusinessObjects Private Cloud? (2)

SAP Platform & Technology (P&T) Solutions

Along with other SAP solutions, such as S/4HANA, in the Private Cloud. SAP BOE PCE’s
customer in the private cloud decide how often to upgrade and innovate, resulting in better
managing the impact on your business processes and organisation.

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Unit 1: SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

Figure 14: P&T Solutions for Rise with SAP S/4 Private Cloud (1)

SAP BOE PCE is a lift and ship approach where you move an application to a Hyperscaler or
SAP cloud platform without redesigning the application and maintaining the on-premise
functional scope.

Figure 15: P&T Solutions for Rise with SAP S/4 Private Cloud (2)

SAP BOE PCE reference architecture is tested and certified by SAP.

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 Lesson: SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise – Private Cloud Edition (BOE PCE) New Option

Figure 16: P&T Solutions for Rise with SAP S/4 Private Cloud (3)

Benefits of BusinessObjects Enterprise – Private Cloud Edition

Figure 17: BusinessObjects Private Cloud Edition

BOE PCE will contain the same components as in SAP BusinessObjects 4.3 on-premise
solution with the added benefits of being hosted in a managed private cloud.
Summary of key features:
● Full SAP BusinessObjects platform capabilities (that is: Lumira, Web Intelligence, Analysis
for Office, Crystal)
● Pre-configured, dedicated SAP BusinessObjects system landscape hosted on hyperscaler
(incl. Azure, AWS, Google..) or SAP cloud infrastructure, including everything required to
run the application as part of a standard service package
● Pre-defined “T-Shirt” sizes (Small, Medium, Large, and Extra Large) available based on
deployment size (based on number of users or concurrent users)
● Platform services provided by SAP including yearly upgrades (according to flexible time
frame chosen by customer)
● SAP service level agreement (SLA) covers the entire stack end-to-end (99.5% for Prod)

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Unit 1: SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

● Standard offering provides 2-tier landscape (Test/Development and Production), other

configurations available on request
● High availability, back-up and restore included within standard service scope
● Shared system governance between customer, SAP, and partner
● Customer receives dedicated technical engagement lead / single point of contact
● Offering includes SAP Cloud Agent, Live Data Connect and SAC Agent to enable
connection to SAC, SAP BusinessObjects On-Premise and other SAP cloud applications as
required

Figure 18: BOE Private Cloud Edition: Included Components

● SAP BusinessObjects Statement of Directions Addendum June 2021

● SAP BusinessObjects Maintenance Strategy Feb 2021
● SAP BusinessObjects BI Roadmap

Hosted SAP BOE PCE system landscape is pre-configured with pre-defined “T-Shirt” sizes
based on deployment size (based on number of users or concurrent users).

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 Lesson: SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise – Private Cloud Edition (BOE PCE) New Option

Figure 19: BOE Private Cloud Edition: Configurations

BOE PCE Extended Edition supports SAP Analytics Cloud Hybrid Deployment.

Figure 20: BOE Private Cloud Edition/Extended Edition

The assigned SAP Cloud Architect and Advisor (CAA) will assist in validating network
performance best practices in hosted BOE PCE.
The following are host provider (Azure, AWS, Google Cloud) references to Point to Point
solutions for reporting and performance scenario.
ExpressRoute - Virtual Private Cloud Connections | Microsoft Azure
Hybrid Cloud Network Connections - AWS Direct Connect - Amazon Web Services
Cloud Interconnect overview | Google Cloud

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Unit 1: SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

Figure 21: Network Performance Best Practices

BOE PCE managed private cloud covers the following three core areas:
● Application Management
● Standard Technical and Application Management Services
● Technical Infrastructure Management and Setup

Figure 22: Support Scope in Private Cloud Edition

BOE PCE provides both standard technical services with optional Cloud Application Services
(CAS).

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 Lesson: SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise – Private Cloud Edition (BOE PCE) New Option

Figure 23: BOE Private Cloud Edition: Operations Services

BOE PCE compared to Hyperscaler IaaS, BOE PCE provides mission-critical services such as
Business Continuity. For example, Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point
Objective (RPO) – Disaster Recovery Services are guaranteed in BOE PCE. The side-by-side
comparison highlights BOE PCE advantages in the area of support, licensing model and
system landscape design.

Figure 24: SAP Cloud and Hyperscaler IaaS Comparison

To begin you BOE PCE engagement, the SAP Cloud Architect and Advisor (CAA) to lead all
customer technical discussion and critical in formalizing the final solution.
RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition and SAP ERP, PCE: https://www.sap.com/
finland/docs/download/agreements/product-policy/hec/roles-responsibilities/rise-with-
sap-s4-hana-cloud-private-edition-and-sap-erp-pce-roles-and-responsibilities-english-
v8-2021.pdf

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Unit 1: SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

Figure 25: Customer Engagement Process for SAP Business Objects PCE

Figure 26: SAP BusinessObjects Private Cloud Edition: Summary

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 Lesson: SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise – Private Cloud Edition (BOE PCE) New Option

Figure 27: BOE Private Cloud Edition: Commercial Terms

Figure 28: BOE Private Cloud Edition Offers Flexibility

Digital transformation journey with SAP Analytics with One Price, One Cloud Contract:

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Unit 1: SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

Figure 29: Journey with SAP Analytics

Contact your local account manager to begin joint engagement and start your joint journey
moving to the cloud with SAP Cloud Architect and Advisor (CAA).

Figure 30: Have Confidence Moving to the Cloud with SAP

LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Describe how SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise – Private Cloud Edition (BOE PCE) fits into
the cloud strategy
● Define the benefits of SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise – Private Cloud Edition

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 Unit 1

Learning Assessment

1. Which of the following are benefits of Business Intelligence?

Choose the correct answers.

X A Reducing strain on IT departments

X B Improving customer service

X C Decreasing reporting time

X D Tuning business processes

2. The SAP BI platform supports structured data sources only.

Determine whether this statement is true or false.

X True

X False

3. Which of the following are benefits of BOE PCE?

Choose the correct answers.

X A Developers can modify BOE PCE’s source code to customize application

X B Administrators can manually install, size, and configure BOE PCE servers

X C Central Management Console can administer security in BOE PCE

X D BOE PCE can connect to on-premise data sources without moving the data to
cloud

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 Unit 1

Learning Assessment - Answers

1. Which of the following are benefits of Business Intelligence?

Choose the correct answers.

X A Reducing strain on IT departments

X B Improving customer service

X C Decreasing reporting time

X D Tuning business processes

All of these are features of Business Intelligence.

2. The SAP BI platform supports structured data sources only.

Determine whether this statement is true or false.

X True

X False

3. Which of the following are benefits of BOE PCE?

Choose the correct answers.

X A Developers can modify BOE PCE’s source code to customize application

X B Administrators can manually install, size, and configure BOE PCE servers

X C Central Management Console can administer security in BOE PCE

X D BOE PCE can connect to on-premise data sources without moving the data to
cloud

BOE PCE uses Central Management Console to control security and SAP BOE Live Data
Connection to connect to on-premise data sources.

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 UNIT 2 Content and Objects in the SAP
BusinessObjects Business
Intelligence (BI) Platform

Lesson 1
Viewing Objects in the BI Platform 31

Lesson 2
Organizing Objects in the BI Platform 37

Lesson 3
Managing BI Content Life Cycle 39

Lesson 4
Working with BI Workspaces 49

UNIT OBJECTIVES

● View objects in BI launch pad

● Identify various ways to search content
● Navigate CMC
● Manage objects
● Create folders
● Create and assign categories
● Process Life Cycle Management (LCM)
● Manage the life cycle using the LCM
● Create new jobs
● Understand the BI workspace
● Create BI Workspaces
● Organize BI workspaces

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Unit 2: Content and Objects in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

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 Unit 2
Lesson 1
Viewing Objects in the BI Platform

LESSON OVERVIEW
This lesson describes how to view and modify object properties in the BI platform.

LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● View objects in BI launch pad
● Identify various ways to search content
● Navigate CMC

Overview of Fiorified BI Launch Pad Features

Fiorified BI Launch Pad (formerly InfoView) is a web-based interface that end users access to
view, schedule, and track published Business Intelligence (BI) reports. Fiorified BI launch pad
can access, interact with, and export, any type of BI document including reports, analytics,
and dashboards.
Fiorified BI Launch Pad enables users to manage the following:
● To browse and search BI content.
● To create, edit, and view BI content.
● To schedule and publish BI content.

Home Tab
Use the Home tab to manage Folders, Categories, Documents, BI Inbox, Instances and
Recycle Bin features.
Favorites Tab
Use the Favorites tab to see objects marked as favorite and access it.
Recent Documents Tab
Use the Documents tab to see recently viewed documents.
Recently Run Tab
Use the Recently Run tab to see the recently run documents.

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Unit 2: Content and Objects in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

Figure 31: Fiorified BI Launchpad Home Page

Application Tab
Use the Application tab to access applications in the Fiorified BI Launch Pad.

Figure 32: Application Tab

Content Search
You can use the Search button that is located on the upper-right corner to search for content
in the BI platform. To search for something, complete the following steps:

1. Choose the Search button.

2. Enter the name of the report.

3. Press Enter to display all reports containing the name text.

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 Lesson: Viewing Objects in the BI Platform

Figure 33: Content Search

Central Management Console (CMC)

The Central Management Console (CMC) is a web-based tool that you use to perform day
administrative tasks, including user management, content management, server
management, and security setting configuration. You can perform all of the administrative
tasks in a web browser or a computer that connects to the web application server.
You must be a member of the Administrators group or granted permission to perform these
tasks. In the CMC, roles can also be assigned to grant user privileges to perform minor
administrative tasks, such as managing users in your group and managing reports in folders
that belong to your team.

BI Platform Content Types

You can add many different types of objects to the BI platform.
The following are examples of BI Platform Object types:
● Reports (from SAP Crystal Reports)
● Documents (from SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence)
● Flash objects
● Programs
● Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft PowerPoint files
● PDFs
● Text files
● Rich text format files

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Unit 2: Content and Objects in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

Figure 34: Add Program Files

Figure 35: Web Intelligent Samples

Properties of Objects in Business Intelligence Platform

Every object in the BI platform has a set of properties. You can configure some properties in
the CMC; others are set by the platform and you can only view them.

Table 1: Object Properties in the CMC

Object Type Property Notes

General objects Filename Enter the name of the object you want to add,
or click Browse to find the object.
Title Enter the name of the object.

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 Lesson: Viewing Objects in the BI Platform

Object Type Property Notes

Description Enter a description of the object.

Keywords Enter keywords for the object.
Program files only Browse for an exist- Enter the name of the program object you
ing Program object want to add, or click Browse to find the ob-
ject.
Program type Choose from among the program type op-
tions:
● Executable (binary, batch, shell script)
● Java
● Script (VBScript, JavaScript)

Other object types MIME Specify the MIME extension for the object if
needed.

LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● View objects in BI launch pad
● Identify various ways to search content
● Navigate CMC

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Unit 2: Content and Objects in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

36 © Copyright. All rights reserved.

 Unit 2
Lesson 2
Organizing Objects in the BI Platform

LESSON OVERVIEW
This lesson describes how to manage and organize objects in the BI platform.

LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Manage objects
● Create folders
● Create and assign categories

Available Actions for Objects in BI Platform

Actions include the following:
● Add an object.
● Copy an object.
● Move an object.
● Delete an object.
● Create an object shortcut.

In the SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform, you can add objects to the repository. This process
is typically referred to as publishing an object to the repository. Once on object like a report
exists in the repository, it can be copied, moved, and you can create shortcuts. If you have
sufficient rights, you can also delete the object from the repository.
Shortcuts are useful for granting a user access to an object without giving that user access to
the entire folder in which the object is located. After you create the shortcut in a folder, you
must grant users permission to view a folder where the shortcut exists. In addition, you must
grant content specific user rights on the original object (for example, a report) for the user to
access the object and interact with it.
When an object is deleted from the repository, it is placed in the BI Recycle Bin. You have the
ability to restore the deleted object from the Recycle Bin tile in the BI Launchpad or in the
CMC.

Folders in BI Platform
To create a logical structure in which to store an organization's content, you must create
folders. Folders store objects and are used to organize documents. You can use folders to
separate content into logical areas. Every report or document must reside in a folder.
Because you can set security at the folder level, you can use folders as a tool for controlling
access to information. Object-level rights are either set explicitly for the object or inherited
from the folder in which the object resides.

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Unit 2: Content and Objects in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

Creating and managing folders is typically the responsibility of the SAP BusinessObjects BI
platform administrator, but end-users can be given the option to create their own folders and
control the objects within their folders in the BI launch pad
Managing folders in the SAP BusinessObjects BI platform is done in the Folders management
area of the Central Management Console.

Categories Defined: Benefits and Features

Categories provide an alternative way of organizing objects, and, therefore, an alternative way
for users to navigate to them. For example, you could organize your content into
departmental folders and then use categories to create an alternative filing system that
divides content according to different roles in your organization, such as managers or VPs.
This organizational model allows you to set security on groups of documents based on
department or job role.
There are two types of categories:
● Corporate: Created and administered by administrators with the appropriate rights. Only
visible to groups and users who have the rights to view them.
● Personal: Created by individual users. Only visible to themselves.

Note:
While all objects must reside in folders, category assignment is optional;
therefore, it is important to note the following:
● While you can assign rights to a category as an object (that is, grant groups and
users rights to it), the objects within the category cannot inherit rights set on
the category itself.
● An object in a category retains its affiliation with the folder in which it resides.
● An object can reside in multiple categories.

LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Manage objects
● Create folders
● Create and assign categories

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 Unit 2
Lesson 3
Managing BI Content Life Cycle

LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Process Life Cycle Management (LCM)
● Manage the life cycle using the LCM
● Create new jobs

Life Cycle Management (LCM) Process

For SAP products, life cycle management refers to the complete process surrounding an
application.

Life Cycle Management Definition

● Lifecycle management refers to the entire process of designing, developing, and

maintaining an application solution.
● Lifecycle management also encompasses the effort to optimize the solution with ongoing
improvements.
● The phases of a lifecycle can occur at the same site or at different geographical locations.
● Resources are transferred from one repository to another repository. Their dependencies
add complexity to the move process.

Lifecycle management includes gathering the initial requirements for an application,

designing the solution, building and testing the solution, deploying the solution, the ongoing
operation of that solution, and optimizing the solution to improve it over time. Ongoing
improvements can lead to further requirements that are rolled into a subsequent iteration.
Lifecycle management also describes the change management, administration, auditing,
monitoring, and troubleshooting of an application.
Lifecycle management refers to the set of processes involved in managing information related
to a product’s life cycle and establishes procedures for governing the entire product life cycle.
These phases can occur at the same site or at different geographical locations.
The BI resources that are present in the development repository must be transferred to the
testing repository for testing deployment. The time required to transfer resources from one
repository to another repository must be minimal to obtain a high-quality and competitive
product. These resources also have dependencies that have to be moved from one repository
to another. The dependencies add complexity to the movement of resources because the
resources have to move with their dependents.

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Unit 2: Content and Objects in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

Figure 36: Lifecycle Management Process

The Lifecycle Management Console for SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform
4.2 is now integrated into CMC as the Promotion Management tool, which enables you to
move BI resources from one system to another without affecting the dependencies of the
resources. It also enables you to manage different versions of BI resources, manage
dependencies of BI resources, and roll back a promoted resource to restore the destination
system to its previous state.

Figure 37: BI Resources Moved to Another System

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 Lesson: Managing BI Content Life Cycle

Importance of LCM
Industry regulations (such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and HIPPA) require new levels of rigor
when moving content between environments. Lifecycle management of business intelligence
content can help you maintain these requirements with the following features:

Life Cycle Management Requirements and Regulations

Internal controls are required to manage how changes are made, who can access production
systems, and synchronizing changes across complex system landscapes, as follows:

● Reports need to be correct and on time with minimal downtime.

● Changes to systems, data, and processes must be thoroughly tested.
● Sensitive data must be protected.
● Business intelligence has become mission critical.
● Costs can be reduced by avoiding errors, rework, and system downtime.
● Security can be increased by enabling recovery from errors and malicious acts and by
safeguarding information.

Console Overview: LCM

The Promotion Management tool is also know as the Life Cycle Management Console.

Overview of the Life Cycle Management Console

● The Promotion Management tool has the following uses:

- It is used only for managing the ongoing life cycle for BI content.
- With this tool, administrators can package BI content and promote efficiently it through
multiple environments.
- Administrators can also manage multiple versions of the same BI resources.
- The tool is integrated with the Central Management Console (CMC).

The Promotion Management tool, also known as the Life Cycle Management Console, for SAP
BusinessObjects BI 4.x is used only for the BI content life cycle. BI content life cycle
management services focus on managing the ongoing life cycle for BI content. This tool
allows BI administrators and operations teams to package BI content and associated
dependencies and to promote that content in an efficient, reliable, and repeatable fashion
through multiple environments. BI content life cycle management is a subset of this larger
topic, primarily in the test and deploy phases.
The promotion management tool allows moving BI resources from one repository to another,
manages dependencies of the resources, and rolls back promoted resources at the
destination system, if required. It also supports the management of different versions of the
same BI resource.
The promotion management tool is integrated with the Central Management Console. You
can only promote a business intelligence resource from one system to another if the same
version of the BI platform is installed on both the source and destination systems.
Many BI deployments contain different stages such as development, testing, and production.
Reports and other BI objects often require modification or enhancement due to changing
information and business requirements. Administrators must control how objects are

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Unit 2: Content and Objects in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

promoted through these stages, whether the objects are completely new, or the objects have
the rights to overwrite or update the objects that already exist in the destination environment.

Figure 38: Promotion of Multiple Environments

LCM Functions
Features of the Promotion Management Tool
The following are features of the Promotion Management Tool:

● BI content promotion
● Dependencies management
● Job scheduling
● Security rights promotion
● Promotion testing
● Restoration (roll-back) to a previous state
● Event monitoring in the auditing database
● Configuration of tool parameters
● Version management
● Promotion override

The Promotion Management tool supports the following features:

● Promotion - This feature enables you to perform the following tasks:
- Create and update infoobjects in the destination system.
- Create a new job.
- Copy an existing job.

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 Lesson: Managing BI Content Life Cycle

- Edit a job.
- Schedule a job promotion.
- View the history of a job.
● Managing Dependencies - This feature enables you to select, filter, and manage
dependents of infoobjects in the job that you want to promote.
● Scheduling - This feature enables you to specify a time for job promotion rather than
promote a job as soon as it is created. You can schedule the time for a job promotion by
hour, day, week, or month.
● Security - This feature enables you to promote infoobjects with their associated security
rights. You can also use this feature to promote infoobjects associated with application
rights.
● Test Promotion - This feature enables you to check or test the promotion to ensure that all
the preventive measures are taken before the actual promotion of the infoobjects.
● Rollback - This feature enables you to restore the destination system to its previous state
after a job is promoted. You can roll back an entire job or a part of the job.
● Auditing - The events generated by the Promotion Management tool are stored in the audit
database. The Auditing feature enables you to monitor the events that are logged in the
audit database.
● Administration options - This feature enables the administrator to configure the
parameters of the Promotion Management tool..
● Version Management - This feature enables you to manage different versions of the same
document. It also enables you to track the changes in the directory. This is now a separate
area under the Manage Section within BI 4.2 CMC.
● Promoting Overrides - This feature enables you to promote the overrides through a job
promotion.

Overview of Promotion and Version Management Workflows

● The promotion and version management workflow is not designed for the following:
- Backup
- Disaster recovery
- Archiving

The promotion and version management workflow is not able to do these tasks, because it is
specifically designed for promotion workflows and optimized for 100 objects for each
promotion.
However, it might form part of a recovery strategy.

Promotion and Version Management as Part of a Recovery Strategy

Promotion and version management is able to complete the following recovery tasks:

● Content can be re-promoted, thereby restoring lost or corrupted content

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Unit 2: Content and Objects in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

● Previously checked-in content can be checked out from version management, thereby
restoring lost or corrupted content.
● Selected content, typically ad-hoc content, can be promoted from production to another
environment, such as development.

Basic Promotion Management Workflow

You want to promote finished content from the development environment into the test
environment and validate the work. After the acceptance testing, you want to push it through
to the production environment. The following describes the basic promotion management
workflow steps:

1. You create a promotion job with Promotion Management, which contains the following:

● A name and source system definition

● A definition of a target system (if not LCMBIAR)

● A list of objects based on the source

2. You run the promotion job, to promote the content from the development environment to
the test environment.

3. You test that content in the test environment.

4. If the test of the content is successful, you can then re-run the same promotion job but
change the target to the production environment (which is consistent with SAP TMS /
CTS+ ).

Note:
Promoting content from the test environment to the production environment does
not follow this principle and so it is considered poor practice.

Basic Version Management Workflows

The following are considerations in a basic version management workflow:

● Check-in
Creates a new revision of an object (like a document or a universe) every time you check it
in.
● Check-out
Overwrites the version in the BusinessObjects Repository with the revision you select.

Administration Options of LCM

The administration options enable you to configure settings before promoting infoobjects
from one SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform deployment to another SAP
BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform deployment and SAP deployment. This
section describes how to use the administration options.

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 Lesson: Managing BI Content Life Cycle

Administration Options

Manage Systems
This option enables you to add and remove the host systems.
Override Settings
This option enables you to override the properties of infoobjects within the job that were
promoted to the destination system. It overrides the properties of infoobjects that were
promoted from the source system.
Rollback Settings
This option enables you to configure the rollback process at the system level.
Job Settings
This option enables you to specify the number of job instances that can exist in life cycle
management console system at any instance of time. If the number of jobs exceeds the
specified number, they are automatically deleted. It also enables the user to specify the
number of days for a job, after which the job must be deleted from the life cycle
management console.
VMS Settings
This option enables you to configure version management systems.

Additional Information about Managing the Life Cycle of a Deployment Using the
LCM Tool
Topic Online location

Promotion Management BI 4 Administrator Guide is available in the

SAP Service Marketplace

New Job Creation

Interface Elements Used to Create a New Job with the Promotion Management Tool

● Name
● Description
● Keywords
● Save Job in
● Source System
● Destination System
● User name
● Password
● Authentication

You can create a new job using the Promotion Management tool. The table discusses the
elements and fields in the tool interface that you can use to create a new job:

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Unit 2: Content and Objects in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

Table 2: GUI Elements and Fields to Create a New Job

Item Description

Name Name of the job that you want to create.

Description Description of the job you want to create.
Keywords The keywords for the contents of the job you want to create
Save Job in You must browse and select a folder to create a job.
Source System The name of the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform
system from which you want to promote a job.
Destination System The name of the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform
system to which you want to promote a job.
User name The login ID that you must use to log into the source or Destination
system.
Password The password that you must use to log into the source or destination
system.
Authentication The authentication type that is used to connect to the source or desti-
nation system.

Job Dependencies Management

Management of Dependencies During Promotion
The following are considerations when managing dependencies during promotion:

● Infoobjects are dependent on other infoobjects

● During promotion, you can promote all dependencies or select only the ones you want
promoted.
● To select and filter dependents for promotion, you must use the Manage Dependencies
option.

In an SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform environment, infoobjects are

dependent on other infoobjects. For example, a Web Analysis document is dependent on the
underlying Universe for its structure, content, and so on. While promoting an object, you can
select and filter the dependents that you want to promote or permit the promotion of all the
dependents to another SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform system. To
select and filter the dependents you want to promote along with the infoobject, you must use
the Manage Dependencies option.
If you do not use this option, the dependents are not promoted along with the job.

Options Used to Manage Dependents

The following options are used to manage dependencies:

● Universe for selected reports

● Selected universes, Universe restriction set
● Access levels set on selected objects

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 Lesson: Managing BI Content Life Cycle

● Connections used by selected Universes

● Business Views for selected reports
● Events, calendars, and profiles used by selected publication

The table discusses options that you can use to manage the dependents:

Table 3: Dependency Management Options

Types of Dependency Objects Description

Universe for selected reports The universe upon which the selected infoobject
is dependent is promoted.
Selected universes, Universe restriction Universes that are dependent on another Uni-
set verse restriction set are promoted.
Access levels set on selected objects Access levels that are used on the selected in-
foobjects are promoted.
Connections used by selected Universes Universe connection objects that are used by the
selected infoobjects are promoted.
Business Views for selected reports Business Views, business elements, the data
foundation, the data connections, and List of Val-
ues (LoVs) that the selected infoobjects depend
on are promoted..
Events, calendars, and profiles used by Event, calendar, and user-profile objects that are
selected publication used by a selected publication are promoted.

Note:

● Dependent objects are computed automatically by the lifecycle management

console tool. These dependents are computed based either on the infoobject
relationships or infoobject properties.
● If you select a folder for promotion, then the contents in the selected folder are
considered as primary resources.
● On the Manage Dependencies screen, when you place the cursor on the
scheduled infoobject, a tool tip appears describing the file name, file path,
created date and time, last modified date and time, next run, expiry, owner, and
recurrence of the schedule.

Job Scheduling
The Promotion Management enables you to specify when a job must be promoted, rather
than promote it as soon as it is created. It also enables you to schedule job promotion at fixed
intervals. This feature is useful for promoting large jobs when the load on the server is at its
minimum. To schedule a job promotion, you must specify a time in the future or select a
recurrence pattern, and you must specify additional parameters.

Testing and Scheduling Benefits

Testing and scheduling include the following benefits:

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Unit 2: Content and Objects in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

● Testing before promoting

- You can view the results of a promotion without affecting production systems.
- You are informed if new objects are added, if there are name or CUID conflicts, or if
dependencies are not promoted.
● Test considerations
- No checks are performed to determine if the user promoting has rights on the folders in
the destination.
● Scheduling a promotion
- Promotion jobs can be scheduled when load is at its minimum.
● Scheduling considerations
- Content is selected when the job runs, not when the promotion job is created or
scheduled.

Job Rollback
The Rollback option enables you to restore the destination system to its previous state after a
job is promoted.

Rolling Back Information

The following information about rollbacks is important:

● The purpose of a roll back is to restore a destination system to its previous state.
● Use a roll back in the following scenarios:
- There are production issues.
- The changes must be reversed quickly.
- The scope of changes to be rolled back is large.
● When using CTS+ integration, roll back is only possible for the BI content.

Considerations When Rolling Back Information

● The following considerations apply to rollbacks:
- Enable rollback only for critical systems.
- Enable rollback only when absolutely necessary.
- Avoid rolling back more than one version.
- Enable a full roll back when security changes need to be rolled back.

LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Process Life Cycle Management (LCM)
● Manage the life cycle using the LCM
● Create new jobs

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 Unit 2
Lesson 4
Working with BI Workspaces

LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Understand the BI workspace
● Create BI Workspaces
● Organize BI workspaces

BI Workspaces Definition
A BI Workspace is an application in BI Launch pad that is augmented with enhanced
dashboarding capabilities with SAP Fiori experience. It enables you to create dashboards
using Web Intelligence documents, Crystal Reports, SAP Lumira documents, and Modules
and so on. BI Workspaces allow organizations to gain insight from underlying analysis and are
used for quick decision making.
In BI 4.2 SP07, we introduced viewing BI Workspace with SAP Fiori experience. The new BI
Workspace comes with many new enhancements and simplifications for a pleasing user
experience:
● SAP Fiori experience
● New Workspace page with choices of templates
● Re-open a recently viewed Workspace from the New Workspace page
● Preview mode
● Enhanced Text Module

SAP Fiori BI Workspace continues to retain most of the legacy features of BI Workspace, to
list a few:
● Content Linking
● Tabs and Subtabs
● View Web Intelligence, Crystal Reports, and SAP Lumira documents
● BI Workspace Templates
● Navigation List and Viewer

To Create a New BI Workspace

1. Logon to BI Launch pad.

2. Navigate to Applications and click BI Workspace.

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Unit 2: Content and Objects in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

Figure 39: BI Workspace

You are taken to a New Workspace page.

In the New Workspace page, you can carry out the following tasks:

● Select a template from available choices of templates to create a new Workspace.

● Open a recently viewed or edited workspace from Recent Workspaces.

● Browse through all the available workspaces by navigating to All Workspaces.

3. Select a preferred template from the available list of templates.

The Workspace Details page appears where you can do the following:

● Preview the selected Workspace template.

● Enter a Name for the new Workspace.

● Enter the Keywords for the Workspace.

● Enter a Description for the Workspace.

4. To start creating dashboards, click Create.

The BI Workspace designer page opens.

5. To go back to New Workspace page, click Cancel.

Elements of BI Workspace (BIW) Designer

The BI Workspace (BIW) toolbar has the following features:

Figure 40: BI Workspace Toolbar

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 Lesson: Working with BI Workspaces

Figure 41: BIW Toolbar Elements

1. Side Navigation Toggle

Enables you to show or hide the Module Library

2. Name of BI Workspace
This is next to the side navigation toggle.

3. Save and Save As

This is to save the BIW.

4. Revert Changes
Revert the changes to the last saved state.

5. Content Linking
Helps you link contents within a sub tab of BI Workspace.

6. Templates
Templates where you can select between Templates, Column Layout, and Free Form.
When Templates is selected, you get the controls to Select Layout. The available layouts
are as follows:

● 2 Columns

● 3 Columns

● 2 Rows

● 3 Rows

● Cinemascope

When Column Layout is selected, you get the options to Add Column and Delete Column.
When Free Form is selected, you can see a blank canvas.

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Unit 2: Content and Objects in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

7. Design
By default, the BIW opens in Design

8. View
Switch to the view mode to preview your BIW

On the left of BI Workspace Designer, you have the Module Library:

Figure 42: Module Library

In the Module Library, the Search field lets you search and select a desired document in the
library.
Module Library has four sections: Templates, Public Folders, My Folders, and BI Workspaces.
Templates has pre-defined templates such as Text Module, Navigation List, and Viewer.
In BI 4.3, BI Workspace offers enriched and simplified Text Module. The new Text Module
contains rich text editor that lets you format texts, insert images, and hyperlinks inside Text
module without programming. You do not need to write HTML code to achieve formatting
inside Text Module.

Figure 43: Text Module

Navigation List and Viewer continue to retain the legacy features with Fiori experience.
Public Folders displays the same folder tree structure as in BI Launch pad.
My Folders displays the folder structure as in My Folders in BI Launch pad.

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 Lesson: Working with BI Workspaces

You can drag and drop desired documents from Public Folders or My Folders to BI Workspace
canvas.
BI Workspaces lists the available BI Workspaces, its contents are displayed in a tree
structure. You can re-use existing modules and reports from existing BI Workspaces.
Below the BI Workspace toolbar, there is the Tab and SubTab bar.

Figure 44: Tab

A new BI Workspace has one Tab and SubTab by default. If you try to delete the only Tab/
SubTab, you will get a message: Please keep at least one tab. or Please keep at
least one subtab..
You can add more Tabs and SubTabs by clicking the + (Plus) icon in the Tab bar or SubTab
bar. If you have too many tabs or subtabs in the bar, you can use the > (Scroll Forward) or <
(Scroll Back) icon to navigate through the tabs.
You can click the Opened Tabs/ SubTabs icon to get a complete list of available tabs or
subtabs.

Figure 45: SubTab

Below the SubTab bar, you can add required modules and reports to create insightful
dashboards in the canvas.

Figure 46: Additional Modules and Reports

Content Linking
Content linking is the connection between two or more reports using Interportlet
Communication Framework. Here the data can be transferred from source report to
destination reports.

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Unit 2: Content and Objects in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

Note:
Only Web Intelligence reports can be source reports. A destination report can be
Web Intelligence, Crystal, and Crystal for Enterprise reports. To launch the
content linking pane, click the Content Linking icon in BI Workspace toolbar

Figure 47: New Workspace Content Linking

In the below example, content linking is done between two Web Intelligence reports using
PROMPT_IN port.

1. In BI Workspace designer, add two Web Intelligence reports. The destination Web
Intelligence report must have prompts in it to be able to use PROMPT_IN port for content
linking.

Figure 48: Web Intelligence Reports

2. Click the Content Linking icon in BI Workspace toolbar. Link Content pane displays.

3. In Link Content pane, connect the PARAMETERS_OUT port of source Web Intelligence
report to PROMPT_IN port of destination Web Intelligence report.

Figure 49: Link Content

4. Select the connection created above, and we get the option of Parameter Mapping. We
need to logically map the source and target parameters. In this example, Country from the
source parameter is mapped to the Enter values for Country prompt in the target
parameter.

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 Lesson: Working with BI Workspaces

Figure 50: Parameter Mapping

5. Click Close. Contents of source and target Web Intelligence reports are connected now
using PROMPT_IN port.

For a value selected in source Web Intelligence report, target Web Intelligence report is
updated.

Figure 51: BIW_CL_Prmpt UI

Deprecated Modules
The following list is some of the legacy features of BI Workspace that are now deprecated:
● Group Modules
● BI Launch Pad Modules (Collaboration Feed, My Alerts, My Applications, My Inbox, My
Recently Run Documents, My Recently Viewed Documents, and SAP StreamWork Feed)
● Document Explorer Modules (Corporate lists, Personal lists, Inbox, and Query Panel)
● Web Page Modules
● Compound Modules

All the BI Launch Pad modules are now in the BI Launch Pad.
The Web page module is integrated in text modules, where you can embed links in text
modules and views.

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Unit 2: Content and Objects in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

Note:
You CANNOT use the BI Workspace to customize the BI Launch Pad. To
customize BI Launch Pad, you use Theme Designer application.

Legacy BI Workspaces
You can view BI Workspaces that were created in older versions of BI (BI 4.2 or BI 4.1).
However, if you edit BI Workspaces that were created in older versions of BI, a Module is
not supported message is displayed for unsupported modules.

Figure 52: Legacy BI Workspaces

After you save a BI Workspace with deprecated module in it, a confirmation message is
displayed.

Figure 53: Confirmation of Deprecated Module

The module is deleted, and BI Workspace is saved.

If you need to retain the unsupported modules in your BI Workspace, you can use the Save As
option and save the modified BI Workspace with a new name. With this approach you can
continue to view the old BI Workspace with existing set of modules.

LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Understand the BI workspace

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 Lesson: Working with BI Workspaces

● Create BI Workspaces
● Organize BI workspaces

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Unit 2: Content and Objects in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

58 © Copyright. All rights reserved.

 Unit 2

Learning Assessment

1. Which of the following tasks does the Platform do?

Choose the correct answers.

X A Groups search results

X B Returns search results in alphabetical order

X C Ranks search results by relevance

X D Supports dynamic facets

2. Which tool does the system administrator use to manage content in the SAP
BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform?
Choose the correct answer.

X A Universe

X B BI launch pad

X C Central Management Console (CMC)

X D Report Conversion Tool

X E Translation Management Tool

3. Why are shortcuts useful?

4. What are categories?

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Unit 2: Learning Assessment

5. What types of categories are available in the BI platform?

Choose the correct answers.

X A File type

X B Corporate

X C Departmental

X D Personal

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 Unit 2

Learning Assessment - Answers

1. Which of the following tasks does the Platform do?

Choose the correct answers.

X A Groups search results

X B Returns search results in alphabetical order

X C Ranks search results by relevance

X D Supports dynamic facets

It does not return search results in alphabetical order.

2. Which tool does the system administrator use to manage content in the SAP
BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform?
Choose the correct answer.

X A Universe

X B BI launch pad

X C Central Management Console (CMC)

X D Report Conversion Tool

X E Translation Management Tool

The administrator uses the CMC.

3. Why are shortcuts useful?

Shortcuts are useful for granting a user access to an object without giving that user
access to the entire folder in which the object is located.

4. What are categories?

Like folders, categories are used for organizing documents in the BI platform. Categories
provide an alternative organizational structure that makes it easier for users to sort and
find documents.

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Unit 2: Learning Assessment - Answers

5. What types of categories are available in the BI platform?

Choose the correct answers.

X A File type

X B Corporate

X C Departmental

X D Personal

The Corporate and Personal categories are available in the BI platform.

62 © Copyright. All rights reserved.

 UNIT 3 User and Group Security in the
SAP BusinessObjects Business
Intelligence (BI) Platform

Lesson 1
Setting Up Users and Groups 65

Lesson 2
Administering Rights 71

UNIT OBJECTIVES

● Set up users
● Set up groups
● Administer rights in SAP BusinessObjects BI platform
● Understand rights issues
● Understand security queries

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Unit 3: User and Group Security in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

64 © Copyright. All rights reserved.

 Unit 3
Lesson 1
Setting Up Users and Groups

LESSON OVERVIEW
This lesson describes how to set up users and user groups in the BI platform.

LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Set up users
● Set up groups

Licensing
The SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) platform supports two license types.

License Types

● Concurrent user
● Named user

The license type grants and restricts access to particular tasks and applications. Depending
on which license you have, you may be unable to access some applications, create content, or
add documents to the repository.

Note:
Choose License Key in the CMC for more information on your licensing scheme.

The following describes license types and access:

Concurrent User
Designed for users who need occasional access to the BI platform. This license specifies
how many users can be connected to the BI platform at any given time.
Named User
Designed for users who require access to BI platform regardless of the number of other
people who are currently connected.

Overview of User Accounts

In the Users and Groups management area, you can specify everything required for a user to
access the SAP BusinessObjects BI platform. You can also view the three default user
accounts summarized by the following table.

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Unit 3: User and Group Security in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

Default User Accounts

Figure 54: Default User Accounts

User Defined
New users and groups are created in the CMC. When you create a new user account in the
CMC, you must specify the user’s properties before you configure group memberships for the
user. Groups are collections of users who share the same account privileges. For example,
you might create groups that are based on department, role, or location. Groups enable you
to change the rights for users in one place (a group) instead of modifying the rights for each
user account individually. You can also assign object rights to a group or groups.

User Properties
After a user account has been created, you can modify the account properties. The properties
that can be modified include:
● Account Name
The account name is the unique identifier for a user account and is the user name entered
when logging into the BI platform.
● Full Name
This optional field is used to capture the user’s full name. We recommend that you use this
field, particularly when managing many users.
● E-mail

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 Lesson: Setting Up Users and Groups

This optional field is used to add the user’s e-mail address and is used for reference only.
For example, if the user forgets their password sometime in the future, you can retrieve
their e-mail address from this field to send them their password.
● Description
This optional field is used to add information about the user, such as their position,
department, or geographic location.
● Enterprise Password Settings
User password settings allow you to change the password and password settings for the
user.
Global password settings can be configured in the Authentication area of the Central
Management Console.
● Database Credentials
When a Database Credential is added to an account, database credentials will be enabled
in the user's profile.
● Access Type
This option specifies how the user connects to the BI platform based on the license
agreement.
● Account is disabled
This checkbox allows the Administrator to deactivate the user account, instead of
permanently deleting the account. This option is useful when administering users who will
be temporarily denied system access, such as employees taking parental leave.
Select the Account is disabled checkbox to disable the Guest account and make it
unavailable for use.
● Alias
If a user has multiple accounts within the BI platform, use this feature to link the accounts.
This results in the user having multiple BI platform logon credentials that map to one BI
platform account.
You can also use the New Alias button to create a new alias.

To Terminate a User Session

You can terminate single or multiple sessions.

1. Log on to the CMC as an administrator.

2. From the Manage area, choose Sessions.

The list of user sessions for the cluster is displayed.

3. Choose a user name, session count, logon time to display a user’s sessions in the lower
pane.

4. Click to select a single session, or press CTRL and click to select multiple sessions.

5. Choose End Session.

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Unit 3: User and Group Security in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

Note:
The User session is released once the user logs off from the system. If the user
closes the browser by clicking Close (in the upper right side), the session will
not be terminated automatically. It has to be ended manually as described
here.
To terminate sessions, you must have the Edit objects right on the CMS object.
You cannot terminate your current administrator session.

Groups
After creating a new group, you can add users, add subgroups, or specify group membership,
so that the new group is actually a subgroup. Subgroups provide additional levels of
organization, so they are useful when you set object rights to control users’ access to your BI
platform content.
It is useful to create subgroups when you must further classify groups of users. For example,
users can be grouped by location (such as London), and then further divided according to
their department (such as the London Finance Team).

Default Groups

● Administrators
● Everyone
● QaaWS Group Designer
● Report Conversion Tool Users
● Translators
● Universe Designer Users

Group Defined
After a group is created, you can modify its membership to include other groups. Groups can
include other groups as subgroups. Group names must be unique. After a group is created,
you can modify the properties.

Group Properties

● Title
● Description

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 Lesson: Setting Up Users and Groups

Group Hierarchy

Figure 55: Group Hierarchy

Groups are collections of users who share the same account privileges; therefore, you may
create groups that are based on department, role, or location. Groups enable you to change
the rights for users in one place (a group) instead of modifying the rights for each user
account individually. You can also assign object rights to a group or groups.
In the Users and Groups area, you can create groups that give a number of people access to
the report or folder. These groups allow you to make changes in one place instead of
modifying each user account individually. You can also view the several default group
accounts summarized by the following table.

LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Set up users
● Set up groups

© Copyright. All rights reserved. 69

Unit 3: User and Group Security in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

70 © Copyright. All rights reserved.

 Unit 3
Lesson 2
Administering Rights

LESSON OVERVIEW
This lesson describes what rights are, how they work in the BI platform, and how you set them
to keep the BI platform secure.

LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Administer rights in SAP BusinessObjects BI platform
● Understand rights issues
● Understand security queries

Rights in the BI Platform

Rights are the base units for controlling user access to the objects, users, applications,
servers, and other features in the BI platform. They play an important role in securing the
system by specifying the individual actions that users can perform on objects. In addition to
enabling access control to your BI platform content, rights enable you to delegate user and
group management to different departments. Rights also provide your IT department with
administrative access to servers and server groups.
You can set rights on objects, for example, folders and documents, and you can set rights on
principals; that is, the users and groups who access the objects. For example, to give a
manager access to a particular folder, add the manager to the access control list (the list of
principals who have access to an object) for the folder. You cannot give the manager access
by configuring the manager's rights settings in the Users and Groups area. The User Security
settings for the manager in the Users and Group area are used to grant other principals (such
as delegated administrators) access to the manager as an object in the system. In this way,
principals are themselves like objects for others with greater rights to manage.
Rights on objects can be Granted, Denied, or Not Specified. If a right is Not Specified, the right
is denied. In addition, if the access control settings result in a right being both Granted and
Denied to a User or Group, the right is denied.
An important exception to this rule occurs when a right is explicitly set on a child object that
contradicts the rights inherited from the parent object. In this case, the right set on the child
object overrides the inherited rights. This exception also applies to users who are members of
groups. If a user is explicitly granted a right that is denied to the user's group, the right set on
the user overrides the inherited right from the group.

BI Platform Security Terminology

● A right in the BI platform is also referred to as Access Control Entry (ACE).
● An ACE can be set to one of three states: Explicit Denial (D), Explicit Grant (G), or Not
Specified (NS).

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Unit 3: User and Group Security in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

● A list of all ACEs is referred to as an Access Control List (ACL).

● A combination of ACEs and states (for example Right to Schedule - G, Right to View - G,
Right to Modify - D, and so on) makes up an Access Level.
● The BI platform includes predefined Access Levels: View, Schedule, View On Demand, and
Full Control. You can create Custom Access Levels.
● Groups and users in the system are also referred to as principals. In the BI platform, you
give rights to principals on objects (folder, document, application).

Rights Terminology

Access Levels
Access levels are groups of rights that users frequently need. They allow administrators
to set common security levels quickly and uniformly rather than requiring that individual
rights be set one by one. BI platform comes with several predefined access levels. These
predefined access levels are based on a model of increasing rights. Beginning with View
and ending with Full Control, each access level builds upon the rights granted by the
previous level.
Inheritance
The BI platform recognizes two types of inheritance: group inheritance and folder
inheritance. Group inheritance allows principals to inherit rights as the result of group
membership. Folder inheritance allows principals to inherit any rights that they have
been granted on an object's parent folder.
Top-level folder security
Top-level folder security is the default security set for each specific object type (for
example Universes, Web Intelligence Application, Groups, and Folders). Each object type
has its own top-level folder (root folder) that all the subobjects inherit rights from.
If there are any access levels common to certain object types that apply throughout the
whole system, set them at the top-level folder specific to each object type. For example, if
the Sales group requires the View access level to all folders, you can set this access at the
root level for Folders.
Folder-level security
Folder-level security enables you to set access-level rights for a folder and the objects
contained within that folder. While folders inherit security from the top-level folder (root
folder), subfolders inherit the security of their parent folder. Rights set explicitly at the
folder level override inherited rights.
Object-level security
Objects in BI platform inherit security from their parent folder. Rights set explicitly at the
object level override inherited rights.

Predefined Access Levels

BI platform comes with several predefined access levels. These predefined access levels are
based on a model of increasing rights: Beginning with View and ending with Full Control, each
access level builds upon the rights granted by the previous level.

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 Lesson: Administering Rights

Note:
As predefined access levels are statically defined with a preset selection of rights,
they can be very restrictive when configuring relatively complex security models.
As a result, they are seldom used. Instead, we recommend you create Custom
Access Levels that enables greater flexibility as you design your security model.
The Custom Access Levels are described later in this lesson.

Table 4: Access Levels

Access Level Description Rights Involved

View If set on the folder level, a ● View objects

principal can view the folder,
objects within the folder, and ● View document instances
each object's generated in-
stances. If set at the object
level, a principal can view the
object, its history, and its gen-
erated instances.

Schedule A principal can generate in- View access-level rights, plus:

stances by scheduling an ob-
● Schedule the document to run
ject to run against a specified
data source once or on a re- ● Define server groups to process jobs
curring basis. The principal
can view, delete, and pause ● Copy objects to another folder
the scheduling of instances ● Schedule to destinations
that they own. They can also
schedule to different formats ● Print the report's data
and destinations, set parame-
ters and database logon infor-
● Export the report's data
mation, choose servers to ● Edit objects that the user owns
process jobs, add contents to
the folder, and copy the ob- ● Delete instances that the user owns
ject or folder.
● Pause and resume document instances
that the user owns

View On De- A principal can refresh data Schedule access-level rights, plus:
mand on demand against a data
● Refresh the report's data
source.

Full Control A principal has full adminis- All available rights, including:
trative control of the object.
● Add objects to the folder
● Edit objects
● Modify rights users have to objects
● Delete objects
● Delete instances

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Unit 3: User and Group Security in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

Custom Access Levels

In addition to the predefined access levels, you can also create and customize your own,
which can greatly reduce administrative and maintenance costs associated with security.
Consider a situation in which an administrator must manage two groups, sales managers and
sales employees. Both groups must access five reports in the BI platform, but sales managers
require more rights than sales employees. The predefined access levels do not meet the
needs of either group. Instead of adding groups to each report as principals and modifying
their rights in five different places, the administrator can create two new access levels, Sales
Managers and Sales Employees. The administrator then adds both groups as principals to the
folders in which the reports reside, and assigns the groups their respective access levels.
When rights must be modified, the administrator can modify the access levels. Since the
access levels apply to both groups across all five reports, the rights those groups have to the
reports are quickly updated.

Rights Settings
To provide you with full control over object security, the CMC allows you to set rights. These
rights provide increased flexibility as you define security levels for objects at a granular level.
For example, you can use rights settings to customize a principal's rights to a particular object
or set of objects. Most importantly, you can use rights to deny a user or group any right that
must not be changed when, in the future, you change group memberships or folder security
levels.
The following table summarizes the options that you have when you set rights.

Table 5: Rights
Rights Option Description

Granted The right is granted to a principal.

Denied The right is denied to a principal.

Not Specified The right is unspecified for a principal.

By default, rights set to Not Specified
are denied.

Apply to Object The right applies to the object. This op-

tion becomes available when you choose
Granted or Denied.

Apply to Sub Objects The right applies to subobjects. This op-

tion becomes available when you choose
Granted or Denied.

General versus Type-Specific Rights

Type-specific rights are rights that affect specific object types only, such as SAP Crystal
Reports, folders, or access levels. Type-specific rights consist of the following:
● General rights for the object type
These rights are identical to general global rights (for example, the right to add, delete, or
edit an object), but you set them on specific object types to override the general global
rights settings.

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 Lesson: Administering Rights

● Specific rights for the object type

These rights are available for specific object types only. For example, the right to export a
report's data appears for SAP Crystal Reports, but not for Word documents.

Type-specific rights are useful because they let you limit the rights of principals based on
object type. Consider a situation in which an administrator wants employees to be able to add
objects to a folder but not create subfolders. The administrator grants Add rights at the
general global level for the folder, and then denies Add rights for the folder object type.
Rights are divided into collections based on the object types to which they apply.

Rights Collections

General
These rights affect all objects.
Content
These rights are divided according to particular object types. Examples of content object
types include SAP Crystal Reports and Adobe Acrobat PDFs.
Application
These rights are divided according to which BI platform application they affect. Examples
of applications include the CMC and BI launch pad.
System
These rights are divided according to which core system component they affect.
Examples of core system components include Calendars, Events, and Users and Groups

Type-specific rights are in the Content, Application, and System collections. In each
collection, type-specific rights are further divided into categories based on object type.

Inheritance
Rights are set on an object for a principal to control access to the object. However, it is
impractical to set the explicit value of every possible right for every principal on every object.
Consider a system with 100 rights, 1000 users, and 10,000 objects. To set rights explicitly on
each object would require the CMS to store billions of rights in its memory, and, importantly,
require that an administrator manually set each one.
Inheritance patterns resolve this impracticality. With inheritance, the rights that users have to
objects in the system come from a combination of their memberships and objects. These
memberships are in different groups and subgroups, and the objects, have inherited rights
from parent folders and subfolders. These users can inherit rights as the result of group
membership. Subgroups can inherit rights from parent groups. Both users and groups can
inherit rights from parent folders.
By default, users or groups who have rights to a folder inherit the same rights for any objects
that are then published to that folder. Therefore, the best strategy is to set the appropriate
rights for users and groups at the folder level first, then publish objects to that folder.
The BI platform recognizes two types of inheritance:

1. Group inheritance

2. Folder inheritance

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Unit 3: User and Group Security in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

Group Inheritance
Group inheritance allows principals to inherit rights as the result of group membership. Group
inheritance proves especially useful when you organize all of your users into groups that
coincide with your organization's current security conventions.
When group inheritance is enabled for a user who belongs to more than one group, the rights
of all parent groups are considered when the system checks credentials. The user is denied
any right that is explicitly denied in any parent group. The user is also denied any right that
remains completely not specified. Thus the user is granted only those rights that are granted
in one or more groups (explicitly or through access levels) and never explicitly denied.

Folder Inheritance
Folder inheritance allows principals to inherit any rights that they have been granted on an
object's parent folder. Folder inheritance proves especially useful when you organize BI
platform content into a folder hierarchy that reflects your organization's current security
conventions. For example, suppose that you create a folder called Sales Reports, and you
provide your Sales group with View On Demand access to this folder. By default, every user
that has rights to the Sales Reports folder will inherit the same rights to the reports that you
then publish to this folder. Therefore, the Sales group will have View On Demand access to all
of the reports, and you need set the object rights only once, at the folder level.

Scope of Rights
Scope of rights refers to the ability to limit the extent of rights inheritance. To define the
scope of a right, you decide whether the right applies to the object, its subobjects, or both. By
default, the scope of a right extends to both objects and subobjects.
Scope of rights can be used to protect personal content in shared locations. Consider a
situation in which the finance department has a shared Expense Claims folder that contains
Personal Expense Claims subfolders for each employee. The employees want to be able to
view the Expense Claims folder and add objects to it, but they also want to protect the
contents of their Personal Expense Claims subfolders. The administrator grants all employees
View and Add rights on the Expense Claims folder, and limits the scope of these rights to the
Expense Claims folder only. This means that the View and Add rights do not apply to
subobjects in the Expense Claims folder. The administrator then grants employees View and
Add rights on their own Personal Expense Claims subfolders.
Scope of rights can also limit the effective rights that a delegated administrator has. For
example, a delegated administrator may have Securely Modify Rights and Edit rights on a
folder, but the scope of these rights is limited to the folder only and does not apply to its
subobjects. The delegated administrator cannot grant these rights to another user on one of
the folder's subobjects.

Rights Override
Rights override is a rights behavior in which rights that are set on child objects override the
rights set on parent objects. Rights override occurs under the following circumstances:
● The rights that are set on child objects override the rights that are set on parent objects.
● The rights that are set on subgroups or members of groups override the rights that are set
on groups.

You do not need to disable inheritance to set customized rights on an object. The child object
inherits the rights settings of the parent object except for the rights that are explicitly set on
the child object. Any changes to rights settings on the parent object apply to the child object.

76 © Copyright. All rights reserved.

 Lesson: Administering Rights

Determining Effective Rights

If a user belongs to more than one group, and a conflict exists in the rights assignments
between the groups to which the user belongs, the Denied (D) right wins over a Granted (G)
right. The Granted (G) right wins over a Not Specified (NS) right; that is, Deny > Grant > Not
Specified).
● NS = D
● NS + G = G
● NS + D = D
● G+D=D
● NS + G + D = D

Keep these considerations in mind when you set rights on an object:

● Each access level grants some rights, denies some rights, and leaves the other rights
unspecified. When a user is granted several access levels, the system aggregates the
effective rights and denies any unspecified rights by default.
● When you assign multiple access levels to a principal on an object, the principal has the
combination of each access level's rights.
● Advanced rights can be combined with access levels to customize the rights settings for a
principal on an object. For example, if an advanced right and an access level are both
assigned explicitly to a principal on an object, and the advanced right contradicts a right in
the access level, the advanced right will override the right in the access level.
● Rights override makes it possible for rights set on a child object to override rights that are
inherited from the parent object.

Troubleshooting Rights Issues

Troubleshooting user rights can be a laborious undertaking for a system administrator. The BI
platform contains two tools that are aimed at negating this challenge.
● Permissions Explorer
The Permissions Explorer makes it easier to pinpoint the source of inherited user rights.
● Security Query
The Security Query tool enables an administrator to list the objects a user can access and
why. It also enables the administrator to change the security settings from the query result
interactively.

Security Queries
In some cases, you might want to know the objects to which a principal has been granted or
denied access. You can use a security query to do this information. Security queries let you
determine which objects a principal has certain rights to and manage user rights. For each
security query, you provide the following information:

Parameters for Security Queries

● Query Principal

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Unit 3: User and Group Security in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

You specify the user or group that you want to run the security query for. You can specify
one principal for each security query.
● Query Permission
You specify the right or rights you want to run the security query for, the status of these
rights, and the object type on which these rights are set. For example, you can run a
security query for all reports that a principal can refresh, or for all reports that a principal
cannot export.
● Query Context
You specify the CMC areas that you want the security query to search. For each area, you
can choose whether to include subobjects in the security query. A security query can have
a maximum of four areas.

Summary of Hierarchical Rules

● A more specific assignment typically wins over a less specific assignment, such as a user
over a group, a subgroup over a parent group, and a subobject over a parent object.
● Groups may contain subgroups and users. Subgroups and users are treated as members
of the parent group. Therefore, if a parent group is given an explicit Grant right to view the
folder, a user who is a member of a subgroup of the parent group will have that right as
well. In this case, only the parent group is listed in the User Security dialog box on the
folder while the subgroup is not.
● The rights given to the group closest to the user take precedence (without breaking
inheritance). In other words, if a user is a member of a subgroup, and is not added to the
parent group, the user's effective rights will come from the subgroup, and not from the
parent group. In this case both the parent group and the subgroup are listed in the access
rights dialog box on the folder. The rights between the parent group and the subgroup may
be the same or conflicting, but rights assigned to the subgroup will take precedence.
● If a user is added to both the subgroup and to the parent group, the calculation of effective
rights is the same as if a user belonged to two groups on the same level. Refer to the rule G
+ D + NS = D.
● User rights are of explicit type on the object, but of inherited type on subobjects.
● Group rights are always of inherited type.
● Explicit rights (the user's rights) on an object override inherited rights (the group's rights)
on the same object.
● Security rights can be overridden on lower levels in folder hierarchy without breaking
inheritance.
● The administrator can combine access levels for a principal, which can result in a conflict.
In these cases, refer again to the rule G + D + NS = D.

Summary of Recommendations
The following are the recommendations for security:

● The predefined sets of rights simplify administration by grouping together rights

associated with common user needs.

78 © Copyright. All rights reserved.

 Lesson: Administering Rights

● Set rights and access levels on top-level folders. Enabling inheritance will allow these rights
to be passed down through the system with minimal administrative intervention.
● Avoid breaking inheritance whenever possible. By doing so, you can reduce the amount of
time it takes to secure the content that you have added to BI platform.
● Set appropriate rights for users and groups at the folder level, then publish objects to that
folder. By default, users or groups who have rights to a folder will inherit the same rights
for any object that you then publish to that folder.
● Organize users into user groups, assign access levels and rights to the entire group, and
assign access levels and rights to specific members when necessary.
● Create individual administrator accounts for each administrator in the system and add
them to the Administrators group to improve accountability for system changes.

Figure 56: Security Recommendations – Scenario 1

Figure 57: Security Recommendations – Scenario 2

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Unit 3: User and Group Security in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

Figure 58: Security Recommendations – Scenario 3

LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Administer rights in SAP BusinessObjects BI platform
● Understand rights issues
● Understand security queries

80 © Copyright. All rights reserved.

 Unit 3

Learning Assessment

1. Which of the following user accounts are default user accounts in the BI platform?
Choose the correct answers.

X A Superuser

X B Guest

X C Administrator

X D Named user

2. Which of the following options can form the basis of a group?

Choose the correct answers.

X A Department

X B Logon

X C Location

X D Role

X E Status

3. What is an access level?

4. What is a principal?

© Copyright. All rights reserved. 81

Unit 3: Learning Assessment

5. Match the group account name with the correct description.

Match the item in the first column to the corresponding item in the second column.

Everyone Members of this group have

access to Query as a Web
Administrators
Service.
QaaWS Group Designer
Members of this group can
Translators perform all tasks in all of the BI
platform applications (CMC,
Universe Designer Users
CCM, Publishing Wizard, and
Report Conversion Tool Users BI launch pad). By default, the
Administrators group contains
only the Administrator user.
Members of this group have
access to the Report Conver-
sion Tool application.
Users who belong to this group
are granted access to the Uni-
verse Designer folder and the
Connections folder. They can
control who has access rights
to the Designer application.
Add users to this group as
needed. By default, no user be-
longs to this group.
Members of this group have
access to the Translation Man-
ager application.
Each user is a member of the
Everyone group.

82 © Copyright. All rights reserved.

 Unit 3

Learning Assessment - Answers

1. Which of the following user accounts are default user accounts in the BI platform?
Choose the correct answers.

X A Superuser

X B Guest

X C Administrator

X D Named user

Guest and Administrator user accounts are default accounts.

2. Which of the following options can form the basis of a group?

Choose the correct answers.

X A Department

X B Logon

X C Location

X D Role

X E Status

Departments, locations and roles can form the basis of a group.

3. What is an access level?

Access levels are groups of rights that users frequently need. They allow administrators to
set common security levels quickly and uniformly rather than requiring that individual
rights be set one by one.

4. What is a principal?

A principal is a user or a group.

© Copyright. All rights reserved. 83

Unit 3: Learning Assessment - Answers

5. Match the group account name with the correct description.

Match the item in the first column to the corresponding item in the second column.

Everyone Each user is a member of the

Everyone group.
Administrators
Members of this group can
QaaWS Group Designer
perform all tasks in all of the BI
Translators platform applications (CMC,
CCM, Publishing Wizard, and
Universe Designer Users
BI launch pad). By default, the
Report Conversion Tool Users Administrators group contains
only the Administrator user.
Members of this group have
access to Query as a Web
Service.
Members of this group have
access to the Translation Man-
ager application.
Users who belong to this group
are granted access to the Uni-
verse Designer folder and the
Connections folder. They can
control who has access rights
to the Designer application.
Add users to this group as
needed. By default, no user be-
longs to this group.
Members of this group have
access to the Report Conver-
sion Tool application.

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 UNIT 4 Application Security in the SAP
BusinessObjects Business
Intelligence (BI) Platform

Lesson 1
Customizing and Securing the Fiori BI Launchpad 87

Lesson 2
Securing the Web Intelligence Application 91

Lesson 3
Delegating Control 93

UNIT OBJECTIVES

● Customize the Fiori BI launchpad

● Control access to BI launchpad application features
● Configure application security
● delegate control

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Unit 4: Application Security in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

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 Unit 4
Lesson 1
Customizing and Securing the Fiori BI
Launchpad

LESSON OVERVIEW
This lesson describes how to customize the BI platform user interface and manage access to
applications.

LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Customize the Fiori BI launchpad
● Control access to BI launchpad application features

SAP Fiori BI Launchpad Customization

In the new SAP Fiori BI Launchpad, you can change the settings of the application by clicking
on the User icon (visible on the top left-hand corner of the BI Launchpad once you have
logged in). The Settings tab is available to make modifications.

Figure 59: Fiori BI Launchpad Customization

The following settings can be modified:

● Landing Page Preferences
● Select a Home Page

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Unit 4: Application Security in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

● Column Preferences
● Page Customization
● Locale and Time Zone
● Application Preferences for Crystal Reports, Web Intelligence, and SAP Analysis (Web)
● Appearance Themes

Figure 60: Modifiable Settings Preferences for the Fiori BI Launchpad

SAP Fiori BI Launchpad Security

SAP BusinessObjects 4.3 Platform provides security administrators with the ability to secure
BI applications. This includes the SAP Fiori BI Launchpad, the Central Management Console
(CMC), Platform Search Application, and so on. Depending on the application features,
certain elements of the application can be restricted for users and groups in the BI Platform.
Only BI Platform applications can be secured. Standalone applications like Crystal Reports
2020 cannot be secured. You can secure applications in the CMC by navigating to the
Applications tab and accessing the user security option for each of the securable applications.

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 Lesson: Customizing and Securing the Fiori BI Launchpad

Figure 61: Application Tab of the CMC

LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Customize the Fiori BI launchpad
● Control access to BI launchpad application features

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Unit 4: Application Security in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

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 Unit 4
Lesson 2
Securing the Web Intelligence Application

LESSON OVERVIEW
The lesson describes how to set up and maintain application security in the BI platform.

LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Configure application security

Web Intelligence Application Security

The BI Platform offers administrators a flexible security model. The administrator can
configure a robust combination of rights within a Custom Access Level that delivers desired
security outcomes based on users’ assigned BI organizational roles.
An example of this is the creation of a Web Intelligence Report Developer role in the CMC. For
a user to be proficient within this role, they need specific rights grouped together in a robust
Custom Access Level defined as a ROLE. This is accomplished by creating a Custom Access
Level in the CMC and adding the word ROLE as a suffix in the title, for example,
Web_Intelligence_Developer_ROLE. Then you add the required rights to the ROLE and apply
the role on behalf of users and groups for the respective areas in the CMC, for example, Web
Intelligence Content folders, the Web Intelligence Application in the CMC, and the Universes
tab in the CMC.
The following are security requirements that need to be considered when designing this
ROLE:
● Web Intelligence Application Security
● Web Intelligence Content Security
● Universe Security
● Universe Connection Security

LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Configure application security

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Unit 4: Application Security in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

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 Unit 4
Lesson 3
Delegating Control

LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● delegate control

Controlling CMC Tab Access

A system administrator has access to all CMC tabs. Use the following guidelines to administer
the CMC tabs that principals can access.
● For a simplified management process and a reduced need for maintenance and
troubleshooting, we recommend that administrators manage CMC tab access on a user
group level (instead of on a user level).
● For CMC tabs that have top-level folders, an administrator must grant access to a tab and
grant the View right on the top-level folder of the tab. The following CMC tabs support top-
level folders:
Access Levels Federation Personal Categories
Calendars Folders Personal Folders
Connections Inboxes Profiles
Events OLAP Connections Replication Lists

● For improved system security, only members of the Administrators group can access the
following CMC tabs. As system administrators, members of the Administrators group can
access any CMC tab regardless of CMC tab access permissions. CMC tab access
permissions are designed to control access to CMC tabs for delegated administrators; that
is, users other than members of the Administrators group.
- Auditing
- Authentications
- Cryptographic Keys
- License Keys
- Monitoring
- Sessions
- Settings
- User Attribute Management

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Unit 4: Application Security in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

Caution:
Management of CMC tab access affects only the visual appearance of the CMC
user interface. Hiding CMC tabs is not a security measure, because it does not
set or modify security rights on objects within tabs. To ensure that users cannot
perform unauthorized operations on unauthorized objects (for example, manage
servers through the CCM or third-party software based on the BI platform SDK),
set appropriate security rights on objects.

Inheritance of CMC Tab Access

CMC tab access rights and the permission to configure CMC tab access for other users or
user groups are both applied and inherited in the same way as other BI platform security
rights. If principals have no tab access explicitly specified, they will inherit the tab access of
the user groups they are members of.
If a user is a member of two user groups, tab access is calculated in the same manner as all
other BI platform rights are calculated. For example, if access to a CMC tab is granted in one
of the groups and denied in the other, the principal will not be able to access the CMC tab.

Note:
Modifying the CMC tab access right of a user group changes the same tab access
for all users or user groups that inherit rights from the user group when their CMC
tab access is set to Inherited.
Tab access set on the user level always supersedes tab access inherited from user
groups.

Delegated Administrator User Groups

You can create a set of delegated administrator user groups to simplify CMC tab
management. To avoid configuring individual CMC tab access, you can make an existing user
or user group a member of a delegated administrator user group. The following configuration
is recommended, but it can be modified for specific business needs.

Note:
When the rights are set to Inherited, membership in multiple groups will result in
the addition of rights.

Table 6: Recommended Rights for Delegated Administrator User Groups

Delegated Administrator User Group Recommended Rights

System Administrators Grant access to all tabs.

User Administrators Grant access to Access Levels, Folders, In-
boxes, Personal Folders, Personal Catego-
ries, Query Results, Sessions, and Users and
Groups. See all other tabs to Inherited.

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 Lesson: Delegating Control

Delegated Administrator User Group Recommended Rights

Content Administrators Grant access to Calendars, Categories,

Events, Folders, Instance Manager, Personal
Categories, Personal Folders, Profiles, Query
Results, and Universes. Set all other tabs to
Inherited.
Server Administrators Grant access to Servers and Applications.
Set all other tabs to Inherited.

LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● delegate control

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Unit 4: Application Security in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

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 Unit 4

Learning Assessment

1. What is application security?

2. Where do you specify and apply application security?

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 Unit 4

Learning Assessment - Answers

1. What is application security?

Application security controls the functionality that users and groups have access to within
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence applications.

2. Where do you specify and apply application security?

You specify security settings in the Applications management area of the CMC.

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 UNIT 5 Content Distribution Using
Scheduling

Lesson 1
Scheduling Objects 101

Lesson 2
Managing Calendars 113

Lesson 3
Managing Report Usage 117

UNIT OBJECTIVES

● Configure recurrence patterns

● Configure destinations for scheduled objects
● Output formats
● Schedule an object for a user or group
● Manage calendars
● View a summary of system activity with BI Cockpit
● Manage instances using Central Management Console (CMC) Instance Manager
● Manage instances using Fiorified BI Launchpad "instance" tile
● Set limits on instances
● Manage reports with events options

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Unit 5: Content Distribution Using Scheduling

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 Unit 5
Lesson 1
Scheduling Objects

LESSON OVERVIEW
This lesson describes how to schedule objects in the BI platform.

LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Configure recurrence patterns
● Configure destinations for scheduled objects
● Output formats
● Schedule an object for a user or group

Recurrence Patterns
The BI platform provides the same scheduling and instance management options in both
Central Management Console and Fiorified BI Launchpad. When you schedule an object, you
can choose from the recurrence patterns summarized in the Recurrence Patterns table.

Note:
In BI platform 4.3, Fiorified BI Launchpad has no option to allow retries and
notification. These options were only available in the Central Management
Console.

Table 7: Recurrence Patterns

Recurrence pattern Description

Now The object runs as soon as you click Sched-

ule.
Once The object runs only once. It can be run now
or in the future, or when a specified event
has occurred.
Recurring Hourly The object runs every hour. You specify at
what time it starts, as well as a start and
end date.
Daily The object runs every day. It can be run
once or several times a day. You can specify
at what time it runs, as well as a start and
end date.

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Unit 5: Content Distribution Using Scheduling

Recurrence pattern Description

Weekly The object runs every week. It can be run

once a week or several times a week. You
can specify on which days and at what time
it runs, as well as a start and end date.
Business The object runs only during schedule busi-
Hours ness hours. It can run several times on des-
ignated days between assigned business
hours.
Monthly The object is run every month or every cou-
ple of months. You can specify on which
days of the month and at what time it runs,
as well as a start and end date.
Specific day of The object is run on a certain day of every
a month month. You can specify the day it runs, as
well as a start and end date
Calendar The object is run on the dates specified in a
calendar that has previously been created.

Run Options for Recurrence Patterns

After you choose a recurrence pattern, configure the run options and parameters for that
recurrence option.

Table 8: Run Options for Recurrence Patterns

Run Option for recurrence patterns Description

Start Date/Time lists and calendar box This option appears for all recurrence pat-
terns except Now and Calendar.

Select the time (hours, minutes, and AM or

PM) and the date on which to start running
the object.

The BI platform runs the object according to

the specified schedule, as soon as it can after
the start time has passed. The default is the
current date and time. For example, if you
specify a start time that is three months in
the future, the BI platform waits to run the
object until the start date has passed, even if
all other criteria are met. After the start date,
the BI platform runs the report at the speci-
fied time.

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 Lesson: Scheduling Objects

Run Option for recurrence patterns Description

End Date/Time lists and calendar box This option appears for all recurrence pat-
terns except Now and Calendar.

Select the time (hours, minutes, and AM or

PM) and the date on which to stop running
the object.

After the end time has passed, the BI plat-

form no longer runs an object. The default is
the current time and a date in the distant fu-
ture, to ensure that an object will run indefi-
nitely.
Days(N) box This option appears when you select the
Daily recurrence pattern.

Enter the interval (in days) at which to run

the object. If you do not enter a value for N,
the BI platform runs the report every day.
S, M,T,W,T,F, andS check boxes This option appears when you select the
Weekly recurrence pattern.

Select a checkbox for each day of the week

on which to run the job.
Month(S) list This option appears when you select the
Monthly recurrence pattern.

Enter the interval (in months) at which to run

the object. If you do not enter a value for N,
the BI platform runs the report every month.
Day(S) box This option appears when you select the spe-
cific day of a month recurrence pattern.

Select the day of the month on which to run

the object. If you do not select a value for N,
the BI platform runs the report every day.

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Unit 5: Content Distribution Using Scheduling

Figure 62: CMC - Recurrence Pattern

BI Launchpad Scheduling Options

Figure 63: BI Launchpad Scheduling Options (1)

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 Lesson: Scheduling Objects

Figure 64: BI Launchpad Scheduling Options (2)

Figure 65: BI Launchpad Scheduling Options (3)

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Unit 5: Content Distribution Using Scheduling

Figure 66: BI Launchpad Scheduling Options (4)

Figure 67: BI Launchpad Scheduling Options (5)

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 Lesson: Scheduling Objects

Figure 68: BI Launchpad Scheduling Options (6)

Figure 69: BI Launchpad Scheduling Options (7)

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Unit 5: Content Distribution Using Scheduling

Figure 70: BI Launchpad Scheduling Options (8)

Figure 71: BI Launchpad Scheduling Options (9)

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 Lesson: Scheduling Objects

Figure 72: BI Launchpad Scheduling Options (10)

Destinations for Scheduled Objects

Using SAP BusinessObjects BI platform, you can configure an object or instance for output to
a destination other than the default output File Repository Server (FRS). When the system
runs an object, it always stores the output instance on the output FRS. Being able to choose
an additional destination gives you the flexibility to deliver instances across your system or to
destinations outside your BI platform.
For example, you can set an object to have its output automatically delivered by e-mail to
other users.
You can also configure object instances to print after they have been run.
When you specify a destination other than the default destination, the BI platform generates a
unique name for the output file or files. To generate a file name, you can use a combination of
ID, name or title of the object, owner information, or the date and time information.
The following destinations are available:
● Default Enterprise Location
● BI Inbox
● E-mail
● FTP Server
● SFTP Server
● File System
● SAP StreamWork (if enabled and configured)

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Unit 5: Content Distribution Using Scheduling

Note:
You can change the destination setting for an object or instance either in the CMC
or in BI launch pad. When you specify the destination settings through the CMC,
these settings are also reflected in the default scheduling settings for BI launch
pad.

Formats for Scheduled Objects

You can select the format that the document or report instance will be saved in when it is
generated. This format is saved to the destination you have selected.
The following formats are available for scheduled Crystal Reports:
● Crystal Reports
● Crystal Reports (RPTR)

Note:
Not available for Crystal Reports for Enterprise version.

● Microsoft Excel (97-2003)

● Microsoft Excel (97-2003) (Data Only)
● Microsoft Excel Workbook Data-only
● Microsoft Word (97-2003)
● PDF
● Rich Text Format (RTF)
● Microsoft Word - Editable (RTF)
● Plain Text
● Paginated Text
● Tab Separated Text (TTX)
● Separated Values (CSV)
● XML

The following formats are available for scheduled Web Intelligence objects:
● Microsoft Excel
● Adobe Acrobat
● Comma Separated Values (CSV)
● Plain Text

Scheduling an Object for a User or Group

With scheduling, you can Schedule For:

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 Lesson: Scheduling Objects

● Schedule only for myself (default)

● Schedule for specified users and user groups

The benefits of schedule for others include the following:

● You can schedule on behalf of someone who is not available to schedule the object
themselves.
● Each user would be the owner of their instance of the report. This can be useful in security
planning.
● Any row, column, or both, level security (for example, on the universe or at the data
source) would be enforced as though that user scheduled the job for themselves.

LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Configure recurrence patterns
● Configure destinations for scheduled objects
● Output formats
● Schedule an object for a user or group

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Unit 5: Content Distribution Using Scheduling

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 Unit 5
Lesson 2
Managing Calendars

LESSON OVERVIEW
This lesson describes how to create and manage calendars in the BI platform.

LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● Manage calendars

Calendar Basics
Calendars make it easy for you to schedule complex recurring jobs efficiently. A calendar is a
customized list of run dates for scheduled jobs. When users schedule objects, they can use a
calendar to run the job on a predefined set of dates. By providing calendars for your users,
you can create more complex processing schedules than you can with the standard
scheduling options.
Calendars are particularly useful when you want to run a recurring job on an irregular
schedule, or if you want to provide users with sets of regular scheduling dates to choose from.
Calendars also allow you to create more complex processing schedules, combining unique
scheduling dates with recurring ones.
For example, to have a report object run every business day except for statutory holidays,
create a calendar with the holidays marked as “non-run” days. The report object does not run
on those “non-run” days. SAP BusinessObjects BI platform will run the job every day you have
specified as a “run” day in your calendar.
You can set up as many calendars as you want in SAP BusinessObjects BI platform. When you
apply the calendar to a job, SAP BusinessObjects BI platform runs the job on the run dates as
scheduled. You can apply calendars to any object that can be scheduled, including report
objects, program objects, and object packages.

Calendar Formats
The calendar format options are contained in the following table.

Table 9: Calendar Format Options

Calendar Format Op- Description
tion

Yearly Yearly displays the calendar's run dates for the year. To change the
year displayed, choose the Previous year and Next year buttons. To
add a date from the Yearly format, choose the day, weekday header,
or week row header that you want to add.

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Unit 5: Content Distribution Using Scheduling

Calendar Format Op- Description

tion

Quarterly Quarterly displays the calendar's run dates for the current calendar
quarter. You can change the displayed quarter using the Previous
quarter and Next quarter buttons. To add a date from the Quarterly
format, choose the day, weekday header, or week row header that
you want to add.

Monthly Monthly displays the calendar's run dates for the current month. You
can change the displayed month using the Previous month and Next
month buttons. To add a date from the Monthly format, choose the
day, weekday header, or week row header that you want to add.

Calendar Dates
You can add dates to a calendar using a number of different formats. You can choose specific
dates using a yearly, quarterly, or monthly view of the calendar, or you can choose recurring
dates using general formats based on the day of the month or week.

Specific Dates
To add a specific date to a calendar, use the Yearly, Quarterly, and Monthly formats.
The Yearly format displays the run schedule for the entire year. The Quarterly format displays
the run dates for the current quarter. You can also view the Monthly format for the calendar,
which displays the run dates for the current month. In all three formats, you can change the
displayed time range by choosing the previous and next buttons.
You can add specific dates in any calendar format by choosing the day that you want to add. If
you wish to add an entire week, choose > in the row header for that week. To add run days on
all of a given day of the week in a month, choose the name day of the week.

Figure 73: Calendar

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 Lesson: Managing Calendars

For example, if your company ships products according to an irregular schedule that cannot
be defined using the daily or weekly settings, you can create a list of these dates in a
“Shipping dates” calendar. The Shipping department can now check the inventory after each
shipment by scheduling a report that uses the calendar to run at the end of each shipping day.

Recurring Dates
You can add recurring days based on the day of the week or the day of the month. To view
existing run dates, use the Yearly, Quarterly, or Monthly format; the generic formats are used
to add recurring dates to the calendar. To add the recurring days, choose By day of month or
By day of week and select the days you wish to add.
Although you can set a recurring schedule that uses the standard scheduling options,
calendars allow you to specify several different recurring run patterns at once. You can also
run instances on dates that do not follow the pattern by adding individual days to a calendar.
For example, to schedule a report object to run on the first four days of every month, and on
the second and fourth Friday of every month, first create a new calendar object and name it.
Then, choose to add recurring days by day of month to add the first four days of the month to
this calendar. When you update the calendar, the Yearly format appears with the new run
dates.

Figure 74: Recurring Dates: Example 1

Recurring Dates: Example 2

To add every second and fourth Friday to the calendar, choose to add recurring days by day
of week and select the second and fourth Friday.

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Unit 5: Content Distribution Using Scheduling

Figure 75: Recurring Dates: Example 2

Calendar Removal
When you delete a calendar, any objects that are scheduled according to the deleted calendar
will be run once more. After that final run, the system cannot schedule the objects again
because the calendar no longer exists. To ensure that the objects continue to run, change the
scheduling information for the objects by selecting either a different calendar or a different
recurrence pattern.

LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● Manage calendars

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 Unit 5
Lesson 3
Managing Report Usage

LESSON OVERVIEW
This lesson describes instances and how to manage them in the BI platform.

LESSON OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
● View a summary of system activity with BI Cockpit
● Manage instances using Central Management Console (CMC) Instance Manager
● Manage instances using Fiorified BI Launchpad "instance" tile
● Set limits on instances
● Manage reports with events options

The BI Admin Studio

The BI Admin Studio is an application in CMC that combines monitoring, alerting, and the
Admin Cockpit. It was previously called the BI Administrators' Cockpit.
The application is comprised of two tabs: Dashboard and Applications.

Dashboard
The Dashboard tab provides a single-view of the dashboards that are available in Admin
Cockpit and Monitoring. You can click on each dashboard to get detailed information about it.
For example, you can select the Servers dashboard to get the list of servers with a Running,
Stopped, or Failed status, along with details such as Server Name, PID, and Type.

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Unit 5: Content Distribution Using Scheduling

Figure 76: Admin Cockpit

Applications
You can access Visual Difference and Authorized HTML Elements from the Applications tab.

Figure 77: Applications

Alerting
You can select Bi Admin Studio to access the notification pane for alerts. From the
notification pane, select the To Alerts Page option to find out more about the alerts that you
created.

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 Lesson: Managing Report Usage

Figure 78: Alerting

Instance History
SAP BusinessObjects BI platform creates instances from objects; for example, a report
instance is created when you schedule a report object to run. A report instance is a report
object that contains specific report data; the report data can be retrieved from one or more
databases. Each instance contains data that is current at the time the report is processed.
Similarly, SAP BusinessObjects BI platform creates a program instance each time that a
program object is scheduled and run by the Job Server. Unlike report instances, which can be
viewed in their completed format, program instances exist as records in the object history.
SAP BusinessObjects BI platform stores the program's standard output and standard error in
a text output file.
You can view and manage instances by the following methods:
● Opening the History dialog box for an object.
● Using the BI platform Instance Manager.

Table 10: Instance Information Displayed in the History Dialog Box

Column Information displayed

Title The title of the instances.

Type The type of instance object
Status The status of each instance: Success, Failed, Running, Pend-
ing, Recurring, Warning, Partial Success, Expired
Location The folder location of the instance object
Owner The user who scheduled the instance
Completion Time The date and time when the job instance returns Success or
Failed
Next Run Time The next date and time when the schedule job will run

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Unit 5: Content Distribution Using Scheduling

Column Information displayed

Submission Time The date and time when the job was created
Start Time The date and time when the job started to run
Duration (second) The job processing time in seconds. This duration is only for
Success status
Recurrence The format in which report instances are stored. Applies to
report object only.
Expiry The date and time when the job will no longer process
Server The SIA Node and Adaptive Job Server used to process the
instance
Error The error message returned when the instance fail to run

Instance Manager
The Instance Manager lets you view and manage all of the instances in your SAP
BusinessObjects BI platform deployment from one location. You can use the Instance
Manager to carry out the following tasks:
● Find specific instances.
● Select multiple instances and perform batch operations on them (for example, pause,
resume, or delete them).
● View detailed information for a single instance.
● Diagnose and resolve system problems that are causing instances to fail.

To find specific instances quickly, you can create filters in the Find instances meeting the
following criteria section of the Instance Manager. You can base filters on one or more of the
following criteria:

Table 11: Search Filter Criteria

Criteria Description

Parent Folder Select the Parent Folder checkbox and browse for a repository
folder. BI platform will list all the instances in that folder.
Owner Select the Owner checkbox and type a user name to find in-
stances scheduled by that user.

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 Lesson: Managing Report Usage

Criteria Description

Status Select the Status checkbox, and then choose one of the follow-
ing status options from the list:
● Success
● Failed
● Running
● Paused
● Pending
● Recurring
● Warning
● Partial Success
● Expired

Object type Select the Object Type checkbox, and then choose an object
type from the list:
● Analysis Workbook
● Web Intelligence
● Program
● Object Package
● Publication
● Desktop Intelligence Report
● Crystal Reports

Completion Time Set the start and stop times.

Next Run Time Set the start and stop times.

When you finish specifying the search criteria, choose Find. Only instances that meet all the
criteria you enable display.

The Fiorified BI Launchpad Instance Tile

The new BI 4.3 Instance tile is available on the Home tab of the Fiorified BI Launch Pad. The
tile lets you view and manage all the instances in your SAP BusinessObjects BI platform
deployment from one location. You can use the “Instance” tile for the following activities:
● Find specific instances using:
- Instance Time
- Status: Success, Partial Success, Failed, Running, Recurring, Paused, or Expired

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Unit 5: Content Distribution Using Scheduling

- Type: Publication, Analysis Workbook, Crystal Reports, Lumira Document, Web

Intelligence, Adobe Acobat, Microsoft Excel, or Text (CSV, CSV & HTML Archive)
- Title
● Execute the following actions:
- Run Now
- ReSchedule
- Pause
- Details
- Delete

Set Limits for Instances

You set limits, at the object or folder level, to automate the regular cleanup of old instances.
At the object level, you can limit the number of instances that remain in the BI platform for an
object, user, or group, or limit the number of days that an instance remains in the platform for
a user or group. When you set limits at the object level, the limits override any limits set for
folders.

Events and Scheduling

The Events Management area of the CMC organizes all events into folders according to event
type. Within each event type folder, you can create additional folders to better store and
manage events.
Event-based scheduling provides you with additional control over scheduling objects. You can
set up events so that objects are processed only after a specified event occurs. Working with
events consists of two steps: creating an event and scheduling an object with events. That is,
once you create an event, you can select it as a dependency when you schedule an object.
The scheduled job is then processed only when the event occurs.

Event Types
You can create the following types of events to be used with scheduling:

Crystal Report Events

Crystal Report events only trigger a report run if the report waiting on the event is already
scheduled and ready to run. Crystal Reports events can be based on a new file and
reports can be scheduled to wait for event triggering.

Custom Events
When you create a custom event, you create a shortcut for triggering an event manually.
Custom events are stored in the Custom Events folder.

Monitoring Events
Monitoring events are system-generated events that relate to service health status.
Monitoring is a built-in application in the CMC that allows administrators to monitor the
health of the system. The most important aspects of monitoring are watches and probes.
Watches allow you to set thresholds for over 250 metrics within the system. You are
notified when the set thresholds are breached.
System Events

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 Lesson: Managing Report Usage

● File events
When you define a file-based event, you specify a file name that the Event Server
should monitor for a particular file. When the file appears, the Event Server triggers
the event.
For example, you might want to make some reports dependent upon the regular file
output of other programs or scripts. File events are stored in the System Events
folder.
● Schedule events
When you define a schedule-based event, you select an object whose existing
recurrence schedule will serve as the trigger for your event. In this way, schedule-
based events allow you to set up contingencies or conditions between scheduled
objects.
For example, you might want certain large reports to run sequentially, or you might
want a particular sales summary report to run only when a detailed sales report runs
successfully. Schedule events are stored in the System Events folder.
● User Notification Events
User notification events are used by administrators to notify BI end users, who are
using BI launch pad, about important events. Administrators can notify selected users
about critical messages and other related information at the scheduled time f(or
example, system downtime).
The alert message appears as a notification in the BI launch pad screen when the user
logs on.

When scheduling with events, keep in mind that an object’s recurrence schedule still
determines how frequently the object runs. For instance, a daily report that is dependent
upon a file-based event will run, at most, once a day (as long as the file that you specify
appears every day).
In addition, the event must occur within the time frame established when you actually
schedule the event-based report.

LESSON SUMMARY
You should now be able to:
● View a summary of system activity with BI Cockpit
● Manage instances using Central Management Console (CMC) Instance Manager
● Manage instances using Fiorified BI Launchpad "instance" tile
● Set limits on instances
● Manage reports with events options

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Unit 5: Content Distribution Using Scheduling

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 Unit 5

Learning Assessment

1. Quarterly is a recurrence pattern option.

Determine whether this statement is true or false.

X True

X False

2. When would users select the Run Days run option?

3. When you specify the destination settings through the CMC, these settings are not
reflected in the default scheduling settings for BI launch pad.
Determine whether this statement is true or false.

X True

X False

4. Select which of the following are destinations for scheduled objects.

Choose the correct answers.

X A BI launch pad

X B Email

X C BI Inbox

X D CMS

X E FTP Location

5. How do calendars benefit the scheduling process?

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Unit 5: Learning Assessment

6. You can apply a calendar to report objects and program objects, but not to object
packages.
Determine whether this statement is true or false.

X True

X False

7. Which feature of the CMC allows users to diagnose and resolve system problems that
cause instances to fail?
Choose the correct answer.

X A System Manager

X B Diagnostic Tool

X C Auditor

X D Instance Manager

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 Unit 5

Learning Assessment - Answers

1. Quarterly is a recurrence pattern option.

Determine whether this statement is true or false.

X True

X False

2. When would users select the Run Days run option?

The Run Days option becomes active when a Weekly recurrence pattern is selected. The
Run Days option allows users to choose the days of the week on which to run the job by
deleting the checkboxes of the appropriate days.

3. When you specify the destination settings through the CMC, these settings are not
reflected in the default scheduling settings for BI launch pad.
Determine whether this statement is true or false.

X True

X False

4. Select which of the following are destinations for scheduled objects.

Choose the correct answers.

X A BI launch pad

X B Email

X C BI Inbox

X D CMS

X E FTP Location

5. How do calendars benefit the scheduling process?

Calendars can be created to set a time series of run dates to schedule an object.

© Copyright. All rights reserved. 127

Unit 5: Learning Assessment - Answers

6. You can apply a calendar to report objects and program objects, but not to object
packages.
Determine whether this statement is true or false.

X True

X False

7. Which feature of the CMC allows users to diagnose and resolve system problems that
cause instances to fail?
Choose the correct answer.

X A System Manager

X B Diagnostic Tool

X C Auditor

X D Instance Manager

Instance Manager is the feature that helps users to diagnose and resolve system
problems that cause instances to fail.

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