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NTT DATA Business Solutions | March 10, 2016

BOBJ 4.2: What's New in Report Development

SAP BOBJ 4.2

Are you debating on upgrading to BOBJ 4.2? In this two-part blog series, we’ll cover some of the innovations that Business Objects 4.2 has to offer. We’ll begin the series with some enhancements that developers and end users will appreciate.

In addition to all of the enhancements made to the BI Platform, several enhancements are available in Web Intelligence (WebI) for better performance and usability that include:

  • Shared Elements
  • Commentary
  • Geo Maps
  • Visualization Extensions
  • Direct Access to SAP HANA Views
  • Big Numbers
  • Parallel Queries
  • SAP HANA Online Mode

In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at a few of the new innovations and encourage you to watch this video for a comprehensive overview of SAP BusinessObjects 4.2.

Direct Access to SAP HANA Views

If you plan to or currently report against HANA Views with BusinessObjects, you can browse them directly on Relational or OLAP Connect. HANA hierarchies are supported via OLAP Connection and no authoring of Universe is required. Through this enhancement, you can create new documents directly on top of the SAP HANA View, and it’s available in both HTML and JAVA.

In the screenshot below you’ll see options for:

  • Member Selector
  • Hierarchical Filters
  • Fold/Unfold with Levels
  • Hierarchical columns and graphics
  • Hierarchical formulas on reports

BOBJ 4.2 SAP HANA Views

 

Shared Elements in Web Intelligence (WebI)

Shared Elements is a new WebI concept that is introduced in Business Objects 4.2. With shared elements, you’re enabling the business. The main objects are to simply report creation by publishing report elements that can be reused by many within your organization, and to easy many document updates through linking shared elements.

BOBJ 4.2 Shared Elements

This enhancement simplifies WebI document creation and your users’ experience with the ability to reuse common objects. You can create a shared object within WebI Design Mode from every block available, and it can easily be refreshed within the document. Users will receive be notified with a refresh icon and the updated Shared Element will receive the update icon on the listing.

BOBJ 4.2 Upgrade Shared Elements

Parallel Queries

Another remarkable innovation via WebI is Parallel Query Execution. If huge reports with multiple queries have been taking you forever to run, that’s no longer a concern with BOBJ 4.2. Parallel Query Execution is enabled by default for WebI documents with multiple data providers.

The following is supported:

Data Provider Types: UNV and UNX Universes; SAP HANA Direct Access; Free-hand SQL and text files

WebI Clients: REST SK and Scheduler; Rich Client, HTML & Applet interfaces

 

BOBJ 4.2 Parallel Queries

 

Note: The total refresh duration depends on the underlying hardware, network, overload and database configuration.

If you’ve been debating whether or not to upgrade your BusinessObjects solution, now is the time. We’ve only highlighted three of the major enhancements from an extensive list of improvements delivered through BOBJ 4.2. In Part 2 of this series, we’ll discuss some of the features for administrators. If you want to take a deep dive into your analytics solutions for your organization, sign up for an analytics assessment with NTT DATA Business Solutions.

Learn More About BOBJ 4.2

Watch this video for an on-demand webinar that will provide a deeper dive into the better performance, simpler interface, and more intuitive functionality that can be adopted with 4.2 without disrupting your existing BI investment.

Read SAP BOBJ 4.2: What’s New For Administrators to discover additional enhancements.