It’s been over 13 years since SAP acquired BusinessObjects and really stepped into the world of Business Intelligence. During the first few years after the purchase, SAP sold a ton of BusinessObjects licenses and, for at least one or two years, they sold more BusinessObjects licenses than they did SAP ...
Read More »Five Cool Techniques to Keep up Your Sleeve to Design Visually Appealing and Dynamic Webi Reports
First: To capture the value selected in Input Control/ Element Link in a cell Goal: Input Control and Element Linking are very frequently used WebI features to create highly interactive WebI reports or dashboards. The goal is to display the user selected option from the radio button/drop down/list box or ...
Read More »Tech Tip: Merging on Variables in Web Intelligence
One of the often overlooked additions given to us in the 4.2 SP3 release was the ability to merge data on variables, not just dimensions. For many years we have lived with these restrictions in Web Intelligence: 1.) You could only merge on dimensions, not on variables. 2.) The data ...
Read More »The Dashboard Salsa Dance
On a recent vacation in Mexico, I attended a class to learn how to dance salsa. Now, I have two left feet when it comes to learning any structured dances. I can do the count in my head and I can do the steps with my feet, but I can ...
Read More »Tech Tip: Understanding Same Level Break – New Feature Added in Web Intelligence 4.2 SP05
Same Level Break is a new feature added in the Web Intelligence 4.2 service pack – SP05. With this type of break, the aggregate is displayed at the same level whenever multiple objects are selected for a break. The breaks depend on the layout of the table, meaning that the ...
Read More »BusinessObjects Certification Could be the Perfect Fit
I recently signed up for a sponsored bike ride and needed to buy a bike. Since I have never ridden more than 5 miles in my life before and I had signed up to ride 25 miles, my eldest son, who is an avid cyclist, told me which bike to ...
Read More »Web Intelligence: The Future’s So Bright, You Better Wear Shades!
I’m passionate about Ancient Egypt and I jump at any opportunity to indulge in discussing it, reading about it, visiting sites and museums everywhere I go. When I occasionally meet a fellow “Egyptophile” I am in my element and we can talk all day. I am also passionate about Business ...
Read More »Web Intelligence – SAP’s New Golden Child in BI 4.2
SAP just announced the release of the latest update of its BusinessObjects BI suite, namely BI 4.2 SP03, following the first release BI 4.2 SP02 back in March In both announcements, Web Intelligence really stood out in terms of new features and overall significance compared to all the other tools ...
Read More »What to do when report design requirements call for customization beyond the default aggregation in Webi
So what do you do when the report design requirements for a webi report call for customizations beyond the default aggregation? Modifying Context to Customize Web Intelligence Calculations The default aggregation in Web Intelligence provides a dynamic way to transform data on the fly. With simple drag, drop, and mouse ...
Read More »Go Forth and Webify the World!
I was recently asked if I would write the foreword for the SAP Press book, Web Intelligence 3rd Edition BI 4.1 SP3. It made me think about my experience with BusinessObjects and Web Intelligence and how far the product has come so I thought I would share it. I definitely ...
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