Xcelsius and Business Intelligence Web Services (BIWS)

With the limited availability of scalable data connectivity options for Xcelsius, are you constantly seeking  to improve your dashboard performance?  If your answer is ‘YES’, then this post is for you.

Easily connecting to an ‘Enterprise database’ is a well known problem when using SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards (formerly known as Xcelsius). Let’s refer to it as ‘SCDD’ from here on. Traditionally you have two main data connectivity options, namely Live Office and Query as a Web Service, that is until the release of Business Objects 3.1 SP2 which included a 3^rd option named BI Web Services.

With BI Web Services (referred to as BIWS going forward), you leverage the web service engine available in Web Intelligence and connect it directly to your dashboard utilizing the QaaWS connector in SCDD.

5 Reasons why you should consider using BIWS:

1. You can gain simple access via the QaaWS data connection interface
2. Your data can easily be filtered using the filter properties in the report
3. You can connect to cached reports to facilitate faster response times and dashboard overall performance
4. You can filter, drill and prompt from your dashboard without the need to go back to the universe
5. It will also be available in BI 4.0 (which is what I used for these examples)

To provide insight into the process, I broke it down into a 2 part step-by-step process that includes screenshots.  Keep in mind this was done in a BI 4.0 environment but should work the same in BOE XI 3.1 which is where I originally tested it.

PART 1: SETTING UP YOUR WEBI REPORT AND WEB SERVICE

1.  Launch the Web Intelligence Rich Client. Create your query and basic report. NOTE: Don’t be too concerned with formatting the report at this stage, just make it viewable so that you can review the output.

2.  Save and export the report to the CMS.

3.  In the Webi Rich Client, Highlight a report block and right-click then choose Publish as Web Service. (Note: Report web services are mapped to a report block just like Live Office objects are.)

4.  The Publish Content wizard is then displayed.  Click Next.

5.  Enter the Name of your web service to and click Next.

6.  Define the name of the content block, Set your Filters then Click Next.

7.  Click Publish, and voila! Your web service is created.

8.  Copy the WSDL url and place in a Notepad.  You will need to paste this into the QaaWS data connection in SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards.

The next step is to access the web service from your dashboard.

The BI web service is exposed as the same SOAP interface used by QaaWS. To use the service in your dashboard, you will add a QaaWS connection, Import the wsdl, choose a method and then define the input and output parameters.

PART 2: HOW TO CONNECT TO THE WEB SERVICE FROM YOUR DASHBOARD

1.  Launch SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards.

2.  Open the Data Connection Menu and add a QaaWS connection.  Paste URL into the wsdl URL box and then click Import.

3.  For this example, choose the GetReportBlock_State_Sales_Service from the Method dropdown list.

4.  In the Output Values, bind the table cell to the same number of columns as your web service report block. (Note: Choose as many rows as you think you may need)

5.  Bind the Header cell value to a single row of cells to hold your report block header.

6.  Change the usage to refresh when loaded.

7.  Preview your dashboard.

CONCLUSION: In reviewing the Connection options, you see that using the BIWS is more powerful than using the basic Qaaws connection. You have two methods to use, one for retrieving the full report block the other is for drilling. We will cover drilling in a future post.

TIP: If you want to search for a specific row value, you can set the value to be read from your spreadsheet and bind the operator to the word ‘equals’. There are other options for operator such as ‘greater than’ and ‘less than’.

With BI Web Services and SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards you have a lot of flexibility to provide fast and robust data access to your dashboards, hence improving the performance which is your main goal.

Scott Strool is a Senior BI Consultant for Benchmarkers Business Intelligence, where he helps customers obtain their BI visions. He presented at the 2010 SAP BusinessObjects User Conference in Orlando, FL, and has led many dashboard initiatives. You may follow him on twitter at @scott_strool.