SAP Analytics
Introduction : Blog talks about SAP Analytics its components and features . Why SAP Analytics ? Rapid data access from various systems and its presentation in perfect graphical and tabular fashion is one of the most commonly required point by all decision makers. Also Decision makers are looking for a tool which shows interactive reporting on portals with facilities like change in graphs values with selection of another record from table , or export to excel functionality or direct print facility . Currently they complain that they can not easily design a business process where in they can combine data from different source systems and also across modules.One also needs flexibility to alter the process as per their own convenience and hence always wish to have a code free non technical tool where easy development of desired process is possible. SAP Analytics help to solve this problem by collecting relevant information from Disparate Data Services, providing an perceptive visualization of the data on consistent Screens, and exposing appropriate action options to the user. End users can customize the models so that they can display only the required subset of the data along with specific user’s role or function. So on portals SAP analytics displays fabulous visualization objects like buttons to perform specific action like submit or pie chart, bar chart, ticker, table, pivot table, maps, line graph etc. and at back-end there are business applications . Who can use SAP Analytics?Corporate decision makers with very low technical knowledge can use SAP Analytics Who can create SAP Analytics?Business analysts or consultants. with right mixture of knowledge on how to access corporate data along with IT applications can go ahead and create SAP analytics . Off course good understanding of the business domain is required but no programming skills as Visual composer helps to create code free development. What is SAP Analytics?The implementation of SAP Analytics uses two key technologies: 1. SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer 2. Macromedia Flex Interaction between the two is as shown.
1. Visual ComposerIt is a process design modeling tool developed by SAP in order to facilitate Business Analyst to design their own business process to customize the application. Visual Composer is completely Web based and is installed as an add-on on SAP Enterprise Portal. Yes as of now publishing Bw or R/3 Reports on portals need lot of work around but now VC allows sophisticated content development for the SAP EP merely by drag and drop of appropriate objects in turn establishing relationships within them and generating source code for users . It consist of a client application running in browser named storyboard to compose and design models . Model is stored in model repository using proprietary modeling language called VCL High level Architecture is as shown 
Six simple steps to design VC model are:1. Define the application need and the Business process requirement 2. Create your page and iView 3. Locate different may be multiple data services you want to use . 4. Drag and drop different UI services on to design area like graphs charts or table and Define the flow between these elements 5. Arrange the elements in layouts and also have a look at initial data in preview 6. Deploy the model in either Flash (which represents Flex), SAP’s adoption of HTML to business applications or DHTML SAP’s WebDynpro UI technology. Some good options in VC are:VC provides BI Kit option which empowers you to access SAP and non-SAP including OLAP and relational data via the BI Java Connectors like * BI ODBO and BI XMLA connector • MS Analysis Services, SAS, Hyperion * BI JDBC connector • RDBMS, CSV, Excel, … * BI SAP Query connector • mySAP ERP data * Native BW Web Applications It also provides tools for building queries on diverse data sources which can be used in model designing Like for example * Templates for OLAP and relational queries* Wizard for freeform relational queries:joins, filters,sorting * SQL Editor * MDX Editor Significant OSS for VC are:*716752: For the latest information about limitations*655941: For connectivity with R/3 and BI *804496: Installing Visual Composer with Windows 2003 and IIS 6.0*805122: Using JDBC stored procedures in Visual Composer models 2. Macromedia Flex Flex is a presentation-tier framework and server that enables the development of Rich Internet Applications(RIAs). Flex overcomes the traditional limitations of HTML-based user interfaces and support rich user interface components and direct object manipulation like simple drag-and-drop. 
As shown above Flex consists of •Highly productive programming model.Which is based on the combination of MXML and Action Script . 2.0. MXML is a declarative, XML language used to define the user interface of the application. ActionScript 2.0 is an ECMAScript-compliant strongly-typed and object oriented language that is used to implement the non-visual aspects of the application (client-side logic).The source code of the Flex application (XML documents and ActionScript classes) is compiled into Flash bytecode (SWF file). •An extensive class library of user interface components.Flex features an extensive library of user interface components, including DataGrid, Tree,TabNavigator, Accordion, Menu, media controllers, and a wide variety of charting components Flex components are customizable using cascading style sheets (CSS). New components can also be created from scratch, by extending existing components Flex components are available as tags in the MXML language, and can also be instantiated programmatically in ActionScript. • Runtime services for backend integration.The Flex runtime services which run on top of Java application servers, including the SAP NetWeaver J2EE engine.Flex focuses on the presentation tier of the application, and provides data services to connect to the server using SOAP-based web services, XML over HTTP, and remote method invocation into Java objects. Other runtime services available in Flex include dynamic compilation, caching, as well as integration with the session management and security infrastructure of the underlying application server.
1. Visual ComposerIt is a process design modeling tool developed by SAP in order to facilitate Business Analyst to design their own business process to customize the application. Visual Composer is completely Web based and is installed as an add-on on SAP Enterprise Portal. Yes as of now publishing Bw or R/3 Reports on portals need lot of work around but now VC allows sophisticated content development for the SAP EP merely by drag and drop of appropriate objects in turn establishing relationships within them and generating source code for users . It consist of a client application running in browser named storyboard to compose and design models . Model is stored in model repository using proprietary modeling language called VCL High level Architecture is as shown Six simple steps to design VC model are:1. Define the application need and the Business process requirement 2. Create your page and iView 3. Locate different may be multiple data services you want to use . 4. Drag and drop different UI services on to design area like graphs charts or table and Define the flow between these elements 5. Arrange the elements in layouts and also have a look at initial data in preview 6. Deploy the model in either Flash (which represents Flex), SAP’s adoption of HTML to business applications or DHTML SAP’s WebDynpro UI technology. Some good options in VC are:VC provides BI Kit option which empowers you to access SAP and non-SAP including OLAP and relational data via the BI Java Connectors like * BI ODBO and BI XMLA connector • MS Analysis Services, SAS, Hyperion * BI JDBC connector • RDBMS, CSV, Excel, … * BI SAP Query connector • mySAP ERP data * Native BW Web Applications It also provides tools for building queries on diverse data sources which can be used in model designing Like for example * Templates for OLAP and relational queries* Wizard for freeform relational queries:joins, filters,sorting * SQL Editor * MDX Editor Significant OSS for VC are:*716752: For the latest information about limitations*655941: For connectivity with R/3 and BI *804496: Installing Visual Composer with Windows 2003 and IIS 6.0*805122: Using JDBC stored procedures in Visual Composer models 2. Macromedia Flex Flex is a presentation-tier framework and server that enables the development of Rich Internet Applications(RIAs). Flex overcomes the traditional limitations of HTML-based user interfaces and support rich user interface components and direct object manipulation like simple drag-and-drop. As shown above Flex consists of •Highly productive programming model.Which is based on the combination of MXML and Action Script . 2.0. MXML is a declarative, XML language used to define the user interface of the application. ActionScript 2.0 is an ECMAScript-compliant strongly-typed and object oriented language that is used to implement the non-visual aspects of the application (client-side logic).The source code of the Flex application (XML documents and ActionScript classes) is compiled into Flash bytecode (SWF file). •An extensive class library of user interface components.Flex features an extensive library of user interface components, including DataGrid, Tree,TabNavigator, Accordion, Menu, media controllers, and a wide variety of charting components Flex components are customizable using cascading style sheets (CSS). New components can also be created from scratch, by extending existing components Flex components are available as tags in the MXML language, and can also be instantiated programmatically in ActionScript. • Runtime services for backend integration.The Flex runtime services which run on top of Java application servers, including the SAP NetWeaver J2EE engine.Flex focuses on the presentation tier of the application, and provides data services to connect to the server using SOAP-based web services, XML over HTTP, and remote method invocation into Java objects. Other runtime services available in Flex include dynamic compilation, caching, as well as integration with the session management and security infrastructure of the underlying application server.
I think we have somehow similar weblog content, but still yours is more elobrated one. Good One. Keep it up.
SAP Analytics Applications Part-1
Hope to see some BI example using VC from your side soon, I am also planning, so whoever will come first, anyhow its good for all.
Best of luck.
Thanks,
Kamaljeet Singh
Davide