The following blog is written by Norman Wai – Senior Education Consultant in the North America SAP Education Delivery Organization. Norman specializes in Business Intelligence client, data management and server administration tools. He has 14 years of SAP Business Objects Business Intelligence Platform with a MBA in Technology Management and is certified in Web Intelligence, Crystal Reports and Business Objects Enterprise Server Administration. You can contact Norman via e-mail at norman.wai@sap.com
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Since the release of SAP Business Objects Business Intelligence (BI) 4.0, there has been a dramatic increase in training demand for all BI related courses. As an Education Senior Consultant in the SAP Business Objects BI space, I received many questions from both SAP Education Account Representatives and training customers on the best approach in creating a training plan.
The first step in creating the best training plan for BI 4.0 Enablement is to first define your requirements before working with a SAP Education Account Representative or registering for a course on the SAP Education portal. Depending on whether you are new to BI 4.0 or you are migrating from Business Objects XI Release 2.0/XI Release 3.1 to BI 4.0, your training plan may differ dramatically.
The following questions will help you define your requirements:
- Do you require BI 4.0 certification?
- Do you need to support migrated SAP Business Objects XI Release 2.0 or XI Release 3.1 content within the BI 4.0 environment?
- Do you want a standard or customized BI 4.0 course curriculum?
- Do you want to schedule onsite training or attend a public class on the schedule?
- Do you need use BI 4.0 Client tools to report against SAP Business Information Warehouse via a BEx Queries?
For the best plan, I would recommend contacting you SAP Education Account Representative for the proper consultation. But to get you started, you may use my sample recommendation to help create your training plan.
Do you require BI 4.0 certification?
For 2012, the following are BI 4.0 certification:
- SAP Certified Application Associate – SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform 4.0 (code: C_BOBIP_40)
Recommended course path:
BOE310 collection 96 or BOE315 collection 96 (eLearning)
BOE320 collection 96 or BOE325 collection 96 (eLearning under development)
BOE330 collection 96 (under development)
- SAP Certified Application Associate – SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence 4.0 (code: C_BOWI_40)
Recommended course path:
BOW310 collection 96 or BOW315 collection 96 (eLearning under development)
BOW320 collection 96 or BOW325 collection 96 (eLearning under development)
- SAP Certified Application Associate – SAP BusinessObjects Crystal Reports 4.0 (code: C_BOCR_11)
Recommended course path:
BOC310 collection 96
BOC320 collection 96
BOC345 collection 96 (eLearning under development)
Do you need to support migrated SAP Business Objects XI Release 2.0 or XI Release 3.1 content within the BI 4.0 environment?
In BI 4.0, there are two versions of Crystal Reports and Universe Design.
If you are planning to migrate XI R2.0/3.1 Crystal Report and Universes over to BI 4.0 and plan to keep its existing functionality and not use the new BI 4.0 product version, the following applies:
I recommend you take Crystal Reports 2011 training and not the Crystal Report for Enterprise training (BOC310 and BOC320). Please be advised that Crystal Reports 2008 and Crystal Report 2011 are very similar products. If you are already experienced Crystal Reports 2008 report developer, you will not need to take the Crystal Reports 2011 (BI 4.0) series of courses (BOC310, BOC320 and BOC345 – Collection 96).
I also recommend you take BOU310 Collection 91 and BOU320 Collection 91 to learn about the Universe Design Tool 4.0 and not take the Information Designer Tool, which builds the new semantic layer as an “.UNX” universe file. Please be advised that Universe Design XI R3.1 and Universe Design Tool 4.0 are very similar products. If you are already experienced XI 3.1 Universe Design developer, you will not need additional training to support “.UNV” universes file in BI 4.0.
Do you want a standard or customized BI 4.0 course curriculum?
Please make sure you only register for courses that belong to collection 96. For example: BOE310 collection 91 is the course code for BusinessObjects XI 3.1 and BOE310 collection 96 is the course code for SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0.
New users to BI4.0 with no prior experience with BusinessObjects should take the standard course curriculum.
Experience BusinessObjects developers in XI R2.0 or R3.1 are good candidates for customized BI 4.0 course curriculum with the basic BI concepts removed from the course material.
See your SAP Account Representative for more details or call the North American SAP Education Customer Interaction Center at 1-888-777-1727 or email at education.northamerica@sap.com.
Do you want to schedule onsite training or attend a public class on the schedule?
If condense and tailored course curriculum is a requirement, I would recommend either a customer onsite or virtual live classroom. But, you will need a minimum of four of more students to justify the cost. Otherwise, public class is a good option to gain the core knowledge and to benefit from other participants’ experiences and questions in class.
Do you need use BI 4.0 Client tools to report against SAP Business Information Warehouse via a BEx Queries?
There are two courses that focus on SAP NetWeaver BW implementation track.
- BO100 – Integrating SAP BW with SAP Business Intelligence Solution – Collection 96
- SAPBI – SAP Business Intelligence Solutions – Collection 96
The BO100 is designed for Developers and Technical Consultants while the SAPBI is designed to give a high overview of BI 4.0 client tools and SAP BW implementation.
You can learn more about BI 4.0 course and certification offering in the following way:
