Business Analytics Community Year in Review

2011 has been another stellar year for the Business Analytics/BusinessObjects community. We hit new milestones in terms of contributors and activity, again making the community one of the most vibrant areas on SAP Community Network – and it’s thanks to you and all the other analytics professionals on the community. A lot happens in a year so I’d like to look back at just a few of the highlights.

A New Name and Additions

Last spring, we rebranded the BusinessObjects Community to the Business Analytics community to reflect an expanded focus. With this expanded focus, came new areas such as enterprise information management, data warehousing, and the more technical BI client product areas. Instead of having to navigate to different communities, members could now access all their analytics areas from one community. Additionally, we took this opportunity to re-organize and simplify the forums and blogs categories.

Webinar Series

Another significant addition to the BA community was the highly successful SAP Business Analytics Webinar Series. In total there were over 35 webinars with thousands of attendees, both offline and online. Topics included SAP BusinessObjects Dashboard Jumpstart, Innovations in SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence 4.0, What is Enterprise Information Management? Overview and What’s New in 4.0, SAP BusinessObjects Information Steward, SAP BusinessObjects Explorer featuring Exploration Views – On Premise, On Demand, and On Device, and Data Quality Management for SAP Solutions. If you missed any of the webinars, you can still view the recordings although a simple registration is required.

SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 Launch

Starting in late 2010 we started working with the community presence for the SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 launch – the biggest release in SAP BusinessObjects history! From featuring some of the latest information and resources, to community elearning content, to social media activities, SCN was one of the key avenues to helping new and existing customers learn about this milestone release. The numbers reveal the interest in this release:  over several months, there were over 250,000 views of launch activity content, alone!

SAP BI 4.0 eLearning

Speaking of the BI 4.0 eLearning content… this is absolutely one of the most valuable additions to the community this year. The Official Product Tutorials – SAP BO BI Suite (and a few other areas) cover these products:

• SAP BusinessObjects BI launch pad
• SAP Crystal Reports 2011
• SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise
• SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards
• Official Product Tutorials – SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence 4.x
• SAP BusinessObjects Analysis
• Official Product Tutorials – SAP BusinessObjects Explorer 4.x
• Official Product Tutorials – SAP BusinessObjects Information Design Tool
• SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform
• SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence mobile applications
• SAP StreamWork Product Tutorials – SAP Community Network
• SAP BusinessObjects integration option for Microsoft SharePoint software

When we published them starting in late 2010, the interest in them was and continues to be high. The team behind them has done an excellent job (as evidenced by the ratings and feedback) of creating modular, accessible, and substantive content. For this year, the BI elearning content has generated several hundred thousand views. Like the webinars, if you have not had a chance to view them, I highly encourage you to do so as they are a great learning resource (and they’re free!).

Other Highlights

A few other highlights to mention…

• Launched a Non-profit Community of Excellence (not exactly business analytics related but we felt passionate about this project!)
• Created a Introducing the BI Fellowship Program that received 84 applications from 22 countries
• Ran another successful Inside Track Vancouver 2011

The “Tops” List

As I mentioned at the start, it’s thanks to the members who support the Business Analytics community that makes these highlights worth mentioning. On this note, I want to call out the top 10 contributors for the BusinessObjects and Crystal Reports/Xcelsius points categories. I wish I could include everyone in the Inclusiveness in Online Communities but please refer to the complete list of top contributors.  Further down, I’ve also included a list of the top 10 analytics-related blogs and community areas for your perusal. Any surprises?

Top 10 Contributors (BusinessObjects point category)

1. Tammy Powlas
2. Ingo Hilgefort
3. Tim Ziemba
4. Adam Stone
5. Shawn Penner
6. Json Everly
7. Felix Port
8. Denis Konovalov
9. Rbert Twigg
10. Efstratios Karaivazoglou

Top 10 Contributors (Crystal Reports and Xcelsius point category)

1. Don Williams
2. Ludek Uher
3. Jason Long
4. Ian Waterman
5. Brian Dong
6. Sastry Duvvuri  
7. Abhilash Kumar
8. Jamie Wiseman
9. Saurabh Pathak
10. Coy Yonce

Top 10 Business Analytics Blogs

1. SAP Integration Update 12 – SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 Solution Architecture
2. Infocubes and Data Store Objects … and HANA
3. Top 10 SAP Business Intelligence Demos
4. SAP Integration Update 9 – Should you start with SAP BusinessObjects 4.0 or wait for 4.1 ?
5. Building Dashboards in SAP BusinessObjects 4.0
6. SAP HANA – Chuck Norris of Enterprise Software?
7. Crystal Reports .NET 2010 : 3 Tips To Keep You Sane
8. Following the “Ingo Lights” To See the Road to BI 4.0 SAP Integration
9. SAP BusinessObjects BI and EIM 4.0 Launch – Save the Date
10. Vital Outlook of 2011: Speculations for SAP BI Professionals

Top 10 Business Analytics Areas

1. Business Analytics home page
2. SAP Crystal Solutions Support
3. Business Intelligence on SDN
4. SAP Crystal Solutions Downloads
5. SAP Crystal Reports for .NET on SDN
6. SDK Library                                    
7. Dashboard Design                      
8. BusinessObjects eLearning
9. Xcelsius Sample Dashboards                   
10. Crystal Reports Samples

And that’s the year in review. Our gratitude to all those of you who helped contribute to the success of Business Analytics community this year!