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Author's profile photo Tammy Powlas

BI 4 Feature Pack 3 Summary of Features

So with BI 4 Feature Pack 3 now in ramp-up, I thought I would pull together all my feature pack 3 blogs and provide a high level summary, based on the many webcasts I have attended.  Note as all the blogs have stated, things are subject to change and the usual disclaimer applies.  As some of these sessions dated back to August 2011, please note that not features may be there in the ramp-up version.

BusinessObjects Explorer:

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Figure 1: Source: SAP

Figure 1 shows high level summary features for BusinessObjects Explorer.  The biggest buzz is on Exploration Views and geospatial analysis.

BI Launch Pad and Workspaces

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Figure 2: Source: SAP

Figure 2 shows the StreamWork integration with the BI launch pad.

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Figure 3: Source: SAP

Figure 3 covers Crystal for Enterprise and one key new feature is the Report to Report Interface.

Dashboards

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Figure 4: Source: SAP

Figure 4 shows Feature Pack 3 enhancements for Dashboards, featuring the unified query support.  SAP says “Insight to Action” allows closing the loop on a business process from a BI client to an external target.  This feature is available for Crystal and Dashboards in Feature Pack 3.

Web Intelligence

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Figure 5: Source: SAP

Figure 5 shows Feature Pack 3 enhancements for Web Intelligence, including improved hierarchy support and Web Intelligence Rich Client Quick launch.

Analysis, Edition for OLAP

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Figure 6: Source: SAP

Figure 6 shows improvements for Analysis OLAP, including improved support for BW and focused analysis feature.

I am skipping Analysis Office, as it is platform independent and not reliant on a BI platform.

Semantic Layer

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Figure 7: Source: SAP

Figure 7 shows HANA optimization, and probably the best feature for ERP customers is the ability to access ECC via the semantic layer.

SAP Integration

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Figure 8: Source: SAP

Figure 8 shows SAP Integration improvements with Feature Pack 3.  My favorite “fix” is the enhanced scaling factor support.

Multi-source universe access to SAP ECC should be interesting.

BI Platform

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Figure 9: Source: SAP

Figure 9 shows BI Platform improvements, including a better upgrade experience.

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Figure 10: Source: SAP

Figure 10 shows improvements in Life Cycle Management and monitoring.  ASUG has an upcoming webcast to cover these Feature Pack 3 enhancements in more detail.

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Figure 11: Source SAP

Figure 11 shows improvements in SDK.  This was discussed at BI 2012 and ASUG has an upcoming webcast on this to cover this in more detail.

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Figure 12: Source: SAP

Figure 12 shows OEM enablement.

As all the webcasts stated, things were subject to change, and many of these took place last year.

If you are interested in more future directions past enhancement package 3, I encourage you to attend ASUG Annual Conference, where SAP is giving an ASUG session titled “The Future of Business Intelligence”, with SAP’s Ty Miller. 

For more details on Feature Pack 3, I highly recommend Ingo Hilgefort‘s SAP Press books:

Integrating SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.x with SAP NetWeaver

  – a review by Gary Hooker says “It is a no-brainer – just get it. It will save you heaps of time and effort!” – I completely agree!

Reporting and Analysis with SAP BusinessObjects (2nd Edition)

Also, Ingo will be giving a full day hands on session on the BI 4 Feature Pack 3 tools on May 13 at an ASUG Annual Conference pre-conference session.  See here for more information and register today!


Related Blog Links:

Analysis Feature Pack 3
Dashboard Feature Pack 3
SAP Integration
Web Intelligence Feature Pack 3
BI Platform Feature Pack 3
BusinessObjects Explorer Feature Pack 3
SAP HANA with BI4 Feature Pack 3
General Summary
Semantic Layer / HANA

I thank all the SAP speakers for sharing their time and information.



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      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Tammy,

      I have been reading all your blogs for the past 1 year. They are really great. I learn a lot from them. We are use BO 3.1 with BW as the primary data warehouse. We are evaluating BO 4.0 SP02 and it is a big disappointment for us. We are hoping that FP3 as and when becomes generally available will be a saving grace as it fixes some of the shortcomings in the BICS integration.

      -Ramana

      Author's profile photo Tammy Powlas
      Tammy Powlas
      Blog Post Author

      Thank you for taking the time to read and comment.

      Tammy

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      One of my friend tell me that i can truly use BO after GA 4.2

      I am not agree with them, and I hope that sap must do everithing to make BO really good software product.

      Author's profile photo Tammy Powlas
      Tammy Powlas
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks for reading and replying, Mikhail

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Tammy.

      Thank you, you are doing a great everyday job.

      Waiting more information about your experiense in FP03.