How to Configure and Use SAP BusinessObjects Widgets

Applies to:

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence 4.0 SP5. For more information, visit the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform homepage. 

Summary

This white paper describes how to use SAP BusinessObjects widgets to configure and use your favorite or frequently used webi reports and dashboards etc. as your desktop widgets and control them from your desktop for regular updates

Author: Mallikarjuna Chary Narayandas

Company: Gyansys Inc.

Created on: May 7, 2013

Author Bio

The author has worked on several SAP BusinessObjects projects and has experience on using all the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform tools. Author has experience on working with SAP BusinessObjects mobile including designing and accessing BusinessObjects content (Webi Reports, Crystal Reports, Dashboards, Analysis and Information Spaces) through IPAD / IPhone / Android.

Introduction

This document describes how to use SAP BusinessObjects widgets to configure and use your favorite or frequently used webi reports and dashboards etc. as your desktop widgets and control them from your desktop for regular updates. This document is intended to BusinessObjects super users and developers, support analysts who have client tools available on their desktops to take the full advantage of widgets to improve the efficiency of their day to day work.

Step by Step process to configure and use widgets

1.     Open Widgets from your  SAP BusinessObjects Client tools

2.     Go to menu option New>SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform and configure the host details. Please find below example values

Host Name: gyansys20

Username: MNARAYANDAS

Password: ******

Authentication:   Enterprise/SAP

Note: Depending on authentication selected you can view only documents accessible through the specified authentication for the given user. For example if a user has two ID’s one with Enterprise and other with SAP authentication, he can see the content that is accessible to the authentication he is logged in with.

3.     You can confirm that you are connected by seeing the status icon which shows green and status message which shows “Connected” as below.

4.     Right click on the widgets icon in the task bar at the bottom right of your desktop as below to access the available options

5.     Document explorer opens up and you can navigate to the folder where you have the documents to be converted as widgets.

6.     Double click on the webi document to open in new webi viewer window or click on dashboard file to open in same window.

Webi:

Dashboard:

7.     Select individual report parts like charts/blocks on from web report viewer or dashboard from explorer window and drag /drop them on the open space on the desktop to create desktop widgets for webi report parts and dashboard respectively as below

8.     You can refresh the widget on the fly using refresh icon or set widget properties as below to auto refresh, save documents to disk and use resize icon to change the size of the widget on desktop.

General widget options:

Refresh options:

Related Content

SAP BusinessObjects Widgets 4.0 SP5 user guide

Space: BusinessObjects BI for SAP | SCN

For more information, visit the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform

Disclaimer and Liability Notice

This document may discuss sample coding or other information that does not include SAP official interfaces and therefore is not supported by SAP. Changes made based on this information are not supported and can be overwritten during an upgrade.

SAP will not be held liable for any damages caused by using or misusing the information, code or methods suggested in this document and anyone using these methods does so at his/her own risk.

SAP offers no guarantees and assumes no responsibility or liability of any type with respect to the content of this technical article or code sample, including any liability resulting from incompatibility between the content within this document and the materials and services offered by SAP. You agree that you will not hold, or seek to hold, SAP responsible or liable with respect to the content of this document.