How to Configure and Use SAP BusinessObjects Widgets
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.
Thank you for the nice blog. Do you see many customers using widgets? We were intrigued by them and thought it would be useful way to 'push' content to users instead of relying on them to login to BI launch pad. However, we were advised against using them by our consultant as widgets are said to being dropped. I confirmed this with someone from a siginifcant person at SAP last week at Sapphire.
Thoughts?
Lee Lewis
Mallik,
Nice blog - thanks. Please can you let us know where Widgets would add values?
Rama
Good content
Thanks for your responses.
Widgets are like mini apps that allow easy and fast access to frequently used reports or dashboards, so meant for distributing frequently used content to users desktops. As far as i am aware SAP is adding more and more new connectivity options to different environments such as Web Dynpro applications on SAP NetWeaver Application Servers and widgets is part of BI 4.1 as well with enhanced features, so my strong feeling is that SAP would carry this along with furture versions too and enhance it for even better and more usage from super users/analysts.
Nice blog ..
Regards,
Ruhul
Thanks for Sharing 🙂
Good one.
Nice Article,
Can Widget or similar functionality can be used to host a webpage.
Thanks
Sameer
Thanks for sharing this!