What is new in Mobile BI 5.0 – A 2013 Guide to Mobile BI SAP EMEA Webcast

Today I attended the 2013 Guide to Mobile BI Technology SAP EMEA webcast by Alexis Sarat of SAP CoE.

The usual disclaimer applies that things discussed in the future are subject to change.  The agenda was as follows:

• Background
• Today
• Future
• Question & Answer

Background:

Mobility is increasing, including the number of applications

In 2011 2B apps were downloaded from Apple store while last week there were 5B downloads. 

Most of the enterprises are supporting bring your own device.  Collaboration is growing including with Twitter and Facebook.  There is an increase in mobile workers – people in the field – maintenance, electricity, water, airports, and sales, along with an increase in spending in mobile projects.

Alexis said familiar saying from SAP – that there are more mobile phones than toothbrushes.

According to Gartner study of 2000 CIO’s, the priorities for IT spending, with Analytics/BI is the number one priority, including “big data” and get insight.  Mobile is number 2.

According to a slide that Alexis showed, only 10% of workforce has access to BI and increase to 75% with 80% data growth.  Mobile is a way to address this growth.  In meetings today, less people coming with laptop – more people are coming with iPad or iPhone.

Mobile is built with ease of use in mind; SAP said they have learned that from Apple that the application should be user centric with no need for training.  You don’t need to spend time training the user with a mobile application.

You want to mobilize what you already have, but  you need to have a strategy.  It needs to be secure.  You could use Afaria to secure device  with its remote wipe feature.  It needs to be seamless experience

You need to personalize it (new).  It is real-time – do not want to wait 1 minute  and no lag.

With your mobile BI application, you can have a personalized real time communication and need to share/collaborate on the data

Figure 1: Source: SAP

Figure 1 is a “day in the life” slide, showing you can search and explore data with Mobile BI, collaborate, use Google Maps and get your data real-time.

Today:

Today SAP has 2 apps for mobile BI:

1. BusinessObjects Mobile – existing BI content – Web Intelligence & Crystal and Dashboards & Design Studio – information presented in a specific way
2. Explorer – filter, you look for information, find, “explore” information – use in-memory platform for millions

SAP Dashboards – can export to a mobile platform

Design Studio – dedicated to BW/Hana customers and natively exports to mobile platform

Figure 2: Source: SAP

Figure 2 provides an overview of the Mobile BI SDK.  Alexis said you can customize the experience for the user and you can build custom applications.

Figure 3: Source: SAP

You can create your own brand to fit your corporate identity, integrate with 3^rd party security solutions, build / preconfigure connections  and have flexible deployment options – you can use Afaria

Figure 4: Source: SAP

Figure 4 shows you can use it to customize the logo of the application, customize the launch screen, do something for customer

Figure 5: Source: SAP

Figure 5 shows you can have the video tutorial in the application, as an example of configuring the mobile BI application

Figure 6: Source: SAP

Figure 6 continues showing how to change the defaults.

Figure 7: Source: SAP

Figure 7 shows more ways to customize the default behavior.

Future

Figure 8: Source: SAP

Figure 8 shows Mobile BI 5.0 will bring only 1 mobile BI app with a combined experience for everything to improve user experience

It will have a BI Inbox system – personalized documents, push content

It will collaborate with SAP Jam with voice annotation (not easy to type, especially if you are on the go – easy to press a button and dictate)

Figure 9: Source: SAP

Figure 9 shows Mobile BI 5 will have new home screen, simplify tool bar

Figure 10: Source: S AP

Figure 10 shows the new Mobile BI 5 interface with reports.

Figure 11: Source: SAP

Figure 11 shows the new BI inbox support available in the BI Inbox.  Note the BI Platform support.

Figure 12: Source: SAP

Figure 12 shows the collaboration options with Mobile BI 5.  You can still use StreamWorks – choose what is available for the user

Figure 13: Source: SAP

Figure 13 shows how Mobile BI provides right to left support

Figure 14: Source: SAP

Figure 14 shows how Mobile BI 5 to harmonize the viewers.  It will help with learning of the products.

The user doesn’t need to know technology involved, which is critical if you talk about user adoption

Question & Answer:

Q: What about Android version support?

A: Android versions are available

Q: Other languages supported – or just English?

A: Tier 1 languages are supported