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Author's profile photo Bharath Ramamurthy

AO Precalculation and Scheduling available in SMP (15th Nov 2013)

Hello All,

AO Precalculation and scheduling features are now bundled as feature pack with BIP add-on.

What does it contain?

1. Precalculation enablement via BIP.

2. Scheduling (Broadcasting) via BIP.

Note that BW precalculation and broadcasting is still not possible.

This may be something planned for future?

Here is the SMP link to add-on installer -:https://smpdl.sap-ag.de/~swdc/012002523100020426492013D/BIPADDON04_0-10013163.ZIP?_ACTION=DL_DIRECT

Regards,

Bharath

Here is the documentation relevant to precalculation and Scheduling – http://help.sap.com/businessobject/product_guides/AMS14/en/14SP5_aaoffice_user_en.pdf   Section 10 – Scheduling

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      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Bharat,

      Can we find any standard help document on this.??

      Regards,
      Sri

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi,

      we have installed the Add-In but still no possibility to set query prompts in the scheduling properties.

      Is this feature still missing?

      thanks

      Author's profile photo Ingo Hilgefort
      Ingo Hilgefort

      Hello Andreas,

      prompts are not supported for scheduling at this point in time.

      regards

      Ingo Hilgefort, SAP

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      OK, thank you for the info!

      Author's profile photo Torsten Wirth
      Torsten Wirth

      Hello Ingo,

      Does that mean that variables with saved values are not supported or is only the prompt not supported - is it working if the values are saved with the workbook und the Initial prompt option is disabled?

      Exit variables are ok, if this Information is true:

      http://scn.sap.com/community/businessobjects-analysis-ms-office/blog

      "Filtering via authorization or exit variables"

      Is it ok if there are variables which are input ready but pre filled via exit?

      Regards,

      Torsten Wirth

      Author's profile photo Tammy Powlas
      Tammy Powlas

      Torsten - I don't want to respond for Ingo but he wrote a nice blog on his site that covers some of the limitations

      http://www.mastering-sap-and-businessobjects.com/scheduling-with-sap-businessobjects-analysis-edition-for-microsoft-offi…

      Author's profile photo Torsten Wirth
      Torsten Wirth

      Hello Tammy,

      Thank you for the reply. I have read that but "Prompts are not supported at this time" doesn't answer my querstion.

      Regards,

      Torsten

      Author's profile photo Ingo Hilgefort
      Ingo Hilgefort

      Hello Torsten,

      any refresh of prompting is not possible because when you setup the scheduling process there is no option for you to provide any input to prompts.

      saved values should work - have not tried it myself - but that also means that your scheduling process will use those values to generate the workbook.

      regards

      Ingo Hilgefort, SAP

      Author's profile photo Torsten Wirth
      Torsten Wirth

      Hello Ingo,

      Thanks for the reply. We will patch our BO development system today (4.1 - SP1 - P4). I will give it a try. But I think if it's possible to use exit variables + variables with standard values + maybe saved values for variables in AO that should be enough in most cases.

      For us this scheduling option is important because up to now AO is the only BO tool which

      we are using.

      Regards,

      Torsten

      Author's profile photo Tobias Maier
      Tobias Maier

      Hi Andreas,

      did you get it working without prompts ? We tried to schedule an analysis workbook on the BI 4.1 SP01 platform with the Add-In but it didn't work. Is there anything else to configure ?

      regards,

      Tobias

      Author's profile photo Tammy Powlas
      Tammy Powlas

      Tobias - based on my testing, your connection for Analysis Office needs to be using an OLAP SSO connection for this to work

      Author's profile photo Tobias Maier
      Tobias Maier

      Hi Tammy,

      yes, we are using a OLAP SSO connection.

      Any other ideas ?

      thanks,

      Tobias

      Author's profile photo Tammy Powlas
      Tammy Powlas

      If it is still not working thn please open a ticket with SAP Support

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi,

      no we weren't able to schedule a workbook till now.

      I also get an Java exception if i click on "Program Logon" in CMC properties of the workbook. (but nevertheless no idea what's this option for).

      Anyway it makes no sense for us without the prompt-feature.

      Author's profile photo Tobias Maier
      Tobias Maier

      Thanks Andreas, i opened a message with SAP Support.

      Author's profile photo Harald Anton Mueller
      Harald Anton Mueller

      Hi,

      is there any information available in regards of sizing the BI Platform in the AAOffice scheduling usecase? What components are involved on the BIP when scheduling AAOffice workbooks? Is it comparable to AA OLAP refreshing for the sizing? Thanks!

      Regards,

      Harald

      Author's profile photo Chris Deaner
      Chris Deaner

      Is this only supported on 4.1 or will it work on a 4.0 installation as well?

      Author's profile photo Ingo Hilgefort
      Ingo Hilgefort

      hi Chris,

      A Office 1.4 and BI Server 4.1

      Ingo

      Author's profile photo Chris Deaner
      Chris Deaner

      Appreciate it, thanks!

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      I scheduled one workbook and it's delivered to the destination, but the data inside is not getting refreshed. Which settings are necessary to get it refreshed?

      We using SSO, no variables, and refresh on open is activated.

      We are using anylsis 1.4 and BO 4.1 SP2

      thanks!

      Author's profile photo Torsten Wirth
      Torsten Wirth

      Hello Hans,

      We also have problems with scheduling and AO documents. Please take a look in the Instance Manager, select Analysis Office, deselect status and click search. You should see an error message at the end of the line.

      We have an open ticket with SAP concerning this topic. What I have learned so far: scheduling only works for xslx and xslm not for xls.

      Torsten

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hello Torsten,

      Interesting, I can't select "Analysis Office" in the Instance Manager, just Analysis Workbook. Does it mean that something is missing?

      Actually we installed all the Add-Ins in our BO platform. Are you sure you see it there?

      Thanks!

      Author's profile photo Torsten Wirth
      Torsten Wirth

      Sorry, that's what I have meant 🙂

      After scheduling a job you should see it there (in our system the standard selection is pending - selected and Crystal Reports - not selected). After chaning the setting to AO and every status you can see all AO Jobs with the status. Maybe there are some with the status failed.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      I did the scheduling via Publication, so I wouldnt find any instances searching for Analysis Workbooks. When I right click on my Excel there is no schedule-option, that's why I did it with Publications. Do you have a schedule option?

      Author's profile photo Torsten Wirth
      Torsten Wirth

      Yes, I do have a schedule-option with right click in Folder view of cmc. I'm not sure if this is only available for files which are stored since the update to 4.1 (I have to check that tomorrow). The files which you save on BO platform are resulting in a kind of a link in the lauchpad folder view with the extension *.SAPAOX which points to the file on BO platform (the symbol is also different now).

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Ok, what I fond out so far:

      until now I uploaded the Excel workbook with Analysis 1.4.3 and it ended up as an "Microsoft Excel" file type. I created a publication for it with the effect, that the excel-file gets delivered to the destination, but without data refresh (=useless).

      I upgraded now to Analysis 1.4.5 (and I am also using a newer Excel version), when I save the excel-file to the BI platform, it is saved as an "Analysis Workbook" file. This one I can't use in publication, but I can schedule it. When I do that and find the Intance in the CMC Instance Manager, it get stuck in the "pending" state forever - no error message. (@Torsten: Did you have the same issue, could you solve it?)

      Is there anyone who could schedule (and refresh) an analysis for excel file successfully? Thanks!

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      The issue could be solved by adding the "Analysis for Office Scheduling Service" to a Job Server after installing the Analysis for office Add In. In the configuration properties I also set the Precalculation Path (e.g.: "C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\Analysis Precalculation\BiPrecalculation.exe" - don't know if this step is necessary)

      Afterwards I could sucessfully schedule my Analysis workbook with saved prompt values.

      Author's profile photo Torsten Wirth
      Torsten Wirth

      Nice, that it works.

      We are getting a Java error "Index out of bounds"

      Author's profile photo Torsten Wirth
      Torsten Wirth

      Some new Information:

      • Scheduling is not working with .xls files (only xlsx / xlsm)
      • The error messages (if there are errors in scheduling) are only containing numbers. There is no text Information what's wrong (4.1 SP1 Patch 4 - first Version of scheduling add in). That should be changed in future accourding to a SAP developer
      • Currently only OLAP Connections with the type Server are supported - Group is not supported
      • You have to install .NET 3.5 on Server (4.x is not enough)
      Author's profile photo Denis Sproten
      Denis Sproten

      Hi all,

      Is the BIP addon only required to get the following features:

      1. Precalculation enablement via BIP.

      2. Scheduling (Broadcasting) via BIP

      Or is the BIP Addon also required to be able to connect to the BI platform going forward?

      Thanks for clarifying, couldn't find the information in the installation guide.

      Denis

      Author's profile photo Torsten Wirth
      Torsten Wirth

      It is only for scheduling. It is not precalculation in the meaning of BEx Broadcaster. But is is possible to calculate an Excel and send it e.g. via mail.

      Author's profile photo Oliver Sviszt
      Oliver Sviszt

      Using the API macros Analysis it is also possible to program your own precalculation server easily. It should not be a very big deal to implement a windows server application which will provide a web service that you can call to have any workbook precalculated with any variable selection. The workbook can be returned as xls(x) or pdf by the web service. Using some kind of dispatcher this could also be run on a multiple servers with load balancing. I did some tests, and it works pretty well. Of course you need some database where you maintain the values for the variables. (Or you save variants for the queries, that is also a possibility.)

      Author's profile photo Torsten Wirth
      Torsten Wirth

      There are some new options available now like parameters and history on BO platform (4.1 SP5 + AO 1.4 SP10). But there are still some features missing like "view last instance" and "limit instances". And the parameters are not very comfortable: You have to type in all names (DS and variable) manually and you don't get a proposal for the characteristics - so that's a nice feature for administrators but not for standard users,

      In the end it is much better than before but not perfect. 😉

      Edit: I have tested BW variable from type SAP Exit (e.g. for the Date). They are automatically updated.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Has anyone tested the new option for entering variable values ? I tried it several times without success. The scheduling of the workbook doesn't fail but the entry of the (optional) variables seems to be ignored  and the scheduled workbook just shows all values.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      We got exactly the same issue, did you have some success meanwhile?