SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Suite 4.1 SP04 (SP4) Released

[Patrick_Perrier]

• 
  Announcement
  


• 
  What's New?
  


• 
  Supported Platform (Product Availability Matrix)
  


• 
  Documentation
  


• 
  Forward Fit Plan
  


• 
  Maintenance Schedule
  


• 
  Installing Updates
  
  • 
    Updates Installed
    
  
  
  • 
    Environment
    
  
  
  • 
    Duration
    
  
  


• 
  Past Articles
  


• 
  Conclusion
  

Update 20/08/2014: Maintenance Schedule has finally been updated with the announcement of SAP BI 4.1 SP05.  See below.

Update 04/07/2014: Forward Fit Plan has been updated.  See below.

Update 23/06/2014: PAM has been updated.  See below.

Update 22/06/2014: Added Section: Maintenance Schedule.  See below.

Update 17/06/2014: What's New document has been updated.  Comments below.

Announcement

SAP has released on Friday June 13th 2014, as planned in the Maintenance Schedule, Support Package 04 for the following products:

• SBOP BI Platform 4.1 SP04 Server
• SBOP BI Platform 4.1 SP04 Client Tools
• SBOP BI Platform 4.1 SP04 Live Office
• SBOP BI Platform 4.1 SP04 Crystal Reports for Enterprise
• SBOP BI Platform 4.1 SP04 Integration for SharePoint
• SBOP BI Platform 4.1 SP04 NET SDK Runtime
• SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards 4.1 SP04
  
• SAP BusinessObjects Explorer 4.1 SP04
• SAP Crystal Server 2013 SP04
  
• SAP Crystal Reports 2013 SP04

You can download these updates from the SAP Marketplace as a Full Install Package or Support Package (Update).

E.g.: Full Install

E.g.: Support Package (Update)

What's New?

The updated What's New document has been released few days late on 1706/2014.  There are 9 new features and unless I'm missing the point, none of them are very impressive.  However, there are tons of fixes (293 to be exact).

Tip: If the link above still shows an old version, refresh the page in your browser or press F5.

Supported Platform (Product Availability Matrix)

The updated SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 Supported Platforms (PAM) document has been released a week late on 23/06/2014.

Alternative URL: http://service.sap.com/pam

As far as I can tell, the following extra support has been added since SAP BI 4.1 SP03:

• CMS + Audit Repository Support by Operating System
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2014
  • Oracle 12c
  • SAP HANA SPS08
  • Sybase ASE 16

• Adobe Flash Player 12

• SAP HANA Support per SAP BI Products

• Java Runtime (JRE) 1.8 (For browser use with Web Intelligence - Not Server side aka JDK which is still 1.7)

Documentation

The usual documents have been made available:

• SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.1 SP04 Install Guide, note 2013261
  • Windows: http://service.sap.com/~sapidb/011000358700000372202014E/sbo41sp4_bip_inst_win_en.pdf
  • Unix: http://service.sap.com/~sapidb/011000358700000372192014E/sbo41sp4_bip_inst_unix_en.pdf

• Support Package Update Guide:
  • http://service.sap.com/~sapidb/011000358700000372212014E/sbo41sp4_sp_update_en.pdf

• SAP BusinessObjects BI Suite 4.1 SP04 Release Restrictions, note 2013263
  • http://service.sap.com/~sapidb/011000358700000372322014E/sbo41sp4_rel_restric_en.pdf

• SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.1 SP04 Fixed Issues, note 2013262
  • http://service.sap.com/~sapidb/011000358700000372312014E/sbo41sp4_fixed_issues_en.pdf

• SAP BusinessObjects BI Suite 4.1  What’s New, note 1838620
  • http://help.sap.com/businessobject/product_guides/sbo41/en/sbo41_whats_new_en.pdf

• More Documents:
  • SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform 4.1 – SAP Help Portal Page

• Other Resources:
  • BI Platform

Forward Fit Plan

The SBOP Forward Fit Plan has finally been updated.  Few weeks late...  SAP BI 4.1 SP04 includes the following updates and fixes:

• BI 4.1 Patch 3.1
• BI 4.1 Patch 2.2 - 2.4
• BI 4.1 Patch 1.6 - 1.8

• BI 4.0 Patch 6.11 - 6.12
• BI 4.0 Patch 7.7 - 7.9

• XI 3.1 FP 6.4

Source: SBOP Forward Fit Plan

Maintenance Schedule

SAP BI 4.1 SP04 Patch 4.1 (Week 31 - August 2014)

SAP BI 4.1 SP04 Patch 4.2 (Week 35 - August/September 2014)

SAP BI 4.1 SP04 Patch 4.3 (Week 40 - October 2014)

SAP BI 4.1 SP04 Patch 4.4 (Week 44 - November 2014)

SAP BI 4.1 SP04 Patch 4.5 (Week 48 - November / December 2014)

SAP BI 4.1 SP05 is now announced for Week 47, 2014.  Release date should be around Friday November 21st.  Looking forward to it!

Source: Maintenance Schedule

Installing Updates

I have installed the following updates on my training server.

Updates Installed

• SBOP BI Platform 4.1 SP04 Server
• SBOP BI Platform 4.1 SP04 Client Tools
• SAP BusinessObjects Explorer 4.1 SP04

Environment

• Windows Server 2012
• 4x Virtual Processors (Hyper-V)
• 20 GB RAM

Duration

Bearing in mind my training server originally started with a clean installation of SP02 then patched to SP03 with 3x languages (English, French, Finnish), this is how long it tool to install everything.

1. As always, the Preparing to install screen takes longer and longer...

2. This chart shows the time it took waiting for the Preparing screen to disappear then the installation time.  That's right, about 2.5 hours (151 minutes) just to patch SAP BI Platform 4.1 SP04 Server.

3. As always, when you click Finish, do NOT reboot straight away.  Wait for setupengine.exe to go away in your Task Manager.  This can take a minute or so.

4. How it looks for me now.

Past Articles

For information, I wrote the following articles about previous SAP BI Support Packages:

• SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Suite 4.1 SP03 (SP3) Released
• SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Suite 4.1 SP02 (SP2) Released

Conclusion

It's still early days and there are couple of documents that need to be updated but so far so good.  No errors in the Event Viewer, every services are starting as they should and some preliminarily tests are successful.

As always, please share your how it went for you in the comments below.  I'm sure this does help many people.

Please like and rate this article if you find it useful!

Thanks and good luck!

Patrick