The first release of the integration of Lumira for BI4.1 has been released!
Here I cover the functionality available with the first release. The functionality is delivered with an add-on Installer for BI4.1. Minimum requirement is 4.1 SP3 and Lumira 1.17. This also means you need HANA to run Lumira 1.17.
BI 4.1 SP4 is recommend if you want full LCM support.
The most basic workflow:
First, you will see that with Lumira 1.17, there is a new option to publish to BI
When you have created your data set and visualization, you will be able to publish those to the BI repository, just like you do with a Crystal Report or Web Intelligence report.
Once you have published your story and dataset, you can see the story listed directly in BI launchpad, inheriting the same folder security as your other reports.
From here, you can view this report just like you do with any other report type. The "story" that you are viewing is just a visualization based on a data set. This also includes support for viewing InfoGraphics, right in BI Launchpad.
This is also supported in OpenDocument, as you would expect with the other document types!
Universe Support.
Both UNV and UNX data sources are supported by Lumira. This means you can leverage your existing universe infrastructure, AND underlying security.
Once you've acquired data from a universe, what you publish to BI is the dataset, based on that universe. That dataset then be scheduled, and refreshed by the user. Below you can see the schedule option on a dataset, which gives you the standard scheduling options that you would see for a CR or Webi report.
Of course static datasets, which are based off uploaded data will not have the schedule options.
Note that the "force refresh on open" is not yet available. However a user can refresh the data on demand if they have rights to do so.
When scheduling or refreshing, the same prompts with which the data was first acquired will be reused. At this time, changing prompts or popping those up for the user when the manually refresh is not yet supported.
Datasets:
Datasets are the building blocks of stories. A story can be build from one or more datasets. In BI, these datasets are stored in the CMC, in a new location:
These datasets can be secured, deleted, much like you can do with explorer infospaces.
More on Datasets:
In Lumira, you 'prepare' a dataset, including merging data from a source like universe with data from a local spreadsheet.
You can also preform other operations on the data before publishing it. When you schedule a dataset to run to fetch latest data, all the transforms that were applied will be replayed automatically. This means any column joins/splits, custom calculations or combining of the data with a local excel source will be reapplied.
ESRI map support
Support for ESRI ArcGIS is also available with this initial release, which gives you great interactive maps support. Support for on premise ESRI server is not yet available with this first relesae.
Mobile Support
The SAP BI Mobile application will now make the stories available through the Mobi application, where you can consume stories directly alongside your existing webi and other BI mobile content.
LCM Support
Full LCM support including the dependency calculations is included. This means that promoting a story, will allow you to include the dependent dataset, universe, connection object and all related security. Do note that to have full LCM UI for the Lumira integration, you must be on BI 4.1 SP4. On 4.1 SP3, you can still use the LCM command line interface.
New BI Proxy Server
A new category of servers shows up, called "Lumira Servies". This service is responsible for the proxying the requests down to Lumira Server, which performs all the heavy lifting of the analytic.
Auditing, Monitoring, BI Enterprise Readiness
Standard monitoring metrics will show up for this new service. Additionally, the standard 'who viewed what' that you expect to see in your audit log also becomes available.
Data Storage & setting Limits
When a dataset is published to BI4, the underlying data is actually stored in Lumira Server. This is all done transparently behind the scenes and does not require any administration in Lumira Server. In fact, it does not actually show up in your Lumira Server repository.
When a user refreshes a story based on a universe, they will get their own copy of the data stored temporarily. An administrator can set size and time restrictions for this temporary storage.
Limitations
Stories must be authored and edited in Lumira Desktop. Authoring directly from BI Launchpad, as you would do with the Webi Applet is not yet supported.
Accessing HANA Live is not yet supported. At this time, a static dataset from HANA must be published from desktop.
Summary
This is only the first integration release of Lumira which already packs in a lot of functionality and allows you to leverage your existing BI4 infrastructure. The Lumira BI4 integration will continue to add more enhancements and functionality with more releases over the coming months.
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