[SAP HANA Academy] Application Development on SAP HANA Cloud Platform: Accessing a Development Schema Via ODBC

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The SAP HANA Academy’s jamie.wiseman details how to connect a reporting tool, such as SAP Crystal Reports, to a development schema in the SAP HANA Cloud Platform. The SAP HANA ODBC driver will be used to establish the connection to the cloud schema.

Prerequisites for Using the ODBC Driver (0:23 – 1:19)

As a prerequisite to connect to the development schema via ODBC a SAP HANA Cloud Platform SDK must be installed and tables must be added to the development schema. Please view and complete the lessons from the SAP HANA Academy below before proceeding.

[SAP HANA Academy] App Development on SAP HANA Cloud Platform: Setting up the Eclipse IDE

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The SAP HANA Client will also need to be installed to ensure you have ODBC connectivity to the SAP HANA Cloud Platform. SAP Client installation instructions are outlined for Windows in this video from the SAP HANA Academy.

Establishing an ODBC Connection (1:19 – 3:25)

In the Start menu go to All Programs, then open the SAP Business Intelligence folder, followed by the SAP Crystal Reports 2013 folder, and finally click on the 32-bit ODBC Data Source Administrator. Create a new System DSN by selecting the System DSN tab and click the Add… button. Choose HDBODBC32 and click the Finish button.

Before you create the new DSN you must tunnel into the SAP HANA Cloud Platform schema as you will need a Dev user name and password. So mark the Dev user, password and schema name from the tunnel session and copy it into the notepad. Note this Dev user and password combination is only valid for up to 24 hours or until the tunnel is closed.

Now enter any name you desire as the data source name and add a description if you wish. Enter localhost: followed by the port number that is found in the JDBC Url line in the tunnel window (ex: localhost:30015). Next click the connect button and enter the Dev user and password information from the clipboard. After clicking OK you should have a connection to the development schema via ODBC.

Connecting a SAP HANA Cloud Platform Development Schema to Crystal Reports (3:25 – 4:12)

Now use the ODBC connection to connection Crystal Reports Desktop Designer to the SAP HANA Cloud Platform schema. In Crystal Reports Desktop Designer choose to create a new report and select ODBC(RDO) as the available data source. Enter your schema name, Dev user name and password and click the Finish button. The verification will take a few minutes to complete. Once the connection is made open up your personal development schema (starts with NEO_) to access your schema tables in the Crystal Reports Designer.

Check out Jamie’s video on connecting Crystal Reports to a development schema in the SAP HANA Cloud Platform via ODBC.

View more tutorial videos about SAP HANA Cloud Platform at the SAP HANA Academy.

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