Schedule Lumira documents with Microsoft Excel and Text files as data source in BI Platform

[shankarsgs]

Lumira as an enterprise tool is built for instant visualization of data in four easy steps. Being self-service, it can work well with ad-hoc data sources like Microsoft excel and Text files such as CSV, TSV and flat files. You can publish those storyboards in BI Platform that can refresh from the actual file when the files change with new data by following the steps below.

Adding the Data source

The data source that we will be using is a CSV with some data about the players. The step is same for other sources like Excel, TSV and flat files. We will be placing the data source in a shared folder and access it from within the client tool instead of the traditional approach of absolute local path.

Creating share folder

Create a folder in any shared server (or local server on same network), the folder should be in the same network as the BI Platform or should be accessible from the BI Platform server. Select the share properties and add the user of the service in which the BI Platform is running on.

Give the service user Read permission to the share folder. Make sure he has right permissions in the security as well so that the folder is fully readable.

Please the data source file inside the folder. The file is now ready to be consumed by SAP Lumira.

Finding the service user

The above step is usually done by the Administrator. You can find the service user on which the BI Platform is running from the CCM.

The service user is present in the Log On As section of the properties. The Lumira service in the BI Platform tries to access the file as this user.

Accessing the Data source

Select the Data source from the Add new Data source. We are using CSV and selecting Text file as the data source.

In the Add file section, enter the UNC path instead of the absolute path. The shared folder should be accessible by the desktop user of SAP Lumira client.

Create the document for Lumira to fetch the file through the UNC path. The document is ready to be published after the story board is developed.

Publishing to BI Platform

Publish the Storyboard to the BI Platform. You can do operations in BI Launchpad with the same way you do with other reports like WebI or Design Studio.  Follow Working with Lumira Document in BI Launchpad to know more.

Now when you open the Lumira document and refresh the data source, it would fetch through the network path using the service user and refresh the latest data.

Note:

• You cannot use a local mounted network drive as the file is accessed from BI Platform server. It should always be full UNC path or domain shares.
• If you are getting error during refresh, make sure the UNC path is correct and the service user has access to that share from the BI Platform. Login to BI platform server as the service user and try to access the UNC path manually.