Skip to Content
Author's profile photo Former Member

Why Web Intelligence 4.2 SP04 will Steal the Show

The Webi team is on fire, breathing new life into Web Intelligence with BI4.2. At a recent event, the Web Intelligence team showed up with their next generation user experience which should expad the use of Webi Intelligence to cover scenarios once reserved for Lumira, Design Studio, and SAP Dashboards.

Why is this important? For many organizations, Web Intelligence has been relegated to financial reports and ad-hoc Excel generators as new exciting tools have come online for interactive analysis and exploration. After seeing a live demo of SAP Web Intelligence BI4.2 SP04, I believe this user experience overhaul will have a massive impact on user perception and adoption for Webi.

Additionally the new LaunchPad design (which is long overdue), should have a positive impact on adoption and usage.


SAP’s new UX is beautiful, simple, and packs enhanced interactivity and analysis features. A new simplified toolbar, cascading filtering, sorting, and new visualizations will lead users more robust dashboard-like experiences right inside of Webi’s new responsive, mobile friendly experience.

Leaving old Java plugins and legacy browsers behind, SAP is finally taking advantage of modern web standards, and we believe it will pay off big time.

From Bland Reports to Exciting Data Analysis Platform

Webi in itself is now a fully extendable platform with well thought out SDKs. Between Webi ExtensionPoints, and custom elements, customers, partners and developers can easily embed or integrate software solutions within Webi. Additional data SDKs round out what I am calling “Webi Re-imagined”.

My favorite quote from the conference was a customer saying “I can’t believe that is Webi!”

Looking forward to see how customers benefit from this upcoming release and certainly see how our current investments will pay off when we release our own upgraded experience with CMaps Analytics to match the new Webi design.

Here is a great video from the event:

Assigned Tags

      23 Comments
      You must be Logged on to comment or reply to a post.
      Author's profile photo Gregory BOTTICCHIO
      Gregory BOTTICCHIO

      Thanks Ryan. Great post !

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Blog Post Author

      Thank you guys for taking time to understand customers's needs, gripes, and use cases and pushing Webi forward. cheers!

      Author's profile photo Sateesh Kumar Bukkisham
      Sateesh Kumar Bukkisham

      HI Ryan ,

      very interesting . Looking forward to it .

      Who is author ?Can we have his email ?

      Thank you
      Sateesh

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Blog Post Author

      I wrote this particular article ryan@cmapsanalytics.com, but not sure who recorded the video. I found it on YouTube.

      Author's profile photo Christian Key
      Christian Key

      Thanks for the update Ryan. This is very exciting and exactly what my customers are asking for in terms of simplicity and availability on any device.

      I cannot wait for BI 4.2 SP4 to arrive!

      Cheers,
      Christian

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Blog Post Author

      My thoughts exactly! Kudos to the Webi leadership team because they hit the pavement working with customers and partners. I just wish this happened 3 years ago 🙂

      Author's profile photo Andreas J A Schneider
      Andreas J A Schneider

      I'm lovin' it : ))


      Please, though let's revisit the demonstrated feature how to access report tabs in Webi; it seemed to require more clicks to get to another report tab than in the current version.

      Author's profile photo Iver van de Zand
      Iver van de Zand

      nice one Ryan

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks. This Webi re-design + BI launchpad is a pretty big deal and worth getting excited about.

      Author's profile photo Michele Ciarniello
      Michele Ciarniello

      it's quite similar to SAP Businessobjects Cloud potentiality based on html5 technology..

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Blog Post Author

      Similar.. Uses SAPUI5. Still the same Webi, just a new modern user experience. Someone can correct me if I am wrong but I believe customers can run the old skin and new modern skin side by side.

      Author's profile photo Gregory BOTTICCHIO
      Gregory BOTTICCHIO

      Correct Ryan. In SP04, customers will have the choice.

      Author's profile photo Christian Key
      Christian Key

      That's excellent 🙂

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi

      Original video: https://youtu.be/Rc4yrQf2OH4

      An other interesting feedback about BI 4.2 SP4: https://bobj.sapbiblog.com/2016/10/21/will-sap-businessobjects-4-2-sp4-change-the-rules-of-the-game/

      Guillaume

      Author's profile photo Andy Steer
      Andy Steer

      It's great to see new life being breathed into Web Intelligence. Exciting times ahead!

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Blog Post Author

      Couldn't agree more 😉

      Author's profile photo Deborah Tolley
      Deborah Tolley

      PLEASE do not forget not everyone is using tablets or touch devices and that power users don't want over-simplified fluff.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Deborah,

      This is all about putting the power of Webi in the hands of more users. The Webi interface was designed by developers and by today's design standards is crude. Ultimately the real power analyst users are using Webi as a front end for generating Excel files anyways.

      Author's profile photo Deborah Tolley
      Deborah Tolley

      Ah yes, today's marketing hype in the BI world... putting BI in the hands of users... tomorrow it will be something else.... it ALWAYS is.  Meanwhile, you are alienating the core users who have grown to rely on your product.  If you don't provide a UI that meets their needs without making them feel like they are 5 year olds who have to point and click and oh and ah at pretty icons all while suffering through reduced functionality and lost efficiency, they WILL go elsewhere.  But, it sounds like SAP has made it choice and doesn't value those core customers and instead want to focus on chasing the tail of marketing trends.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Blog Post Author

      Get where you are coming from, but not sure you have to alienate anyone. I beleive both user experiences run side by side.

      Author's profile photo Joe Peters
      Joe Peters

      With WebI being Fiori-based, does that mean that it will natively support mobile devices?  We won't need to use MOBI?

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member
      Blog Post Author

      I hope so! That will be extremely useful if that is the case.

      Author's profile photo Siddhartha Chaudhary
      Siddhartha Chaudhary

      When BI4.2 SP04  will be released? Could you please share release date so that we can plan accordingly to upgrade system?