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:
Thanks Ryan. Great post !
Thank you guys for taking time to understand customers's needs, gripes, and use cases and pushing Webi forward. cheers!
HI Ryan ,
very interesting . Looking forward to it .
Who is author ?Can we have his email ?
Thank you
Sateesh
I wrote this particular article ryan@cmapsanalytics.com, but not sure who recorded the video. I found it on YouTube.
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
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 🙂
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.
nice one Ryan
Thanks. This Webi re-design + BI launchpad is a pretty big deal and worth getting excited about.
it's quite similar to SAP Businessobjects Cloud potentiality based on html5 technology..
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.
Correct Ryan. In SP04, customers will have the choice.
That's excellent 🙂
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
It's great to see new life being breathed into Web Intelligence. Exciting times ahead!
Couldn't agree more 😉
PLEASE do not forget not everyone is using tablets or touch devices and that power users don't want over-simplified fluff.
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.
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.
Get where you are coming from, but not sure you have to alienate anyone. I beleive both user experiences run side by side.
With WebI being Fiori-based, does that mean that it will natively support mobile devices? We won't need to use MOBI?
I hope so! That will be extremely useful if that is the case.
When BI4.2 SP04 will be released? Could you please share release date so that we can plan accordingly to upgrade system?