SAP BI Strategy and Roadmap Webcast Summary
This was SAP’s public BI Strategy and Roadmap webinar, titled “SAP BI Strategy and Roadmap: Latest Functionality and Future Direction”. It was a SAP Community webcast given last week given by Blair Wheadon.
The legal disclaimer applies:
Figure 1: Source: SAP
Things will change in the future
The purpose was to give everyone an overview, the state of current releases, and what the key investment drivers are going forward
Figure 2: Source: SAP
Innovate in the core, and lead to cloud, aware of transition to cloud
Expect hybrid approach for foreseeable future
Figure 3: Source: SAP
Enterprise – scalability, multiple users
Want agility
Smart pillar – not just look at preformatted reports, integrating with simple predictive capabilities
Big data – HANA Vora
Cloud – investing in “all in data” in the cloud
Figure 4: Source: SAP
Focus on interop for hybrid scenarios
Bridge products together; even if different technically
BOBJ Cloud can access data in on premise universe, BW, and HANA data
BPC models can be accessed from BusinessObjects Cloud
BusinessObjects Cloud – BI, planning, and predictive – all products in cloud
BusinessObjects Cloud
Figure 5: Source: SAP
On HCP
Public cloud hosting service
Future plan for API’s
Figure 6: Source: SAP
See an on premise core of solutions (BI, predictive), and SBOC is complementary; good for integrating with extranet use cases
Figure 7: Source: SAP
4 levels – BI only, BI+ predictive, BI+predictive plus planning; on top is Digital Boardroom for executive meeting support
Figure 8: Source: SAP
Create an analytics solution optimized for the cloud
Wanted to integrate solutions into a single solution
ESRI based maps, sharing securely
Guided machine learning helps uncover insights not apparent in data
What are key influencers, outliers
Digital Boardroom is available on large screen touch screens
On-Premise Convergence Strategy
Figure 9: Source: SAP
Following convergence principles for a few years now
Converging, respect 4 principles
Focus on converging use cases
“All existing content is safe”
All BI4.x clients supported
Figure 10: Source: SAP
5 main products innovating
SAP Lumira 2.0
Figure 11: Source: SAP
Converge Lumira & Design Studio
Two desktop clients (Lumira Discovery) and Lumira Designer and one combined server-side add-on
Not have to switch tools
Figure 12: Source: SAP
Result is 4 products
Plan is for late Q2 next year
Guided beta Q1
Ramp-up in Q2
Figure 13: Source: SAP
Fiori style look and feel
Improved input control and filtering
Adding fine grained control
Figure 14: Source: SAP
Single canvas
Figure 15: Source: SAP
Lumira 2.x Designer
Introduction of composites – ability for Dashboard Designers to create their complex components
Decompose complex applications into smaller parts
Figure 16: Source: SAP
Smart bookmarks, that make Lumira bookmarks more robust even if the application changes
Figure 17: Source: SAP
As Figure 17 shows, there is no change to license entitlements
Figure 18: Source: SAP
Lumira 1.x features not in 2.x – predictive features disappear temporarily, will be planned for 2.1
Figure 19: Source: SAP
ODBC driver to query CMS database is available
H12017 – new Fiori like BI Launchpad, it is optional, using the tile paradigm
Figure 20: Source: SAP
Get to BI4.2, look at maintenance timeframes
Commentary is on the platform
Improve installer to reduce downtime, faster to install
Figure 21: Source: SAP
Commentary is not a Web Intelligence-only feature; look to add to other products such as Lumira 2.1
Figure 22: Source: SAP
Planned for SP4, same as new Launchpad
Question & Answer
Q: Is SBOC mandatory for Digital Boardroom?
A: yes, Digital Board Room is a feature of SBOC
Q: can Roambi get data from BoC?
A: currently not
Q: We currently license Dashboards, but we like the Lumira story look and feel much better. Should we purchase Lumira now, or wait until 1H 2017 when potentially our Dashboards license will be converted to a Lumira license?
A: Lumira 2.0 covers XCelsius use case; no benefit to waiting
Q: I don’t think Design Studio (or Lumira 2.0 based on what’s being said) is yet able to completely replace Dashboards/Xcelsius
A: Lumira 2.x is creating a foundation – use cases may require 2.1 release to get done
Velocity engine to accelerate universe data engine access for traditional dashboard use cases
Q: from where can i get the updated audit universe released for BI 4.2 SP3?
A: see wiki here: https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/BOBJ/Unlock+the+CMS+database+with+new+data+access+driver+for+BI+4.2+SP3
Q: Will the Fiori UI be customizable?
A: initial release, SP4, no, but plan to add in a future release
Q: Lumira desktop version for IOS when will supported?
A: Strategy/goal is to move to server; then you can access that from any device/operating system
From SAP:
Plenty of Lumira webinars planned! check the wiki page for events: https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/ATopics/SAP+BusinessObjects+Lumira+-+Events+Calendar;will also be added to new events page soon: http://webinars.sap.com/sap-analytics/en/home
Great Info, Tammy : )
Let me emphasize one important outlook at the end of the slides you posted, targeted for H1 2017:
The planned FIORIzation of the BI launchpad and the re-vamp of Web Intelligence to make it not only touch friendly, but to beautify its GUI and thereby really increasing the UX
See here why Web Inteligence will steal the Show…! https://blogs.sap.com/2016/11/04/why-web-intelligence-4.2-sp04-will-steal-the-show/
Tammy, this is a nice summary - thank you.
Question on Dashboards/Xcelsius: I understand that it's being rolled into Design Studio, which is then being rolled into Lumira 2.0. In which BI product version will Dashboards no longer be present? And will any automated conversion of Dashboards/Xcelsius content to Lumira be provided?
Joe - I don't have those details - as far as I know, Dashboards/XCelsius will be shipped with the BI4x software.
The software on the right in those figures (e.g. Lumira) is where SAP is investing...I hope that makes sense.
Thank you, Tammy. We have been using Xcelsius for a while and need to determine if it's worthwhile continuing to use it, or switch to Design Studio or Lumira.
Can anyone provide any insight as to when MS SQL Server 2016 will be supported as a datasource on the BI Platform? I heard SP04 was a possibility.
Yes, I got the confirmation from SAP Support. from BI 4.2 SP4 will support MS SQL 2016.
Dan - I don't know - you may want to post this as a question instead of a comment on this blog - I do not work for SAP
Anyone have Idea on BI4.3 release date ?
We are on BI4.1 SP05 what is the good idea to upgrade to which vesrion of BI4.2 or BI4.3
Hi - if you are on 4.1 I recommend updating to 4.2
There's no announcement on 4.3 - my guess is sometime in 2018 ( I don't work for SAP)
See the roadmap: https://support.sap.com/content/dam/website/roadmaps/en_us/analytics/SAP%20BusinessObjects%20BI%20Suite%20Mobile%20Solutions%20Road%20Map.pdf - S-user is required