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Author's profile photo Abhishek Jain

  4 Ways to connect Webi on top of HANA Views

From SAP BO 4.2 onwards we have option to connect webi with HANA view in 4 ways efficiently. I am writing up them below with high level steps of navigation to achieve them.

 

Option 1:Using Universe on top of HANA view and build webi with that universe

 

This method is available from older version. I should say this was the only option that was available in earlier version of SAP Business Objects to connect to SAP HANA views. To achieve this a universe need to be created on SAP HANA view.  Go to IDT and create universe and then build a webi report on this universe.

 

For more details on the steps follow below link

https://blogs.sap.com/2016/07/09/sap-bo-webi-report-development-on-hana-views/

 

Option 2:Webi connecting with HANA view directly

 

This was the most expected release in new version. Here from webi development environment we are getting option to connect to the HANA views.

 

Below are the steps those need to be performed.

 

Step 1: Open webi rich client and connect with the Business Objects server to get the list of HANA connections from managed list of connections from Business Objects server.

 

Step 2. Above step will list down all the views based on the packages they are assigned in the HANA system. Select the package from where you have your view.

 

Step 3. Once it is done it will populate the webi query panel

 

 

 

Option 3: Using SAP HANA Online connectivity

 

This option is also introduced in SAP BO 4.2 version. In this option when we will be going to connect to the HANA view from Webi there is no Webi query layer to build webi query.

 

Step 1: Select the HANA Online connection after connecting your webi client to SAP Business Objects server. When webi rich client goes with the HANA online connectivity it will list relational connects only. Once we will select that connection it will list down all the packages and holding views.

 

Step 2: After selecting one of the view it will take us to the reporting layer directly without allowing us to build webi query. There is no concept of webi query in this scenario

 

 

Option 4: Connecting HANA views using Free-hand SQL

 

Free-hand SQL is another option that got introduced in SAP BO 4.2 When Webi connects using Free hand SQL option it will list down all the HANA relational connection list from the Business Objects server. Once this connection is selected it will give a query script editor to write the query

 

Step 1: Selecting Free-hand SQL option

 

Step 2: Selecting relational HANA connection from available list of connection from SAP BO server

 

Step 3: Writing select query to form Webi Query

 

Step 4:  Running Webi Query

 

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      16 Comments
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      Author's profile photo KD Jain
      KD Jain

      Thanks Abhishek, I am waiting my client for BO 4.2 upgrade to explore this options.

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

      Of particular interest are the pros & cons of the various connection methods::

      1. Direct Access to HANA = OLAP Style, brings in hierarchies.
        Drawbacks: All dimension have default hierarchies assigned to them (confusing), this is the same behaviour as when connecting Webi directly to an SAP Bex query by the way.
        Another drawback is the flat list of Dimensions and measures (no grouping using folders that is), and no predefined query filters (for which one would need a universe as well).
        Overall performance is affected by (necessary) metadata queries as well as multiple queries to get key figures at different levels of  any involved hierarchies in the result set.
        Queries are generated by WEBI in MDX code.
         
      2. Online HANA is relational (SQL) access:
        Webi’s Microcube is cirumvented for good and bad; that means way more round trips to HANA DB to get data when slicing & dicing, which I do not deem to be so advantageous in the end.
        Queries are generated by Webi in SQL code.

      What seems to be missing is http access to HANA from Webi, keyword: INA, which is supported by SAP DesignStudio when accessing SAP HANA, and which looks to be the preferred way to connect to HANA as far as I am aware.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Abhishek

       

      Thanks for this  document. We are using option 2 to create reports through Webi. However we are having issues with data (getting different output) when we see the data using Web intelligence than using Analysis for Office or HANA studio (Analysis for Office and HANA studio is showing correct data but webi showing it wrong).

      We are trying to explore "Option 3: Using SAP HANA Online connectivity". How do we create this connection in CMC. When i use "SAP HANA Online" option" in Webi , i dont see a connection atall.

      Appreciate you guidance on this.

      Sanjit

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      I did a bit of research. I think i can answer my own question :). You can create the connection using IDT.

      Author's profile photo Marcelo Berger
      Marcelo Berger

      Hi Sanjit,

      I'm trying to create an OLAP connection in the CMC to try to use the SAP HANA Online connection in WEBI.

      Could you provide some guidance on how you did that? It seems that my regular OLAP HANA connections simply return "No Values to Display, No Data has been retrieved".

      Do we necessarily have to use IDT or can this be done purely through CMC?

      Appreciate the feedback!

      Marcelo

       

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Marcelo

      I found three things you need to do.

      1. Create a SAP HANA HTTP connection (not SAP HANA connection incase you are using the latest OLAP tool)

      2. Create the connection in IDT

      3. Add the user in the following role in HANA “sap.bc.ina.service.v2.userRole::INA_USER

      Hope this helps. Incase you are still struggling let me know. I struggled for a few day so can understand the pain :).

      Cheers

      Sanjit

      Author's profile photo Marcelo Berger
      Marcelo Berger

      Thanks Sanjit. I actually managed to create the connection. I had to use IDT though.

      1. I first created the repository to my BOBJ environment;
      2. I then created a RELATIONAL connection to my HANA environment;
      3. I published that connection to my BOBJ repository, and then that appeared under the list of connections;
      4. I was then able to connect WEBI to HANA using the SAP HANA Online option.

      I was surprised that I couldn't create a relational connection in the CMC, but this worked well too.

      Thank you again!

      Marcelo

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Did you find a solution on why results are different in webi when using option 2 to connect HANA views.  We are seeing the same issue when using option 2 connection, let me know if you figured out a solution for this.  When using option 3 data looks correct in Webi but can't use any aggregate functions like sum in webi report, so option 3 becomes less suitable for our purpose.

      Author's profile photo Abhishek Jain
      Abhishek Jain
      Blog Post Author

      Option 3 will give you best performance and will leverage the aggregation engine of HANA.

      With Option 1 and Option 2, how are you aggregating is very important. It is surprising that the data is not matching or not coming correct. I am not sure the exact reason for this but check Filters, Prompts, and Context where aggregation is happening.

      Post all the details as a seperate question for this and please share that link here also.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Issues still continues. Raised a note with SAP. In the mean time we have used ONLINE connection. But that has its own drawbacks like you cannot capture a user input using Useresponse function. Will keep you updated if i get a reply from SAP.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      SAP has replied back asking us to upgrade to BI 4.2 SP3 Patch 5.

      https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#notes/2365187

      Will get back to you after we upgrade and see the output.

       

      Author's profile photo Abhishek Jain
      Abhishek Jain
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks Sanjit for sharing.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      We upgraded to BO 4.2 SP03 Patch 06 and the issues seems to be resolved.

      Author's profile photo Abol Sabel
      Abol Sabel

      Hello,

      I am able to connect Webi straight to a HANA view, the problem I have is if we add further dimensions to the HANA view they are not appearing in Webi, how do I get the dimensions to appear in Webi?

      Current of version of Webi is 4.2 Support Pack 3 Patch 7

      Author's profile photo Abhishek Jain
      Abhishek Jain
      Blog Post Author

      I also faced this issue. You need to create report again and then you will be able to see updated metadata.

       

      Regards,

      AJ

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Abhishek,

      We are connecting HANA  Calculated View from WEBI, like what you did in your Option 2, we are getting the error.

      And also trying to open the same view using Analysis for Office, there also we are getting the error.

      Could you please help me how to fix it?

      BOBJ 4.2 SP3 Patch 7

      HANA DB : 1.00.122.07

       

      Regards

      Surendra