This was a recent webcast.  Thanks to Eric FENOLLOSA for presenting, and thanks to Ingo Hilgefort for arranging.

Source: SAP

I will try to not repeat what has already been shown before, but offer highlights and items I learned.

Customer are using both solutions.

Source: SAP

This shows the main investment areas

Focus on this session is the bottom

SAP is investing in the products listed below

Web Intelligence for reporting; Crystal remains best option for pixel perfect reporting

Lumira: started transition of use cases to SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC)

Analysis for Office – core investment, for OLAP and planning use cases

Source: SAP

The legal disclaimer applies – things in the future are subject to change:

Source: SAP

What has changed – SAP is nearing end of beta program for BI4.3

200 customers + partners testing

Planning to release GA – end of Q2 in June

SP planned for end of year

Source: SAP

Hybrid use case; I did not know that the live access for universes was package independent from BI4.3

It is “coming along” with BI4.3

Source: SAP

New UI for the scheduler

Source: SAP

Gives you ability to define business hours, and schedule only during business hours

Source: SAP

Can schedule to multiple destinations

Source: SAP

Scheduling cockpit; at a glance see a status of items scheduled

Source: SAP

Can add a tile for SAC; configure it with your tenant’s URL

Source: SAP

Customization options for the BI Launchpad to make things more user friendly

Source: SAP

Notifications appear on the BI Launchpad

Source: SAP

Updates to WebI on BI4.3 SAP BusinessObjects Mobile

Source: SAP

Crystal Reports; an important product

64bit

Leverage new BI platform capabilities

Source: SAP

Summary of enterprise readiness features

Continuously improve install, including silent install

Security – SAML 3.0, and latest standards

Source: SAP

Not discussed during the webcast, but I do like the feature of checking for required disk space before the install

Source: SAP

Credential mapping – you can create data source references with credentials

Source: SAP

Create a new object called data source reference; will be a logical link to a database

For the users, for each reference, specify user and password to access logical database

Source: SAP

New mode, credential mapping, create a mapping with the users

Source: SAP

Not discussed, but interesting that BI4.3 covers Git support

Source: SAP

New – workflow assistant, to help you script and automate a series of actions

Leverage default templates/tasks, such as a login, change source, create a workflow of different actions to be executed

Create your own templates

Source: SAP

New types of connectivity – connect BW based on HTTP

Source: SAP

SAP HANA hierarchy support, http based connection

Source: SAP

Smart refresh for http

Source: SAP

New native data sources to Google BigQuery, Snowflake, big data providers, etc.

Source: SAP

Products shipped with BI4.3 and some that are not shipped due to end of life of Flash

Question & Answer (a subset)

Q: Is there an update for BI4.3 Mobile client for iOS and Android?

A: yes

Q: SAC does not offer all features of BusinessObjects Explorer; what do we tell our end users?

A: SAC team is working on closing major gaps by end of year

Q: Are there updates for Lumira Designer in 4.3?

A: Lumira is an added and will have a compatible update after 4.3; likely will be called 2.4

Q: Browser support for BI4.3?

A: Look at Product Availability Matrix

In general support all the popular browser

Q: Will SQL Server 2019 be supported as a data source in IDT?

A: If not in the GA release, will be in an SP after

Q: In a hybrid environment with live universe connection will the WebI report and its associated data be stored in the cloud or the BI Platform?

A: Neither; every time you refresh a story in SAC there will be a query/cache; WebI report is created on the fly

no data is moving from network to SAC

Q: Is Open Document still provided in 4.3?

A: Yes

Q: Can we use the tiles on the BI Launchpad as smart tiles to display KPI values like standalone Fiori?

A: No, SAP knows this is a popular request

Q: Universe support

A: Both UNX and UNV will continue to be supported; both UDT and IDT will be available