Technical Articles
Analysis for Office Connections to BW system without installing SAP Logon / SAP GUI
It is possible now to configure Analysis for Office connections to the backend BW system without the need for the installation of the SAP GUI / SAP Logon. With the release of AFO 2.8 SP4 it is possible to read the SAPUILandscape.xml file locally or on a remote server without the installation of the SAP GUI.
Since SAP GUI 7.4 the old .ini files which held connection details to SAP systems used by the SAP GUI and the AFO were replaced with a new file called the SAPUILandscape.xml.
By default, once you upgrade your SAP GUI, your client machine will automatically use this file and this is set by a registry key called LandscapeFormatEnabled.
However, if you do not have SAP GUI installed, then your Analysis for Office will always look for the old .ini file. As this is outdated, we must set 2 things on the Client machine for the new SAPUILandscape.xml file to be read by Analysis for Office.
The 2 considerations needed on the client machine:
- The Registry Key LandscapeFormatEnabled must be set
- The environment variable SAPLOGON_LSXML_FILE pointing to our XML file
- We must open the Registry Editor and create the registry key as a DWORD Entry in the exact location : Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\SAP\SAPLogon
The Entry must be named LandscapeFormatEnabled and it must be set to 1.
2. We must set the in the System Environment Variables, the variable SAPLOGON_LSXML_FILE and this points to location of the SAPUILandscape.xml file. This can be locally on the client machine or a remote server location:
Once this is set and the client machine restarted, the Analysis for Office will read the XML file we set in the environment variable.
This can be used for Single Sign On scenarios but there must be a SNC product installed on the Client Machine also such as Secure Login Client.
Thank you.
Hello Garry
This is great news!
It helps with the rollout of new AO versions and lower the dependency between AFO and SAP BC and SAP Logon.
Very helpful.
Still, I have an observation that could help us, the clients and especially the people in charge of the administration of the product:
=> instead of changing the registry SAPLOGON_LSXML_FILE (requires some scripting) to have a variable inside Ao_app.config file like 'SaplogonLsXMLFile' where we can define the URL for our XML file...
It speed up the setup of new AO versions and improve the internal support we could offer to our users.
Regards
Alex
I 100% agree, i think we still need to reduce the configuration footprint when telling the AFO which type of file to read. The fact we need to set a registry key and a environment variable is quite long and outdated.
The product owners agree with this and in the future i could see this being rolled oout even easier.
Kind regards,
Garry
Hi Garry
By doing these steps will I be able to open .sapaox files directly.
Thanks in advance
Jananipriya
Hi Garry,
Is it possible to comment/provide guidance on your comment in the blog, "This can be used for Single Sign On scenarios but there must be a SNC product installed on the Client Machine also such as Secure Login Client."?
Is there a blog you'd recommend on approaches to Secure Login Client?