Using BI Platform Universes in SAP BusinessObjects Cloud

[Former Member]

This blog looks at how you can use BI Platform Universes in Cloud for Analytics. The ability to leverage existing Universes means the reuse of the existing semantics, data models and connections that exist within the BI Platform – something which is key to allow business users to acquire data from a variety of sources, including such existing connections. Added to this is the ability to be able to perform planning on the model/data acquired from the Universe - which is particularly unique (it terms of being bale to do it so easily).

 

You can use SAP BusinessObjects BI platform system 4.1 SP5 or above to connect into C4A.

The starting point is the the need to get HANA Cloud Connector and the Cloud for Analytics Agent setup correctly (as per the help guides here). This are effectively the agents that allow the BI Platform to reach out to the C4A tenant which run on HANA Cloud Platform.

 

I installed both components on the BI Platform itself with the Cloud for Analytics Agent web application running on the same Tomcat instance as the BI Platform services. Thanks for SAP Support’s help in getting the HANA Cloud Connector issues resolved which I has, this resulted in the creation of note http://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/2305230

 

 

Once the setup of HANA Cloud Connector and the C4A Agent is done the details of the C4A Agent can be entered into the Administration area of C4A.



 

In the Connection area of C4A I was then able to create a connection for Universe, enter my system details and the connection was created.





 

 

Navigating to the Modeller area I then choose to create a new model by importing it from a Universe. After selecting my new connection, I then needed to create a query.



 

The list of Universes (UNX format) were displayed. I did notice that a UNX I created on top of a BW BEx query (new feature in BI4.2) wasn’t available. I was hoping this would be a way around connecting BW Bex queries into C4A if a BW system is less than 7.4 SP13.



 

 

The next step allows the selection of Universe fields and filters (like in Lumira, Webi and Design Studio). I selected some dimensions and measures.



 

The model can then be adjusted. This will also import the data at that moment in time.



 

I was then able to create a story on the model.



 

To update the data in the model you need to select the model in the Modeller area and the select the Import Data From Universe option, this will then take you back through the data mapping process as described here.



 

Currently it’s not possible to schedule the import of data from a Universe, this would obviously be a big benefit in the future.