SAP BusinessObjects Integration with SAP Fiori Launchpad on SAP Enterprise Portal (NetWeaver 7.50 SP7) using BI Platform OData Service

[Former Member]

This blog is about the EP administrator and end-user experience integrating and consuming SAP BusinessObjects content via SAP Fiori Launchpad on SAP Enterprise Portal (FLP on EP).

Motivation

1. Today, enabling end-user access to BOE reports from EP is a time-consuming and tedious process: it requires manual iView/tile creation and maintenance per report, and optionally, category creation for grouping tiles


2.  FLP App Finder structure is flat and not convenient for the customers used to multiple hierarchy levels in BI.

The integration purpose is to provide the ability to:

1. End-user access to the BOE reports with minimum EP administrator effort


2. View, navigate, and run the reports in the folders hierarchy, as well as, add them to the favorites (on desktop only).

The target users

The casual users that want easy access to their BI reports side-by-side with the applications on the FLP.

Prerequisites:

1. NetWeaver 7.50 SP07 (with SAPUI5 1.38 or 1.44)


2. SBOP BI Platform 4.2 SP04 with a new OData service, providing BusinessObjects hierarchy information


3. Configured SSO for BOE access (for details refer to Chapter 3).

Video

1               End-User Experience

Open the Fiori Launchpad, enter your credentials and navigate to App Finder:



User Menu is an additional tab in App Finder UX.

Once this tab opened and BOE system is selected, oData request is launched. The results are displayed on the left-side menu:



A user can search in the BOE content (public folders) in the App Finder (if SAPUI5 1.44 UX is configured, refer to chapter 3.4):



Or navigate in the hierarchy:



 

After clicking on a chosen report, the report content will be launched from the User menu and displayed in-place. Moreover, a report can be assigned to the Homepage (as the reports with the blue pin icon in the picture above) and launched from there.

2               EP Administrator Experience

Unlike the integration in previous NetWeaver and Business Objects releases, where you needed to configure each BI report separately, now in NW 7.50 SP7 the entire system content is integrated through one configuration iView. To enable this an EP administrator has to:

1. Configure User Menu on Fiori Framework Page:


2. Create an iView from a template System Configuration iView and assign it to the end-user role.

           System ID is the same as SID in the Web Dispatcher configuration and redirect files.

           System Title is visible in the system selection pop-up in the User Menu.

3               System Administrator Experience

The BOE-EP integration environment, described below, is one of the possibilities, that was implemented and tested successfully.

Besides the installation of the following products/components:

1. NetWeaver 7.50 SP07


2. FLP run-time 1.38 or 1.44


3. BI 4.2 SP04

The integration scenario required:

1. Web Dispatcher 7.49 with configuration and redirect files


2. Active Directory Manual Authentication and SSO configured, also for oData and OpenDocument requests


3. All servers network name resolution verification, either using DNS or the hosts file editing.

3.1        The Landscape and SSO Configuration

The landscape used for the integration looks as follows:



Active Directory Authentication and Kerberos-based SSO was configured using SAP note 1631734.

There are 2 data request types from FLP on EP to BOE:

• oData to get the folders hierarchy along with the folders content


• OpenDocument to get the specific report content.

oData SSO configuration includes the Update web.xml file in location C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\tomcat\webapps\bipodata\WEB-INF:



Make sure you have uncommented the entire Kerberos Filter section, and then update as shown below:



 

For OpenDocument SSO configuration file OpenDocumentProperties in location C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\tomcat\webapps\bipodata\WEB-INF\config\default should be updated:



Our integration scenario includes also Web Dispatcher server and AS Java with FLP on EP server. All the servers should belong to the same domain. Service Principal Names for Web Dispatcher and AS Java were also added to the BOE service account.

3.2        Browser Configuration

Browsers on the client also have to be configured for Kerberos-based SSO; general description is here, and in the note.

For Firefox changes should be done for two preference names: network.negotiate-auth.trusted-uris and network.negotiate-auth.delegation-uris , both the BOE  and the Web Dispatcher  servers are set.

3.3        Web Dispatcher Configuration

For the oData request, Web Dispatcher requires a special configuration.

The definition for both systems, EP and BOE, was added to Web Dispatcher configuration file as follows:

icm/HTTP/mod_0 = PREFIX=/,FILE=C:\usr\sap\<WD_SID>\SYS\profile\redirect.txt

icm/server_port_X = PROT=HTTP,HOST=<AS Java Server>,PORT=<port>

wdisp/system_<num> = SID=<BOE_SID>, NAME=<BOE_NAME>, EXTSRV = http://<BOE_server>:8080, SRCSRV=*:<port>, SRCURL = /com.sap.portal.navigation.odatamediator/;/BOE/;

wdisp/system_<num+1> = SID=<portal_SID>, NAME=<PORTAL_NAME>, EXTSRV=http://<Portal_server>l:50000, SRCSRV=*:<port>, SRCURL=/irj/;/

Redirect.txt file looks like this:

if %{SERVER_PORT} = <port> [AND]

if %{PATH} regimatch ";o=<PORTAL_SID>"

SetHeader X-SAP-WEBDISP-TARGET-SYSTEM <PORTAL_NAME>

 

if %{SERVER_PORT} = <port> [AND]

if %{PATH} regimatch ";o=<BOE_SID>"

SetHeader X-SAP-WEBDISP-TARGET-SYSTEM <BOE_NAME>

 

if %{SERVER_PORT} = <port> [AND]

if %{PATH} regimatch ";o=<BOE_SID>"

### for SP07

RegIRewriteRawUrl ^/com.sap.portal.navigation.odatamediator/USER_MENU;o=(.*)/MenuItems(.*) /bipodata/v1/epbi/MenuItems$2  

### for SP09

RegIRewriteRawUrl ^/com.sap.portal.navigation.odatamediator/USER_MENU;sap-ep-ul=(.*);o=(.*)/MenuItems(.*) /bipodata/v1/epbi/MenuItems$3

If everything is configured correctly, you can access BOE BI Launchpad via Web Dispatcher link:

http://<WebDispatcherServer:port>/BOE/BI

This link should open BI Launchpad without user authentication.

3.4        UX configuration (optional)

In NW 7.50 SP7 both SAPUI5 1.38 and 1.44 are available. SAPUI5 1.38 can be used out of the box; in order to switch to SAPUI5 1.44 the following should be done:

1. Login to NetWeaver Administrator


2. Search for Java Applications


3. In the search field type sap.portal.design.ui5designdataless


4. In the bottom table click on Portal Service Configuration


5. Set the property to true


6. Restart the service: Go to-> Operations -> Start & Stop -> Java Applications.

 

Note: Once switching to SAPUI5 1.44, you cannot go back to SAPUI5 1.38.

 

 

To learn more:

• SAP Documentation NW 7.5 Release notes


• 2031108 - SAP Fiori Integration with SAP Enterprise Portal - Central note


• 2217489 - Maintenance and Update Strategy for SAPUI5, NW AS ABAP UI Technology and UI Add-On


• https://blogs.sap.com/2017/05/15/bi-platform-odata-service-for-sap-fiori-launchpad/


• Video