New: Xcelsius Activity Logging with APOS Insight

APOS Insight for SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1 and BI 4.x now has Xcelsius Activity Logging capabilities.

We've been hearing for some time from platform managers and dashboard designers that they need better ways to understand how their dashboards are being used so that they can improve their dashboards, and thus improve service to their users. As a result, we've added Xcelsius Activity Logging capabilities to APOS Insight.

While native Xcelsius logging (i.e., basic information such as who opened a dashboard and how long they used it) may be adequate for normal day-to-day operations, organizations that want to be proactive in their development and evolution of dashboards need more information. APOS Insight lets you ask much more specific questions about how your dashboards are being used.

The APOS Insight Xcelsius Activity Logging feature uses an add-on to Xcelsius (or Dashboards 4) to configure real-time logging of Xcelsius user activity to the Insight database. To configure logging, you bind the APOS logging control to cells in the spreadsheet that represent property name and value pairs. When a value changes it is logged to the database.

For example, if you want to know which tabs dashboard users are viewing or not viewing, you could bind the APOS Xcelsius Logging control to cells that control tab visibility. Using this and similar types of information for a group of users, developers, administrators and managers can judge how a dashboard is being used, and thus how effective the design of the dashboard is.

SAP's Ian Treleaven: BI4 Sizing Guide Updated

Not long ago, SAP's Ian Treleaven was a guest presenter for two APOS migration-themed webinars on the subject of BI4 sizing:

• Platform Architecture and Sizing for SAP BusinessObjects BI 4
•  SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 Sizing Cases & Demos

We had such a great response to these webinars that we thought we should pass along Ian's message to us that the BI4 Sizing Guide has very recently been updated.

The new guide has many additions to help you get the architecture and sizing of your new BI4 deployment right, including:

• New content to help sizing and performance integration with HANA
• Tips to help you make the CMS run better
• Updated suggested limits for Web Intelligence
• Suggestions for periodic re-sizing
• Pre-sizing and post-sizing checklists to help you prepare for your sizing exercise

Make sure you also visit the companion Website, www.sap.com/bisizing, which also has some updates and new content to help you get your BI4.1 deployment running faster and leaner.

SAP BI 4 Virtualization Best Practices Webinar Alert

When: Jan. 15, 2014, 10 am / 4 pm EST
Another in our series of SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 migration-focused webinars

View the recorded webinar.

Guest presenter: Ashish C. Morzaria, Director, Solution Management,
Large Enterprise BI Group, SAP

Virtualization is key to the BI strategy of many organizations. However, the performance penalty for virtualization can be heavy, particularly if you neglect best practices. Some estimates have this virtualization performance hit as high as 40%.

But does virtualization necessarily mean a performance hit? A recent SAP study with VMware, SuperMicro, and SAP’s own Co-Innovation Lab (COIL) suggests the impact can actually be very close to zero — if you implement virtualization properly.

SAP's Ashish C. Morzaria aims to save you from the seemingly inevitable "virtualization tax." Join us as Ashish discusses specific requirements developed by SAP for virtualizing BI 4 and minimizing the impact of virtualization on BI 4 performance.

Data Connectivity and Self-Serve BI

The business case for SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 is fairly simple: embrace SAP's vision of the future of business intelligence, including mobile BI and self-service BI, while lowering your total cost of ownership.

Self-service BI has its upside and its downside. The upside is that anyone in your organization that has access to SAP BusinessObjects can query enterprise data via universes, often with a Web Intelligence report, which allows them to make well informed decisions based on the most current and trusted enterprise information. This benefit justifies the adoption of self-service BI fully.

The downside of self-service BI falls on the platform management and administration side of the story, and it is two-fold. Firstly, self-service BI may lead to a proliferation of content -- more users creating more new reports, report iterations or exploration views, many of which may be for very limited use. If you've already migrated from XI 3 to BI 4, think back to the process you went through to rationalize content prior to migration. Think of self-service BI as a multiplier factor on that process, and you start to see the need for a proactive approach to BI content management. (Look at APOS Storage Center for such an approach.)

Secondly, and more importantly for the day-to-day operations of your BI platform, self-service BI takes some control of the volume and quality of the BI system's data connectivity away from platform managers and administrators and places it squarely in the hands of information consumers. This exchange is necessary for self-service BI to be of any benefit, but administrators are averse to giving up their control over data connectivity, as it impacts their ability to manage effectively and minimize bottlenecks.

If yours is one of those organizations that plan to take greater advantage of self-service BI across the enterprise, then BI data connectivity will become a bigger issue. In an ideal world, your universes would all be so well designed that there would be no issues with query performance, and end users would know better than to test the limits. But we don't live in that world. So your alternative is to monitor BI data connectivity proactively and act decisively to protect the integrity and dependability of your BI platform.

The APOS Intelligent Data Access Controller (IDAC)can help you become proactive with your data connectivity issues. Use it to monitor, manage and audit BI data connectivity. With IDAC, you can:

• Track queries in real time
• Receive automatic alerts when established thresholds are exceeded
• Intervene manually in queries
• Cancel runaway queries automatically
• Audit BI data connectivity

Today: SAP BI 4 Sizing Exercises - Hands-on Webinar

Today at 2 pm EST, Ian Treleaven follows up his earlier Platform Architecture and Sizing for SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 webinar with a practical session in which he leads you through a detailed sizing exercise and demonstrates some specific techniques for achieving performance and reliability.

Register for today's webinar: SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 Sizing Cases & Demos.

For a thorough grounding in SAP BI 4 platform architecture and sizing issues, view a recording of Ian's earlier webinar session.

SAP BI 4 Migration Webinar Series

2013 is winding up, but our SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 migration focused webinar series continues into 2014 with great topics and great subject matter experts. Coming in the new year:

• Ashish C. Morzaria joins us to discuss System Virtualization in SAP BusinessObjects - Jan. 15, 2014
• Ian Mayor joins us to discuss Dashboards and Design Studio in SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 - Jan. 23, 2014
• Mark Richardson joins us to discuss Mastering Volume and Complexity for Better Service - Feb. 5, 6, 2014

Do you want to be notified of upcoming webinars. Sign up for webinar notifications?

All of the webinars in the series have been well attended and well received. If you missed any of the earlier sessions, you can view these recorded webinars at your leisure.

The earlier sessions included:

• The Semantic Layer and BI 4 Migration with Pierpaolo Vezzosi
• What's New in SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 with Ty Miller
• The Business Case for Upgrading to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 with Saskia Battersby and Deepa Sankar
• Planning Your SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 Upgrade with JC Raveneau
• What's New in Web Intelligence in SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 with Gregory Botticchio
• What's New in Crystal Reports for Enterprise in SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 with Henry Kam
• Platform Architecture and Sizing for SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 with Ian Treleaven
• Guide to the SAP BI 4 DCP with Thomas Kuruvilla

We're busy firming up dates, guest presenters and topics for further sessions. If there are any topics you'd like to see us tackle in this webinar series, please feel free to let us know in the comments below.

Webinar Alert - Guide to the SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 Desktop Intelligence Compatibility Pack (DCP)

What: Guide to the SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 DCP Webinar
When: Nov. 21, 2013, 11 am EST
Eighth in a series of SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 migration-focused webinars 
View other webinars in the series

Guest presenter:Thomas Kuruvilla, Solution Manager, SAP

With SAP BusinessObjects BI 4, Desktop Intelligence has been designated End of Life, and customers wishing to upgrade to BI 4 need to start planning the conversion from Desktop Intelligence to Web Intelligence. In recognition of the time and resources needed for this conversion, SAP has released the Desktop Intelligence Compatibility Pack (DCP) with SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1.

The DCP allows organizations with a large Desktop Intelligence investment to leverage that investment while realizing the benefits of BI 4.1 and planning an orderly conversion to Web Intelligence.

SAP's Thomas Kuruvilla joins us to discuss how to use the DCP to facilitate your organization's migration to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 while leveraging your existing Desktop Intelligence objects and content.

On the agenda:

·         Migrating your Desktop Intelligence reports to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1

·         Connecting Desktop Intelligence 3.1 desktop clients to an SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 CMS

·         Planning the conversion from Desktop Intelligence to Web Intelligence

Fred Walther, Manager of Solution Consulting at APOS Systems, will also be on hand to show you how APOS Migration Accelerator products can help you simplify and automate Desktop Intelligence use in SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1.

Please join us for this informative webinar.