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Learning SAP Business Objects Dashboards
Learning SAP Business Objects Dashboards

Learning SAP Business Objects Dashboards: Create professional, stunning, and interactive visual dashboards for both desktop and mobile devices

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Learning SAP Business Objects Dashboards

Chapter 2. Understanding the Dashboard Creation Process

One question that I always have to answer as a project manager is, "how can you achieve customer satisfaction?". With my experience, I think it's a very tricky question to answer. Let's try to build on our approach to answer this question by running through project life cycle.

There are two project life cycle approaches: classic waterfall and scrum/agile.

In this chapter, we will focus on the following topics:

  • Determining our project need (initiation and planning)
  • The dashboard creation process (the implementation phase)
  • Preparing our workspace by importing data into our dashboard (the implementation phase)

Before that, let's quickly go through the phases in the project.

Phases in the project

The definition of a project (a planned set of interrelated tasks to be executed over a fixed period and within certain cost and other limitations) remains the same regardless of the industry, and so do the phases.

As per the PMI standard, the typical project phases are:

  • Initiation
  • Planning
  • Execution/implementation
  • Controlling/testing
  • Closing

Here, we will discuss the project phases from the dashboard point of view.

The initiation phase

The initiation phase is the beginning of the project. In this phase, the idea for the project is explored and elaborated with the business user (Customer). It is in this phase that the project team aligns customer requirements with the deliverables(Dashboards). So, the successful execution of this phase will be a key factor in the success of the project.

In this chapter, we will work on how to have a better alignment with the customer so as to create informative, useful, and customer-centric dashboards.

The planning phase

Once the requirement is...

Determining the needs

We will start determining our dashboard requirements in the project initiation phase. Here, we will simulate the building of a dashboard based on the eFashion data. eFashion is a sample MS Access database installed with the SAP BuisnessObjects client and server installation for training purposes. There is also a ready-made universe that we can start to use immediately to query the data stored in the eFashion Access database and explore the features and capabilities of SAP BO Dashboards. The database contains around 89,000+ records in the fact table; so, it is a very good and rich example.

Note

Universe is the semantic layer that will translate the database tables and join business terms represented by business objects. For more information about Universe, refer to Creating Universes within SAP BusinessObjects.

We need to understand the data stored in eFashion before we start creating the dashboard on top of it, so let's try to introduce the eFashion company.

eFashion...

Dashboard creation process

We can start creating our dashboard once we complete the initiation phase. The dashboard creation process is very simple, as we can see in the following diagram:

Dashboard creation process

Now, let's discuss each step in more detail as follows:

  • Import data: The first logical step in the dashboard creation process is to import data to your dashboard, which can be done by linking our dashboard MS Excel model with a dynamic data source, such as Live Office, Web service or Direct Universes query. This option will help us dynamically refresh the data in our dashboard after we publish it. On the other hand, we can also import the Excel raw data into our dashboard. In this case, our dashboard will depend on the data imported, and somehow it will be static.
  • Build the model: We can start building the model after importing the data by adding dashboard components, and by linking them with the data we imported in the preceding section. We may link our dashboard objects directly to the source data...

Preparing the dashboard workspace

We will use the raw data that has been exported to the Excel file and has been extracted from the eFashion database. The eFashion database is provided by SAP BO for training and practice purposes. We will learn how to connect directly with the eFashion Universe to dynamically refresh our data in Chapter 9, Retrieving External Data Sources. For now, we will just learn how to import and use the raw Excel data extracted from the eFashion database.

Before we start, we need to download the example code files from the Packt site. Then, we need to extract the downloaded file. The file contains the folders that we can see in the following screenshot:

Preparing the dashboard workspace

Let's take a moment to describe each folder as follows:

  • Dashboards (Ready): This folder contains the .XLF file for each chapter. You can use this folder to open the final version of the dashboard that you should have if you followed all the steps mentioned in the chapter. You can use it to compare the dashboard file...

Summary

In this chapter, we briefly discussed the project life cycle. We walked through each phase and discussed the dashboard activity associated with that phase. For example, in the initiation phase, we aligned with the customer's need. It was followed by sketching dashboard components on paper and check with the customer whether this was what he expected from the project, and if this would fulfill his requirements. We also learned about the creation of prototype/models, data import, and publishing the model. We concluded the chapter with an example of the data import.

In the next chapter, we will use the mentioned case and learn how to add dashboard components. We will link it with the data, work around with charts, and add single values and some examples to make ourself comfortable with the topic.

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Description

This book will help beginners to create stylish and professional looking dashboards in no time. It is also intended for BI developers who want to use SAP BO to facilitate BI in their organizations. No prior knowledge is required, however, you must have a basic knowledge of MS Excel and some analytical skills to build expressive business charts.

Who is this book for?

This book will help beginners to create stylish and professional looking dashboards in no time. It is also intended for BI developers who want to use SAP BO to facilitate BI in their organizations. No prior knowledge is required, however, you must have a basic knowledge of MS Excel and some analytical skills to build expressive business charts.
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Publication date : Jun 29, 2015
Length: 330 pages
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Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781785286629
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Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781785286629
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Table of Contents

13 Chapters
1. Getting Started with SAP BO Dashboards Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. Understanding the Dashboard Creation Process Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. UI Components Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Using Maps and Other Components Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Interactive Analysis with Dashboards Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. Advanced Interactive Analysis with Dashboards Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. Styling Up Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
8. Exporting, Publishing, and Importing Dashboards Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
9. Retrieving External Data Sources Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
10. Managing Dashboard Security Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
11. Creating Mobile Dashboards Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
A. References Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

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Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon 4.8
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5 star 83.3%
4 star 16.7%
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CS Jul 24, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
This book has helped a lot in creating dashboards designs using SAP. It is for all the beginners who want to learn how you can make interactive dashboards using SAP. A experienced person can also gain lot of knowledge from it. More over it involves the latest version of SAP BusinessObjects Dashboard, ver 14.1.5.1501, which is great. It's a well written book and I would recommend it to all the BI developers.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
AS Jul 31, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
I was interested in picking up this book as I had read other books on this same topic and felt that they left a bit to be desired. Often times these books are built in a cookbook format and only show you how to perform certain functions for that specific dashboard but don't lend themselves to be used across other dashboards. That is not the case with this book. I find the topics to build well upon the previous chapters and the tools learned were presented in a cohesive manner. I would definitely recommend picking up a copy for your team at work.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Kal Oct 26, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
This book is well structured and very well written especially for beginners. I recommend this book for SAP Dashboard developers for two reasons - 1) it has all the information a beginner needs to know to setup & configure Dashboard, 2) it has clear step by step instructions on how to build simple to interactive Dashboard reports. Very useful book for SAP dashboard report builders!
Amazon Verified review Amazon
JUAN NEGRIN Sep 03, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
In my experience, both in working directly with them and in training others, SAP BO Dashboards have a notoriously steep learning curve. The interface itself is straightforward enough but one soon runs into a variety of unique connectivity and functional peculiarities which can be discouraging. All of which is a shame, because once those hurdles are conquered, there is a whole world of data presentation available to non-coders with this very powerful tool. Since so many manuals provide too much material, trying to self-teach oneself the use of SAP BO dashboards can be equally daunting so I was very pleasantly surprised by the balance that Learning SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards strikes between not enough and too much information.As with other Packt books, there are clear callouts which help the user with the type of helpful tips, information, and best practices, which one usually can only get when working one-on-one with an expert. I would recommend this book to both newcomers of all levels, who can easily follow the well thought out steps and clear screen prints, in learning SAP BO Dashboards without getting overwhelmed, as well as more advanced users who are looking for reference material which is not too detailed and can simply point out the key items they may have forgotten or which will at least help narrow the choices for further research in more advanced manuals.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
minal singhania Jul 12, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
I liked the Book and Authors approach. Its step by step ,very practical guide to learnand designing a dashboard . The book address the concepts and key aspects related to the topic with relevant examples.Good Read and i would recommend it to others as well.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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