BI 4.0 - Universe

1. BI 4.0 - Universe

2. Business Challenges 1 Lack of Enterprise BI strategy Lack of transparency, leading to loss of productivity Delayed decisions because of inconsistent, unreliable data Systems are not user friendly for business users Limited accessibility of data Legacy system can not accommodate changing requirements. 2 3 4 5 6

3. Solution is Here! What is a BusinessObjects Universe? • The BusinessObjects universe is a business representation of organization's data that helps end users access data autonomously using common business terms and it isolates business users from the technical details of the databases where source data is stored. • Universe is a semantic layer that maps complex data into descriptive business terms used across the organization, such as product, customer, region, revenue, margin or costs.

4. No Semantic Layer scenario How Universe can help? Time-to-trusted Information IT/Data Bottlenecks Business Needs

5. Semantic Layer Reduces Time to Business Intelligence How Universe can help? Reduce Time-to-trusted Information (and cost) Business Benefits IT/Data benefits Semantic Layer

6. Solution Overview The Connection The Data foundation The Business Layer The Universe Model contains 3 main Components 1 2 3

7. Solution Overview The Connection • The Connection is a named set of parameters that define how one or more SAP BusinessObjects applications can access relational or OLAP databases. • A universe can have multiple connections to different data sources. • Connections are stored as .CNX files, and secure connections are stored as .CNS files.

8. Solution Overview The Data Foundation • The Data foundation is a schema that defines the relevant tables and joins from one or more relational databases. • The designer enhances the data foundation with contexts, prompts, calculated columns, and other SQL definitions. • The data foundation becomes the basis of one or more business layers.

9. Solution Overview The Data Foundation

10. Solution Overview The Business layer • Business Layer is the universe under construction, and when the business layer is complete, it is compiled with the connections or connection shortcuts and data foundation, published, and deployed as a universe. • Business layer is where user creates folder (known as classes) and objects (known as dimensions and measures) • Business layer defines the filters where user can specify the conditions for creating report.

11. Solution Overview The Business layer

12. Benefits to IT users • Efficient delivery process • Single point of administration for all data sources • Reduces, postpones or eliminates ETL development cycles • Extends and leverage existing BI platform security model • Promotes schema neutrality—does not impose any ETL or data warehousing • Provides multi-source universes for relational sources • Common semantic for all • Uses and shares the same concepts and vocabulary independently of the sources and users • Provides consistent modeling workflows and capabilities for all data sources • Trusted and secure environment • Provides data lineage traceable from end-user reports • Supports and extends database security • Extends from development to production cycle

13. Benefits to Business Users • Presents business users with user-friendly business terms • Enables users to create and change reports without involving IT • Increases productivity by publishing re-usable queries, calculations, parameters, filters, list of values, etc. • Reduces the overall cost of delivering BI by leveraging existing IT investments in data • Increases user self-sufficiency and reduces IT bottleneck • Consistent user experience • Provides same user experience that is independent of the source • Trusted and secure environment • Provides the users with confidence that they always access trusted information—data lineage • Secures the data, the documents, the queries, the parameters, etc.