Lessons learned from the implementation of an SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence cockpit

1. Lessons learned from the implementation of an SAP NetWeaver BusinessIntelligence cockpit Dr. Bjarne Berg

2. In This Session ... We will look at lessons learned from the implementation of an very large SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence cockpit. We will explore how applications and systems can be integrated, how data collection can be automated, and how cockpits are developed in a standardize format using SAP’s Strategic Enterprise Management’s (SEM) Corporate Performance Monitoring, BI, and Portal combined. Look at how to extract data from a variety of non-R/3 systems, and find out how KPIs can be automatically created based on this data. See how seasonal thresholds for evaluating different data such as monthly, annual, and yearly benchmarks impact design decisions. Learn how to incorporate this information into graphs and charts. Learn how single sign-on (SSO) can be achieved and how change management in large-scale cockpit implementations are done.

3. What We’ll Cover … • Background • Data Collection from non-SAP Sources • A Very Large Cockpit real example • Seasonal thresholds and graphing options • Single Sign-On (SSO) and role based security • Change Management • Wrap-up 2

4. Background Sedgwick county has 21 cities, including the city of Wichita with 354,000 people. It also has 27 townships and an area of 1,008 square miles. Sedgwick County is home to a number of aviation-related industries and is known as the "Air Capital of the World."

5. Background The county has many organizations, such as Public heath, Emergency Management (fire and ambulances), Sheriff, Forensic center, Code enforcement, Registrar of deeds, County clerk, Criminal Justice (district attorney, district courts, jails), Highways, Healthcare, Parks, Solid waste, Housing, Election, HR, Treasurer, Tax collection, County zoo and coliseums, airport and much more.. A major challenge was to measure these many organizations effetely so that resources could be allocated in the best interest of the citizens. Key concept: Transparency in Government

6. What is SEM – CPM? The Corporate Performance Monitor (SEM-CPM) is part of the Strategic Enterprise Management BI tool suite. It consists of the Performance Measurement (PM) area and the Strategy management area (SM). The Performance Management area consists of four distinct areas: Management Cockpit Measure Builder Benchmarking Delivery of business content The Strategy Management consists also of four areas Balanced Scorecard Strategy modeling Value Driver Tree Risk Management 5 Source: J. Lombard, 2006

7. Strategy Management and Performance Measurement – CPM The presentation layer in SAP CPM cockpits has four layers: CockpitHigh-level overview (consists of walls) Wall A logical grouping of measures Logical viewThe display level of the cockpit; consists of frames Frame Lowest level of individual measure display These presentation layer objects are already Web- enabled and integrated with the Portal. They also provide built-in drill-downs and navigation, based on how you constructed your measures. 6

8. SEM – CPM Walls Walls can be grouped and are then the highest level of the SEM-CPM Cockpit. In this case we have organized the cockpits in a high-level community profile, a County theme, and walls for two department KPIs The color codes (red, yellow and green) of the indicators are set based on some thresholds that we will explore later.. 7

9. SEM-CPM Navigation and Measures The Frames can be based on a set of composite measures that are weighted. I.e. 6 KPIs can we weighted differently to create an overall measure. You can create the hierarchies of measures in the Measure Builder tool (transaction UMK_MB_DISP_PARA) By clicking on each of the frames, you can access more details in graphical cockpits

10. What We’ll Cover … Background Data Collection from non-SAP Sources A Very Large Cockpit real example Data Collection from non-SAP Sources Seasonal thresholds and graphing options Single Sign-On (SSO) and role based security Change Management Wrap-up 9

11. Our System Architecture and External data extraction Legacy Reporting systems Legacy Reporting systems Legacy systems Users 1 SQL Server Users Users Users Users ASP page 2 6 SAP Portal SAP BW SAP SEM-CPM SAP R/3 3 4 5 Flatfile updates and Manual Updates through ASP pages. Gradually being automated. Periodic updates through DB connect from SAP BI Periodic updates through BI extractors (ALE) SAP BI Queries executed through ODBO Cockpits hosted in SAP Portal, which also provides single sign-on (SSO) Users via standard web browsers on intra or internet. 10

12. External data extraction and updates By creating a SQL Server database, we could standardize the user input and customize the web pages in ASP so that is was easy to do manual inputs. All input are flagged as periodical (monthly, qtr or annual) and are open for edits only for a specific period by a few individuals in the department that has access. The extraction from the SQL server database to SAP BW/BI is done through a single job that extract all KPI information for the period through the use of SAP BI’s DB connect feature.

13. Query Performance and Simplification in Infocubes For Non-SAP data Since single KPI values for a given department and period are stored in the SQL Server and transmitted to BW. The Queries takes on average 0.2 seconds !!!! For SAP data The details are kept in the DSO and the infoCube has only the single value for the department for the period. Query speed is therefore only 0.2 seconds on average… 12

14. What We’ll Cover … Background Data Collection from non-SAP Sources A Very Large Cockpit real example Seasonal thresholds and graphing options Single Sign-On (SSO) and role based security Change Management Wrap-up 13

15. A User Experience example Our first step is to navigate to the departmental KPIs

16. Accessing Frames Now we want to explore the Summary cockpit for Public Safety

17. Accessing summary Cockpits These KPIs are weighted measures of six KPIs for the Emergency management Services. The index is color coded for acceptable performance levels. We can click on any graph to enlarge it…

18. Drilling down to details Here we can see that the index has turned red. That indicates that further research is warranted. We added a new drilldown button to make user navigation easier.. Note: This is sample data from the test system and has not been validated (system went live a few months later)

19. Changing indicator graphs on the Cockpits In the cockpit, the colors are set by the underlying KPI performance. When there are no benchmarks, you can change the image… Some KPIs do not have benchmarks, they are not colorcodedred, yellow, or green. In those cases, SAP codes them with a “beautiful” X. We did not like that and created our own image and replaced the “X” with a customized image instead.

20. Exploring the Emergency Management Profile The profile does not contain benchmark data, but is informative about the activities. Here we explore the number of EMS 911 calls From the EMS profile users can access Primary KPIs for the organization Program outcome KPIs Tertiary KPIs to manage the operations. KPIs are for all levels of the organization

21. Program Outcomes for EMS Program outcomes include detailed benchmarks for monthly performance and is coded red, yellow and green based on actual data. Here we see ambulance performance for 1 month - Building hierarchies of measures gives everyone, at all levels of the organization some benefits of using the cockpit. - Getting the management to use the same tool is a major benefit of SAP-BI

22. Tertiary Operational Indicators for EMS The Tertiary indicators are most important for the director of Emergency Management Services. It may be combination of survey data taken periodically and system data loaded monthly. Don’t be afraid of merging periodical data, such as customer satisfaction and employee ratings taken every 6-months with operational data from source systems

23. Tertiary Financial Indicators for EMS By making financial data easily accessible with the operational data, the department managers see a greater benefit of using the cockpits. The data can be annual, monthly or weekly, as long as it is used for trend lining and management decisions. Be careful about adding daily information. When doing so, you are leaving management cockpits and have started building dashboards which have different usage community and a variety of different tools

24. Dashboard, Scorecard & Cockpits Many companies and people confuse the concepts of dashboards, scorecards, and cockpits. They vary in terms of purpose, usage, source, data, etc. Most BI systems fall in to the cockpits category These are typical parameters, and some may be slightly different (e.g., some metrics in a cockpit may only be updated monthly). 23

25. Back to the Walls This case study has 821 KPIs for management & operations – we only looked at one small area with 18 KPIs so far. Let us look at the senior managements view of the cockpit and the community profile.. For senior management, the KPIs tends to have more broad applications in terms of scope and level of aggregation. Policies and budgets are based on overall performance and not the day-to-day operations which may fluctuate by seasons. Dashboards – not cockpits, are used for operational management

26. The Senior Managements Community profile The Community profile is a great way to summarize the organization in terms of descriptive statistics. It is a very high-level overview of the status of the organization. For commercial enterprises, this is an area that may contain a summary of all employees, locations by demographic information and organizational model, and/or summary production volumes or sales volumes for last quarter, or year, and trend lines. Keep the information very summarized!

27. The Community Profile of an Organization The community profile should be organized in sub-categories. That are informative, interesting and have long-term trend line value. This example has six sub grouping of measures and a total of 34 KPIs. For example purposes, we will explore the long-term Economic trend lines

28. Community profile – Economic indicators For long-term indicators, don’t be afraid to use external data and data that has annual updates. The collection of this data is simple, low cost and provides everyone with a shared knowledgebase. In the community profile, the data should be long-term trends and relevant to Strategic decision making

29. Keep the Cockpit useful for a Large community By keeping the cockpit ‘wide’ and for a large user community, we were able to provide a shared view of a highly diverse government organization. Build a ‘wide’ cockpit with shared measures that is widely available to all users

30. What We’ll Cover … Background Data Collection from non-SAP Sources A Very Large Cockpit real example Seasonal thresholds and graphing options Single Sign-On (SSO) and role based security Change Management Wrap-up 29

31. Automating the Thresholds and the KPI data from Non-SAP systems The data table in SQL server provides a set of columns that are captures the summary of the results for the period for a department. This allows the department to update the KPI values for a short time period to correct any errors (done in a simple ASP page) Threshold values (Red, Yellow and Green) are captured for each period, so that the history of historical thresholds can be preserved. 30

32. Try to avoid empty spaces, but don’t force unrelated measures into the cockpit view — it confuses users Don’t use as many types of graphs as possible, and never mix more than 3 types of graphs. If you use more, users have to interpret the pictures as well as the data. Missing data points add irritation. (it is hard to hide bad data in a cockpit) SEM-CPM Rules for Graphs and Real Estate 31

33. SEM-CPM Rules for Graphs and Real Estate (cont.) There is nothing wrong with using the same type of graphs on a cockpit (e.g., tachometers or line charts). Users adapt quickly and can absorb the information faster.

34. Tracking changes over time – Annual Measures in context For an organization to act strategically, you need annual performance measures to see the big picture. You often have to merge measures also. This is of little value to the operational managers, but of great value to the CFO, CEO, CxO and upper level executives. When the executives are looking at their organization, they are frequently examining external data at an annual level 33

35. Use of Complex graphing of annual measures Sometimes measures has little value unless they are seen in context of other indicators. You can use complex graphing with different scales to address this Example: Number of fatalities in road accidents have limited value in assessing vehicle safety without seeing the context of total number of accidents. We can click on the graph to examine this closer 34

36. Use of Complex graphing of annual measures We now have two measures over 5 years of different scales. However, SAP-CPM allows you to merge these in a single graph with two scales 35

37. What We’ll Cover … Background Data Collection from non-SAP Sources A Very Large Cockpit real example Seasonal thresholds and graphing options Single Sign-On (SSO) and role based security Change Management Wrap-up 36

38. Single Sign-On (SSO) We wanted the user to have a shared experience, an not having to log-on to the Portal, R/3, BI and other systems. There are two core ways that SSO can be done in SAP portal 5.0 and 6.0 1. SAP Logon Ticket 2. User Mapping (user name and password) This is a workaround for systems that are unable to verify and receive SAP Logon tickets.􀂌 For each system object in SAP Portal the logon method is set to "UIDPW". Each user is then mapped with password and user ID in the SAP system. This is easy to setup, but hard to maintain without a central security organization that works across SAP and non-SAP applications.

39. Single Sign-On (SSO) SAP Logon Tickets are the best option. You need to issue tickets from central location (i.e. SAP Portal) that all users log-on to. A. Go to Visual Administrator and use the using Key Store Administration to get the verfiy.der B. Change the profile parameter login/accept_sso2_ticket = 1. set login/create_sso2_ticket = 0 Use DEFAULT.PFL on back-end system C. Use transaction code - STRUST to import SAP portal’s public key certificate (verify.der) to the ticket-accepting system’s certificate list. 􀁦 D. Add the Portal to receiving system’s Access Control List (ACL) by maintaining the TWPSSO2ACL table 38 More at: Patrick Dixon: http://www.sapinsideronline.com/downloads/Las_Vegas_2007/presentations/Track9_session9.pdf

40. Single Sign-On (SSO) tickets - 3 options for non-R/3 systems 1. SAPSSOEXT - Dynamic Link Library for SSO to Java and C applications From http://service.sap.com/patches download the SAPSSOEXT library for SAP logon ticket 2. Web Server Filter for SSO to Web apps that support authentication with an HTTP header variable See SAP Note 442401: Web server filter for SSO to third-party systems 3. Web Server Filter with Delegation for Win-Server for SSO to a Microsoft Web-based application SAPSSOEXT Windows Server on IA32 32bit → SSO2 To Kerberos Mapping Filter 39 More at: Patrick Dixon: http://www.sapinsideronline.com/downloads/Las_Vegas_2007/presentations/Track9_session9.pdf

41. What We’ll Cover … Background Data Collection from non-SAP Sources A Very Large Cockpit real example Seasonal thresholds and graphing options Single Sign-On (SSO) and role based security Change Management Wrap-up 40

42. Change Management Process Since A CPM system is going to track performance over time, it is important that the benchmarks and thresholds to not fluctuate frequently. At the same time the organizations and people being measured has an inherent interest in moving the thresholds if they turn yellow or red. Therefore you will need a formal change management process for how to get approvals for changes to the cockpits Senior management should be the decider, not the IT department…

43. Change Management Process IT responsible Change Request form Approved? Integration tested QA environment No Business responsible Sr. mgmt. responsible Yes Yes Approved? Moved to production No Submission No Approved? System tested Devl. environment Complete? Scheduled No Yes Yes Change Request form Review recommended? Developed Unit Tested Devl. environment No Yes Approved? No Yes

44. The Change Management Form - page 1 To make this process work, you need a formal instrument. The instrument can be on-line (i.e. a web page), electronically (word document), or a paper based system. The form should contain at least these fields: The front-page that the requestor fills out 43

45. The Change Management Form - page 2 This page is used by the system administrator or the project team. The purpose is to have controlled changes that are scheduled and tested appropriately The back page that the system admin and approver fills out 44

46. What We’ll Cover … Background Data Collection from non-SAP Sources A Very Large Cockpit real example Seasonal thresholds and graphing options Single Sign-On (SSO) and role based security Change Management Wrap-up 45

47. When to Consider CPM — Management Cockpits The management cockpits and Web rendering closely integrate with the pre-delivered measures in SAP Measure Catalog. You also can add new measures through SAP Measure Builder. By linking the higher-level measures using Measure Trees, you can create true performance measures that are consistent throughout your cockpit and which also take care of most of the Web navigation and drill downs in the cockpit. Navigation is built in to the management cockpit and you do not have to build customized links. Consider SAP CPM when you have limited in-house Web skills, or when measure consistency and rollups are very important. Drawback: Users often complain that there are too many steps that they have to follow when drilling up and down within the measures (rigid navigation that is hard to customize).

48. What SAP Tool Should I Use? – Other Options There are many options and sometimes the choice is based on what you are familiar with and whether you enjoy using new tools 47

49. Resources Presentations, articles and accellerators www.comerit.net • SAP Insider Online Portal security by Patrick Dixon http://www.sapinsideronline.com/downloads/Las_Vegas_200 7/presentations/Track9_session9.pdf • Building Cockpits and Dashboards: Shortcuts, Design Best Practices, and Guidelines to Ensure You Pick the Right SAP Tool for the Job - Reporting and Analytics 2007 WIS publishing • http://csc-studentweb.lrc.edu/swp/Berg/articles/R&A_2007_Berg_building_cockpits_dashboards_v3.ppt

50. 7 Key Points to Take Home • Don’t underestimate the time it takes to get management buy-in to measures, thresholds and performance graphs • Get very senior management sponsorship. If you cannot get it, go with OLAP instead. • Instill the tool into the organization’s decision making process. I.e. Create a periodic (monthly) meeting with KPI reviews. • Formalize a process when and how KPIs can be changed. Approvals should be done by Sr. executives and not very often (seek measure stability).