A comprehensive guide to SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer

1. A comprehensive guide to SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer Dr. Bjarne Berg

2. In This Session ... • SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer provides robust functionality for the code-free development of dashboards, cockpits, and rich user interfaces, and also for tuning the performance of the SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence (SAP NetWeaver BI) queries that supply the data. • Step through a detailed demo that shows some simple techniques for using SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer to build a dashboard or cockpit based on good design principles. • Find out how summary cubes with update rules can quickly deliver information summaries, such as total sales, total sales by store, or total sales by month to your dashboard or cockpit. • Understand how the jump to query feature allows you to drill down into each summary category to get more detailed information, right from the dashboard interface, without the need to run additional time consuming reports. • Assess the pros and cons of using auto suppression and data filters with SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer. Come away understanding the role of SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer in an environment that includes SAP NetWeaver BI and solutions from Business Objects, an SAP company.

3. What We’ll Cover … • Introduction • SAP Visual Composer overview • How to build a VC model • Demo • Performance tuning • The future of VC • Other options • Wrap up

4. What We’ll Cover … • Introduction • SAP Visual Composer overview • How to build a VC model • Demo • Performance tuning • The future of VC • Other options • Wrap up

5. The SAP BI Core Toolset SAP BI is an enterprise-wide comprehensive decision support (DSS) system for analytical needs of an enterprise. BI can also support some degree of operational reporting The SAP BI tool set has many presentation tools and options for companies to leverage. VC is an extension of those tools.

6. Getting Started - In SAP-BI it all starts with a query The query is the core method for accessing SAP BI data. You can use existing queries in your VC models. The 3.5x BEx Query Designer The new 7.0 Query designer was totally re-developed in MS-Visual Basic .NET The NWBI 7.0 BEx Query Designer

7. What is Visual Composer Visual Composer is a tool to visualize the data. It is a browser-based modeling and design tool for rapid application development & prototyping in a code-free development environment.

8. Visual Composer for Complex cockpits Modeling of BI applications using the BI kit of the Visual Composer allows business users to create analytical content for SAP portal. It offers the integration with BI InfoProviders, views, BEx web applications, PDF and more via WEB API as access to other data sources such as OLAP and relational data sources) via Java connectors Image source: Cubeserv

9. Details about Visual Composer Cockpits • Delivered as part of Enterprise Portal in SAP NetWeaver BI 7.0 Usage Type (SPS8 and higher) • Different options available for rendering Visual Composer output • Flash • Web Dynpro (HTML) • Flash provides high-end visualization of Visual Composer models You can pick your own rendering method in the menu: Tools  Options

10. Visual Composer Data Methods • Can integrate data from multiple data sources, including SAP and non-SAP systems, into one model • Different options available for data access include: • BI Extension Kit • Remote Function Call (RFC) • Web services • BI Extension Kit allows access to the following DataSources • SAP NetWeaver 2004 BI (BW 3.5 Support Package 14) • SAP NetWeaver BI 7.0 • JDBC • XMLA

11. Visual Composer DataProviders • You can use BI queries and views as DataProviders for Visual Composer models • You also can use BI query functionalities for exceptions and variables along with Visual Composer models • Visual Composer allows access to BI history, favorites, and roles

12. Visual Composer is Easy for Power Users to Learn Visual Composer is a power user tool that is simple to learn for someone with a little bit of technical background (i.e. controllers, report writers, analysts). No coding required to create great-looking Web-based cockpits Take advantage of prebuilt analytic business packages Source: SAP

13. Visual Composer and WAD • Visual Composer integrates with Web AD-based applications using Portal Eventing Framework • For example, BW Web API can pass a filter value from a BEx Web application to Visual Composer • and vice versa

14. Web Application Designer for custom applications WAD can also incorporate other SAP VC web items into powerful cockpits and custom report centers. • While WAD can be used by developers without extensive HTML and Java scripting knowledge, these skills will be useful on most projects.

15. Visual Composer 7.0 Portal Publishing • Visual Composer Design time deploys Visual Composer models directly as iViews to Portal Content Catalog • You can then use Visual Composer iViews in portal pages, roles, etc.

16. There are many resources for SAP VC – The SDN community • This is a great site for quickly getting started with SAP VC and for down-loading a free demo-version

17. SAP VC – and the SAP Community Network • Many of the beginner questions have already been answered in the expert forums on the SAP community network

18. SAP VC – The SDN community Blogs • You can also learn from other’s experiences by getting ‘plugged-in’ to the community network blogs dedicated to SAP Visual Composer.

19. What We’ll Cover … • Introduction • SAP Visual Composer overview • How to build a VC model • Demo • Performance tuning • The future of VC • Other options • Wrap up

20. Modeling Overview • In this section we will review some of the technical options in SAP VC and take a look at the purpose of each of these. • After this, we will see a demo of how to build SAP VC model from start to finish. • We assume you have never seen the tool before and will go through the demo and the overview step-by-step

21. Download and getting started – The trial version You can download a trial version on the SAP Community network. • However, to put it into production you must work with your SAP account executive for a license. It is normally not covered by a general SAP BI license.

22. Creating a model The first task is to create an overall model to store all your pages and iViews. The name cannot have blanks or special characters You can organize your model in standard folder structures • Remember that this is a power user task, so providing the group with some formal training (4-6 hrs) would be beneficial. Also, teach them you naming conventions

23. The SAP VC add-ons The models are actually graphics rendered with Adobe SVG (vector graphics) • If you don’t have Adobe SVG installed, you must go to their web site and download it. It is a small file and it is free

24. The work environment – Getting Connected First you must make sure that your Visual composer environment is set up with connection back to your SAP BI environment(s). • You can also work with your technical team to setup connections to other non-SAP environments

25. The Portal Web Page container You can create individual iViews that are shared in other applications such as WAD, KM folders and web pages. You can use the portal page to group iViews. Alternatively, you can make complex iViews that have many different display levels • Using the compose icon on the right, you • Can add iViews and Portal pages to your model

26. The SAP VC Configure Toolbar We can add items and see then from the highest level, or you can ‘drill-down’ on each item and configure them individually. Navigation is provided as a toolbar and you can also zoom in on each item. • This tool bar allows you to zoom, access layers, insert grid lines for layout and move objects

27. The magnifying glass SAP VC has many tools that power users can play with. The fastest way to proficiency is to try the many features. Very few things can 'break’, and the undo button is always available • The magnifying glass is helpful when the model is very complex and zooming in and out is cumbersome

28. The Annotation tool When you are developing very complex models, it is very helpful to add annotations (comments) to document your work. • Consider proposing standards within your company (i.e. dates, initials, and what needs to be documented).

29. The iView in SAP VC iViews can be graphical (charts) or tables and links between iViews and queries can create complex dashboards with many navigation options

30. Getting an Overview over complex models Very large visual composer cockpits can be hard to read. The Browse feature allows you to see the cockpit in a tree format that makes it easier to navigate • Graphical model displays can get hard to read once very complex dashboards are created

31. Development methodology Plan on spending serious time with users working on layout and web page organization. PS! you can use the SAP delivered calendar to display, or for user to interact with your data set. • The best way to create cockpits is to prototype it first, then ask for feedback. Since this process is discovery oriented, It is not best practices to use functional specifications to create web cockpits. Rapid Application Development (RAD) is the preferred methodology

32. The Back-end GML code SAP Visual Composer uses the standard GUI Modeling Language (GML). If you are familiar with this language, you can see the code page under the ‘source’ tab

33. Step 1 – Find the data you want to model • You can look at existing queries developed by others. • In this example we will create a web cockpit based on 2 SAP BI queries • More advanced developers can also call Business Application Programming Interfaces (BAPI) that is delivered with SAP BI to build complex applications

34. Step 2 – Selecting the queries and defining a starting point • After the query is selected, the metadata is transferred to the model. • We select one query as the starting point and can require users to use a prompt (in this example we will leave this blank)

35. Step 3 – Adding a table view based on Query data • We add a table view and select the fields we want from the query • We give the table view a meaningful business name

36. Step 4 – Adding a Chart view based on Query data • We add a chart view based on the query data. • We decide to make it a column chart • The fields that we want to graph are selected • We add animation to the column chart

37. Step 5 – Defining graph & assigning meaningful names • We select the fields we want to graph as different data series (columns) • We give each column a meaningful business name (this is what the users will see)

38. Step 6 – Suppressing zero values from the query • We can suppress the sum rows from the query, so that the graphs are more meaningful and the tables are less cluttered

39. Step 7 – Adding navigation: Linking tables to other queries • When a user selects a row in the country table we want to show all the customers in that country and their sales. • We link the output from the country table view to the customer query and map the ‘country-key’ value between the two objects

40. Step 8 – Adding navigation: Linking graphs to other queries • We also want to give the users the option on clicking on a country in the graph and see the see all the customer’s sales. • Again, we link the output from the country graph to the customer query and map the ‘country-key’ value between the objects

41. Step 9 – Adding a table view for customer sales data • Previously we added a table and a graph of country sales. Now we want to add similar views for customer sales • First we add a table view • We select the fields to be displayed from the query • We give the table a meaningful name

42. Step 9 – Adding a pie chart for customer sales data • Now we add a pie chart • First we add a graph view • We select the pie chart type and the fields to be graphed • We give the field a meaningful business name

43. Step 10 – Suppressing zero values from the query • Again, we suppress the sum rows from the query, so that the graphs are more meaningful and the tables are less cluttered

44. Step 11 – Layout and Compiling of dashboard • In the layout section we arrange the objects and resize them so that they look good. We also compile the model and can now view it in the SAP Portal

45. The Result: the web cockpit in the SAP Portal • All country sales are displayed based on the first query

46. The Result: Navigation between the graphs • By clicking on the country in either of the top views, the bottom views displays sales for those customers

47. What We’ll Cover … • Introduction • SAP Visual Composer overview • How to build a VC model • Demo • Performance tuning • The future of VC • Other options • Wrap up

49. External Web Services • External web services (WS) such as email, stock quotes, news services and weather maps can also be integrated into your SAP VC cockpit

50. External Data Providers – web services • Each Web Service may require different input, so you have to spend some time trying out what works for your site and how to format it.