This year (2014) was an amazing year for German football fans as their national team won the World Cup 2014 title. A few days later, I received a subscription e-mail from SAP with the title How SAP helped Germany win the World Cup. It was very interesting for me to know how. As SAP is one of the leading IT companies in the world, it was not clear to me how IT can help a sports team or even a football team to win a title or a medal. You can have a look at the e-mail body in the following screenshot:
So it is all about Business Intelligence (BI). Now, we can see BI participating in almost every single aspect of our life, even in sports. SAP used the Big Data concept to handle vast amount of data, SAP HANA to assure optimum response time, and SAP BO BI 4.x to make data available to the right users in the right format (reports, dashboards, and analysis), as we can see in the previous example. The results were amazing, Germany won the World Cup title with the aid of BI. This era is not the "hard work one", but rather it is the "intelligent work one".
SAP BO BI 4.x is a complete BI solution with many tools bundled together to satisfy different needs of BI. One important tool is Information Design Tool, which is used to create and build the BO semantic layer (Universe). Universe is an intermediate layer between database and BI tools that will transform database entities and joins into business objects stored in the Business layer. These business objects can be consumed later on by different BO reporting solutions.
In this book, we will learn how to create a Universe from scratch. We will cover all related topics in detail along with step-by-step hands-on and real examples. We will discuss design best practices, the Universe development life cycle, Universe testing, security, and the multiuser development environment.
Congratulations on taking a step toward learning how to create a Universe using SAP BO BI 4.x! Are you ready? Let's go…
Chapter 1, Introduction to BI and the Semantic Layer, introduces Business Intelligence (BI), BI concepts, and Information Design Tool (IDT).
Chapter 2, Aligning BI Solutions with Business Demands, explains how to download the Northwind MS Access database and configure it in order to use it in the remaining chapters of this book. We will also discuss the business case for Northwind and will explain its data model.
Chapter 3, Creating Our First Universe, facilitates a quick walkthrough that will guide you to build your first Universe from start to finish. We will talk about the main building blocks for any Universe and we will start creating a project, connection, as well as the Data Foundation and Business layers; then we will publish this Universe. We will continue building and enriching this Universe in the remaining chapters of this book.
Chapter 4, Creating the Data Foundation Layer, introduces us to our core chapter that will cover in detail all you need to know about data connection and Data Foundation resources.
Chapter 5, Creating the Business Layer, covers in detail all that you need to know about the Business layer. Here, you can also find many best practices on how to deal with business requirements.
Chapter 6, Testing Your Universe, discusses the Universe development life cycle, how to use the Check Integrity wizard to complete the System Integration Test (SIT) for the Universe, and how to use the Queries tab in the Business layer resource to complete the User Acceptance Test (UAT).
Chapter 7, The Data Foundation Layer – Advanced Topics, covers advanced design topics that we need to take care of during the Data Foundation design phase. We will start with design concepts, then we will cover Data Foundation advanced techniques that we will use to enhance our Data Foundation design. Finally, we will talk about SQL design traps and how to fix and avoid them.
Chapter 8, The Business Layer – Advanced Topics, discusses Business layer topics such as list of values (LOV), navigation paths (hierarchies), index awareness, aggregate awareness, and Business layer's BO advanced functions (@functions).
Chapter 9, Data Security and Profiles, covers the important topic of security in detail. We will start with differentiating between the two main types of security profiles (Data Security Profile and Business Security Profile). We will learn how to use the Security Editor to create security rules and how to assign them. Finally, we will talk about security implementation best practices and how to create the security matrix.
Chapter 10, A Multiuser Development Environment, explains how designers can work more efficiently in teams and how to use Information Design Tool in the multiuser development environment using the synchronization wizard to synchronize local and shared projects. It also explains how to migrate and upgrade a Universe among BO environments.
You need to have the SAP BO BI 4.x client installed on your machine. You also will need to have access to the BO BI 4.x server to be able to complete some parts that require establishing a session with the BO server. It is also important to complete the setup and configuration steps mentioned in Chapter 2, Aligning BI Solutions with Business Demands, in order to be able to complete the hands-on and real examples described in this book.
This book is a step-by-step walkthrough supported with real-life examples and illustrator diagrams that will help you to build robust Universes. This is the perfect book for you if you are a beginner and want to learn how to use SAP BO Information Design Tool to create a Universe from scratch. You will also find all that you need to upgrade from Universe Design Tool (BO 6.x, BO XI2.x, and BO XI3.x) to Information Design Tool (the new SAP BO semantic layer tool introduced since BO BI 4.0). You will find information about how to map your current knowledge and experience in the UDT in a very fast and efficient way and to start using the new IDT. This book is also for professional Universe designers who work with the IDT to build SAP BO Universes. As a professional IDT designer, you will still find many tips, tricks, and best practices. Finally, this book is a complete guide that you can always refer to irrespective of your current level of experience.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "To convert a .unv Universe, let's perform the following steps:"
A block of code is set as follows:
SELECT A.CUSTOMER_ID, COUNT (C.CREDIT_CARD_NO), COUNT (B.ACCOUNT_NUMBER) FROM CUSTOMERS A, CURRENT_ACCOUNTS B, CREDIT_CARDS C WHERE A.CUSTOMER_ID =B.CUSTOMER_ID AND A.CUSTOMER_ID = C.CUSTOMER_ID GROUP BY A.CUSTOMER_ID
When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:
EMPLOYEES.AGE BETWEEN "AGE BUCKET".AGE_LOWER_BOUND AND "AGE BUCKET".AGE_UPPER_BOUND
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Navigate to Administrative Tools, and then double-click on Data Sources (ODBC)."
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