SAP BO: Adding and Customizing Charts

In the section about CHARTING, we have uncovered the basic charting capabilities of SAP BUSINESSOBJECTS ANALYSIS, EDITION FOR OLAP. In this section, we will learn more about how we can add charts to the workspace and how we can customize those charts.

Learn Adding and Customizing Charts in SAP BO

1. Open the BI Launchpad via Start > All Programs >SAP BUSINESSOBJECTS BI Platform 4.0 > SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform > SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform Java BI Launchpad.
2. Log in with your SAP credentials and the SAP authentication for your SAP NETWEAVER BW system.
3. Select the menu Applications.
4. Select Analysis, Edition for OLAP. In the next step, you are presented with the list of available OLAP Connections.
5. Select the connection that we have created previously pointing to your SAP NetWeaver BW system.
6. Click Next. You are now receiving the list of available BEx queries. You can also use the tab Find to search for specific queries.
7. Select the BEx Query we created previously and click OK.
8. Remove all characteristics from the Rows.
9. Add characteristic Product to the Rows.
10. Navigate to the tab Insert.
11. Click on the Screenshot_546 button in the toolbar to insert a new chart (see Figure 5.11).
12. Select the option Clustered Column.

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Figure 5.11 Insert Chart

    13. Your workspace now also contains a column chart (see Figure 5.12).

Figure 5.12 Analysis Workspace with chart

You will notice that the chart by default is using the elements in the Rows for the separate columns in the chart itself and that the elements from the Columns are used on the Y-Axis of the chart. In our example, this means we have all the key figures on the Y-Axis and per-key figure the members of characteristic Product are being used for the columns in the chart itself.

The small area on top of the chart (see Figure 5.13) allows you to narrow or widen the actual visible area of the chart itself and you can also move the selected area with a simple mouse click and drag. You are also able to hide this additional box, in case you prefer to see the complete chart, but you need to remember that even if you hide the box that you only see the selected area.

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Figure 5.13 Chart focus

    14. Navigate to the tab Display.
    15. Ensure the chart is selected in your workspace.
    16. Click on.

Figure 5.14 Analysis Workspace with chart

Even though the chart was created as a sub-analysis of the original cross tab, you are able to swap the axes of the chart without having to change anything in the cross tab itself (see Figure 5.14).
17. Use a right-click on the chart itself (see Figure 5.15).

Figure 5.15 Analysis Workspace with chart

    18. You can use the context menu of the chart to change the chart type.
    19. Select the option to change your existing chart into a Pie Chart.
    20. You can also use the menu option Switch to on the tab Insert to change the chart type (see Figure 5.16).

Figure 5.16 Menu Switch To

    21. Select the chart in your workspace.

    22. Use the Properties button in the Data panel to open the properties of the chart (see Figure 5.17).

Figure 5.17 Properties

In the Properties of the chart you can customize the appearance of your chart:
You can change the name of the chart by changing the text in a Sub-Analysis Name. You can select a Style, which will impact the overall appearance of your chart. You can also select a Palette, which allows you to select from a list of color combinations.
You can configure the Font.
In addition, you can enable or disable the following options:

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Show Totals allow you to include or exclude the grand totals from the chart.
Show hierarchical labeling allows you to activate or disable true hierarchical labeling for your chart.
Show Legend allows you to show or hide the legend for the chart.
The option Manually hide chart labels allows you to define a threshold value (Hide Labels Less Than) for those labels that you would like to hide; any labels below the threshold will be hidden in the chart.
With Show Actual values, you can configure your chart to show the actual values instead – like in our pie chart – percentage values.

23. Use a right-click on the current pie chart and change the pie chart to a column chart (see Figure 5.18).

Figure 5.18 Chart Properties

Because we are now using a column chart, we have some additional properties, which allow us to define the axis labels and the scaling factor for the axis.

 24. Now exchange the Product Hierarchy with the product characteristic in the Rows (see Figure 5.19).

Figure 5.19 Exchange characteristics

    25. Navigate to the Properties of the chart.
    26. Activate the option Show Hierarchical Labeling.
    27. Click Apply.
    28. Navigate to the tab Display.
    29. Ensure the chart is selected in your workspace.
    30. Click on.

Figure 5.20 Hierarchical Labeling

Your chart now shows the product hierarchy along X-axis by showing hierarchical labeling (see Figure 5.20), so that the person consuming the information is able to identify the different levels and nodes of the hierarchy.
So far, we learned how to add different chart types to our workspace, how to customize those charts, and how to leverage hierarchies as part of the chart. In the next section, we shall try to add our own custom calculations to the workspace.

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