Charting in SAP BO

Before saving our first SAP BUSINESSOBJECTS ANALYSIS, EDITION FOR OLAP workspace, let us add CHARTS to our sheet. Right now we only have one crosstab in our workspace. You can have up to four elements per sheet, there could be four tables or four charts or any combination of tables and charts, but the maximum is four elements per sheet.
You can insert a chart into the workspace in two ways:

• You can insert the chart directly.
• You can insert a table and then switch the table to a chart.

When selecting the option to insert a chart directly, the chart will be inserted as a “sub analysis” for the table, which means that the chart will show the data that as seen in the crosstab and your chart will be linked to the crosstab.
When first inserting a table and then converting the table into a chart, you can have a chart independent of any other tables shown on the sheet, so that your chart is not linked to the cross tab anymore.
Let us use these two options in our own workspace.
1. In the workspace, from before navigate to the tab Insert.
2. Click on the bar chart icon (see Figure 4.64).

Figure 4.64 Inserting Charts

A bar chart is being inserted (see Figure 4.65) to the workspace as a sub-analysis for the cross tab of our workspace. Because it is a sub-analysis, any change in our cross tab, for example, removing characteristic Product from the Rows, will also impact the chart.

Figure 4.65 Analysis Workspace with chart

3. Select the chart in the workspace.
4. Navigate to the tab Display (see Figure 4.66).

Figure 4.66 Tab Display

5. Click on Unlink sub-analysis.
6. Now your chart is not a sub-analysis anymore, but instead it is independent of the table.
7. Select the chart in the workspace.
8. Now drag and drop characteristic Product to the Background Filter area (see Figure 4.67).

Figure 4.67Analysis Workspace with chart 

9. Drag characteristic Region from the Data Panel to the Rows, so that the chart shows first characteristic Country and then characteristic Region.
10. You should notice that these steps have no impact for the cross tab, because the chart is independent of the table now.

Frequently asked SAP BO Interview Questions

Now, let us try the second option by first adding the table and then changing the table to a chart.
1. In the workspace from before navigate to the tab Insert.
2. Click on the table icon on the left to insert a new cross tab (see Figure 4.68).

Figure 4.68 Insert New Analysis

3. Here you can select right from the beginning if your table will be an independent analysis or a sub-analysis.
4. Select the option Insert a new analysis. The new table will be placed on the sheet and you can now move the table on the sheet to a place you prefer.
5. Navigate to the tab Insert.
6. Now select the menu Switch to and use the option to switch to a Pie Chart.

Figure 4.69 Option Switch to

Because we started by inserting an independent analysis, our chart is independent from the original table and any navigation in the cross tab does not have any effect on the chart.
You have now learned the two options you can use to insert new charts into the workspace and how you can decide whether the chart should be a sub-analysis or an independent analysis. In the next chapter, we will review charts in more details. In the next section, we will take a look at how we can change the properties of our components and save or export our workspace.