SAP BO Product Roadmap

In this field, let us take a look at the planned innovations for SAP BUSINESSOBJECTS ANALYSIS, EDITION FOR OLAP.

Product Roadmap

In the last sections regarding SAP BO, we learned about the basic functionality of SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP, we reviewed the support for BEx queries and typical BEx Web Analyzer functionality, and we reviewed the advanced functionality of the BI client tool. By now, you must be having a good understanding of SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP and you should also have a good overview on the support for the SAP NETWEAVER BW specific topics, such as a currency translation.
In the next few paragraphs, we will take a look at the roadmap for the product and what type of additional functionality you can expect in the upcoming releases.

Figure 7.1 Product Roadmap

Figure 7.1 shown in the far left column of the SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP roadmap the current feature set reflected in SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP release 4 Service Pack 4. The middle column is the planned feature set for the SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 release, which is currently (November 2012) planned to go into RampUp in Q2 2013, and the far right column is showing the planned features for the release after the 4.1 release.

You have seen and used in the last sections, the feature set of SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 Service Pack 04, so let’s focus on the scope of 4.1 for SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP.
Improved support for SAP NetWeaver BW refers to the upcoming support for Exceptions defined in the BEX QUERY itself and the ability to configure the merging of BEX VARIABLES in your workspace. Prompt merging will allow you configure, if the user should get prompted only once or multiple times for scenarios where you are using BEx queries that are sharing the same BEx variables in a single workspace.

In addition, the improved support for SAP NetWeaver BW also includes the support for variable variants in SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP allowing you to leverage existing variants and also creating new variants when viewing your workspace.

SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP is also adding a water fall chart as part of the 4.1 release and it will provide you with the very interesting capability to create your own custom groups. Custom Grouping is a very powerful feature allowing you to combine members from one or multiple hierarchies into your own custom group, which then can be used in cross tabs or charts. It is important to note, that custom groups will not be supported with SAP NetWeaver BW as a data source in the 4.1 release.

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With the Information Access area, SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP is enhancing the interoperability with the overall SAP landscape by allowing you to not only navigate from a workspace to Crystal Reports or Web Intelligence based content, but also you will also be able to leverage the Report- Report-Interface from SAP NetWeaver BW in combination with SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP as a valid sender.

With the seamless integration between SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP and SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio you will be able to take you workspace to SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio and you can then leverage the full functionality of the SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio. Not only does this put you in a position to enable your SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP workspace for a mobile consumption, but it also allows you to leverage the SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio to create guided analysis steps in your analytical content.

You can see that with the upcoming release of SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 there are several interesting features being added to the SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for OLAP which make this BI client really a premium alternative to your current BEx Web Analyzer deployment. Especially the integration with SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio is going to create many opportunities, one of them being the ability to deliver your analytical content to mobile devices using HTML5.