CROA - Getting Started with SAP - What is SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence
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2015 |
What is SAP Web Intelligence?
SAP Web Intelligence is a tool in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform that you can use to access your data wherever it is stored so that you are kept up to date with what’s going on, and can share the information with others.
Web Intelligence uses familiar business terms and offers a drag-and-drop interface. You can do the following:
- Answer very broad or narrow business questions.
- Create and update reports based on your business requirements.
- Access and combine data from various data sources, including relational and online analytical processing (OLAP) databases, Excel spreadsheets, and even text files.
Web Intelligence has three different interfaces, or versions:
Table 1:
Interface |
Characteristics |
Web Intelligence HTML interface |
Also sometimes referred to as the DHTML interface. You can launch this interface in the BI launch pad. We are using the Web Intelligence HTML interface for the first business ques tion in this guide. X-ref to scenario 1. |
Web Intelligence Applet interface |
Also sometimes referred to as the Java applet. You launch this interface in the BI launch pad. We are using the Web Intelligence Applet interface for the second business question in this guide. X-ref to scenario 2. |
Web Intelligence Rich Client interface |
Also referred to as Desktop. You install this interface on your computer through the BI launch pad or as a part of a BI platform installation. |
What are data sources?
A data source, also called a data file in some contexts, is a collection of stored data. In Web Intelligence, you answer business questions by expressing the question in the form of a query, and when you run the query, it searches the data source to answer your question. For example, you can use a query to ask for the sales margins per product over a time period.
What are universes?
A universe represents a preselected set of data from a complex data source. A universe contains measures, dimensions, and attributes that you combine using a query.
A dimension () is a collection of related data members that represent aspects of a business; for example, products or sales. A hierarchy is a set of dimension members that are arranged in levels or parent-child relationships.
Measures () retrieve data, usually numeric, that is the result of calculations on data in the database.
An attribute () provides descriptive data about a dimension or hierarchy, for example Birthdate can be an attribute of a Customer dimension.