Function documentationInteractive Reporting in CRM

 

You can use interactive reporting in SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) to perform ad hoc analyses in real time. Interactive reports are particularly suitable for analysis scenarios in which a separate BW system is not available or for analyses of a limited data volume where obtaining information quickly is of more importance than the amount of information analyzed.

Prerequisites

  • You have set up a client for processing BI Content in SAP CRM. This can be the same client as the one that contains the data for report creation.

  • You have completed the configuration steps necessary to set up CRM interactive reporting. For more information, see SAP Solution Manager and the CRM Interactive Reporting Configuration Wizard (transaction /CRMBW/CONFIG_WIZARD).

  • You have assigned the corresponding user roles to all users that require authorization to create and execute reports. For more information, see SAP Solution Manager.

To use the following functions of interactive reports, you must activate the business function SAP BusinessObjects Integration and CRM Interactive Reporting (CRM_ANA_BOB).

  • Interactive Reporting Enhancement Workbench

  • Xcelsius Dashboards in CRM Interactive Reporting

  • Cache Management

Features

Interactive reports in SAP CRM have the following features:

  • Interactive reports make it easier to find related data. Links in the tables of the interactive reports enable you to navigate directly to the corresponding overview pages.

    Note Note

    The data displayed in an interactive report depends on the user's position within the organizational model. For example, the reports of a sales employee only contain data for opportunities for which he or she is responsible. However, a manager can see data for all opportunities for which the sales employees in the manager's organizational unit are responsible.

    End of the note.

  • A wizard helps you create or edit interactive reports. You can assign the reports to certain user roles and release them for certain users. For more information about creating interactive reports, see Creating Interactive Reports in CRM

  • SAP CRM provides a wide range of analysis objects for creating interactive reports, which are grouped in report areas according to business area. Such report areas are available for:

    • Sales

    • Marketing

    • Service

    • IT Service Management

    For information about the standard report areas, see Report Areas for Interactive Reports

  • You can expand the available report areas. There are two ways of doing this:

    • Custom fields. For more information about enhancing reports with custom fields, see Application Enhancement Tool.

      Note Note

      Depending on what type of field you want to add, choose Key Figure or Characteristic next to CRM Interactive Reporting on the screen Field Details in the application enhancement tool. Note that not all available Field Types can be used in CRM interactive reporting.

      End of the note.

    • SAP standard fields. For more information about enhancing reports with standard fields, see Interactive Reporting Enhancement Workbench.

  • You can use Xcelsius Dashboards to visualize the query results of interactive reports. Three dashboards are available in the standard delivery. For more information, see Xcelsius Dashboards in CRM Interactive Reporting

Sizing

The typical dimensioning of a CRM system is sufficient to use CRM interactive reporting. A use case for CRM interactive reporting is, for example:

  • CRM interactive reporting is used by employees and lower-level managers, for instance sales managers.

  • 10 sales employees are assigned to a sales manager on an organizational level.

  • Each sales employee reports more than 200 business transactions in real time, opportunities for example.

  • Each business transaction consists of approximately 5 items.

In this example, you can reach response times of under 15 seconds, if the data is in the cache (see below).

Note that CRM interactive reporting is not suitable for reports with large data volumes, as is typical for reporting in higher-level management.

More Information

To maximize the performance of CRM interactive reporting, results are stored in a cache. For more information about managing the cache, see Customizing for SAP Customer Relationship Management under Start of the navigation path CRM Analytics Next navigation step Interactive Reporting Next navigation step Cache Management End of the navigation path.

For more information about BI content and the queries that form the basis of CRM interactive reporting, see CRM BI Content for CRM Interactive Reporting.