Creating Interactive Reports in CRM

In SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM), you can create and change interactive reports and assign them to certain users or organizational units. A wizard guides you through the required activities step by step.

Prerequisites

You have set up CRM interactive reporting. For more information, see Interactive Reporting in CRM.

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

Fields for time period (in step 2)
Filter/characteristic assignment (in step 3)
Separate areas for key figures and characteristics (in step 4)
Assignment to business roles and sharing for certain users (steps 6 and 7)

Features

The wizard for creating interactive reports supports you in the following activities:

Defining the interactive report
Selecting the fields
Defining input parameters and filters
Table definition and selection of chart type
Assignment of business roles, users, and organizational units
Preview of the interactive report

Activities

To start the wizard, choose Create Start of the navigation path Interactive Report End of the navigation path . Proceed as follows in the individual steps:

In the first step, you define the following basic data for the new interactive report:
- Enter a name. The report appears in the report overview as a hyperlink with this name. You click the hyperlink to execute the report.
- Enter a description. The description appears as the title within the report.
  
  Note
  When searching for interactive reports, you can use both the name and the title as search criteria.
  
  End of the note.
- Use the input help to choose a Business Role. In a later step, you assign the report to certain business roles and define in which work centers the report name appears.
- Use the input help to choose the Interactive Report Area. The interactive report area determines the business area from which you can select fields in the next step. For more information, see Report Areas for Interactive Reports and Report Areas for Interactive Reports Based on SAP HANA VDM.
- Choose the Default Display option for the report.
In the second step, you select the report fields. Select the characteristics and key figures you want to use in the report from the lists of available characteristics and key figures. To add a field to the report, choose Insert Field.

Note
If you are changing an existing report or return from one of the subsequent steps to the field selection, the fields selected here are not automatically included in the report table. Choose step 4 of the wizard to add the fields to the table.

End of the note.

Here you also add fields that you want to use only as filters or input parameters.

Note
Alongside fields containing a date, there also fields available for Time Period, for example, for the selection Current Month. The selected time periods are filled dynamically at runtime based on the current date.

You can define customer-specific time periods. To do so, implement the BAdI Conversion of Custom Time Periods for Date Filter Fields (CRM_BADI_OR_IL_DYN_DATE_CONVER). For more information about implementation, choose BAdI Documentation.

End of the note.

You can choose Preview or Preview Without Business Filters to check the report settings you have made up to now. You can use both preview types in all subsequent steps.
Note
You only see the Preview Without Business Filters if the corresponding authorization has been set up for you. You can use this button for test purposes. It enables you to see a preview that is independent of the business filters that are observed in the standard preview and can lead to an empty results list. This means that the following restrictions are not observed:
- Person responsible
- Sales organization of person responsible
- Marketing organization
- Access Control Engine rules
For more information, see Customizing for Customer Relationship Management under CRM Analytics Interactive Reporting Button “Preview Without Business Filters” .

End of the note.
In the third step, you define the input parameters and filters for the report, if required:
- Under Define Input Parameters, choose a field in which the user can or must make an entry when executing the report. Define the input parameter details as follows:
  - Choose whether the entry is mandatory. For example, you could specify that a time period must be specified when executing the report so as to restrict the amount of data.
  - Choose the operator and define a default value, if required.
  - To add more input parameters, choose Add Line.
- Under Define Filters, choose a field whose value restricts the area analyzed by the report.
  
  Choose the operator and define the filter value as required.
  
  The filter that you define here cannot be changed when executing the report. For more information about executing interactive reports, see Executing Interactive Reports in CRM.
Input parameters or filters that are based on key figures evaluate all characteristics of the opposite axis by default. To define an alternative option, choose Details. For more information, see Filter/Characteristic Assignment.

Note
You can use a field either as an input parameter or as a filter.

End of the note.
In the fourth step, you decide which fields are visible during the report execution and in which table columns or rows they appear. For example, you can remove fields from the table that you defined in step 3 as input parameters. You can also change the position of fields in the table, for example, you can move fields from one axis of the table to the other axis. However, you can only ever use key figures on a single axis, not split across both axes.
When executing the report, the user can customize the table as required.
In the fifth step, you define the type of chart used to visualize the results of the report. Under Chart Type, use the input help to select the chart.
In the sixth step, you can assign the report to certain business roles and work centers. Choose a Business Role. The available work centers are displayed. Select the work center in which the report should appear with its name.
After making the assignment to business roles (step 6), you can share the report for certain users or organizational units in step 7.
Choose Finish, to save the interactive report and to make it available to the assigned roles and users. You require a transport request if you want to make an interactive report available in SAP CRM.

More Information

For more information about CRM interactive reporting, see Interactive Reporting in CRM.

For more information about the structure and possibilities of CRM reporting, see Analytics.

By implementing a BAdI, you can also execute interactive reports without observing business filters and restrict potentially large numbers of hits for the report in question. For more information, see Customizing for Customer Relationship Management under Start of the navigation path CRM Analytics Next navigation step Interactive Reporting Suppress Business Filter Checks BAdI: Suppression of Business Filters in IR for Preview and Execution End of the navigation path .