Enterprise Reporting, Query, and
Analysis 
This documentation provides a starting point for the administration and optimal maintenance of the Enterprise Reporting, Query and Analysis scenario. It contains BI-specific information for various tasks, lists the relevant tools, and directs you to further documentation that you need to complete the tasks. You can only use this documentation in conjunction with other manuals, such as the other SAP NetWeaver Technical Operation Manuals, the Master Guide, and SAP Library.
This scenario shows how business experts can use the reporting and analysis tools available in SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence (BI) to provide customized BI information for the different types of user within a company.
Business Explorer
The tools in the BI Suite, subsequently referred to as Business Explorer (BEx), allow business experts to create and distribute the necessary reports and analyses. These tools are integrated with each other and have user-friendly, intuitive interfaces.
You can perform a detailed analysis of BI information both on the Web and in Microsoft Excel. You can also define formatted reports optimized for presentation and printing.
Web applications and formatted reports can be easily converted into PDF files and printed.
Users access BI information using the portal. Users can use information broadcasting functions to send this information by e-mail, for example, or distribute it to KM folders and collaboration rooms.
Visual Composer BI Integration
In addition, the integration of BI in the Visual Composer provides the option of including BI data in composite applications, which users can access in the portal.
Business experts create iViews or portal pages based on data from SAP or third-party systems. The data can be stored in relational or multidimensional format. A set of query templates that incorporate specific business aspects, and user-friendly operation in the Visual Composer both support business experts in creating BI applications.
For more
information, see 
Enterprise Reporting,
Query, and Analysis.
Integration
This section on the administration of the Enterprise Reporting, Query, and Analysis scenario lists the most important administration tasks for the optimal running of the Business Explorer tools.
You also have to execute administration tasks for the following scenarios:
Overview: Administration of Other IT scenarios
IT Scenario |
What You Need to Know... |
This scenario covers the staging and modeling of the data that forms the basis of analysis and reporting in the Enterprise, Reporting, Query, and Analysis scenario. In addition, the Enterprise Data Warehousing scenario offers performance optimization, user management, and monitoring options. For more
information about monitoring and performance optimization for queries, see |
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This scenario is a prerequisite for central, role-based access to SAP NetWeaver. With the Enterprise Reporting, Query, and Analysis scenario, you can publish BI content in the portal and allow users to work with the structured data from BI together with the unstructured data and the various functions in the portal. |
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In the portal, this scenario provides central and role-based access to the information in your company and establishes a link between structured business data and unstructured documents. |
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With user collaboration in the portal, users can use services for collaboration to edit documents (such as from BI) in an application sharing session, for example. |
For more
information about the general administration of BI systems, see BI (Business
Intelligence).
If you are using the tools and runtime from the Business Explorer in SAP BW 3.5, see also the Technical Operations Manual for SAP BW 3.5. For more information, see the SAP Library at help.sap.com/nw04 ® SAP NetWeaver ® SAP NetWeaver Technical Operations Manual ®Additional Administration of SAP NetWeaver Components ® SAP Business Information Warehouse.
Note that with the Enterprise Reporting, Query, and Analysis scenario, you must have the same support package version for SAP NetWeaver 2004s in the portal and in the BI system.
Technical System Landscape
The following figure outlines the main components required for the Enterprise Reporting, Query, and Analysis scenario.
The BI applications are created with the various tools from the Business Explorer Suite or the Visual Composer, and can be published to the SAP NetWeaver Portal.
The BEx Query Designer is available for creating queries. These can be used for the Microsoft Excel-based analysis in the BEx Analyzer or for the Web-based analysis in the BEx Web. The data analysis can also be based on InfoProviders from SAP NetWeaver BI or on multidimensionally stored data from third-party tools.
In BEx Web, the Web Application Designer is available for creating Web applications, the Report Designer for creating formatted reports, and the Web Analyzer for a Web-based ad hoc analysis. Using information broadcasting, you can broadcast the generated BI content by e-mail, or publish it in the portal.
Relevant Components
For more information about the relevant components, see the table below.
The following table provides an overview of where you can find further information:
Component |
See |
Business Explorer (BEx) |
|
BEx Query Designer |
|
BEx Web Application Designer |
|
BEx Report Designer |
|
BEx Web Analyzer |
|
BEx Analyzer |
|
Information Broadcasting |
|
Visual Composer BI Integration |
|
BI Integration Wizard |
|
SAP NetWeaver Portal |
|
Integrating BI Content into the Portal |
|
BI Documents in Knowledge Management |
|
Tasks
The Enterprise Reporting, Query, and Analysis scenario contains the following scenario variants:
● Query, Reporting, and Analysis
● Modeling BI Applications with SAP NetWeaver Visual Composer
These sections provide an overview of the necessary administrative tasks.