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Web Applications with BW Contents

With the Web application design you can use generic OLAP navigation on your BW data in Web applications and dashboards and create Web-based planning applications. Web application design incorporates a broad spectrum of Web-based business intelligence scenarios, which you can adjust to meet your individual needs using standard Web technologies.

Web Application Designer

The central tool of Web application design is the BEx Web Application Designer, with which you can create interactive Web applications with BW-specific contents, such as tables, charts and maps. Web applications are based on Web templates that you create and edit in Web Application Designer. You can save the Web templates and access them from the Web browser or the portal. Once they are executed on the Web, Web templates are referred to as Web applications.

You can use queries, query views and InfoProviders as the data provider for Web applications.

Predefined Web Items for Data Visualization and Layout Design of Web Applications

A number of predefined Web items are available for visualizing the data and for designing the layout of Web applications. Each Web item has characteristics (parameters) that can be overwritten and adapted to the particular application. Web items can be stored as reusable elements and used as a template for other Web items.

You can use the Analysis, Chart, Map and Report Web items to visualize the data.

  • The Analysis Web item displays the values of a data provider as a table in the Web application. The table contains a large number of interaction options for data analysis.
  • The Chart Web item represents the data in a graphic. You can select a chart type (bar chart, line chart, doughnut chart, pie chart, etc.) and configure it individually.
  • The Map Web item represents geographic data in the form of a map in which you can navigate.
  • The Report Web item represents the data in formatted reports. The BEx Report Designer, described in the previous chapter, offers numerous options for layout design and formatting.

There are also numerous Web Items available for layout design of the Web application, such as tab page, group, and container. These Web items arrange the contents of the Web applications in a meaningful manner.

Interaction in Web Applications

By interacting within the Web application you can change the data displayed (for example, by setting filter values or changing the drilldown state). You can also influence the display of data and the layout of the Web application (for example, by changing the representation as analysis table or chart or by showing or hiding panes).

The following options are available for interaction within the Web application:

  • Context Menu

    You can show and hide the entries in the context menu as needed.

  • Web items with which you can change the status of data providers and Web items

    These include the Web items filter pane, navigation pane, dropdown box and properties pane.

  • Command Wizard

    The Command Wizard is available in the Web Design API for special interactions (see section Web Design API below). With the Command Wizard, you can create your own command sequences and connect them with interaction elements.

    In this way you can link commands to the Web items button group, link, dropdown box and menu bar. You can also link commands with an HTML link.

Web Design API

Business Explorer Web application design allows you to create highly individual scenarios with user-defined interface elements using standard markup languages and Web design APIs. In this way you can design the interaction in the Web applications as needed. The Web Design API provides the following functions:

  • Creation of commands for data providers, planning applications, Web items and Web templates.
  • Parameterization of Web items

The main tool for generating commands is the Command Wizard, which is an integral part of the Web Application Designer. With the Command Wizard you can easily generate commands such as Refresh Data, Create and Edit Conditions and/or Exceptions or Export Web Application step by step. Each command has parameters that you can set as required. The command is automatically inserted into the Web template.

Reusability of Web Applications

If a Web application only differs from another one in a few objects (a different data provider is displayed, for example, or a pushbutton does not appear or another Web item is used to display the data), you can reuse it in another Web application. In this way all the elements that existed in the first Web application are also displayed in the second one. Here you can overwrite individual Web items or data providers.

Further reusable Web applications are BW patterns such as the Information Consumer Pattern or the Analysis Pattern. These Web applications are designed for particular user groups and are used to unify the display of BW contents. For the user, this means that the same function is always located in the same place with the same name. The actual logic for display and interaction in BEx applications is stored centrally for each pattern in just one Web template and must be changed only there if required.

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