Integration of XCelsius with SAP ERP (ECC)

[Former Member]

Hi All

Client has a requirement to graphically present Total POs and Total GRNs of Total PRs. On drill-down any calculated value we get its detail for selected period in the form of grid.

My question is, what architecture should be followed:

1. Either we need to implement SAP BI 7.01 (Warehouse) to fetch data from ERP to InfoCube (aggregated) and DSO (for details) to push the same to XCelsius dashboard

2. Or we can get the same data by directly accessing ERP (ECC 6 EHP 4) to XCelsius, without going into BW implementation?

The above is just a single requirement, however, we would be having many of the dashboards to design. So typically, the question becomes, how can we perform complex calculations if we directly connect ERP to XCelsius?

Regards

Nayab

[Former Member]

Hi Nayab,

I could suggest to do not go with Live Office.

As per my understanding "ECC" data will stay in tables like (MARA , MARC..).

So try to pull the data into Excel sheet and create dashboard on top of excel.

OR

Create a webservice URL by pulling data into any XML ( with the use of Java or dotnet) and use that XML file into dahboard using (XML connectivity)

THanks,

Raj

[Former Member]

"2. Or we can get the same data by directly accessing ERP (ECC 6 EHP 4) to XCelsius, without going into BW implementation?

Yes , you can connect Xcelsius directly to ECC without BW."

Hello,

Does anyone have the link to SAP documentation on how to implement this: SAP ERP -> CR -> Live Office -> XCelsius

I'm also looking for lanscape requirements (BOBJ 4.0 components that need to be in place for this solution).  I have similar requirements with BI dashboard 4.0 with ECC as the datasource without the BW. 

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Former Member]

hi,

2. Or we can get the same data by directly accessing ERP (ECC 6 EHP 4) to XCelsius, without going into BW implementation?

Yes , you can connect Xcelsius directly to ECC without BW.

flow

1.ECC>Crystal report( join the tables according to your requirement )->export to CMC->Import to Live office-> Dashboard

2.ECC(SAP Infoset query)Crystal report->export to CMC->Import to Live office-> Dashboard

[Former Member]

Yes , you can connect Xcelsius directly to ECC without BW.

flow

1.ECC>Crystal report( join the tables according to your requirement )->export to CMC->Import to Live office-> Dashboard

2.ECC(SAP Infoset query)Crystal report->export to CMC->Import to Live office-> Dashboard

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Hi Kannan,

Is there any SAP documentation on how one can implement the flow that you descibed above?

Thanks!

[amit_mathur]

Hi Nayab,

You can create a Webi or CR report based on BICS and use it with Xcelsius using Live office. You could also build UNV universe and make use of QAAWS.

Thanks,

Amit

[Former Member]

Thanks Amit for your reply. Just to confirm, do we need to install BICS or is have to attach an add-on. How can we have BICS services activated?

Secondly, is SAP Integration Toolkit not required for the integration of BI7.01 with BOBJ 3.1 ?

Thanks

[amit_mathur]

You could use SAP BW with Xcelsius. Xcelsius had direct connection with SAP BW and allows you to publish the dashboard to SAP portal.

There are few of the pre-requisite required on client and server side.

Refer to the SAP note: 1484847

Thanks,

Amit

[Former Member]

Thanks Amit for your quick reply

Won't it be a costly solution to deploy complete landscape of BW, only for the sake of complex calculations on presentation layer. Plus, the cost of administration, the intention of which is to have dashboards.

Not sure, but through BICS, Crystal Dashboard can directly connects to SAP ERP. While, XCelsius 2008 can fetch data through SAP ERP -> CR -> Live Office -> XCelsius

However, still confused if the calculations can be performed over Universe level. Hope you can answer.

Further, HANA in near future might take place of BW, so might not be a proper solution for us to deploy BW, being having a single datasource.

Thanks

Regards

Nayab

[Former Member]

Hi Nayab,

How many users would presumably use this report and what would the frequency of the same be. If they are more than 10 and the frequency is daily or weekly, then you may want to to include the BI system despite all the overheads (trust me it would prove beneficial in the long run). I understand that the "via BI" method is not what you want to implement.

Further, if you pull the data (the PRs, GRs and POs line item level) and in the BI system, the same can be used in the future for some other BI/BO reports as well.

Also, say if you develop this report with a connection to ECC (unless you use the lastest instance concept), every time the user executes this report, the request would hit the ECC system. Now if you have many users across the country and if they are executing the report heavily during the monthends your system may go for a toss. The worst part is even if the users close the frontend browser, the request would still be running in the foreground in ECC system.

HANA would be on top of the exisiting BI system and so I don't think you would need to worry much about it. If you still feel that the development effort is too much, then my suggestion would be to create it on ECC but use the latest instance via BI WebServices and not LO.

let me know.

Rgds,

Sreekul Nair