BI4 SP04 Webi Variants like BEX

[Former Member]

Hi,

We are new to Webi, coming from Bex web analyzer and familiar creating variants for users that fill values for a report instead of having to return the full report, then ask the user to select from input control to filter - or creating a report with each filter hardcoded..

For example, we have open sales order report.  In Bex we typically use a personal and or system variant so a manager only sees their plant(s).  We also or auto-fill input fields such as created by or salesperson with the user exit in Bex.

In Webi it does not appear that variants are supported in any way, either from the Webi prompts or from the Bex query or in the webi reader.

We have concluded that we cannot replace the Bex web analyzer with Webi and on the surface this might seem like a small issue, but to use seems like is going to be horrible for usability and will encourage users to save copies of their own webi reports that we will quickly loose control over versioning.

What have you done to address these concerns?  I am grateful to hear from you!

Lee Lewis

Summit Electric Supply

[former_member184594 · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately, Variants in WebI are not supported. There is no way to save selections in Web Intelligence like Bex Analyzer.

About your second concern, you don't give people Save right to Public folders in BusinessObjects. That's how you do it. If you only assign users with "View on Demand" rights, they won't have right to save under the Public Folder. However, they can save to their own folders.

For futher information check out Admin guide of BusinessObjects:

http://help.sap.com/businessobject/product_guides/boexir4/en/xi4_bip_admin_en.pdf

If you are thinking something like Bex Analyzer, you should check our BusinessObjects Analysis.

There are 2 versions one for Web Edition and the other one is MS Office Edition. It is really similar to Bex Analyzer.

For further information:

http://help.sap.com/boaa

Also check out the link below about Selecting the Right BI Tool:

http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/2046e5d7-2894-2e10-c6a0-ca59dbd72...

[Former Member]

Hi Lee,

If you're trying to replicate Analyzer functionality in Webi, you're going to have issues as you said.

You're going to lose some features and gain others in the move to Webi. The requirements you have can probably be met, but not in exactly the same way.

1. You can set object level security in BW and use an authorization variable in BEx so that users can only see their data. Reports must be set to refresh on open.
2. If you have a small-ish number of plants then you can schedule reports specifically for a user group, each filtered for a particular plant. This gives users near-instant report access because the query has already run. Users must not be able to edit the query and/or refresh a report.
3. You can potentially use publishing to distribute the reports to users, each filtered based on the user name.