Visual Composer No Longer Part of BI Roadmap?

[Former Member]

The SAP BI roadmap seems to indicate clearly that Visual Composer is no longer part of the roadmap for information delivery in the BI space. If this is the case, what is the role of Visual Composer moving forward, and why must users/developers need separate tools for UIs for BI and general app composition?

Shouldn't the real goal be to provide a unified UI that integrated BI directly with line-of-business activities, processes, and tasks, making it actionable?

I know this is a controversial topic, but I think it is an important one that needs to be addressed.

[former_member191838]

Hi,

just because VC is not on that particular roadmap it does not mean it is out of the game.

VC is still a very important part of our Embedded BI strategy and will pick up more and more BI features from the Web Application Designer moving forward. You wait until VC/CE 7.1.1 and you will see the progress we are making there. However it is more a tool for generic composite development, whereas Xcelsius is a light-weight BI product for high end visualization and dashboarding. It does not make sense to merge every single use case in one tool. In the end you end up with a tool that is far to complex to use.

Best Regards,

Eric Schemer

Product Manager SAP BI

[Former Member]

Hi, Eric.

While I hope that would be the case, in my experience with SAP roadmaps, omission is a pretty strong statement. If what you say is correct, I would certainly recommend updating the publicly available roadmap documents, as they send a fairly clear message as to what product(s) will be carried forward into the future BI strategy.

I've always been a fan of Visual Composer's potential, and I hope you get the opportunity to continue forward with the product.

Rick

[former_member191838]

Hi,

we are working on a more detailed FAQ for SDN that underlines my statement. Stay tuned.

Thanks,

Eric

[Former Member]

Hi Eric,

You mentioned that VC is picking up additional functionality from WAD but in the BOBJ BI Platform roadmap WAD is going to be replaced by Xcelsius, Report Designer by Crystal Reports (or Light), and even BEx Excel/Web Analyzer is by Pioneer.

I found it very interesting and a little concerning that migration path from Voyageur to Pioneer is mentioned pn the roadmap but not from BEx Excel Analyzer to Pioneer, just a mention that Pioneer will be a superset of the functionality. A lot of companies have significant investsments in BEx queries and workbooks

Also any early comment on the future standards for data interchange / integration with different products / tools : ODBC, ODBO, MDx, XMLA or ???/

Thanks,

Mary