Web Intelligence BI Web Services and Xcelsius

[francois_imberton]

The SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1 SP2 release introduced a new feature, BI Web Services which enables users to create web services in Web Intelligence. These web services can then be published into the BusinessObjects Enterprise platform.

With this release, the Product team is seeing interest in using Web Intelligence BI Web Services with Xcelsius Enterprise and is looking at evaluating how this workflow can be supported. Since this workflow is in the evaluation stage, it is not a recommended approach. Users trying this workflow might experience issues related to BI Web Service specificities.

Until this workflow has been thoroughly tested, and BI Web Service specificities addressed, we do not recommend using BI Web Services with Xcelsius. Instead, customers and internal employees should continue to use Query as a Web Service or Live Office as the recommended methods to connect with universe data.

[david_lai]

Hi,

Does anyone know if we will eventually be able to get results from reports other than the "Latest Instance". This is so that user's can dynamically go through historical snapshots in time.

Unfortunately Live Office can not dynamically select which instance to refresh as well.

Thanks

David

[Former Member]

Hai

http://everythingxcelsius.com/xcelsius-training/xcelsius-and-business-intelligence-web-services-biws...

http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/index?rid=/library/uuid/00536d65-f9cf-2e10-0eaa-f3346306dc1a

http://www.asug.com/CalendarEventDetails/tabid/150/eventid/2509/Default.aspx

http://www.forumtopics.com/busobj/viewtopic.php?p=819152

[Former Member]

I've a problem with this functionality.

My prompts values are not effective, th response is still the same.

Look at my thread :

Thx

JC

[Former Member]

Hi all,

Is there some update on this subject regarding the use of BI Services with XCelsius?

I'm very interested on that integration option! If the integration isn't working 100%, what are the limitations?

Best regards,

[Former Member]

I am just trying to learn how to use webservice with Xcelsius 2008. The example I use is the StockQuote URL. I can not make it work with the link that is in the example, it points to the SAP website.

http://www.xcelsius.com/WebServiceConnectorSample/xquotesproxy.wsdl

Can sombody give me the real link to import the right XML code.

Thanks,

Hans

Edited by: Hans Striedinger on Jan 2, 2010 4:08 PM

[Former Member]

Can we ask questions on the BI Webservices (support) part?

[Former Member]

Sure, we would be pleased to help you with this feature.

Best regards,

David.

[Former Member]

I created a simple document with 3 columns and a 4 layer hierarchy in WEBI

column a is the description

column b and c are values

i tried this webservice but the output column (row) is always 1 column column a?

so this is strange for me!?

further more i tested the drill functionality

maybe it would be nice to have:

-as a output column the current drill level as a number

-as a output column the drillpath as a string (example level1/level2/level3)

Drill down functionality works perfect (in the scorecard), but i would like to know what you are thinking of drilling up?

Whats the best way to achieve this functionality?? (i know the strings 'down/up')

In my opinion it would be the best way to have customized components for this functionality!?

Edited by: J. Zwienenberg on Dec 24, 2009 10:10 AM

[Former Member]

Hello,

You need to map Cell items instead of Row item in Xcelsius DataManager to get all columns properly.

BI Service drill basically calls WebI drills, and exposes the same user experience (through web services), hence does not add any extra columns to the block (but columns can still be added -or removed- from initial block, when you are drilling into a cross table). Nevertheless, exposing some drill level information in the web service call output metadata fields is an interesting suggestion, that we could consider for a coming release.

Drilling up basically does the opposite from drilling down (no wonder), which is aggregating back measures to a higher level. For instance, starting from a block specifying sales revenues by Cities, if you want to get revenue details for each store in Los Angeles you need to drill down from Los Angeles, on dimension City, and if you need to get an overview of the revenue aggregated on each state, you will drill up from Los Angeles (or any other city name) on dimension City to get to the next level (State).

Drill path can easily be retreived and displayed on a dashboard using BI Service Headers output fields (with a vertical table).

Hope that helps,

David.

[Former Member]

I still don't get it!

Is there any documentation on this feature??

[Former Member]

if use the nbcolumns as output field it gives me value 1

my published report blok contains 3 columns, so it still gives me only the first column

i have the only option to output 1 cell, i can remove this cell with the '-' button but i don't have a '+' button to add extra cells

don;t know if this is what you mean, but thought i should give you this information

Edited by: J. Zwienenberg on Jan 4, 2010 10:49 PM

[Former Member]

Hi,

Documentation is available within WebI Rich Client online documentation, under section Sharing Web Intelligence content with other Web applications. Enclosed is a sub-section about input/output web service parameter structure for consumers (section BI Service structure ).

Output parameter nbColumns provides the actual number of columns in the corresponding block, so if it says 1, you are likely to only have one column available (i.e. one cell instance per row). This can be tested with the WebI Rich Client test & preview panel available with Web Service Publisher designer interface.

When you want to have it consumed in Xcelsius, you should map field cell (under table attribute) from the data manager Output Values panel, i.e. simply select this field and specify with Excel area you want to map with the corresponding values (Excel area should supply the right number of columns you want mapped, just like with QaaWS).

Hope that helps,

David.

Edited by: David Brunner on Jan 5, 2010 10:46 AM

[Former Member]

I did send you an e-mail

[Former Member]

Prompt values from the report are not available in the BI - Service as input values??

[Former Member]

Hello Jochem,

When document has prompt, publishing wizard displays an extra step for you to choose whether or not they should be exposed with BI Service input parameters. If you decide they should not, prompts are internally solved with last selected values for document (when doc was last refreshed and saved).

For prompts being actually taken into account, document has to be refreshed from BI Service invocation, therefore should be called with input parameter refresh set to true.

Besides there was an issue with prompt resolution on the earliest versions of BI Services, you need to apply FixPack 2 (XI 3.1 SP2.2) to get it to work properly.

Hope that helps,

David.

[Former Member]

I'm on fixpack 2.3 so this should be no problem

will have it a try

thnx again

[Former Member]

i don't see the prompts from the document

i have some measure objects in my universe which contain YTD prompts

even when i publish those as filters (i think this is what you meant)

further more the numbers from the BI Service are text values in Excel

So the number formatting in xcelsius is not working for the BI -Services

This is not a problem with QAAWS, same for the prompts!

[Former Member]

Hello Jochem,

I do not quite understand your aim with prompts...but they should be automatically published when you publish any report block within document (provided document actually has prompts).

Number formatting issue you are experiencing is a know issue affecting Numerals and dates, it is induced by the way format & type information is provided to Xcelsius dashboard by BI Services (it is provided through metadata within output SOAP message, while QaaWS, for instance provides that information with the WSDL). This is the main reason why François has underlined BI Services are not yet supported by Xcelsius. We are working on a fix.

In the meantime, you can workaround that issue, if you use references to BI Service output cells in your Xcelsius worksheet, and apply Excel formula VALUE. This solves the formatting issue with numerals, but unfortunately not with dates.

Hope that helps,

David.

[Former Member]

One more thing

i used the function =drillfilters() in a column in my report

these values aren't published in the BI-webservice

For your information

[Former Member]

Are there fixes or new functionality in FP2.4 for BI webservices?

[Former Member]

Hello,

I have been working with the functionality for few weeks and I also run into this prompt issue. At least for me it seems that only prompts defined in the query panel can be exposed to web service. So if the prompt is defined in the universe with @prompt-function, it will not become visible in the wizard. I tested this also with efashion universe.

This is quite disappointment to us as I am working this SAP BW Olap universe and I would need to expose BW query variable restrictions to xcelsius. As you probably know these are hidden condition objects in the universe and I cannot use them now.

[Former Member]

David,

Can you give an update on the status of BI Services, when will it be stable, will there be any documentation?

Regards,

Alan Sawyer

[Former Member]

Hi Sergio, Alan,

Sorry not getting back on your questions earlier.

Value formatting compatibility issue between BI Services and Xcelsius has been adressed with two fix pack XI 3.1 SP2.5 (available since last March) for WebIntelligence Rich Client & BI Services, and Xcelsius 2008 SP3.1 (available since last April). Since then we do not have any known remaining limitation to use BI Services as Xcelsius data connections.

Remember, that BI Services share the same WSDL structure as QaaWS objects, so you should define QaaWS connections in Xcelsius data manager to host BI Service connections.

Documentation for BI Service is available with WebIntelligence Rich Client online documentation under section Sharing Web Intelligence content with other web applications.

Hope that helps,

David.

[Former Member]

David,

Thanks for the update. Do you know if this will be making it to the BOBJ training materials anytime soon?

Thanks

Alan

[Former Member]

This message was moderated.

[Former Member]

In addition to prompts not working with pre-defined @prompt, I don't understand the use of filter in the Input Control. I thought I could filter the rows by specifying the name of the dimension, and value. It in returns throws an java exception error.

Could someone please help me with that? I am on 3.1 SP3.2.

[Former Member]

David,

Exactly which document is it? I looked at all under the Webi section, and can't seem to find it.

Could you please point me to the name of the document and the release which its under?

Thank you.

[Former Member]

Hello,

You find this inside WebI Rich client help, it is listed under section called Sharing Web Intelligence content with other Web applications in WebI XI 3.1 SP3.2

Hope that helps,

David.

[Former Member]

Thank you David. I found it.

[Former Member]

Hi,

I've written a short tutorial on setting up a simple drill in Xcelsius using BI Services, hopefully that can help someone who's just getting started.

http://blog.davidg.com.au/2011/03/drill-down-in-xcelsius-using-bi.html

DG

[Former Member]

Dear Mr.David,

As You said in the above thread i done all the connections. I Generated the Output URL also.pasted in the WSDL URL part

I done the Importing also for that sample snapshot attached into this thread.

I have an issue to map cells in the Xcelsius XL area.

In Xcelsius Data manager with Query as web service or with web service connection.

Output Values area i am getting the hierarchy

Table

Headers

Footers

Is it right to map the cells in the Xcelsius XL sheet under the Table -> Row - > Cell - > Insert in ( More than one Columns ).

After done the Mapping,while preview the data in my output

Column data Not displayed properly.

Sample :

-

---

This is my actual rows and columns of data in report

Product Name value1 value2 value3 Value4

-

---

Coffee $ 69 $ 69 $ 65,803,649 $ 55,364,869

CASSIA $ 99,328 $ 233,021

CASHEW KERNEL $ 1 $ 1 $ 2,192,859 $ 2,456,946 $ 3,403,226

COFFEE ROBUSTA $ 10 $ 10 $ 16,858,610 $ 8,441,957 $ 4,458,436

COTTON $ 72 $ 72 $ 73,135,046 $ 83,363,942 $ 60,013,361

If i mapped the cells using the connection .The same data if i generate in xcelsius list view component. my output like this.

Coffee $ 69 $ 69 $ 65,803,649 $ 55,364,869

CASSIA $ 99,328 $ 233,021

CASHEW KERNEL $ 1 $ 1 $ 2,192,859 $ 2,456,946 $ 3,403,226

COFFEE ROBUSTA $ 10 $ 10 $ 16,858,610 $ 8,441,957 $ 4,458,436

COTTON $ 72 $ 72 $ 73,135,046 $ 83,363,942 $ 60,013,361

Is it get spread-ed every where ,can you please clarify how to map columns and why the output like this.

Thanks in Advance.

Paneer

Edited by: TESTENVIRON on Mar 16, 2011 1:18 PM

COFFEE ROBUSTA $ 10 $ 10

$ 16,858,610 $ 8,441,957 $ 4,458,436

COTTON $ 72 $ 72 $ 73,135,046

$ 83,363,942 $ 60,013,361

CASHEW KERNEL

[Former Member]

Hi Paneer,

It is critical that you ensure that you map exactly the same number of column in the Excel design spreadsheet as the number of columns that you expect from the BI Service, otherwise, your output risks to be totally messed up (as you seem to experience).

This limitation is sometimes quite a challenge to accommodate, especially when you want to work on a cross table and perform drills on it (which usually change the number of columns of the cross table);

Hope that helps,

David.

[Former Member]

Looks very promising!!!

Still lot of work to do on the webservices part (i think) but the new features (hierarchy drill) is exactly what i'm waiting for to use in my dashboards....can't wait