Author: EV Technologies

Fun with the BI4 Upgrade Management Tool

Posted on by EV Technologies

One of the first things you will discover when migrating from XI3.1 to BI4 is that the Import Wizard (IW) is gone (and there was much rejoicing), and it has been replaced by the Upgrade Management Tool (UMT). This is excellent news, since the UMT is a bit easier to use. However, there are a few things that are helpful to know to make your migrations go more smoothly.

Is Enterprise Software an excuse for sloppy code?

Posted on by EV Technologies

If you follow the chatter on Twitter these days, there’s a newer hashtag flying around that is gaining in popularity, #EnSW, short for Enterprise Software. It helps people find other people discussing enterprise software and hopefully bringing like-minds together.
SCN Godfather Chip Rodgers recently did a stellar job explaining what hashtags are all about .

I’ve been thinking about enterprise software a lot these days. Mainly because its my job to help customers make sure they get everything they paid for with an investment in an enterprise software suite like SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence 4.0. I recommend how big the systems should be, help them build it, migrate their old content into it, and ultimately support and maintain it once that system becomes productive. BOBJ isn’t the only enterprise software I’ve maintained over the years. I’ve also worked with Microsoft SQL Sever, Hyperion Essbase (back when Hyperion still owned it), Oracle databases to some extent, and SAS, and various smaller non-SAP HRIS systems to name a few. And while most of these tools all have something to do with data and business analytics, they have something else in common, too. They’re all a bugger to work with from the implementation and administration side. So as this current conversation on Twitter continues to evolve and unfold, I started to wonder what enterprise software means to me.

The Rift between BW-types and BOBJ-types

Posted on by EV Technologies

There has been much discussion in the twitterverse, in blogs, on podcasts, and elsewhere I’m sure, about the place of SAP BW. Those discussions have really morphed over the last few months from the flurry of tweets over the perceived death of SAP BW at the hands of its little sister SAP HANA (now hopefully put to rest…or is it???), to the value for non-SAP ERP customers. In one of this year’s episodes of the Diversified Semantic Layer, one question we tried to tackle that and I’m just not sure we got to was: what is the value of SAP BW to SAP BusinessObjects customers? While we had a really great discussion, I think there is still more left there to uncover.

Demolition Derby, Part 1: Derby, maybe?

Posted on by EV Technologies

If you’ve been following the developments in the BI4 world over the last year, then you’ve undoubtedly noticed the long-awaited and much needed addition of the Monitoring engine. For years I used to jibe SAP about how BOBJ was really designed as a stand-alone, small use application. BI4 is the first major step towards a truly “enterprise” application. The monitoring engine is some good evidence of this. Where system administrators used to be blind to internal operations of BI platform, we now have unprecedented visibility.

Designing Business Intelligence: Users and Stakeholders

Posted on by EV Technologies

Watch this. No seriously, go watch that video and then come back. Don’t worry, I’ll still be here…

While recently watching that TED talk presented by Timothy Prestero, I was again reminded of something that I learned from Blair Wheadon while working as a product manager for Crystal Reports @ SAP: It is important to clearly define not only who is going to use your product, but also who is going to select it and who is going to pay for it. Timothy repeats this while talking about his quest for developing medical equipment for children in developing countries by using the sentence: “Who would use, choose, and pay the dues for your product.”