SAP support packs are typically boring affairs, with the emphasis on rolling up patches from previous support packs. However, SAP has kept the surprises coming with small but important feature changes to the SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 platform in last January’s Support Pack 2 (see related article, SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 Support Pack 2) and this month’s Support Pack 3. Today, SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 Support Pack 3 introduces important new features for both users and administrators. Both a full build and patches for existing versions are available in the SAP Service Marketplace. Note that starting with SP3, the full build is in a single self-extracting EXE instead of SAP’s previous approach of an EXE combined with multiple RAR files.
Web Intelligence users will appreciate input control enhancements. SP3 allows the “all values” option to be hidden. And SP3 finally duplicates input controls whenever a report tab is duplicated. The Web Intelligence Java applet has faster loading time. And there are additional improvements for SAP HANA, right-to-left languages like Arabic and Hebrew, and Microsoft Sharepoint 2013. SAP BW users will be thankful that Crystal Reports for Enterprise now allows BEx parameter order to be customized. These are just some highlights – the What’s New document on the SAP Community Network has all the details.
BI administrators have requested for years the ability to kill noisome users directly from the Central Management Console. That capability is still just an idea on the SAP Idea Place but SAP has finally added the ability to kill problematic user sessions from the Central Management Console in BI 4.1 SP3. This feature is a big deal for administrators.
The next support pack for SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1, Support Pack 4, is planned for a mid-June 2014 release. Expect to hear more from SAP at their SAPPHIRE North America event. But for now, SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 SP3 offers some compelling reasons for organizations still on XI 3.1 or BI 4.0 to patch up.
Resources
- SAP BusinessObjects Maintenance Schedule Calendar with Forward Fit Plan
- SAP BusinessObjects BI4.1 SP3 What’s New via SAP Community Network
- SAP Note 1938620 – SAP BusinessObjects BI Suite 4.1 What’s New
- SAP Note 1981402 – SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.1 SP3 Install Guide
- SAP Note 1981454 – SAP BusinessObjects BI Suite 4.1 SP3 Release Restrictions
- SAP Note 1981455 – SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.1 SP3 Fixed Issues
- Product Availability Matrix (PAM) for SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1
- Product Availability Matrix (PAM) for SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 alternate location on SAP Community Network
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