Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

1
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting
2
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• Overview
• What is the Essbase OLAP Access Pack?
• How does it compare to relational reporting and
  reporting off a universe?
• What is it like to create a report with the OLAP
  Access Pack?

3
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• What is the Essbase OLAP Access pack?
• Fast, Easy!
• A smart way to build on top of Essbase
  achievements

4
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• The Essbase OLAP Access Pack opens a live
  connection between Business Objects and the data
  stored in the Essbase cube.

5
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• Why is Business Objects and Essbase a good
  combination?
• Synergy the speed of Essbase paired with the
  ease of use and reporting functionality of
  Business Objects.

6
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• Essbase is focused on the storage and access of
  very specific data points. All the processing has
  already been done in Essbase, so it's very quick.
• Business Objects has invested a great deal more
  in user interface - and other features that
  surround reporting.

7
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• An opportunity to build on the technology that
  Business Objects has created for distributing
  reports on the Web.

8
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• What are the basic building blocks of the tool?

9
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• The OLAP Access pack displays the outline and
  Grid
• similar to the query panel
• The Essbase outline
• Dimensions (Time, Geography, Products)
• Members (Year, Month, Quarter)
• Generations (Members at the same level)
• Accounts (Like measures)

10
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• Benefits of the Universe
• Based on relational data, easy to understand the
  structure (2-D)
• It does some things better than multidimensional
  can.

11
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• Drawbacks of Universe
• Takes a lot more time to develop, tune

12
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• Benefits of Essbase OLAP Access
• It takes time to develop the outline in Essbase,
  but once completed, you can leverage what's
  already been accomplished. It's not like an
  additional piece that is needed just for
  reporting purposes (like the universe).

13
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• Using Essbase OLAP Access Pack with other
  Business Objects tools DocAgent, WebI

14
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• Drawbacks of Essbase OLAP Access
• Proprietary architecture
• You cannot get into the structure like you can in
  a relational database.
• You can make up for this by working more at the
  report end, after Essbase has given you the
  answers.

15
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• The universe vs. the outline
• .Gotta build the Universe
• No prep time for the outline (you do all your
  homework ahead of time in Essbase).

16
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• Comparing multidimensional and
• relational reporting
• Multidimensional is precalculated, in certain
  aspects canned.
• Relational better for ad hoc queries.

17
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• Comparing multidimensional and
• relational reporting
• Where does the data come from?
• In Essbase, the answers are stored
• In relational, the facts are stored
• How/where/when are totals aggregated?
• In Essbase, totals are calcd at specific preset
  times (monthly, etc.) on the server.
• In relational, data sits unaggregated until a
  query asks for a particular tally. Processing can
  occur on client or server.

18
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• How easy is it to use the Essbase OLAP Access
  Pack?
• Once the connection is established, select
  members
• then launch the query.

19
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• Creation of a simple report using Essbase as a
  datasource

20
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• Build the report based upon the Essbase outline
• Designer not needed

21
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting
Look familiar?
22
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting
23
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting
Login to the Essbase server
24
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting
25
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting
Introducing.The GRID
26
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting
Expand the Time dimension
27
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting
Add filters (Master/Detail)
28
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting
Set up the Down and Across dimensions, add a
measure
29
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• Hit Continue
• The report is generated very quickly

30
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• Overview of report creation using a universe as
  the datasource
• Need to create a universe and test
• Select universe
• Select members
• Specify filters
• Launch query

31
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• Avoiding hassles
• Do in the report what you can't do in the grid

32
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• What you build in the data provider vs. what you
  can add to the analysis at the report level
• You have little control over the outline and the
  GRID, but you can build more in the report, once
  its been generated.
• E.g., cant split dimensions, cant add to grid

33
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• How does Excels look and feel with Essbase
  compare to Business Objects pairing with Essbase?

34
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting
Excels version of the Essbase outline
35
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting
The GRID in Excel
36
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• Summary
• Build on all the expertise that Business Objects
  provides.
• Get Value Added out of your Essbase investment
  (time AND money)
• Dont get rid of your relational

37
Essbase and Business Objects Reporting

• Installation and report conversion can be tricky
  so avoid losing time. Have an expert there to get
  a jump start.