Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Today: SAP BI 4 Sizing Exercises - Hands-on Webinar

Today at 2 pm EST, Ian Treleaven follows up his earlier Platform Architecture and Sizing for SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 webinar with a practical session in which he leads you through a detailed sizing exercise and demonstrates some specific techniques for achieving performance and reliability.

Register for today's webinar: SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 Sizing Cases & Demos.

For a thorough grounding in SAP BI 4 platform architecture and sizing issues, view a recording of Ian's earlier webinar session.

SAP BI 4 Migration Webinar Series

2013 is winding up, but our SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 migration focused webinar series continues into 2014 with great topics and great subject matter experts. Coming in the new year:

Do you want to be notified of upcoming webinars. Sign up for webinar notifications?

All of the webinars in the series have been well attended and well received. If you missed any of the earlier sessions, you can view these recorded webinars at your leisure.

The earlier sessions included:

  • The Semantic Layer and BI 4 Migration with Pierpaolo Vezzosi
  • What's New in SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 with Ty Miller
  • The Business Case for Upgrading to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 with Saskia Battersby and Deepa Sankar
  • Planning Your SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 Upgrade with JC Raveneau
  • What's New in Web Intelligence in SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 with Gregory Botticchio
  • What's New in Crystal Reports for Enterprise in SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 with Henry Kam
  • Platform Architecture and Sizing for SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 with Ian Treleaven
  • Guide to the SAP BI 4 DCP with Thomas Kuruvilla

We're busy firming up dates, guest presenters and topics for further sessions. If there are any topics you'd like to see us tackle in this webinar series, please feel free to let us know in the comments below.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Webinar Alert - Guide to the SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 Desktop Intelligence Compatibility Pack (DCP)

What: Guide to the SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 DCP Webinar
When: Nov. 21, 2013, 11 am EST
Eighth in a series of SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 migration-focused webinars 
View other webinars in the series

Guest presenter:Thomas Kuruvilla, Solution Manager, SAP

With SAP BusinessObjects BI 4, Desktop Intelligence has been designated End of Life, and customers wishing to upgrade to BI 4 need to start planning the conversion from Desktop Intelligence to Web Intelligence. In recognition of the time and resources needed for this conversion, SAP has released the Desktop Intelligence Compatibility Pack (DCP) with SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1.

The DCP allows organizations with a large Desktop Intelligence investment to leverage that investment while realizing the benefits of BI 4.1 and planning an orderly conversion to Web Intelligence.

SAP's Thomas Kuruvilla joins us to discuss how to use the DCP to facilitate your organization's migration to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 while leveraging your existing Desktop Intelligence objects and content.

On the agenda:

·         Migrating your Desktop Intelligence reports to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1

·         Connecting Desktop Intelligence 3.1 desktop clients to an SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 CMS

·         Planning the conversion from Desktop Intelligence to Web Intelligence

Fred Walther, Manager of Solution Consulting at APOS Systems, will also be on hand to show you how APOS Migration Accelerator products can help you simplify and automate Desktop Intelligence use in SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1.

Please join us for this informative webinar.

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Webinar Alert: What's New in Crystal Reports for Enterprise in SAPBusinessObjects BI 4.1

When: Oct. 31, 2013, 10 am / 4 pm EDT - Tomorrow
Sixth in a series of SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 migration-focused webinars

Guest presenter: Henry Kam, Solution Manager, Crystal Reports & BI Platform, SAP

Tomorrow's webinar is the sixth in our series of migration-focused webinars.

SAP Solution Manager Henry Kam joins us to discuss the features and benefits of Crystal Reports in SAP BusinessObjects 4.1. Find out what's new for the standard in pixel-perfect reporting.

The discussion will include topics such as:

  • What’s new in SAP Crystal Reports for SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0?
  • SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise
  • SAP Integration
  • What’s new in SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1?
  • Upgrading

Join us.

View the recorded webinar.

View recorded webinars.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

APOS Migrator for SAP Crystal Reports Released

APOS announced today the release of its Migrator for SAP Crystal Reports product. This product has been designed specifically to simplify and automate labor-intensive and time-intensive SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 migration tasks.

Using this product, you can scan your system for objects in SAP Crystal Reports 2011 and 2013, select them, specify new database connections in bulk, and convert them in bulk to objects in SAP Crystal Reports for enterprise. The Migrator also gives you the option to replace the existing report, rename the new reports, or move the new reports to a different folder.

The APOS Migrator for Crystal Reports is a new addition to the line of APOS Migration Accelerator products.

Read the APOS Migrator for Crystal Reports press release.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

SAP TechEd Las Vegas 2013

If you're at SAP TechEd Las Vegas this week, drop by and see us at Booth #103.

We have a new line of Migration Accelerator products to help you take care of the time-intensive and labor-intensive tasks in your SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 migration plan, including:

Talk to our technical experts at SAP TechEd Las Vegas to find out how these products can simplify many of your most resource-intensive migration tasks.

APOS Storage Center for Migration Released

APOS announced today the release of its Storage Center for Migration product. This product has been designed specifically to simplify and automate labor-intensive and time-intensive SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 migration tasks.

Using this product, users can back up and archive objects on the source system and restore them to the target system running SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 solutions while avoiding interruption to either system. It also lets users export instances to neutral formats such as PDF or XLS and restore that format to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 solutions instead of, or in addition to, the original format. This is useful for converting report instances from the source system before restoring them in a format that can be viewed by all users in SAP BusinessObjects 4.1 solutions.

The new product builds on the proven technology and success of the APOS Storage Center enterprise archive, backup, and selective restore solution for SAP BusinessObjects

Read the APOS Storage Center for Migration press release.

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Webinar Alert: What's New in SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 Web Intelligence

When: Oct. 10, 2013, 10 am / 4 pm EDT
Fifth in a series of SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 migration-focused webinars
View other webinars in the series
Guest presenter: Gregory Botticchio, Solution Manager, SAP

Our migration focused webinar series continues tomorrow with a session on SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 Web Intelligence. We've been very pleased by how well received this series of webinars has been. To date, we have had webinars on the new semantic layer, on how to build the business case for BI 4, and on the planning aspects of migration.

All of these earlier webinars are available to view on demand.

Tomorrow, on Oct. 10, 2013, SAP Solution Manager Gregory Botticchio joins us to discuss the features and benefits of Web Intelligence in SAP BusinessObjects 4.1. The new Web Intelligence includes many new and incremental features to improve performance and productivity. We will discuss:

  • Performance improvements
  • New customization capabilities
  • Enhanced core capabilities

During the course of this session, we will touch on:

  • SAP NetWeaver BW data access improvements
  • The new RESTful web services API
  • User interface customization and extension points
  • Color management
  • The new hierarchical dimension merge feature
  • Desktop Intelligence catch-up features
  • Mobile support

Register for this informative webinar.

APOS Migrator for Web Intelligence

There will be many labor-intensive tasks during migration. Minimizing the resources you have to dedicate to such tasks will be key to developing a manageable migration plan. We have a number of products to help. See our BI 4 Upgrade Resources page.

Now available: APOS Migrator for Web Intelligence. Scan your system for Web Intelligence reports, select them, specify the new UNX universe to use, and repoint the reports in bulk. Optionally convert the existing UNV universe to a new UNX universe and repoint the Web Intelligence reports to the new UNX universe in a single operation. You also have the option to replace the existing reports, rename the new reports, or move the new reports to a different folder.

More about the APOS Migrator for BI 4 Web Intelligence…

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

APOS User Migrator Freeware

The APOS User Migrator for SAP BI 4 is a freeware application that lets administrators migrate named users to concurrent users, or concurrent users to named users, in bulk conversion operations. This freeware is especially useful if you are changing from a named user model to a concurrent user model during your migration to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.

Download the APOS User Migrator freeware…

Thursday, September 26, 2013

APOS Storage Center for Migration

Your content management strategy will be key to your migration success. The APOS Storage Center enterprise BI archive, backup and selective restore solution is a dependable and time-tested solution for SAP BusinessObjects.

Now available: APOS Storage Center for Migration, a product designed specifically to help you migrate your content seamlessly to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1. APOS Storage Center for Migration lets you archive reports and instances, save instances to multiple formats (including neutral formats), and works in conjunction with the DCP to help you leverage your Desktop Intelligence investment in BI 4.1.

Learn more about APOS Storage Center for Migration...

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Planning Your SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 Upgrade Webinar Q&A

We had a number of interesting questions and answers during our webinar sessions on September 19. Here they are for your convenience:

Q: If we are migrating from 4.0 to 4.1, should we export and import the content or does simply running the Upgrade Package serve the purpose of upgrading the server?
J.C. Raveneau: You would apply 4.1 on top of your BI 4.0 server. No need to move content around.

Q: Will the documentation be available on SAP for this presentation?
APOS: APOS will send you a link to a recording of the webinar tomorrow.

Q: Is there a white paper that describes the differences in best practices between 3.x and 4.x?
J.C.: You should go to www.sapbusinessobjects.com and get a personalized report generated. This will give you many good details.

Q: We use Java JDK extensively to automate our reports based on prudential specific calendar dates. We also use Java JDK to streamline/automate our deployment of reports so our tech staff does not have to interact with designer tools and keep track of which folders, categories, reports and universes. This is automated through JDK in XI r3.1. Will we still have functionality through JDK in BI 4.1?
J.C.: All SDK functionalities are there in BI 4, but there may be changes in the model so code adjustments are probably needed. Check http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-40754.

Q: Does BI 4.1 support installations on virtual servers?
J.C.: Yes. Check http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-41308.

Q: What about Crystal reports using Business Views. Will they also get upgraded to CR 2011?
J.C.: Yes.

Q: Do you have any comments regarding why we would want to go to 4.0 vs. 4.1 (or vice versa)?
J.C.: 4.1 is the latest and greatest. We have good feedback on stability. I would choose 4.1.

Q: While migration from 3.1 to 4.0, does the Upgrade Management Tool automatically convert UNV to UNX formats? Is it recommended to migrate Web Intelligence universes as UNV and continue to use Designer? And maybe after ensuring system stability, convert them to UNX?
J.C.: UNVs remain fully functional in BI 4 and not converted. Conversion can happen in a second stage either manually, or with the tool offered by APOS. The recommendation is to keep UNV as is in your upgrade project. Then upgrade to UNX to benefit from the new capabilities.

Q: Do we have to manually change each Web Intelligence report to point to UNX format if we convert UNVs at a later point?
J.C.: Check here: http://www.apos.com/content/bi4-webi-repointer

Q: Does the Upgrade Management Tool form SAP carry the instances from 3.1 to 4.0 automatically?
J.C.: Yes, if you select to do so in the UMT.

Q: Without using APOS Web Intelligence Converter, I am assuming that if we need to point Web Intelligence reports to UNX format, it needs to be done manually, and that there is no tool available from SAP?
J.C.: Correct.

As always, your comments and questions are welcome.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Planning Your BI 4 Upgrade

With SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 in GA, there is no time like the present for upgrading. Are you planning your migration? Tune in to our migration-focused webinar series for an interactive experience with SAP experts.

Today: Planning Your SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 Upgrade, featuring J. C. Raveneau, Senior Director, BI Solutions, SAP.

View recorded webinar

View other webinars in this series.

Monday, September 9, 2013

SBOUC Booth #201: Visit the APOS BI Pit Crew

Our theme for this year's SAP BusinessObjects User Conference is the BI Pit Crew. Visit us at Booth #201. We promise it will be a magical experience. Ask us about:

·         APOS Migration Accelerators


Why the BI Pit Crew?

In auto racing, the unsung heroes are the members of the Pit Crew who maintain and manage the race car in real time. They respond quickly and efficiently to all challenges ‑ both expected and unexpected.

The "Pit Crew" of your BI deployment includes the skilled technologists and team leaders who maintain and manage the BI platform. Like their auto racing counterparts, the BI Pit Crew responds with speed and efficiency to manage many challenges. They keep the business intelligence platform running effectively to serve the information needs of the organization, making it the driving force behind innovation, operational efficiency, and return on investment. They, too, are often unsung heroes.

Well Managed Migration, Well Managed BI

Well managed migration starts with well managed BI. The first priorities in planning your migration should be to gain a deep understanding of your current system, and to rationalize the structure, security, and content of that system before migrating to the new system.

APOS Well Managed BI solutions and Migration Accelerator products give your BI Pit Crew the specialized tools they need to automate and simplify the many labor-intensive, time-intensive, and potentially error prone tasks they face daily.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Galigeo Acquires APOS Location Intelligence Division

Galigeo and APOS Systems have announced that Galigeo has acquired the assets, staff, and activities of the Location Intelligence division of APOS. The acquired solution will be included in the Galigeo portfolio of Location Intelligence Solutions under the name "Galigeo-APOS LIS."

APOS and Galigeo are working together to make the transition for current APOS LIS customers completely seamless.

Read the full press release.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Strategies for Creating an Information-Driven Culture

The July edition of the SAP Community Network BI News is out. This month's newsletter focuses on strategies for creating an information-driven culture in your organization, and includes articles on the following topics:

  • Design thinking methodology
  • Building a BI business case
  • Building a BI competency center
  • BI adoption
  • Self-service and mobile BI

...and more. Worth a look.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Webinar Q & A: What Migration Value Do APOS Solutions and ProductsOffer?

Migration remains this year's big story for the SAP BusinessObjects community. Here's one final question from our "The Business Case for Upgrading to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4" webinar attendees:
Q: BI 4.0 comes with a migration tool, so what value do APOS solutions and Migration Accelerator productsbring to the table?
Fred Walther, APOS: When you use the BI 4 migration tool, you move the content from your XI 3.1 environment to your BI 4 environment, but you are moving it as is. Converting UNV universes to UNX universes is another task altogether, and APOS Migration Accelerator products can help you convert universes in bulk, and repoint Web Intelligence reports to the new universes. APOS well managed BI solutions also allow you to compare your old system with your new, and to bulk-manage security, objects, schedules and instances.
Okay, that was a bit of a softball, and right in Fred's wheelhouse, to continue the baseball analogy.

What have we learned so far in our migration webinar series?
  • From Pierpaolo Vezzosi, we learned about innovations in the semantic layer.
  • From Ty Miller, we learned about the many new features in BI 4.1.
  • From Saskia Battersby and Deepa Sankar, we learned about the business value of BI 4.x.
We've really only just scratched the surface of the migration topic. Our webinar series continues on Sept. 19, 2013, when SAP's J. C. Raveneau joins us to discuss the finer points of SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.x migration planning.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Webinar Q & A: Your Biggest Migration Challenge

Great question from one of our "The Business Case for Upgrading to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4" webinar attendees:

Q: What is the biggest challenge in migrating from 3.1 to 4.x you've seen?

...and a great answer from our guest presenter, SAP's Saskia Battersby:

Saskia Battersby, SAP: In general, the biggest challenge is understanding the size and complexity of the migration project. BI 4 contains many changes which complicate the migration process, but which are necessary for the future of BI within your organization. It is important to come to terms with the scope of the migration project during the planning stage, to use all of the resources at your disposal, and to work with experienced partners to increase your prospects for an effective and efficient transition to BI 4.

...and also from APOS Systems' Fred Walther:

Fred Walther, APOS: One specific challenge is the migration of large amounts of content. Sometimes migration of a large number of instances is not practical, so it is important to have a strategy and solution in place to archive those instances, and to be able to retrieve them selectively as needed, whether for operational or compliance purposes.

For more help in planning, preparing and achieving an efficient migration, see our migration webinar series.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Webinar Q & A: The Business Case for Upgrading to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4

A number of great questions were raised and answered at our recent webinar on formulating your business case for upgrading to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4:

Q: What BusinessObjects reporting is available on iPad? WebI? Xcelsius? To what extent is this supported?

A: SAP BusinessObjects Mobile 5 supports all of the content types. Explorer is now included, as well as Dashboards (Xcelsius), Crystal Reports, Web Intelligence, and Design Studio

Q: What are the new features of the UNX universe format?

A: The ability to handle multi-dimensional data sources and changes to the way data federation is done are some of the key new features. For more information, review our earlier webinar, "The SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 Semantic Layer & Migration," in which SAP's Pierpaolo Vezzosi provides a detailed discussion.

Q: Are all components of Dashboards/Xcelsius supported on the iPad? In earlier versions of 4.0, several components were not supported (e.g.: spreadsheets).

A: More connectivity options (i.e., not just UNX) have closed the gap considerably between what is available via the Web and via Mobile.

Thanks to SAP's Saskia Battersby and Deepa Sankar for being our guest presenters in this webinar, and for providing some insightful answers to our webinar attendees' questions.

Migration is this year's big story for the SAP BusinessObjects community. For more help in planning, preparing and achieving your migration, see our migration webinar series.

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Self-Service BI - The Business Case for Upgrading to SAPBusinessObjects BI 4

Traditional BI answers known questions. Self-Service BI answers unknown questions.

So say Saskia Battersby and Pierre Leroux in a presentation they delivered at the ASUG SAP BusinessObjects User Conference 2012 (Extending Self-Service Capabilities of SAP BusinessObjects BI (PDF)).

Saskia and her colleague Deepa Sankar will be joining us for a webinar on Thursday, July 11, 2013, to discuss The Business Case for Upgrading to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4. Part of that business case is the new self-service capabilities of BI 4, and the growing importance of self-service BI for competitive advantage.

What are unknown questions? As Donald Rumsfeld once said:

There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know.
There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know.
But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don't know.

While Rumsfeld's statement was widely ridiculed, it is actually quite accurate and succinct. If you don't know how to formulate the questions that challenge your assumptions or fill the gaps in your knowledge, then that information will elude you.

Or, as Mark Twainsaid, "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."

Standard reports answer a set of standard questions on a periodic basis. They provide information on the known knowns and known unknowns -- the information you use to manage your daily operations. But what about those unknown unknowns? How do you find answers when you can't yet formulate the questions? More and more, your competitive advantage depends on learning those unknowns through proactive analytics. Your performance will depend not just on how you react to markets, but also how you predict events and act to take advantage of them. You will be judged not just on what you know, but on what you should have known.

That's where the self-serve aspects of BI have their impact. That's why it's important to take advantage of the new capabilities in SAP BusinessObjects BI 4. Join us for this informative webinar to learn more.

View the recorded webinar.

Friday, July 5, 2013

Mobile BI - The Business Case for Upgrading to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4

Business is conducted in real time, and on location, so your BI has to be available in the same manner. Mobile BI confers competitive advantage, and the mobile BI capabilities of SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 are a large part of the business case for upgrading. No matter how decentralized your workforce and decision makers, they can have the information and analytic power they need when they need it, and where they need it. Every business should build mobility into its BI strategy.

SAP has placed great emphasis on mobile BI in BI 4. Yourmobile workforce can both access information remotely, and also analyze it using applications optimized for mobile devices. The acquisition of Sybase, the consolidation of interfaces, the development of mobile applications, and the strong mobile SDK for third-party application development have all been milestones in the push toward an advanced mobile BI strategy -- providing real-time engagement and collaboration, and instant access to business and location analytics
Our upcoming webinar, The Business Case for Upgrading to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4, addresses mobile BI and many other BI 4 value propositions. SAP's Saskia Battersby and Deepa Sankar will discuss:
  • The value SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 brings to your organization
  • How it aligns with strategic business intelligence objectives
  • How you can increase Return on Investment (ROI)
  • How you can lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
View the recorded webinar.

This webinar is the third in a series on migration issues. View other webinars in the series.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Data Analytics – The Business Case for Upgrading to SAP BusinessObjectsBI 4

Most organizations are now data-driven. Competitive advantage demands it. In data-driven organizations, the focus is turning to data analytics as the volume, types and sources of data multiply. If you're having a hard time keeping up to that reality, wait until you see what comes next.

As of mid-2013, a full 90% of all the data that exists in the world has been created in the last two years. Collectively, the world creates 2.5 quintillion bytes of data each day, and a healthy slice of that data concerns your business. It's easy to see that a proactive approach to data analytics and big data is required.
One of the key justifications your business case for upgrading to BI 4 should emphasize is the need to embrace data analytics as a key strategic investment.

Our upcoming webinar, The Business Case for Upgrading to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4, addresses this need and many others. SAP's Saskia Battersby and Deepa Sankar will discuss:
  • The value SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 brings to your organization
  • How it aligns with strategic business intelligence objectives
  • How you can increase Return on Investment (ROI)
  • How you can lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
View the recorded webinar.

This webinar is the third in a series on migration issues. View other webinars in the series.

Thursday, June 27, 2013

SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 Mobile SDK - Mobile Location Intelligence

The release of SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 and the Mobile SDK for Dashboards (Xcelsius) raises new possibilities for mobile location intellitgence. Watch this brief demonstration of the APOS Location Intelligence Solution (LIS) on a tablet:


Friday, June 21, 2013

Migration Planning & Preparation - SAP Community Network (SCN)

Just published in the June 2013 edition of Business Intelligence News on the SAP Community Network: "Best Practices for a Smooth Migration to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0."

I co-authored this post with SAP's Thierry Audas. It's a good place to start with your migration planning and preparation.

For more migration resources, check out:

Friday, June 14, 2013

Upcoming Webinar: The Business Case for Upgrading to SAPBusinessObjects BI 4

When: July 11, 2013, 10am & 4pm EDT
Third in a series of migration-focused webinars hosted by APOS

View other webinars in this series

Guest presenters:
Saskia Battersby, General Manager, Solution Management, Agnostic BI Market Segment, SAP
Deepa Sankar, Director, BI Product Marketing, SAP


In this webinar series, we've given you many technical reasons for adopting SAP BusinessObjects BI 4. Now SAP's Saskia Battersby and Deepa Sankar bring us a more business-oriented perspective on migration. They join us to discuss the business case for upgrading to BI 4.

We will discuss:
  • The value SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 brings to your organization
  • How it aligns with strategic business intelligence objectives
  • How you can increase Return on Investment (ROI)
  • How you can lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
Please join us for this informative webinar.

View the recorded webinar.

Monday, June 3, 2013

Webinar Alert: What's New in SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1

When: June 13, 2013, 10am & 4pm EDT
Second in a series of migration-focused webinars hosted by APOS
Guest presenter: Ty Miller, Vice President, BI Solution Management, SAP


As Vice President, BI Solution Management at SAP, Ty Miller is responsible for SAP BusinessObjects strategic product management and market success. Ty joins us to discuss what's new in SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1.

This is a timely event, as SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 entered its ramp-up phase on May 10, 2013, offering a range of new capabilities and opening up many new possibilities. This webinar will provide an overview of the important new technology advancements of BI 4.1, and describes how it is:

  • One Suite for All Insight with improved interoperability between clients, unified mobile BI suite and new and improved SDKs
  • One Place for All Information with connectivity to many new Big Data and exotic data sources
  • One Standard for Enterprise BI with many new stability, migration, deployment, multi-tenant and localization capabilities

View the recorded webinar.

SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.x Migration & the Semantic Layer

Thanks to SAP's Pierpaolo Vezzosi for delivering an informative presentation on the SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.x Semantic Layer and migration considerations.

The May 30 webinar was the first in a series of migration-focused presentations APOS will be hosting over the coming months, each featuring one or more expert guest presenters.

For more information:

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Webinar: The Semantic Layer & SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 Migration

Migration is shaping up to be the topic of the year for the SAP BusinessObjects community. In recognition of this fact, APOS is scheduling a series of webinars on migration. The first of these webinars features guest presenter Pierpaolo Vezzosi.

When: May 30, 2013, 10 am / 4 pm EDT
First in a series of SAP BusinessObjects 4.0 migration-focused webinars
Guest presenter: Pierpaolo Vezzosi — SAP — Director, Solution Management

Pierpaolo Vezzosi
is Director, Solution Management, at SAP, and has been product manager for the semantic layer since 2007. He will join us for this webinar to discuss the design principles, features and benefits of the new SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 semantic layer, and the UNX universe format in particular.
Innovations in the semantic layer of SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 create immense value, and migrating to BI 4.0 creates an opportunity to embrace the future of business intelligence within your organization.

The benefits are real, but the prospect of migrating may seem daunting to many. This webinar lays out migration lessons learned, and discusses migration challenges. The webinar also introduces new migration products from APOS that apply these lessons and simplify and automate many of the more labor-intensive, time-intensive, and potentially error prone tasks in your migration project.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 Migration Best Practices

I recently co-authored a piece for the SAP Analytics blog with SAP's Thierry Audas (@taudas) on SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 migration best practices. The article proposes some migration planning and preparation checklist considerations. This piece is just another chapter in the longstanding collaboration between APOS and SAP. If you want to see a concrete example of this collaboration, read Saskia Battersby's SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 Migration, Collaboration, and Innovation piece over at the SAP Community Network (SCN).

The close collaboration between APOS and SAP continues with our recent focus on migration acceleration products. This set of tools is designed to help you realize ROI faster by preparing for, and automating and simplifying the most labor-intensive, time-intensive, and potentially error-prone migration tasks. These products help you:
  • Convert UNV universes to UNX universes in bulk
  • Repoint Web Intelligence reports to UNX universes in bulk
  • Schedule Web Intelligence reports, set/reconstruct prompts from .NET applications
  • Migrate Crystal Reports 2011 to Crystal Reports for BI Enterprise in bulk
  • Use Desktop Intelligence reports with BI 4.1
  • Analyze Desktop Intelligence reports for Web Intelligence and UNX compatibility
  • Migrate Desk Intelligence reports to Web Intelligence reports
If you're like the majority of SAP BusinessObjects platform managers or users we've been speaking with, then this is the year you are migrating to BI 4.0 or 4.1. Most say the benefits are too great to wait. They see BI 4.x as the future of BI in their organizations.

More APOS/SAP collaboration: don't miss our upcoming webinar on The Semantic Layer & BI4.x Migration (View the recorded webinar), with guest presenter Pierpaolo Vezzosi, Director, Solution Management at SAP. Pierpaolo has been working with the semantic layer for 12 years and will discuss its role and benefits in SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0.

This webinar will be the first in a series of migration-focused events featuring guest presenters with deep and specific insights into the BI 4.x platform and migration considerations

Thursday, April 11, 2013

APOS & SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 - Migration, Collaboration, Innovation

We have a new post up on the SAP Community Network:
APOS Systems recently released a product that converts UNV universes to UNX universes in bulk. The story of its development involves close collaboration between APOS and SAP's product management team, as well as innovation for the benefit of the entire SAP BusinessObjects™ community.

The post documents a small part of the long-time and ongoing collaboration between APOS and SAP. In this case, it's about migration to BI 4.0, and what APOS is doing, in collaboration with SAP, to smooth the migration path.

The APOS Converter for BI 4.0 universes allows you to scan your system for existing UNV universes, select them, and convert them in bulk to UNX universes. It's just one of the many BI 4.0 upgrade resources that APOS offers to help you migrate smoothly and manage your resources efficiently.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

APOS Storage Center Integrates with KOM Networks' KOMpliance Secure Storage Solution

KOM Networks and APOS Systems today announced the integration of APOS Storage Center and the KOMpliance™ secure storage solution.

APOS Storage Center automates SAP® BusinessObjects™ archive, restore and migration processes allowing rules-based management of the document lifecycle while maintaining document integrity. KOMpliance patented technologies create secure WORM storage volumes using any HDD or SSD storage infrastructure enforcing data-at-rest security, data retention, authorized access and data integrity.

Read the press release (PDF)…

BI 4.0 Bulk Conversion Tools

APOS has just released a BI 4.0 UNV to UNX bulk conversion tool. The UNV to UNX Bulk Converter allows you to scan your system for existing UNV universes, select them, and convert in bulk to UNX universes.

For more BI 4.0 upgrade resources visit the APOS BI 4.0 Upgrade Resources page.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Webinar: 5 Ways to Improve Healthcare BI & Outcomes

Join Us for this Important Webinar on Wednesday, April 10, 2013, at 10 am or 4 pm ET
If you work in healthcare Business Intelligence, you know that you inhabit one of the most rapidly evolving, complex, and data critical types of BI environment there is. You also know that the prognosis is for radically and rapidly increasing data governance requirements and information sharing.

BI is critical not just for the business outcomes of provider and payer organizations, but also for clinical outcomes as well. And the continuing development of Meaningful Use strategies and Healthcare Information Exchanges will make the future of healthcare BI platform management extremely challenging.

This webinar discusses how you can manage your SAP BusinessObjects platform to provide better business outcomes, and to complement your organization's electronic health record (EHR) efforts, and its quest for better compliance with local, national and international regulatory standards, and better clinical and healthcare outcomes.
Join us:

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

BI Data Governance - SAP BusinessObjects

If you didn't have a chance to attend our recent Intelligent Data Access Controller (IDAC) webinar, you missed some great insights on BI data governance -- how you can gain greater control over your BI platform through increased visibility into data connectivity, better security through awareness of data access, and more accountability through sensitive data audit.

It's no surprise that BI data governance is becoming a hot topic. As BI assumes a more critical role in business decision support, it gains access to more and more enterprise data sources -- sources which inevitably contain sensitive operational, competitive, and personal data.

In a perfect world, your security model and corporate policies would be enough to protect your sensitive data. Data access would be restricted to trusted individuals, and those individuals would follow corporate policies on disclosure. But, according to Symantec, 33% of criminal breaches to your data security involve a malicious insider (PDF). Further, in 75% of those breaches, data is stolen by individuals with authorized access.

Clearly, it is not enough to design your security model well and set it in motion. You need to remain vigilant. You need to monitor data access proactively. You also need to be seen to be doing so -- as a deterrent to misuse of data access, and frequently also to comply with the letter and spirit of regulatory requirements.

 

Learn more about what you can do to improve BI data governance:

View a recording of the SAP BusinessObjects Data Connectivity, Sensitive Data Audit, BI Data Governance webinar.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Webinar Reminder: SAP BusinessObjects Data Connectivity, Sensitive DataAudit

When: Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013 at 10 am and 4 pm ET

Learn how to mitigate growing performance and compliance risks caused by increasing BI data connection complexity and expanding regulatory requirements.

Effective control of your SAP BusinessObjects deployment depends on query performance optimization and data access accountability. But many of the processes and activities that influence optimization and accountability are typically outside of the BI environment and outside of the direct control of SAP BusinessObjects administrators and platform managers.
View a 3 min. video preview of the webinar
The time to gain control of those processes and activities is now, because you face growing complexity in your SAP BusinessObjects data access and data accountability requirements. In addition to internal query performance challenges, there are audit and monitoring requirements mandated by regulatory compliance. There is no question that these issues represent substantial risk to your organization's success and security.

In this webinar, we will discuss data connectivity issues that present a risk to every data-driven organization, including:
  • Data Visibility and Control -Monitoring and Managing Data Connectivity
  • Sensitive Data Auditing -Data Access Monitoring and Regulatory Compliance
The webinar will also introduce you to the APOS Intelligent Data Access Controller (IDAC), a data access, audit, and accountability solution specifically designed to help SAP BusinessObjects administrators and technicians monitor and manage BI data connections and queries.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

White Paper: SAP BusinessObjects Data Access, Audit, and Accountability with the APOS Intelligent Data Access Controller (IDAC)

One of the most commonly used adjectives for the BI platform manager and BI administrator occupations is "challenging," and understandably so. If BI is your responsibility, over time you will likely face more data, more data sources, more information consumers, and less time to deliver an increasingly complex array of information products.

Even in the best-designed and most highly optimized deployment, these factors will combine to create anomalies in your day to operations. How do you get a handle on query performance issues? How do you track access to sensitive data within increased query activity? These are not merely questions of efficiency. They are questions of risk management and regulatory compliance.

The APOS Intelligent Data Access Controller (IDAC) is a data source agnostic solution for SAP BusinessObjects that can vastly improve the ability of BI platform managers, administrators and technicians to exert control over data and data access across multiple applications, operating systems, and data sources and types. This solution helps you manage and audit data access and activity across technologies, while improving system performance, information security, data privacy, and regulatory accountability.

This white paper provides an in-depth discussion of query performance and sensitive data auditing issues, and how you can use APOS IDAC to achieve greater efficiency and manage risk.

Download the white paper:

Data Access, Audit, and Accountability with the APOS Intelligent Data Access Controller (IDAC)

Monday, January 28, 2013

Webinar: SAP BusinessObjects Data Connectivity, Sensitive Data Auditing

What:The APOS Intelligent Data Access Controller (IDAC) Webinar
When: Wednesday, February 20, 2013, at 10 am and 4 pm ET

It's hard to manage what you can't see. Full BI data connection visibility and active BI query control is typically well beyond the reach of most SAP BusinessObjects administrators and platform managers - those who need it most!
Yet you face growing complexity in your SAP BusinessObjects data access, sensitive data audit, and data accountability requirements. In addition to internal query performance challenges, there are audit and monitoring requirements mandated by regulatory compliance. There is no question that these issues represent substantial risk to your organization's success and security.
In this webinar, we will discuss data connectivity issues that present a risk to every data-driven organization, including:
  • Data Visibility and Control - Monitoring and Managing Data Connectivity
  • Sensitive Data Auditing - Data Access Monitoring and Regulatory Compliance
The webinar will also introduce you to the APOS Intelligent Data Access Controller (IDAC), a data access, audit, and accountability solution specifically designed to help SAP BusinessObjects administrators and technicians monitor and manage BI data connections and queries.
View a 3-minute preview of the webinar.