Samuel Chmiel
SAP BusinessObjects BI is a suite of front-end applications designed for business intelligence (BI) that helps organizations perform data reporting, analysis, and visualization. It enables users to create reports, dashboards, and interactive data visualizations from various data sources. This tool is widely used for decision-making by offering insights into business performance.
Catalog and Documentation
SAP BusinessObjects BI connector supports import of Web Intelligence module objects. Web Intelligence Documents are imported to Dataedo as dashboards. Users can browse variables that are content of document. Reports from Web Intelligence Documents are imported to Dataedo as reports. Inside report user can browse visualizations and fields. Universes are imported as datasets with their fields and folders. Free hand SQL queries are imported also as datasets with their scripts and fields. Dataedo also imports Connections as linked sources.
SAP BusinessObjects connector supports creating Data lineage to enable tracking data flows fto visualizations created in the reports. Column level lineage is created between reports and Universes and Free hand SQL queries to find out which columns are the sources of data used by given report (only for Visualizations for which links to them are provided by SAP Business Objects REST API). Column level lineage is also created between Documents and Universes (for Variables for which links are provided by SAP Business Objects REST API). For Free hand SQL queries Dataedo supports column level lineage to external data sources using SQL parser.
Other features include:
- running Data Classification to find potentially sensitive data in SAP BusinessObjects BI data fields.
- adding and changing descriptions in Dataedo Desktop and Dataedo Portal
- linking Business Glossary entries to any documented SAP BusinessObjects BI object
- building lookups for columns and views and feeding them with distinct values from a column
Required permissions
Connecting to SAP BusinessObjects BI
Prerequisites
Currently SAP BusinessObjects BI connector supports Enterprise type authentication. For connection URL for SAP BusinessObjects BI RESTful web services is required.
Checking SAP Business BI RESTful web services URL
In default installations of the BI platform, the base URL is defined as http://servername:6405/biprws - replace servername with the name of the server that hosts RESTful web services. If your SAP BusinessObjects BI instance has non-default URL you can check it in Central Management Console (CMC):
- Log on to the Central Management Console (CMC) as an administrator.
- In the CMC click Applications
- Right-click RESTful Web Service > Properties
- RESTful Web Service url is in this Access URL field
Connection
To connecto to SAP BusinessObjects BI instance, click the Add button in the upper left corner and choose New connection.
From the sources, choose SAP BusinessObjects BI
Now data necessary to establish a connection between Dataedo and the SAP BusinessObjects BI must be provided.
- Host - SAP Business Objects REST API address (more details in Checking SAP Business BI RESTful web services URL section of this article)
- User - SAP Business Objects Enterprise authentication user
- Password - SAP Business Objects Enterprise authentication password
After clicking Conect, Dataedo will start retrieving a list of database objects. When it finishes, it will display a window to choose objects to import. Checking the Advanced settings checkbox allows you to define more complex filters.
Click Import to start the import process. Wait until the import process is complete.
Close the import window using Finish button. SAP BusinessObjects BI objects has been imported to new documentation in the repository.
Connector specification
Imported metadata
| Imported | Editable | |
|---|---|---|
| Documents -> Dashboards | ✅ | ✅ |
| Variables | ✅ | ✅ |
| Variables computed formulas | ✅ | |
| Reports -> Reports | ✅ | ✅ |
| Page zones | ✅ | ✅ |
| Cells | ✅ | ✅ |
| Tables | ✅ | ✅ |
| Cells | ✅ | ✅ |
| Cells formulas | ✅ | ✅ |
| Visualizations | ✅ | ✅ |
| Axes | ✅ | ✅ |
| Axes formulas | ✅ | ✅ |
| Universes -> Datasets | ✅ | ✅ |
| Folders | ✅ | ✅ |
| Fields | ✅ | ✅ |
| Data types | ✅ | |
| Formulas | ✅ | ✅ |
| Free hand SQL queries -> Datasets | ✅ | ✅ |
| Columns | ✅ | ✅ |
| SQL Script | ✅ | ✅ |
| Connections -> Linked Sources | ✅ | ✅ |
| Connection details | ✅ |
Supported features
| Feature | Supported |
|---|---|
| Data profiling | |
| Data classification | ✅ |
| Data lineage | ✅ |
| Reference data (import lookups) | ✅ |
| Importing from DDL | |
| Generating DDL | |
| FK relationship tester |
Data Lineage
| Destination | Source | Column level |
|---|---|---|
| Documents (for Variables when SAP BusinessObjects provides links) | Universes | ✅ |
| Reports (for Visualizations and fields when SAP BusinessObjects provides links) | Universe or Free hand SQL query | ✅ |
| Free hand SQL query | External data sources | ✅ |
Known issues and limitations
- Column level lineage is available only when SAP BusinessObjects API provides link for it
- To get lineage to external data sources for Free hand SQL queries you need to link linked source to external data source (after first import) - SAP BusinessObjects API doesn't provide connection details