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"The SAP BusinessObjects portfolio provides comprehensive
solutions that can empower you to optimize your business performance. These solutions can
help you define your business strategy, close the gap between strategy and execution, and
balance risk and profitability."
Source: SAP
What's New in SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1
SAP Businessobjects XI 3.1 is also known as :
New SAP Businessobjects XI 3.1,
Business Intelligence BI Software SAP,
Full Spectrum BI Functionality,
SAP Businessobjects Web Intelligence Software,
Businessobjects Enterprise Software,
SAP Business Objects XI 3.1 Business Intelligence,
SAP Businessobjects Desktop Intelligence,
Promotion BI Content Management,
Industry Leading BI,
Business Intelligence Technologies Reporting White Paper,
Unified Platform,
SAP Voyager Software,
Corporate Initiatives,
Superior Platform,
Real World Deployment Flexibility,
Businessobjects Microsoft Net Platform,
High Performance System Administrators,
Enterprise Software Solutions,
Enterprise Strategy,
Enterprise Tools Comparison,
Dashboard Manager,
Corporate Performance Management,
Internet Protocol Version 6,
Microsoft Active Directory,
Repository Diagnostic Tool,
Translation Manager User Interface,
Business Intelligence BI,
Unified BI Platform,
Corporate BI Initiatives,
Business Intelligence Software SAP,
Superior BI Platform,
Maintain BI Applications,
Microsoft Net BI Platform,
High Performance BI,
BI Content Management,
Promotion BI Content,
BI System Administrators,
Businessobjects Intelligence,
BI Software,
BI Strategy.
NEW FUNCTIONALITIES
BROADER DATA ACCESS, IMPROVED USABILITY,
GREATER FLEXIBILITY
SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1 helps you unlock and access
all corporate information, both structured and unstructured,
and provides a unified view for more confident decision
making. It includes a complete suite of BI tools required
for strategic, corporate BI initiatives and for more aligned
teams and business networks, and it brings all this functionality
integrated on one flexible, unified BI platform.
SAP® BusinessObjectsTM XI 3.1 solutions
are the next major release of business
intelligence (BI) software from SAP.
SAP BusinessObjects XI provides a full
spectrum of BI functionality. Functions
range from reporting, query and analysis,
and dashboards and visualization, to
intuitive discovery and advanced predictive
analytics capabilities, as well
as data quality and extract, transform,
and load functionality.
SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1 delivers:
- A superior BI platform for heterogeneous
environments, so your
organization can provide a trusted,
complete view of all information
assets
- Improved usability for analysts and
business users, allowing greater self-sufficiency
and faster, better-informed
decisions
- Real-world BI deployment flexibility,
allowing IT to deliver and maintain BI
applications to more users across
your organization
This document provides a high-level
overview of the new functionalities
offered in SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1
and covers the following product areas:
- Integration with IT environments enabled
by Microsoft software
- Integration with Oracle enterprise
applications
- Data access and supported
platforms
- Native 64-bit architecture
- Information discovery and delivery
solutions
- Content life-cycle management
- Platform administration
Integration with IT Environments
Enabled by Microsoft Software
Microsoft recently refreshed many
components of its technology platform:
Microsoft Windows Server 2008,
Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Internet
Information Services 7.0 (IIS 7.0), and
Microsoft Visual Studio 2008. SAP
BusinessObjects XI 3.1 supports all
the latest releases of that technology
platform and offers native Microsoft .NET
Framework support for SAP Business-
Objects Web Intelligence® software,
SAP BusinessObjects Desktop Intelligence
TM software, and the business
intelligence portal. For the business
intelligence portal, the SAP Business-
Objects XI 3.1 release maintains existing
parity between Microsoft .NET Framework
and Java versions by supporting
the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0
and 3.5.
SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1 supports
Microsoft SharePoint Services and
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
and benefits from a number of architectural
changes. SAP BusinessObjects
XI 3.1 is also the answer for organizations
wishing to extend insight from BI
to any Web or Microsoft .NET application.
IT departments and developers
can reuse the functionalities of the
BI platform, such as scheduling and
security, or embed the existing content
in applications by using the updated
Microsoft .NET BI platform software
development kit.
Integration with Oracle Enterprise
Applications
SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1 introduces
direct connectivity to Oracle E-Business
Suite - enabling organizations to consolidate
and transform vast amounts of
Oracle application data into reports,
analyses, visualizations, and dashboards.
Single sign-on and direct access to relevant
insight also contribute to increased
end-user productivity. SAP Business-
Objects software delivers connectivity
to other Oracle applications, so users
can make the most of information stored
in PeopleSoft Enterprise, JD Edwards
EnterpriseOne, and Siebel applications
Data Access and Supported
Platforms
SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1 provides
even more flexibility and the power
to connect to all data - regardless of
format or location. Broader data access
ultimately means that users can make
decisions more confidently, because
they know that SAP BusinessObjects
XI 3.1 delivers a consistent user experience
- no matter what the data sources
are (see Figure 2).
New Data Sources:
- HP NeoView 2.3
- Microsoft SQL Server 2008
- Microsoft Analysis Services 2008
- Netezza 4.0
- Oracle 10g RAC
- Oracle 11g
- Oracle 11g RAC
- PostgreSQL
- Progress OpenEdge
- Teradata 12
SAP BusinessObjects XI
3.1 gives you flexibility and
power to access all information
- regardless of format,
shape, size, or location -
enabling everyone in your
organization to make more
confident decisions based
on trusted, reliable information.
It provides broad
and flexible support for
standard industry applications
and solutions from
SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft,
Microsoft, Siebel, JD
Edwards, salesforce.com,
and hundreds of other
environments.
SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1 also meets
the needs of a truly heterogeneous
system and business environment by
offering organizations the ability to mix
operating systems and servers and to
meet ever-changing business needs.
SAP continues to demonstrate its
commitment toward heterogeneity
and technology agnosticism by expanding
the number of operating systems
supported, such as Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 5, Microsoft Windows Server
2008, and Microsoft Windows Vista
Service Pack 1.
Native 64-Bit Architecture
SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1 represents
the first time SAP BusinessObjects
Enterprise software is offered as a 64-bit
application for high-performance BI on
HP-UX Itanium systems. All platform
services associated with SAP Business-
Objects solutions - Crystal Reports®
software, SAP BusinessObjects Web
Intelligence software, SAP Business-
Objects Voyager software, and
others - benefit from a native 64-bit
implementation.
Information Discovery and
Delivery Solutions
Information discovery solutions provide
analysts and business users with query,
reporting, analysis, dashboard, and
user-friendly information search and
navigation functionality, giving them
quick access to the information they
need to make enlightened decisions.
SAP BusinessObjects Voyager
SAP BusinessObjects Voyager software
continues to build on its first two
releases and offers a number of improvements
that enable analysts and
business users alike to discover data
using new data visualizations and
exception highlighting. Visualization
options include box plots, scatter
plots, radar charts, and bubble plots,
as depicted in Figure 3.
With SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1, you can provide
the right role-specific BI functionalities to everyone
in your organization - ranging from reporting, query
and analysis, and dashboards and visualization, to
intuitive discovery and advanced predictive analytics.
All users, from the high-end analyst to the casual
information consumer, have access to the information
they need while requiring minimal dependence on IT
resources and developers.
Other noteworthy improvements to
SAP BusinessObjects Voyager include:
- Microsoft Analysis Services 2008 as
a supported data source
- Drill-through to SAP BusinessObjects
Web Intelligence or Crystal Reports,
enabling context (row and column
headings) to be passed to an existing
report or analysis
- Personalized favorite members, so
users can define a group of favorite
members from any dimension and
then use that metadata selection to
quickly get a personalized view of
the information
SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence
In SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1, SAP
BusinessObjects Web Intelligence
software delivers several interface
improvements that provide a more
powerful analysis experience for business
users and analysts. Enhancements
include:
- Flexible comparisons between data
sets - onward, backward, in blocks,
sections, breaks, and over any
number of dimensions
- Convenient and simple data filtering
with new report filter bar
- Expanded Microsoft Excel export
functionalities - SAP Business-
Objects Web Intelligence documents
can be saved as comma-separated
values (CSV) files and multiple
Microsoft Excel sheets if they have
more than 65,536 rows
- Option to cancel refresh on open
- Automatic loading of list of values
In this release, SAP BusinessObjects
Web Intelligence also offers additional
safeguards designed to manage memory
consumption by applying a number of
measures when user demands reach
certain thresholds.
Content Life-Cycle Management
SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1 offers a
new life-cycle management application
to manage the promotions of BI content
between environments (see Figure 4).
This application simplifies BI content
management throughout its typical
life cycle (development, testing, and
production) for all organizations.
Based on extended customer feedback,
the application reduces maintenance
and maximizes platform utilization by
providing:
- Complete granular control over any
content or objects
- Dependency check and analysis
- Auditing and scheduling
- Delegated administration
- Rollback
Platform Administration
SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1 includes
many improvements that simplify platform
deployment and administration
while retaining the granularity and
flexibility required by complex or global
deployments.
Internet Protocol Version 6
SAP BusinessObjects clients and
servers will support 128-bit Internet protocol
version 6 (IPv6) address syntax.
They will be able to work in IPv4-only
environments, IPv6-only environments,
or a combination of both.
Microsoft Active Directory
SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise
software enables administrators to
support Microsoft Active Directory
authentication across multiple domains
within a company's network. Using
the central management console,
BI system administrators can set up
Microsoft Active Directory authentication
with either the Kerberos or
NT LAN Manager (NTLM) protocols.
Repository Diagnostic Tool
The repository diagnostic tool scans
for and repairs inconsistencies that may
occur in the metadata in your repository,
in addition to inconsistencies that may
occur between the file repository
servers and the central management
server database.
Translation Manager
In SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1, the
translation manager user interface is
more intuitive to use while maintaining
all the existing functionality. User
interface enhancements include new
menus and toolbars, updated wizards
for importing and exporting XML
Localization Interchange File Format,
and streamlined views for improved
translation workflow.
Languages
SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1 supports
a total of 17 languages - including
three new ones: Norwegian, Danish,
and Thai.
Summary
By providing one of the best platforms
for heterogeneous environments, a
refined user experience for analysts
and business users, and real-world BI
deployment flexibility, SAP Business-
Objects XI 3.1 delivers insight through a
single, trusted BI platform. And it redefines
the way information empowers
users. SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1
delivers on the promise of a true intelligence
platform - one that gives customers
the best of execution and the
best of strategy. Most important, it
provides the means to align and connect
strategies in a closed-loop system.
To Learn More
To find out more about SAP Business-
Objects XI 3.1
and other SAP
Business Objects solutions,
call
your SAP representative or visit
www.sap.com/sapbusinessobjects.
SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1 offers an easy-to-use
data integration environment with integrated data
quality, data lineage, data auditing, and data access
and movement. It helps ensure that your business
data is correct, consistent, and complete and allows
for better staff utilization, more effective project
management, and lower cost of ownership.