Service Orientated Architecture

Tagline: "An integrated IT architecture is a pre-requisite to getting clarity in your company"

This blog covers the stream regarding SOA. Okay, lets get something out of the way straight away - we will not refer to eSOA (that is Enterprise SOA) and SOA as different things. Most of the big players agree that services architecture needs to the approached from the enterprise level - global data types, governance and using business semantics - an agreed and common approach to the services structure. Hence, it is now 'SOA'.

Notice the tagline? Clarity - it appears here again in the SOA discussion and is just as important in the Netweaver platform (service orientated platform, or business process platform that is) as it is in the Business Suite as well as a company's vision and strategy.

So what is the current thought train around SOA?

Put simply, a composition of services is now needed more in today's skills market than ever before. With more and more applications coming along it is unrealistic to expect an employee to come to grips with all or even several of them. Developments need to be less customer specific as well as less standard software application delivery.

How does SAP achieve this?

Again, this is with SAP Busines Suite 7, but we must also look at SAP Netweaver 7.0 as well. They both work together to form the entire development process and make it much, much easier. However, it should be noted it is not mandatory to have Netweaver but it will be more difficult to develop composite applications and user interfaces as well as harder to deliver them effectively to employees e.g. through a portal.

The top down architecture goes something like this:

1. Enterprise Services Architecture (we know this in SAP as Netweaver and/or the Composition Environment)
2. SAP Business Suite 7.0
3. Composite Applications (running in Netweaver/Composition Environment)
4. Enterprise Services Repository. This is VERY important as it is where all the business suite services are published to and consumed from (by the composite applications).
5. Best Practice Scenarios. These are 'vanilla' or 'out-of-the-box' business process scenarios you can use 'as-is' or extend.
6. Data

1-3 are the innnovation layers - where you extend the standard and/or create your own business processes using composite applications, with the Netweaver/CE suites to assist. 4-6 are the core layers, where the standard process exist and services are published. These are not changed.

So what does SAP Business Suite provide for SOA?

Business Suite 7.0 offers the following support for SOA development:

• Business Network Connectivity
• Innovation (ELP)
• End-to-End Best Practice business processes
• Extended Process (custom)
• 130 + enterprise service bundles.

What was that last one? Bundles are a logical collection of enterprise services that are used to make up a business process e.g. Create Sales Order is the bundle, but includes among many others, 'Find Customer by Name and Address' enterprise service. Those 130 'bundles' contain over 2800 enterprise services between them.

These bundles (and hence enterprise services) are delivered through Enhancement Packs (EhP). Now this is important - EhPs are not technical or code support packs - they are purely functional. As well as providing enterprise services they also bring in more functions that can be activated by the customer. Support Packs (technical) follow a different roadmap and can be applied separately.

So what is SOA being used for today?

A survey of the Asia-Pacific region has revealed the customer base that have adopted SOA used them for the following gains:

• Connectivity. 47% of Enterprise Services project have this as a project goal.
• Lean Interaction. 35% of ES project have a better user experience as a project goal.
• Fast Process Innovation. 40% of projects have ES as a basis for fast innovation when introducing a new business process.
• Standardisation. 43% use ES as a basis for consolidation of their development platform
• Enterprise Services Repository. Development lifecycle times can be reduced by up to 66% when compared to using a traditional development platform i.e. when there is no common place to publish and consume services. Or more importantly, component re-use.

Examples:

• Asian Paints. Business Process Transformation with SOA. A portal was created for interior deisgn by the public, using an SOA based composite application. The application allows end-to-end experience for the user allowing a print off of the final design with colour schemes, cost etc. If the order is placed, the colloborative network of vendor, customer and service providrs are aware of the order and supply requirements & timelines.
• Jebsen & Jessen. Capacity to handle 30% higher volume of service requests without additional headcount.
• Auckland Regional Council. This is a live implmentation of Microsoft Duet, a collobarative venture with SAP that allows users to access and record information in SAP from MS Office suite. It uses Kerberos as authentication and SAP Netweaver as the intermediary to SAP Business Suite. e.g. Outlook has new tabs that allow leave requests, time recording and travel requests within a new calendar appointment. Minimal user training has led to streamlined leave, time and team management

Towards SOA: Governance and Skills

The Enterprise Services Repository is used for design time governance. It is very important and provides (through published services from the Business Suite) a number of supported services and tools:

• Enterprise Services (Published)
• Pre-Delivered SOA content (these are the best practice scenarios)
• Design Methodology
• Organisation of Content
• Controlled Modification.

For SOA it is important to define the granularity definition, name scope and global data types. These are enforced by ESR and the development tools to ensure that industry standards are adhered to. The process follows the standard SAP approach to development lifecycles:

Analyze > Design > Transform > Improve

So what should i take away from all this?

SOA is always included with a new business initiative. Otherwise it is a waste of SAP Business Suite's capabilities (this contains ERP, which as an aside can be implemented on its own if you wish). SOA enables business tranformation to give direct business value from your implementation.

SOA should never be implemented on its own, for its own sake - it is part of business transformation using Business Suite (or just ERP) and the Netweaver platform. SOA is the foundation architecture for an agile IT environment and SAP Business Suite is SOA enabled & ready to use.

Adopt SAP Neweaver Business Process Platform (commonly known as just 'Netweaver') as it will be invaluable given the reasons above. However, also adopt SOA with the right approach and proper governance.

"Plan your Roadmap!"

Chris Enstock

August 6th 2009

Survive and Thrive in Uncertain Times

Tagline...."Cash is the King, Queen and Royal Family..."



This was the most anticipated keynote session, being presented by the Vice-President of Product Strategy for SAP America, Jeffrey Word. We will be reviewing his presentation around Business Transformation. What are the things that companies can do to survive the current market? What can we do (as their service provider/partners)? What are their customers doing in the marketplace?



What is likely to be our future state?



There are 3 long term trends that are likely to dictate the future state of the global markets:

• Economic: Global business networks. Supply chains are now becoming global. What happens in one country can drastically effect another.


• Environmental: Natural Resource availability; Climate Change; Population Growth


• Social: Customer awareness, connectivity (and the maturation of the information age); accountability

We can think of many examples of each of the above that has led to the demise of some companies. In order to survive the current market, and more importantly what it will soon become, new strategies need to be adopted.

How things are and how they should be

Many companies have reacted to the global financial crisis in a rather dramatic fashion and I would say blinkered manner. The first column below is a poor approach, the second column a more desired approach:

Cost Focus

• Outsource Everything
• Cut Spending
• Squeeze Suppliers
• Sell to "best" customers
• Eliminate Headcount

Value Focus

• Partner Strategically
• Spend Wisely
• Collaborative/Win-Win approach with Suppliers
• Acquire "non" customers
• Increase Productivity

We will co-relate this to a set of priorities shortly, but first an example of knee-jerk reactions: In the recent crisis, General Motors announced they were cutting 20000 jobs. Did they know the 20000 staff that were ineffective that could be cut or they would just take x% from each department irrespective of their talents? I doubt the former very much. Also, think what this would do to the productivity of the teams once the cull ended. Do you think the once not-so-great employee will be happy and productive when the talented one was let go?

It is important to get a company lean and efficient before the fight for survival begins. A company must invest strategically that will pay back in 2-3 years, transform their business model & supply chain, as well as consolidate functions and platforms. Get lean and mean!!

Here are a few examples before we move on to the priorities for survival and to thrive after the crisis ends:

• Rohm & Hans: Moved to a single instance of SAP - i.e they consolidated and saved 30% of IT budget
• AVNet: Used BI to create achievable plans on their bottom line. 30% cost saving
• Pennex: Used embedded analytics to empower employees and transformed itself to a process orientated organisation, using SAP BI.

How do we find a way out of the crisis?

Clarity. This is the message from SAP - you need clarity. Specifically: Transparency and Accountability (risk management); be lean and agile (be more efficient); Collaborative and Customer Centric (engage your customers). I noticed in a later session that this same message is also being driven in the Service Orientated Architecture area, in regard to the approach to new business initiatives and how to approach them.

NITCA has established 6 priorities that will guide from being cost focused to value focused and gain the edge in the current market and to ensure success following the upturn (when it comes, that is). In short a company must become lean and efficient:

1. Manage Cash. As the tagline says "Cash is the King, Queen and Royal Family of a company". It is vital to know a company's net cash position to an accurate degree. Use modelling and enterprise level software, not excel spreadsheets.
2. Operational Excellence. i.e. Be efficient. Lower costs, improve quality of product, reduce process and lead times. The strategy must have a vision and guidance to the workforce - get employee buy-in.
3. Drive risk awareness and capture activities. Put simply, it is essential to know about risks so the executive level are aware of it e.g. Know a supplier's work process and accounting standards. Ensure a company is compliant with all legislation - financial, environmental, product safety, employee health and safety and social. Be aware of a company's bankers and to whom they are affiliated, including your own. An example here is Mattel, whom contract out their manufacture to Asia. In itself this is not an issue but this contractor in turn subcontracted the painting to another firm that used lead based paint (allegedly). Children died in this incident which nearly resulted in the company's demise. If Matttel knew their contractor was in turn subcontracting they could have investigated further and protected themselves.
4. Drive superior customer value. Pull the company supply chain together to know what customers want. Keep a grip on product design to point of delivery, especially when the product leaves physical involvement i.e outsourced.
5. Retain and enable your top talent. Good employees will need tools to be more efficient and hence more productive. It will be envitable that some workers will need to be let go, but it is important to identify the good workers in this process. Know the employees using Talent Management, such as their own personal development and use metrics and evaluations to keep this in control. Make them successful! But remember that productivity during lay-offs will always be slightly affected in the short term.
6. Credible sustainability. Increase short and long term profitability by holistically managing economic, social and environmental risks i.e. be sustainable from various aspects. This is not just to be politcially correct - company's that are have a low footprint on the environment and use good social and ethical values retain 15% more customers than those that don't.

IT, Be Ready!!

Stakeholders that are negative to changes to business process through IT are currently in a very weak position to challenge change when potential savings are presented in the boardroom. Hence, the IT department is in a unique position to drive immediate business value and streamline opertaional costs:

• Faster customer response
• Streamline process and eliminate ineffeciencies
• Consolidate application portfolio
• Hard facts for fast decision making
• Establish the foundation for rebound

In short, turn the IT department into a service organisation to the company.

What does SAP currently offer to assist in this?

SAP offers SAP Business Suite 7 to help in this exercise in making a company lean and efficient. It encapsulates ERP and supporting application such as CRM, SRM, PLM and SCM. Netweaver is a different platform which works in tandom with Buseinss Suite, but this will be reviewed in the next blog.

Put simply SAP is committed to making Business Suite completely servcie enabled - single processes that worj across the entire suite and can be just 'turned-on'. These services come in the form of Enhancement Pack. A company can choose which features to enable rather than enabling or implementing a whole application just to use a small feature of it. They have a large ROI and a low TCO and are much more flexible than the old implementation approach.

SAP also offer their new 'Best Run "NOW" packages' which target key functional areas identified by business leaders as been critical to success. These cover among others:

• Governance, Rosk and Compliance
• Enterprise Performance Management
• Information Discovery
• Cash, Liquidity & Financial Risk (this is on eof the most important)
• SAP Resource and Porfolito Management (RPM). This is the key package for IT to be able to keep their house in shape and give them credibility in the boardroom . It can track application landscapes, mulitple parallel projects with reporting on milestones and deliverables. It establishes the key fundamentals to deliver changes to a company.

So, do you want to thrive and survive, or sink? In one great advertising mantra "you have to spend to earn". In todays market a company should consider this as "you have to spend to save". So do i upgrade to ERP/Business Suite? Yes - the older SAP version do not offer this level of functionality and technical ability. This is not just financial investment but time and vision from the top down.

"If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem".

Chris Enstock

August 6th 2009

Interfacing with SAP

My Tagline: "How many SAP user interfaces???"

This post is from the first part of a Key Stream session. The discussion is in regard to the current SAP user interfaces and where things are going.

These are most of the current user interfaces available that work with some part of an SAP system with a relevant notes:

• SAP BusinessObjects. This can (or cannot) work with SAP BI and it's interface is a little different to the current SAP style.
• SAP Gui. We all know this one - the main SAP client interface to ABAP systems. Look out for the new version 7.1 with it's Signature Design. This allows the user to select new themes to apply to the interface. One thing i did notice is that the selection screens and result listings are neater and easier on the eye than older 6.40 an 7.00 versions
• SAP Netweaver Business Client. This is new and much touted to "bring together all UI's into a single client". It looks more like a portal but does have some nice features - it has a Google like search which is fast and predictive - you no longer need to search through menus to find a transaction. However i did note it does seem you need the underlying UI client for it to work.
• Duet. A new version promises easier configuration and from personal experience i hope so. Duet runs via SAP Netweaver to ERP, SRM, CRM, BI etc and works as an action pane and relevant links in Office application. The principle area is Outlook but Excel, Word and Infopath all share useful additional features. In a nutshell you do not have to leave Outlook to carry out functions in ESS such as Leave Requests, Travel Management, CATS record time as well as BI for Budget Reporting and Monitoring, CRM for account activity and promotion management, eRecruitment and Procurement. This is very useful for management and end users. Do not overlook the technical implementation - there is a lot going on in the background, but isn't there always for heterogeneous vendor inetrgation? Can work offline for BI reports, analytics, CRM data etc. It is stored in SQL locally (Express) so SOE considerations exist.
• Alloy. See Duet but for Lotus Notes
• Voice. No notes on this one
• Mobile Client. No changes ot the client here.
• Widgets/RSS. These are available on SDN and the list is building.
• Portal. Better UI in 7.00 release and lighter in bandwidth needs. However, the portal should be a standalone entry point to your backend systems, hence the name. This is my own opinion i must add but none the less valid for it.
• Adobe Forms. In terms of vendor agreements, Adobe forms will always remain separate to anything to do with Microsoft so Interactive Forms will be around for a while at least. However, with the advent of Duet and it's offline and synchronising ability i would say they may want to rethink that approach.

SAP are pursuing a new approach to their UIs - the "5 levels of UI harmonisation". Now i am not sure what they aim to achieve with this but it must be to address the slight variations in clients, especially during client integration or embedding scenarios. These levels include brand unification, common user interface look and common navigation. This would be nice to see and would reduce training requirements.

So where is all this going?

There does appear to be a drive to reduce the stress on the end user but offering consolidated interfaces (NW Business Client) or at least addressing each current client in the core SAP space (i.e. not concerning another vendor) so that they look and act exactly the same. This would be a great start as it has been a thorn in SAPs side for a while.

As a last comment (sorry for the short post - it was only a 20 min session), keep on eye out for the new Social Network Analyser (SNA). This works on top of the HR Org Structure but has a wonderful tree based drill down graphic that then shows you all the employee pertinent data. It is a glorified corporate address book but for those in HR it is likely to be a blessing.

SAP getting its UI act together? Well when a company develops products at the rate they do, it is understandable. Still better late than never, but don't expect a single UI to do everything - there is not a screen available that it would fit onto, or would be too complex to navigate. The search functions really help and i do see this as a good thing.

Watch this space

Chris Enstock

August 5th 2009

Growing the Digital Economy

Tagline: "We need to do more in the global economy"

It takes energy to create energy saving goods. This is something my father told me the other day when i was looking at energy saving light bulbs. It is a truism, which led me to thinking - can we achieve more than the sum of our parts in the digital world of commerce? i.e. Can Australia develop a synergy in the digital economy as Kevin Rudd would like us to achieve, or is it a pipedream? Dr David Skeller, CEO of National ICT Australia spelled it out for us.

Okay, let me burst the bubble first. Australia is hopeless in the online world of revenue generation, as well as being suitably poor in industry collaboration with each other and with research institutes. How much? Well, only 3% of revenue generated in Australia comes via Online sales whilst it is 15-20% in the UK, Belgium and other more enlightened economies. We pip Turkey, only just, which keeps us off the bottom run of the ladder among OECD countries (Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development - people listen to this think tank, so don't dispel the figures). Don't ask about the yawning gap between us (lowest) and the next lowest for collaboration with the research institutes (university, govt non profit like NICTA).

Let me ask you a question: Have you ever Googled for something to buy online only to not find it or resort to eBay? Yes? Well know you know why and also how far behind we have fallen.

Is this fair? This is the argument so far: Australia is a huge country with a relatively low population density with most being on the coastal zones. Hence there is not the 'cohesive mass' such as UK which has the ideal conditions to roll out broadband. It is not the same to ask someone in say, Cooper Pedy to buy broadband - it would cost a fortune.

These are all true - some historic and changeable, others unchangeable. However, there is one aspect that is often overlooked - the culture in Australia. Buying online is regarded by many as anything from the devils work to being a scam and unsecure. This is the reason why broadband has been so slow in the uptake and more than likely the reason why companies have not invested in an online offering.

Well, finally the Australian government is taking up the gauntlet by committing to full broadband for all of Australia with grants and support for the regional areas. As the quote goes... 'Build it and they shall come'. We hope. Also there has been the creation of advisory govt bodies (non profit) that have been asked to work on breakthrough innovations and to get them used in the market (by the leaders/early adopters initially). One such is National ICT Australia.

National ICT Australia - what is it?

This is a non profit federal government company that is a joint venture (i.e. staffed) from the main state Universities including (in no order): QUT, UQ, Griffith University, UNSW, Australia National University, University of Sydney and University of Melbourne. Also the QLD, ACT, VIC and NSW governments have an active role.

Their remit (apart from the breakthrough innovations) is: to teach companies to be more competitive in the ICT space through research; to advance ICT skills in Australia and to license IP (intellectual property) to industries. They have a number of fields they are active in and we can regard these as layers in ascending order and importance:

1. Broadband infrastructure. This is the management of, but they also are helping to push wireless technology and to monitor broadband uptake.
2. Smart Devices. This is PDA, iPhone and other mobile devices and their operating systems & security
3. Digital Services. These are key to extracting value out of broadband and the devices that connect to them.
4. Application and Content. That is - applications bringing together content and services, securely over the broadband network.

We will consider these individually to try to make sense of how things are progressing to develop the digital economy in Australia.

Broadband Infrastructure

NICTA does not advise on the actual infrastructure, more the management and uptake of broadband - this is left to the network providers which are working to the Federal remit. What we do know is that city and metropolitan areas will be likely provided via fibre channel and the regional via Satellite and Wireless. The latter is the most important to develop as an affordable and accessible resource to regional people. The fibre channels in other areas are in the upgrade category and are relatively less difficult to service. What does need consideration is new housing development which can put too much strain in popular areas.

Smart Devices

This is referred to as 'The Internet of Things", but in a nutshell where we are now/heading to is an "always on" environment - a set of networked & interconnected things that reflect what is happening in the physical world. These devices have varying levels of intelligence but what NICTA are pursuing is that these devices communicate what they are, where they are, what they are good for, what is happening in their surroundings and what capabilities they have. Here are some examples of what we have now:

• The Car. Most standard and luxury cars have up to 90 embedded computers in them measuring any number of aspects of a cars setup and operation. The 'Sports' button on your console is likely to update many different setup options on the engine, suspension, steering and brakes to make things 'Sporty' or in the opposite scale 'Economic'. They communicate this back to a central unit that can be analysed by the dealership. This is a good example of a smart device.
• RFID Catering. This is a prime example of a very smart device that could be transferable to the domestic kitchen. It will be fitted to Industrie Airbus A380 in first class. An RFID tag is used for food items, say a sirloin steak and also there is one on the grilling tray which in turn goes into an induction oven. The tag tells the grill pan what it is, how long it takes to be rare, well done etc. The grill pan has it's capabilities coded so the oven knows how long to cook a perfect steak and when to tell the cabin staff to turn the steak over. Brilliant - no more reheated food (if you can afford first class that is). There is no reason this could not be developed for the domestic kitchen and hence a new generation of appliances are born. The same RFID tags can be used to record food usage and transmit this to the ground staff for efficient reloading when the plane lands.

NICTA also helped to develop an embedded Operating System with Open Kernel Labs called OKL4. This is robust and prevents blue screening and other glitches that could occur in the native OS when running mobile applications. There is a strong chance it is in your phone right now as most mobile companies use it for mobile applications.

Digital Services

As noted earlier this is probable the key area - they are need to extract value out of broadband and the devices that can use them. They are divided into two areas:

• Generic Services. These cover areas such as SOA, security, mobility etc
• Sector Specific Services. Not all sectors are suitable to be 'digitised' but those that are need services that fit their industry best practice (as we know it now - it is not a constant). These include transport, health, water, logistics, eGov, emergency services and many more.

These services must be consistent and have a convergent service provisioning. NICTA advises to industry software providers on how to keep the services in this manner. SAP is one such company and always has focused on vertical sectors so i well placed to develop the digital services to suit. SAP has its own research arm staffed by students developing new service offerings that are running prototypes. NICTA would be a company that would be asked to review these and provide an analysis and feedback. This practice is encouraged and promoted - as noted the industries are not really collaborating with research so in the meantime, the software vendors need to step up to the plate.

Digital Services is about taking a manual process and digitising it. However, a word of caution - they must have a common language and protocol with a proper business process evaluation and mapping to be a success. That is without offloading the work from this onto another sector or third party. This leads us onto...

Applications and Content

This needs industry support and key personnel involved. It is essential to negotiate a way to work with all parties in a business process. If one sector offloads to another it becomes counter productive e.g. to digitise a business process but then increase the load of a third party is not acceptable. The application and content must be shared and be mutually beneficial.

What are the issues that should be avoided?

In order for the digital economy to grow there are a few possible pitfalls to be avoided as well as some form of mitigation. Most importantly it should be noted that sub systems developed at different times and by different vendors can lead to a heterogeneous set of systems which can react badly to unknown demand levels and the capacity of which is hard to measure.

Put simply if the solution landscape for a set of applications (and therefore digital services) is heterogeneous and not carefully checked out it can lead to performance bottlenecks or simply never run well at all. NICTA has developed ePASA which supports a digital services delivery. This can check the behaviour of systems, check for performance bottlenecks and carry out scenario testing. i.e. it is a modelling and testing tool.

In a way it can be viewed a a Go-Live check service. Should you go or not? Well, this is really the remit of an enterprise architect and should be addressed at the start of the digital services/application project. However, it cannot hurt to have another tool on hand and as NICTA are the specialists in this new advisory and development of innovations 'field' it would be churlish to dismiss it.

So where are we going?

I would see this as a twofold parallel approach: develop the infrastructure and make it affordable & accessible; promote the involvement of NICTA with industry leaders and research organisations. As many might be saying "but it will take away Australian jobs if we have a bigger revenue share in online sales" i would say, what a load of rubbish. Increased sales does not necessarily mean loss of point of sale. What it does mean though is more goods & services sold, more revenue, more warehouse and transport activity, more admin staff so where is the loss of jobs?

As a point in note, one of the most successful online sales companies, Amazon, has no physical point of sale outlets but i can tell you this - it has one of the biggest warehouse and supply chain operations in the UK. Now that cannot be bad for business. So why can Australia not get to that point? Is online revenue operations the devils work now, or is it our saving grace?

Chris Enstock

5th August 2009

A BI Integration Story - from the Walt Disney Company

My Tagline: "Walt Disney Company is much more than theme parks"

I wonder what Walt would make of his legacy could he comment today? Proud no doubt but also i suspect concerned that the customers are receiving the same level of service he envisioned on the opening day of the first theme park. He need not worry. They do, and some.

So what does Walt Disney Company do now?

This is what Walt Disney is now involved in so they need to have a very good reporting suite to bring them the information as they need it, when they need - fast, accurate and above all relevant to the customer:

1. Media, including ABC and ESPN
2. Studios, including acting and animation
3. Consumer Products
4. Online Services
5. Theme Parks and Resorts

Lets concentrate on the latter to get some perspective, as the speaker for this session was Kenneth Hierman, Finance Manager for Walt Disney Theme Parks and Resorts. This division of the parent company is busy - they have Walt Disney resorts in California, Florida, Paris, Argentina and Tokyo (apologies for any i missed) as well as the 'Adventures by Disney' offering. The latter offers an insight in the company's vision - over 20 countries are offered as one-of-a-kind adventure holidays (but not roughing it) including Australia, Peru, Germany, SW North America, Italy and South Africa.

In order to successfully offer such a package, across the globe, and to keep everything ticking along well a company needs excellent reporting that has been well implemented and continues to develop even after Go-Live.

What were the challenges?

The Theme Parks and Resorts division run SAP - before the BO XI 3.0 integration they ran SAP R/3 and BW 3.5. Note they do also run BusinessObjects 6.1b, but more about that later. The implementation was successful but they were finding gaps that were proving hard to fill with anything other than a manual intervention. Here were the key challenges:

1. Cannot connect SAP to different data sources (i assume here we are talking about BW3.5)
2. SAP finished implementation in 2003 but lacked certain aspects of analytics. This led to data dumps into MS products to present to the executive level in a meaningful manner. Oh dear.
3. No dashboards (recent data), which was a strong end user requirement
4. No cockpits (real time data)
5. Need an easy to use reporting solution
6. Need a secure solution
7. Solution implementation must be sustainable. Quite reasonable but often overlooked for short term gains.

The result was a decision to select the latest Business Objects offering - BO XI 3.0 (as is was in 2007)

Why Business Objects?

There were several reasons for selecting BusinessObjects, largely due to it being 'close to home'. These are all valid reasons and often would produce the least path of resistance:

• Currently being used in 6.1b version by Theme Parks & Resorts
• Large user base - 22000 in BusinessObjects already
• SAP Connector Kit is a requirement by is cheaper to purchase than a new application
• SAP bought BusinessObjects (this only came about after the selection process though). This also meant that in terms of the enterprise reporting market, SAP suddenly became a bigger player. With an almost guaranteed effort in integration from SAP and SAP BO this is great news - there would be support, guides, product development and above all, probably a lot of effort in detailed integration to the latest releases of BI and BO.

However, not all is as easy as it seems.......

Pre-requisites!

Now i would be the first to admit that when a new application comes out i hold my breath waiting for the dreaded 'pre-requisite' lists. That is, the list of what must be done before you even get started on the new application. I can be like a domino effect - New product? That'll be a new back-end release then. Oh, yeah and that will in turn need a DB upgrade. Older hardware ? Sorry that CPU architecture is not supported anymore.

Well, Walt Disney were hit with all this but were sensible, that is they are (by their own admission) slow in the uptake - a more considered and careful approach is advised. Nice to hear. So from July 2007 to February 2009 this is what happened:

1. Upgrade SAP R/3 to ECC 6.0.
2. Upgrade SAP BW 3.5 to BI 7.0
3. Implement BI Accelerator
4. Upgrade BusinessObjects 6.1b to XI 3.0
5. Consideration of AIX architecture currently in use.

However, how you actually do this is critical for success. These are the 'must dos' but do not define 'how to do it'. It is critical when you have an application like BusinessObjects already in use and you are effectively promoting SAP as the primary application, to be careful about the implementation of the SAP upgrade and then BO upgrade. The teams need to fit together, to understand their roles, deliverables, demarcation points and responsibilities.

So how was the upgrade and implementation achieved?

This is a quick rundown and then we will discuss the areas in more detail.

1. Proof of Concept/Acquisition/Contracts
2. SAP Upgrade activities. Three words covers a lot of effort!
3. BusinessObject upgrade
4. Connection to SAP. That is they used BO 6.1b without SAP connection. Now this is needed and also includes bringing 20000 users across from BO into SAP
5. Troubleshoot/Test
6. Train/Communicate

Now in more detail, a considered implementation needs to be undertaken. In the Theme Parks & Resorts a phased approach was undertaken with a pilot group of 1000 users across DisneyLand in California, DisneyWorld in Florida and some users in Tokyo. These users already knew SAP BI and were selected a the first phase rollout to Finance. These 1000 users were workgin to am implemetation standard that woudl be used in each of the phased rollouts up to 23000 users, repeating the same basic remit each time:

• Phased approach (Finance first, HR later)
• Select only a few widely used cubes - focus and prioritise
• No canned reports - all reports are business driven for Theme Parks and Resorts not to make implementation easier
• User of a Super Users Group, as per the SAP implementation back in 2003
• Communication to use a tiered approach. This means executive communications first, then management, then end users. The latter includes the training plans and a final kick off communication on go-live day. Communication is also managed geographically to ensure support is available in the regions and releases are pertinent to content required in that area.
• Training: BusinessObjects Knowledge Accelerator implemented; Instructor led training and online resources available to support the users, to obtain executive communication and 'buy-in'

As noted, these occur at each phase.

What issues/benefits were found?

There were a number of issues that came along during the porject that required consideration until a resolution could be found:

1. BusinessObjects XI3.0 had a number of issues that required upgrade to XI3.1 SP2.
2. Size of BO resources needed (server sizing and growth)
3. SAP and BO merger itself
4. Common name issues in the Hierarchies
5. Unix vs Windows (an age old battle, that one!)
6. Complex reports

However there were some significant benefits including: the ability to combine external data sources with BI data; a single reporting solution; user uptake increased significantly.

What about the future?

Ongoing post live support is vital - the online knowledge resources (Wiki) are updated including uploading BusinessObjects user guides. New 'universes' are being developed to complement the 6 in production - these service key areas and are very carefully considered before development as to their purpose and design. Usage is constantly encourage through executive communications and involvement in development:

• Develop & Test
• Publish
• Communicate
• Train
• Support

Summary

23000 users over 3 continents with a three way upgrade and new integration (of BO 3.0 to SAP BI 7.0) is no small task - it was a large scale global implementation and rollout over a 20 month period, which in itself is a great achievement. It should be noted here that the previous figure is a linear time. The project used 11 FTE consultant over the project period equating to a total of 31 months equivalent. The most important message to come out of this session is this ....."implementation never ends at Go-Live - with a product set such as this and the market it operates over, there can be no resting as the possibilities are seemingly endless, and so there is always room to improve service". I doubt Walt would be happy if that were to happen.

Chris Enstock

4th August 2009

SAP BusinessObject Explorer Demo

Tagline: "Explore Your Business at the Speed of Thought"

In this post we will discuss the Fujitsu presentation of the SAP BusinessObjects Explorer. Trying to be impartial, being an employee of Fujitsu myself, we will review the functional benefits of implementing this application, which can be either standalone or on top of SAP Business Information 7.0

So what is it?

Lets call it SAP BOE from now on. Although SAP BI in itself can be a powerful application for analytics it can be cumbersome for the 'casual users', which includes the executive level in a company. SAP BOE aims to address this gap by making access to those 'sweet spots' of information much easier, more intuitive and faster (Google like speed is touted). Eliminating the need to request particular reports from a BI team or IT significantly increases the effectiveness of the user, which at the executive level is vital. Not that the executive level are the sole users - power users will still likely use SAP Business Explorer but senior management would also benefit from exposure to SAP BOE.

What are the key features and benefits?

The most obvious feature is a simple search with a google like ranking of the results, along with a 'stats' link to take you to the analytics features of the product. Being a relative newcomer to BI and BO, but experienced in Enterprise Portal, the most important feature (for me) of such a tool is ease of use and an ability to change the queries on the fly without a need for in depth training or client software. BOE achieves this well and top level management would need minimal assistance in getting to grips with it. Summarising, the benefits and features are (in no order or being exhaustive):

1. Simple, easy to use interface. This is not like SAP Business Explorer which can be complicated for your average user.
2. Can change perpectives easily - bar chart to pie chart in a single click
3. Can add new dimensions easily within the analysis results e.g add customer geographics data to further refine a root cause anaylsis. These come as drop downs on the selection criteria in the statistics. Handy.
4. On the fly manipulation of the statistics to suit needs - top X results, co-relate to another data set etc (hence the tagline 'explore your business at the speed of thought')
5. Actions are available - email result as URL link, bookmark, export data.
6. SAP BOE sits on top of SAP Business Objects (latest is XI3.1 SP2) so it can be either be standalone to external data sources (not all though, so be careful here), implemented on top of SAP BI 7.0 or (and this would need further technical checks) - SAP BI and external sources at the same time. This last item is very important as it can address relating a legacy data source with new SAP BI data - see my post from Walt Disney Corporation for more on this.

Are there any functional & technical limitations?

This would need further consideration, but from the demo it would be necessary for the user to have some form of analytics knowledge - exposure to business warehouse applications, accountancy knowledge or some form of SAP BO training would be needed to prevent over analysis. This would be primarily to prevent too much granularity of the results or misleading results. e.g. the user needs to know which dimensions to add to make an analysis pertinent.

You can only have one 'Universe' (see BO technical for that one!) for one BOE implementation. Put simply this means you can have one BOE per data source, but (and this is important), if you can link SAP BI and one (or more) external data sources together in SAP BO XI 3.1 SP2, this can be serviced by one Universe. Confused? Imagine a Universe as an umbrella - you need to get everything under it in order to stay dry (or in this case to analyse its data).

Does it have a future?

Undoubtedly any application that can make a key stakeholders working life easier is hard to ignore. Many products have come about promising to abstract the underyling applications and use semantics etc but fall at the last fence when it comes to the client presentation. BOE has been well thought out and although the technical members of a company will be groaning about another level of integration, it is good news for those with the casting vote in a company - the key stakeholders, or 'the boss'.

See Fujitsu services regarding packages for SAP BOE

Chris Enstock

August 4th 2009