Agfa’s strategy for choosing the right BO reporting tool

SAP Business Objects

Eva De Vocht – Solution Architect @ Agfa

Jorn Bieseman – BI Consultant @ Cubis

ContactCubisLeuvensesteenweg 613 1930 Zaventem

T: +32 (0)2 751 77 97F: +32 (0)2 757 90 61

www.cubis.beinfo@cubis.be

@cubissolutionswww.facebook.com/cubis.be

Jeroen RoosenManaging-Partner

+32 (0)478 94 93 72jeroen.roosen@cubis.be@jeroen_cubis

Wim Van WuytswinkelManaging-Partner

+32 (0)477 91 74 26wim.vanwuytswinkel@cubis.be@wimvw77

Content Summary

We will focus on deploying the right BO tools to the right audience within the company.

You will learn more about our reporting strategy and receive valuable feedback based on our experiences from implementing

several tools from the SAP BO suite.

Content Overview

Some Agfa

background

Global Agfa

BI strategy

Technical

implementation

Going to the

business

Current

projects

Future steps

AGFA BACKGROUND

Agfa-Gevaert Group

Parent Company CC and GSS

Agfa-Gevaert GroupBelgian

CompaniesAgfa-Gevaert NV

Agfa Healthcare NVAgfa Graphics NV

GSSAgfa ICSGlobal HR / Purchasing / Logistics

CC = Corporate CenterGSS = Global Shared Services

Technology Optimization: For Graphics, Healthcare and Specialty Products alike, Agfa ICS drives optimization to the

enterprise by aligning our client’s technology and operations strategies. Our professionals endeavor to improve client technological

capacities while cultivating operational efficiency, effective service delivery and optimal cost savings.

World’s first large-area flexible OLED

Graphics HealthCare Specialty Products

AGFA FACTS

Own datacenter

11.000 employees (>10% using BI tools and reporting)

3 SAP ECC

4 SAP BW systems1 BW 7.04 on HANA & 3 BW 7.03

18 TB of data end 2015

Global Agfa BI Strategy

• The IT BI team should focus on managing data

• The business should focus on reporting

Self-service

• Consistency of information/metadata

• Controlled distribution

• Consistent authorizations

• Mobile = PC

• Functional enrichment

• Not all users have the same needs

Single-version of the truthSegmentation of users

TECHNICAL IMPLEMENTATION

Architecture & roadmap Yesterday

ERP SQL Server Access DB Oracle DB

BW 7.03

BEx

Excel

Architecture & roadmap Today

ERP SQL Server Access DB Oracle DB

BW 7.04on HANA

Universe

BEx BI Platform

WebI4.1 SP07

DesignStudio 1.6

Lumira1.29

Excel

Excel

Architecture & roadmap Today

Design Studio WebI Lumira Analysis for Office

Dashboards & Applications MS Office (Excel/PPT/Outlook) integrationReporting Discovery & Analysis

SAP BusinessObjects client tools

Build Custom Experiences

Discover. Predict. Create. Distribute Information

Reporting

Self-service

Dashboardsand Apps

Self-service: Discover. Predict. Create.

Agility for business analysts and business users

Discover trends, outliers and areas of interest in your business

Adapt to business scenarios by combining, manipulating, and enriching data

Tell your story with self-service visualizations and analytics

Forecast and predict future outcomes

Portfolio

Lumira / Predictive Analysis

Explorer

Analysis

Dashboards and Apps

Build engaging, visual dashboards

Powerful environment to build interactive and visually appealing analytics

Rich set of controls: buttons, list boxes, drop-down, crosstabs, charts…

Use custom code to extend and build workflows

Portfolio

Design Studio

Dashboards (aka Xcelsius)

Reporting: share informationHigh productivity design for report designers

Quickly build formatted reports on any data source

Securely distribute reports both internally and externally

Minimize IT support costs by empowering end usersto easily create and modify their own reports

Enhance custom applications with embedded reports

Portfolio

Web Intelligence

Crystal Reports

Architecture & roadmap Today

ERP on HANA

SQL Server Access DB Oracle DB

BW 7.04on HANA

Universe

BEx BI Platform

WebI4.1 SP07

DesignStudio 1.6

Lumira1.29

Excel

Excel

Why SAP BO?

4 BW systems, SAP BO enables use data from all 4 BW systems in 1 report

Full BW integration

Full mobile and usable on any device

Self-service: business users can create their ownWebI and Lumira reports

1

2

3

4

Single version of the thruth: central platform that enables toreuse reports and enables users to reuse the same data sets

Segmentation of users: different SAP BO tools for different users (more about this further in the presentation)

Authorizations of SAP BW are reused in the SAP BO platform

Safeguard investment in BW

5

6

7

8

Chosen Tools

WebI Lumira Analysis for OfficeDesign Studio

Reporting Discovery & Analysis MS Office (Excel/PPT) integrationDashboards & Applications

Why these 4 reporting tools?

– Only 4 main reporting tools (Lumira, WebI, DesignStudio, Analysis for Office)

– BI Platform is the centralenvironment for reporting(Lumira on BI Platform is thefuture, Lumira on HANA Server will phase out)

SAP is simplifying their BI landscape

– Roadmaps and future are clear

– Clear communication

– Agfa felt secure to invest in the future

SAP has finally a clear vision on their tools

BO implementation steps

BO POC environment (only WebI)

01/2014 12/2014

08/2015 09/2015

10/2015 02/2016

Purchased SAP BO and HANA

Go Live SAP BW Healthcare on HANA

Technical readiness of Lumira 1.27 and

DesignStudio 1.5 on BI Platform

Go Live BI Platform 4.1 SP06 (only WebI)

Upgrade to BI Platform SP07, Lumira

1.29, DesignStudio1.6

Problems encountered

Limited functionalities of Lumira

• Lumira <1.27 did not support SAP BW

• Lumira 1.27 supported limited SAP BW connectivity

• Lumira 1.28 & 1.29 finally contain good SAP BW connectivity

SSO to BW only available for 1 BW system (critical issue was solved in BIP 4.1 SP06)

• Every tool works differently and changes with every upgrade

• Different installation packages

Sizing wizard doesn’t work (issue still exists on BIP 4.1 SP07)

1. Lumira was delayed 2. SSO

3. Software installation packages 4. Sizing

GOING TO THE BUSINESS

Strategy for promoting BO to the business

BOPromotion

Working towardsself-service

Organic growth, mouth-to-mouth publicity

Avoiding the big-bang scenario

Project approach

Strategy for promoting BO to the business

BOPromotion

Working towardsself-service

Organic growth, mouth-to-mouth publicity

Avoiding the big-bang scenario

Project approach

Present the entire BI architecture (including BW, HANA, …) like in the previous slides to the business• Keep it simple• Don’t promise the ultimate

reporting tool• Focus on 2-3 advantages of

the BO environment

Give a demo to key responsible users

Presentation DemoA B

POC on real life business data together with someone from the business

POC TrainingC D

Development of reports with small teams (1 person from the BI team and 1-2 persons from the business)

DevelopmentE

This project approach is followed every time a new business team wants to use SAP BO.

Strategy for choosing a BO reporting tool

WebI Vs LumiraVs Design Studio

What is BO?

You can do everything with

Lumira, why do we need Design Studio

or WebI?

The business willnot search for the

differencesthemselves

Panic! Everything is

going tochange!

Strategy for choosing a BO reporting tool

We also asked SAP to advice us which SAP BO tools to use.

We received the standard SAP slides.

Strategy for choosing a BO reporting tool

• Only positive points, no words about limitations

• No comparison between tools

• Almost every tool can be placed on every slide

The SAP-slides are good, but:

• High level

• Also including negative reasons

Our own interpretation:

VS

Strategy for choosing a BO reporting tool

You don’t have anything and you want to first start

playing with the data?

•Lumira & Analysis for Office

Your data structure is stable and you want to build yourself a report with extended graphs?

•Web Intelligence

•Why not Lumira? Lumira has not as many options for graphs as Web Intelligence

•Why not Analysis for Office? WebI offers more automatisation (scheduling and bursting of reports)

You want to have more a dashboard then a static

report? You are willing to spend time/money to

realise this report?

• Design Studio (by IT)

• Why not WebI? DesignStudio allows you to code your functionalities giving you a lot more possibilities

Strategy for choosing a BO reporting tool

Is it that easy? Unfortunately not…

Our strategy is very self-service driven and we understand that not all users have thesame needs (segmentation of users)

Some other product functionalities are still important

o Scheduling/Publishing/Broadcasting: DesignStudio does not support this

o Excel plugins: Only WebI has a Excel plugin (Live Office)

o Integrated Planning: Only DesignStudio and Analysis for Office support this

Problems encountered

We only had WebI to start with

• Immediately demand for more functionalities like in DesignStudio, we didn’t had the full flexibility of DesignStudio

• Users couldn’t play with the data as they can in Lumira

• WebI is only self-service for high end profiles, people need to be a little IT minded. Self-service for dummies works better with Lumira.

We need to look passed the SAP selling story

Limitations are only encountered on the job

1. Stuck in the middle

2. Lumira is heaven

3. Experience

CURRENT PROJECTS

• Integrated Planning project already done successfully

• IT is in the driving mode to propose DesignStudio as an alternative to the business when users are stuck on the limitations of WebI

• Existing static reports and broadcasted reports are changed to WebI (Web reports and BEx workbooks)

• New reports are developed in WebI(MS Access data, SQL server data, Oracle DB data, Excel data)

Projects will start beginning of February to use Lumira for the development of reports and exploring data

• Delayed because of installation packages that need to be rolled out

• Lower priority, first the other tools which give supplementary advantages to users

• Only available as of MS Office 2007

WebI Lumira Analysis for OfficeDesign Studio

CURRENT PROJECTS

FUTURE STEPS & CHALLENGES

Future steps and challenges

Future

BEx queries not always BO readyUOM and other BO limitations

Continuous upgrades of the systemBI Platform 4.2

HANA ERPMore HANA, less BW

Going mobileSecurity will be a big

challenge

Analysis for OfficeSome delays with the global installation

packages

Getting more users on the platformWill the platform be able to manage all the

users (BO on HANA?)

DesignStudio – Lumira evolution

Questions?

Thank You!