Invaluable lessons for
distributing reports with
SAP BEx Broadcaster
Dr. Bjarne Berg
Director SAP BI
© 2007 Wellesley Information Services. All rights reserved.
What We’ll Cover …
• Overview
• BEx broadcasting wizard
• Advanced options for BEx Broadcaster
• Managing BEx Broadcaster
• Make it work in real life
• Wrap-up
2
What Is BI Information Broadcasting?
• A standard part of SAP BW 3.5 and higher, BI Information
Broadcasting lets you broadcast reports (i.e., BEx queries,
workbooks, and Web applications)
• Email addresses,
BW users, BW
roles
• SAP Enterprise
Portal Knowledge
Management (KM)
folders
• SAP Enterprise
Portal
Collaboration
You can also define and deploy iViews based on the Rooms
Note
resulting KM/Collaboration documents
3
What Is BI Information Broadcasting? (cont.)
• You can configure broadcasts to run:
 Once only
 On a scheduled basis (every day, week, month)
 During specific times defined by the administrator
 Any time (if you allow)
 When an event occurs (i.e., when an exception occurs)
 As part of a process chain
• You tell the system whether to send:
 A link to regenerate the query, etc. based on live data
 A standalone (pre-calculated) version of the item
 There are several format and compression options
Key concept: Push vs. pull:
Broadcasting is a push tool
4
Push vs. Pull: Change in Mentality
• Users have a to change their mentality to stop reviewing everything that
is business as usual. The Push mentality requires that users plan for
what is important to them and set up fixed sets of reports that are used
to manage the business.
• In general, the push approach reduces the time users spend looking for
information and provides them with more time to examine data that really
matter to them.
• You should carefully consider using BEx Broadcaster for core reporting
that users perform through any handheld computer device. This
simplifies the security setup and also increases the speed of any report
(does not access the source system through limited bandwidth).
Casual users and executives are prime
candidates for broadcasted reports
5
Why Is Broadcasting So Valuable?
• Reduces the time users spend looking for information
• Improves the likelihood that users will use your BI data
• Expands the reach of BI data to non-BW users
• Makes BW data available for users on the go
• Lets you link your BW and portal systems together
 Users can collaborate, integrate BW content with other enterprise and
Web content, etc.
Note
Casual users, non-BW users, travelling users,
and executives are all prime candidates for
broadcasted reports!
6
Different Needs and Tools
The information needs of the user communities are different
KPI & scorecard
Formatted
• Simple
• Easy to view
• Limited nav
• Aggregates
Flat reporting
• Formatted
• Print
• Form based
• Static
• Predictable access
OLAP reporting
• Drill down
• Slice and dice
• Analyze
• Data mining
• Search and discover
7
SAP NetWeaver 2004s: New Object Types and Output Formats
• New object types
 You can broadcast BEx query
views and formatted reports in
addition to Web applications,
queries, and workbooks. Reports
are a new BEx object type
developed within the new BEx
Report Designer tool.
• New output formats
 New output formats are based on
the distribution type you select.
You now can broadcast Web
documents as PDF files.
8
SAP NetWeaver 2004s: New Distribution Types
• New distribution types
 You can broadcast to any printer using
Adobe’s PDF, Property Specification
Language (PSL) or PostScript (PS).
 (Hint: Set up the printers under
ToolsCCMSPrint).
• You can broadcast user-specific
information based on attributes in
the master data attributes using a
distribution list in BI (bursting of
emails). The system can control the
information so that users only see
data related to them.
9
SAP NetWeaver 2004s: Exception Broadcasting
• Exception broadcasting is now available in BEx
Broadcaster. Create exceptions in Query Designer
and select a distribution type in BEx Broadcaster.
You can also use additional distributions types
(subordinate) and create rules for when you
monitor or execute the exception report. Base
exceptions on single events or levels of any
performance measure.
 See slide 29 for further information.
• You can use multiple distribution type to create a
setting that broadcasts many channels (i.e., the
printer and Enterprise Portal 6.0).
To manage all alerts and workflow tasks from a single location, integrate an
alert with the SAP portal’s 6.0 universal worklist (UWL) in the Central Alert
Framework (CAF) of SAP NetWeaver Application Server.
10
SAP NetWeaver 2004s: Query Performance
• To increase the performance of key queries, you
can fill the OLAP cache or the MDX cache. This is
useful if you have large numbers of users
accessing a query, or you have a query that
accesses a high volume of data.
• The Fill Precalculation Store distribution type
allows you to precalculate Web templates, and the
Precalculate Value Set option allows you to fill
precalculated value set variables with values for
characteristic values. The precalculated value sets
are then available as variable values in BEx
queries.
The Reporting Agent in BW 3.x could precalculate the data of a
template and access it through the URL. It could not broadcast
queries, workbooks, or Web templates by email or to KM folders.
11
Why Is Broadcasting So All Encompassing?
• BW is an integrated
decision support
system with a high
degree of flexibility.
• Therefore, BEx
Broadcaster has to
function for a variety
of purposes and for a
diverse audience.
• Today, BEx
Broadcaster supports
portals, PDAs, alerts,
emails, caching, and
KM.
12
What We’ll Cover …
• Overview
• BEx broadcasting wizard
• Advanced options for BEx Broadcaster
• Managing BEx Broadcaster
• Make it work in real life
• Wrap-up
13
BEx Broadcasting Wizard Ad Hoc Scheduling
• Access BEx broadcasting wizard from the context menu in a query
• BEx broadcasting wizard is a tool for end users to
distribute queries and workbooks to single
individuals or larger audiences through email,
printers, or SAP Enterprise Portal 5.0 or 6.0
14
Output Formats: HTML
• HTML file
 Use this option to send a single HTML file (standard static Web page).
This is an easy way to send Web pages to handheld devices (i.e.,
Blackberry or Pocket PCs), and also to custom Web applications.
• The report is a snapshot rather than live data
15
Output Formats: XML
• You can now broadcast query output in Excel format (XML for
MS Office) without using precalculation server (available as of
Support Package 8)
• Any parser engine that can read the XML documents supports
this format; you can also use it for customized Web
development efforts
16
Output Formats: MHTML
•
HTML as Separate Multipurpose
Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Files

•
Provides a set of individual files
for each Web item in your report.
The benefit of this standard Web
format option is that it optimizes
reuse of objects, as images are
cached in the browser after
accessing them for the first time.
17
Output Formats: Online Links to Current Data
• Online Links to Current Data
The recipient may not see the same as
what you believe you sent, since the data
may have been refreshed since you sent
the broadcast.
 The link back to the online source (requires recipients to log on with a
username and a password to see the content, but can see the latest data).
• This is the most secure
method for protecting the
access to your data.
However, the recipient must
have online access to your
system, a username, and
password.
18
Output Formats: PDF
The output format
determines how many
steps the wizard has (e.g.,
PDF has 6 steps, while
online links has 5)
• The use of PDF as a publishing and broadcasting option is new in SAP
NetWeaver 2004s. To make it work, configure PDF broadcast Adobe
Document Services (ADS) on the Java Stack.
19
Output Formats: ZIP Files
Pros: File size much smaller
Cons: Not as easy to use as you
have to unzip the file and need to
license the unzip program
•
Zipping files reduces the size and improves network traffic:
 It is very good for sets of MIME files, which are relatively large
 Not a good option for handhelds (requires unzipping and several read steps)
 Normally not needed for single HTML files unless the report is very long
 Reduces network traffic and the size of the mail in the mailboxes
20
Identify Recipients and Enter a Message
Enter one or more email
addresses, a subject, and
body.
The importance level flags
the email for delivery to
your recipient.
Click on Continue to save
and schedule the broadcast
to execute later
OR
Click on Execute to execute
the broadcast once only,
during the next available
processing window, and exit.
Add comments in the Contents area to describe the query
Tip
21
Define a Name for the Broadcast Setting
• This is the name under which you store your settings
• If you want to execute this broadcast more than once with
these settings you can save them
• You can retrieve the settings later
Tip
Define groups of settings for reports you send repeatedly
(i.e., weekly status reports, month-end financial reports, etc.)
22
Tell the System When to Schedule the Broadcast
You can schedule the job to
run every time the infocube
is changed (the process
chain has run)
You can limit the users to
when they can schedule jobs
to avoid stress on the system.
We can provide multiple
predefined times when they
can schedule the reports.
You can also allow the users
to create their own
scheduling times (only
authorized users see this)
Developers should set up predefined
windows of time to schedule broadcasts.23
What We’ll Cover …
• Overview
• BEx broadcasting wizard
• Advanced options for BEx Broadcaster
• Managing BEx Broadcaster
• Make it work in real life
• Wrap-up
24
BEx Broadcaster
• BEx Broadcaster is another way to access tools to broadcast queries,
workbooks, and Web applications. Business typically give access to the
power users or developers only, since it has more options and requires
slightly more skills.
• Access via Web Application Designer (Web AD) or Query Designer
SAP NetWeaver 2004s Web AD
SAP NetWeaver 2004s Query Designer
25
Regular Scheduling by Power Users Using BEx Broadcaster
• Through BEx Broadcaster, power users or
developers can broadcast content to specific BW
users, roles, email addresses, or email groups and
set language. You can also make the broadcast
user specific.
• The output formats are the same as in broadcasting
wizard.
26
Select Characteristic Values
• You can determine the broadcast based on predefined
selections, or you can use a control query to determine the
characteristics values to include in the broadcast.
Set the standard template for broadcasting can from SAP Reference IMG  SAP
Customizing Implementation Guide  SAP NetWeaver  Business Intelligence
 Reporting-Relevant Settings  BEx Web  Set Standard Web Templates.
27
Determine the Recipient of Bursted Broadcasts
• These fields determine the recipients in bursting of reports
(mass broadcasts with user-specific views)
• In this example, I am bursting emails based on the company
code and sending specific mailings based on each receiver's
country (the BI system has to store the email address)
28
BEx Broadcaster: Exception Reporting
• You can make BEx
Broadcaster send you an
exception report when an
exception occurs or if the
system reaches a certain level
• First, you have to
define the exceptions
for the query and
make the exception
active.
29
BEx Broadcaster: Exception Reporting (cont.)
• Under the General Precalculation tab, power users can use
defined exceptions to broadcast when exceptions occur to
send a broadcast only when the selected trigger point occurs.
• Note that you can use only those exceptions defined in the
query in the broadcast settings here
Key concepts: Don't spend time monitoring business as usual activities, only get
alerted when exceptions occur. Don't search for exceptions, send them automatically.
30
Filter Navigation Tab
• If you precalculate the queries, you can allow the recipient to navigate
the reports by the characteristics you select. The more items you
include, the larger the size of the broadcast items. This is not a problem
if you are mailing to a few of users, but for thousands of users daily, you
should select these items carefully.
The benefit of the Filter Navigation tab is that you can select which
items you want to enable without having to create new queries
31
Why Broadcast to SAP Enterprise Portal (5.0 or higher) vs. Email?
• More powerful
 Users can comment, rate, and discuss the broadcasted assets
 You can place the assets in iViews on cockpits/dashboards
 You can integrate the assets with other portal content
 Portal users without a BW user ID can now access BW content
 TREX searches include broadcasted assets
• More user friendly
 Users can subscribe/unsubscribe themselves
• Easier, more flexible administration
 You can leverage the portal’s access control lists/capabilities
 No email address lists to maintain (users [un]subscribe)
 Avoids the email glut, and the BW/network performance hit!
32
Options for Broadcasting to the Portal
• The broadcast options are similar to the email distribution.
You have several choices:
 1 - Deploy via KM Favorites
4 - Deploy via the BW showcase role
 2 - Deploy via a KM folder
5 - Deploy via custom iViews
 3 - Deploy via Collaboration Rooms
•
You can broadcast the
content to the portal at
fixed intervals and have
the content instantly
available through
independent Web pages.
You can also broadcast
to the portal through
links back to your
system.
There is a demo role available in SAP Enterprise Portal 6.0. You can use this role for
your publishing to the portal or enhance it any way you like.
The portal role is available under com.sap.ip.bi.business_explorer_showcase
33
What We’ll Cover …
• Overview
• BEx broadcasting wizard
• Advanced options for BEx Broadcaster
• Managing BEx Broadcaster
• Make it work in real life
• Wrap-up
34
Security
• Controlling which users can schedule ad hoc or through BEx
Broadcaster is a critical maintenance issue
• You can control the user's ability to schedule the reports
through the authorization object S_RS_BCS
 The administrator still uses the standard S_RS_ADMWB object
• You also have new broadcast settings for the RSADMWBOBJ
field.
• These settings include:
 Maintain/Delete (23)
 Display (03)
 Execute/Schedule (16)
35
Broadcasting Administration Interface in SAP NetWeaver 2004s
News: With SAP NetWeaver 2004s, there is a new transaction RSRD_ADMIN (or
RSA1>Administration>Broadcasting) where you can manage BEx Broadcaster
36
New Broadcasting Administration Interface Features
Broadcast Types
Distribution Types
Output Formats
37
Monitor Schedules in Broadcasting Administration
• The Broadcasting
Administration allows you to
monitor and see who is
scheduling what and if some
times are more heavily utilized
than others (e.g., 7 to 8 am).
• This is a great tool to help
balance stress on the system.
38
Reorganize Bookmarks with Broadcasting Administration
• Reorganize and delete bookmark IDs
and view IDs that the system created
for Information Broadcasting but no
longer needs.
39
Manage Broadcast Logs
• RSRD_LOG displays all logs for BEx Broadcaster settings. Logs
are only written for scheduled settings and not for directly
executed settings.
In large BW systems
with many users and
frequent broadcasts, the
logs can be really big,
so you should delete
them periodically
• You can also use RSBCSRE03 to delete
email logs that BEx Broadcaster created
40
Execute and Debug
• Using transaction
RSRD_START, you can
execute (and therefore
debug for test purposes)
any settings
• Make sure to activate the
indicator for executing
settings online
41
Create Jobs to Run After Other Jobs or Defined Events
• Link a job to another
job to create set of
events that allows the
scheduler to build
complex broadcast
rules that may be hard
to maintain (and
understand)
• The best approach is to create time
points (periodic broadcasts) as the
default broadcasting option
42
Process Chains and Time Points
• You can assign broadcast events to process chains. First you
create a variant with and assign it to the InfoCube. The event in
the process chain triggers the broadcast event.
• Creating time points
 You can create background jobs
(transaction SM36) to schedule any
jobs starting with the text
"TP_BROADCASTING_". This
allow users to broadcast at certain
time points. In SM36, start the
condition, select the date and time
when the job starts, select the periodic
flag and define it as hourly, daily,
weekly, monthly, or other.
Time points control when end users can schedule broadcasts. This avoids heavy
scheduling during data loads or times when many users access the system.
43
Create Time Points
• Create background jobs using transaction SM36 to schedule
any jobs starting with the text "TP_BROADCASTING_"
44
Create Time Points (cont.)
• You can create
empty periodic
jobs, that
broadcasting
wizard later
associates with
queries (as
explained on
slides 13-23)
45
Create Jobs Using the Job Wizard in SM36
46
Reporting Agent Is Dying – Don’t Use It!
IMPORTANT: “Old Reporting Agent scenarios still run in SAP NetWeaver 2004s. However, Reporting
Agent will not be developed any further and is removed from SAP NetWeaver 2004s Workbench. You
can now only reach Reporting Agent using transaction code REPORTING_AGENT” – SAP
47
Prerequisites for Workbook Precalculation
1. MS Office XP (or .NET framework version 1.1 or higher)
2. MS Excel 2000 (or higher)
3. SAP BW workbook precalculation services.
 Note: servers with this installed will be visible under the transaction
RSPRECADMIN and you can also perform server load balancing.
4. SAPGUI 6.20/6.40 with BEx
This is not needed for standard
broadcasting of Web queries or
web applications, only for
workbooks
48
Prerequisites for Workbook Precalculation (cont).
• Use transaction RSPRECADMIN
• Hardware requirements vary
depending on:
in BW Administrator Workbench
to reach the precalculation
settings
 volume of data being





broadcasted
data formats
Channels
number of users
type of queries or workbooks
broadcast frequency
• SAP provides no detailed
recommendations
• You also can broadcast query
output in Excel format (XML for
MS Office) without using
precalculation server (available
as of Support Package 8)
49
What We’ll Cover
• Overview
• BEx broadcasting wizard
• Advanced options for BEx Broadcaster
• Managing BEx Broadcaster
• Make it work in real life
• Wrap-up
50
Decide Who Should Be Allowed to Do What: Governance Council
• There are many options and decisions to make about who should be able
Target
to access all the broadcast features. A good approach to decide how
gets access and also when to create any time points is to create a
governance council of a few managers and developers.
Regular
users
Power
users
Email





Portal
-
-/








-
-/
-



-


One-time





Schedule using
preset time points





-
-/



Tools
BEx broadcasting wizard
BEx Broadcaster
Scheduling
Process chains
Free schedule
Authors Developers
BW
Admins
51
Spam Filters and Server Blockers
• Spam filters may automatically block users who create a high
volume of emails in the browsers and mail servers. You have
to make sure that the internal email system flags you as a valid
email broadcaster.
Review regularly that mail systems such as Yahoo, Google, AOL, Microsoft, and others
have not flagged all your emails as spam.
52
Manage Time Points
• Be careful to not add all your
broadcasts to the end of process
chains. Long process chains may
slow down the load processing of
large systems with hundreds of
InfoCubes.
• Good time points may be 6-8 am
when the load jobs are finished and
before a large numbers of users
accesses the system.
Another good time may be at the end of week or monthly loads on
the weekend (i.e., Saturday or Sunday mornings).
The key is to balance the times when users can execute jobs. If you do not carefully
manage this, users tend to schedule their broadcasts between 7 and 9 am.
53
Avoid Volumes of Junk
• Users tend to schedule queries for distribution and
never disable the schedule after it has started to run.
This creates mountains of junk that few actually use.
• Users who don't want a broadcast
tends to simply delete it, or
automatically removes the email.
So, how do you know if anyone
reads the broadcasts?
Developers should perform a periodic
review of scheduled broadcasts to see if
there are any candidates for deletion
54
How to Stop Volumes of Junk: Monitor Broadcasts
• Establish a process to review and control internal spam kings
Use the transaction codes
SCOT and SOST to
monitor SMTP mails
55
KPI and Exception Reporting
• A major challenge in setting up the BI
Broadcaster for exception reporting is the
definition of what an exception is.
• Set this up in the
query, and BEx
Broadcaster uses it.
• If the query does not
define the exception
the way that a user
wants it, it is not available
to broadcast as an exception.
Issue
Exception reporting requires that users execute and evaluate a query to
see whether to broadcast it. This overhead can be substantial if you
have a high number of users monitoring different queries.
56
What We’ll Cover …
• Overview
• BEx broadcasting wizard
• Advanced options for BEx Broadcaster
• Managing BEx Broadcaster
• Make it work in real life
• Wrap-up
57
Resources
• Dr. Bjarne Berg’s resource site
 http://cscstudentweb.lr.edu/swp/Berg/BB_index_mai
n.htm
• Broadcaster at International Paper,
ASUG 2006 – Dr. Berg & Joyce Butler
 http://csc-
studentweb.lr.edu/swp/Berg/Articles/ASUG2006-v6.ppt
58
Resources (cont.)
• BEx Broadcaster including BI 7.0 new
features – Dr. Berg & Filip Lemmens
 http://csc-
studentweb.lr.edu/swp/Berg/Articles/Portals
_2006_Broadcaster_v19.ppt
• SAP BEx Broadcaster: How to make it
work in practice – Dr. Berg
 http://csc-
studentweb.lr.edu/swp/Berg/articles/broadc
aster_v15.ppt
59
7 Key Points to Take Home
• Do not schedule all your broadcasts after a process chain has
•
•
•
•
•
•
completed: It may slow down nightly data loads
Control the times users can run reports to avoid high stress on
the system
Segment the broadcast tools based on the user roles and level
of training
Monitor the logs carefully and make sure that you control
spam kings
Do not give free scheduling to a high number of users
Be aware that spam filters may catch many of your broadcasts
If you are not on SAP NetWeaver 2004s, seriously consider an
upgrade and stop using Reporting Agent
60
Your Turn!
Questions?
Dr. Bjarne Berg
Director of BI
bberg@Comert Inc.com
http://csc-studentweb.lr.edu/swp/Berg/BB_index_main.htm
61