Overview
ETO Results is getting a brand-new look and feel! As part of our push towards continued excellence, we are upgrading ETO Results to the latest version of Business Objects (4.3 SP02 FP300).
From this upgrade, ETO customers can expect a more intuitive user interface, as well as new features to make reporting workflow even easier.
Browser Compatibility
ETO Results BO 4.3 only 64-bit browsers are supported. Minimum browser requirements include: Safari 11, Chrome 106.x, Chromium Edge 106.x, and Firefox 60.x. More information on Firefox extended support release here.
Note: Internet Explorer and IE Mode in Edge will not work to run BO 4.3
Feature Deprecation: Query as a Web Service
A small portion of our customers currently utilize Query as a Web Service integration as a part of their ETO integration. As a part of this Business Objects update, SAP has now deprecated Query as a Web Service. Any existing functioning queries built in QaaWs will be migrated to the new version of Business Objects, but you will not be able to modify these queries or build new queries after the upgrade has been released. Any queries that are broken before the upgrade will not be fixable.
Please see the below documentation on BO Rest API which will replace QaaWs.
Functionality & Features
For an in-depth look at what to expect from SAP for this Service Pack Upgrade, please check out their release notes for 4.3 SP01. Below is a breakdown of some of the key changes.
BI Launch Pad
When you first login in to the newly upgraded ETO Results, you’ll first notice a completely new home page.
This new Home page presents some tiles that will give you access to your repository’s resources:
Folders: to navigate in the BI Platform repository folders.
Categories: to navigate in the BI Platform repository categories.
Documents: to display your documents as a flat list.
BI Inbox: to access the documents and alerts you have received.
Instances: to give you an overview of all your schedules and publications.
Recycle Bin: to display and restore documents you have deleted.
Under these tiles, three sections with document tiles are displayed:
Favorites – Documents you have set as favorites
Recent Documents – Documents you have previously opened
Recently Run – Documents that have been recently processed through schedules
Finally, under the Applications section, you will see Web Intelligence.
You will also have a new User Menu with new Settings. Please see SAP’s release notes (linked above) for more information.
Publishing and Scheduling
Publishing
When the new BI Launch Pad had been released in SAP BI 4.2 SP4, it was possible to schedule documents but not to distribute them through publications. In SAP BI 4.3, this missing capability has been implemented in BI Launch Pad and offers the same options as in SAP BI 4.2.
To create a publication, go to a folder, click the Create/upload objects button at the top of the folder’s page and select Publication in the menu.
In the New Publication page, enter the publication parameters. These parameters are organized by sections, displayed in two tabs. Depending on the document type, some parameters appear only after the source documents have been added to the publication.
To navigate into the possible parameters more easily, you may click the following tabs, and select the section in the corresponding menus:
General: This tab contains the generic publication parameters: publication details, source documents, destination, recurrence, enterprise and dynamics recipients, events, etc.
Report Features: This tab and its sections appear if your publication contains a Web Intelligence or Crystal Reports document. It contains publication properties that are specific to this document type. For Web Intelligence, this covers the publication formats, personalization, prompts and delivery rules.
Summary: This tab displays the publication’s most common parameters.
When the publication is defined, click Save or Save and Close.
Scheduling
In SAP BI 4.3, you can still schedule a document. To provide the same look & feel as the New Publication page, the Schedule page has been modified.
Note: Any reports located in a Scheduled Reports folder can only have instances scheduled by the report owner.
When defining a schedule, you can move to specific sections through two tabs and the corresponding menus.
The General tab contains the generic sections that define a schedule, like the schedule’s destinations and recurrence, its attached events, etc.
The Report Features tab contains the sections specific to a Web Intelligence document. Formats, Prompts and Delivery Rules are available, but Caching properties are not yet implemented.
Both schedule and publication take advantage of the new options introduced in SAP BI 4.3:
When you define the publication or schedule frequency in the Recurrence section, you can select business days and hours for the schedule to run.
Another new option, Allow Retries, can be used to define if a failed schedule must be re-run and if so, how many times and when.
When adding an Email destination to a schedule or a publication, in the email properties, you can fill the Reply-To text field to define an email address if the scheduled recipient answers to the received email.
SFTP is an available destination option, however, users must contact support to gain access.
You can also format the message to be sent by using the options available in the toolbar of the text field: bold, italic, font, color, etc.
In the History page of a scheduled document, the list of instances is automatically refreshed every 3 seconds, as in SAP BI 4.3.
There are additional changes to the Schedule Instances page that can be found at this link.
Web Intelligence
There are several visual and functionality changes to web intelligence that can be found at the links listed below:
Known Issues
While we try to have perfect releases, that unfortunately isn’t always the case. Here are some known defects that we are actively working to address:
Hot keys are no longer available for use
When inserting some Footer Calculations (ex: Sum), there is an error. Instead, insert a Count, and in the formula bar, change Count to Sum
Headers with gradients can cause an error when formatting. If this happens, go into the properties of the report > Default Style > Reset Default Style > Apply
Knowledge Base
We have migrated all our knowledge base articles to the 4.3 version with updated screenshots and functionality.