Overview of SAP BusinessObject Business Intelligence 4.2

This book will take you through the concepts related to SAP Business Intelligence (BI) and the tools associated with the SAP BusinessObjects BI platform 4.2. While we start with basic concepts and understanding the platform, and gradually progress to deeper insights into the various tools offered by the platform. The book offers a good overview of all the tools with examples of how to use the functionalities offered by each tool.

This chapter provides a high-level overview of SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.2. We will walk through SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.2 and its benefits, identifying the components of SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.2 and enterprise data sources for BI reporting tools. We will learn about the SAP BusinessObjects BI platform and different BI tools that are available to use in a business scenario. We will learn how to create a Business Explorer (BEx) query to directly access SAP BW as data source. We will use these data sources, connections, and business layers in upcoming chapters.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• BI and its benefits 
• Components of SAP BusinessObjects 4.2 
• Enterprise data sources for BI reporting tools
• Creating a BEx query to directly access SAP BW as data source 
• Local data sources