Introduction to SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft

SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft Office allows ad hoc multidimensional analysis of OLAP sources in Microsoft Excel, creating and embedding intuitive BI into live Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, and Microsoft Excel workbook-based application design. If you're acquainted with using SAP BEx, SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft Office is the premium alternative and eventual replacement to the SAP BEx analyzer.

In Microsoft Excel, Analysis is available as a separate tab in the ribbon. The ribbon is part of the Microsoft Office user interface that's above the main work area that presents commands and options. Some analysis options are available in the ribbon tab under Analysis in MS Excel.

Using SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft, we can perform the following tasks:

• Analyze and interact with data in Microsoft Excel
• Create predefined workbooks
• Create a live data presentation using Microsoft PowerPoint

The following diagram displays the data connectivity in SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Microsoft Office:

As shown in the preceding architectural function diagram, SAP Analysis edition for Microsoft Office can be connected in the following ways as follows: 

• Directly to SAP NetWeaver BW through SAP BusinessObjects BI Consumer Services (BICS)
• Connection management through the SAP BusinessObjects BI platform (optional)
• SAP BusinessObjects BI platform repository services for Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint

In SAP BusinessObjects Analysis 1.3 and above, we can save SAP Analysis workbooks to the SAP NetWeaver platform without using the SAP BusinessObjects BI platform. To do that, we have to change the preferred platform settings in SAP that is BusinessObjects Analysis to NetWeaver (save workbooks in the SAP NetWeaver platform only) or to Selectable (choose if you want to save workbooks in BI or NetWeaver platform).

It has the following target groups and typical use case: