Interview Questions

• Web Intelligence
• Dashboard Designer (Earlier known as XCelsius)
• Universe Designer (For Semantic Layer)
• SAP Crystal Reports
• SAP Lumira
• SAP Design Studio
• BusinessObjects Explorer
• Analysis for OLAP

BI Launchpad has the following important options −

• Home − Displays the recent messages, alerts, documents, and applications that can be run.

• Documents − Displays the available documents and folders, making it easier to view, organize, and manage the documents.

• Any Open Document − Displays each open document.

Relational Connection − A Relational connection is used to connect to the Database layer in HANA. You can connect to database objects - tables, views, and design Data Foundation layer in the Information Design tool. You can also import tables and joins from the data source.

OLAP Connection − OLAP is a multidimensional connection that directly points to the business layer in a data model. It allows to connect to multidimensional schema directly and later, they can be used with SAP Business Objects reporting tools.

.cns − Secured Repository connection

.cnx-local unsecured − If you use this connection, it will not allow you to publish anything to the repository.

SAP HANA provides the following three types of Information Views −

• Attribute View
• Analytic View
• Calculation View

Direct − Using this parameter type, you can pass any value for the parameter.

Column − This parameter type allows you to select any value from the list of distinct values available in a column in HANA view.

Derived From Table − It is also possible to create dynamic values in a table. This allows you to select any of the available values from the list.

Static List − It is also possible to create a static list of values and provide user input during execution.

Following are the properties of SAP HANA Analytic View −

• Analytic Views are used to perform complex calculations and Aggregate functions such as Sum, Count, Min, Max, etc.

• Analytic Views are designed to run Start schema queries.

• Each Analytic View has one Fact table surrounded by multiple dimension tables. Fact table contains a primary key for each Dim table and measures.

• Analytic Views are similar to Info Objects and Info sets of SAP BW.

• SAP BusinessObjects reporting tools can connect to Analytic view using an OLAP connection for reporting and dashboard.

All BusinessObjects tool - Webi, Dashboard Designer, Lumira, Crystal Reports, Design Studio that provide Universe connectivity as data source can be used to connect to HANA system.

BusinessObjects 4.2

• Using Universe on top of HANA Modeling views
• Direct Webi connection with HANA Modeling views
• SAP HANA Online connectivity
• Using Free-Hand SQL

You can connect to SAP HANA using Universe connectivity from the Dashboard. SAP Dashboard supports SAP HANA backed with Universe created on top of HANA views and tables. You can consume Universe Designer .unx files using the Query Browser option to develop the dashboard.

Using Universe connectivity with Crystal Reports −

• When you already have a Universe published with the Business Layer
• When a HANA view with a variable is required

Using Direct connectivity to HANA Views −

• When Universe is not available

• When you are using Crystal Reports 2011 and not Crystal Reports for Enterprise for reporting

• When you are willing to use custom SQL query using a Command Object or SQL Expression

• When you want to access stored procedures, tables and views directly

Crystal Reports can connect to multiple data sources that include −

• Universe
• SAP BEx Query
• HANA view
• Excel Spreadsheets

Analytic View

• Using GUI option
• Using SQL Script

• Geo Bubble Chart
• Geo Choropleth Chart
• Geo Pie Chart
• Geo Map

Using MDX Provider option

• Using Universe option - add as data source
• Using direct backend connection to HANA

Tableau, MS Excel, Cognos and SSRS

OLAP connection can be created in CMC or IDT

Yes, while creating an OLAP connection you have an option to select if you want the connection to point to a particular view or to the entire repository.

If Universe is available, you can use Universe Connectivity.

SAP HANA in-memory concept − SAP HANA in-memory database services provide the capability of processing high-speed transactions and analytics. It helps in managing large database volumes using multitenant database containers and dynamic tiering across multi-tier storage.

Analytics Processing − Using HANA in-memory processing capability - text, predictive, spatial, graph, streaming, and time series - you can get answers to any business question and make smart decisions in real time.

App Development − Using SAP HANA, you can develop next-generation applications that combine analytics and transactions, and deploy them on any device.

Data Access − SAP HANA helps organizations in getting accurate and complete view of business by accessing data from different sources. HANA provides real-time data replication and data quality to improve decision making from internal and external data sources.

Administration − SAP HANA ensures application availability and tools to monitor the processes along with data and application security.

Security − SAP HANA provides a dashboard to monitor all KPIs related to security. It helps in keeping communications, data storage, and application services secure with robust identity and access management controls.