MicroStrategy Reporting Suite for SAP BW


Powerful. Convenient. Free reporting software.

MicroStrategy Reporting Suite for SAP BW
User-friendly BI interface helps you make better decisions from your SAP Business Information Warehouse data

About SAP BW

SAP Business Information Warehouse (SAP BW) is an Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) system. It includes a data warehouse populated with operational data from SAP R/3. SAP BW is the data source layer of SAP NetWeaver® Business Intelligence (SAP BI).

The SAP BW data architecture is also comprised of multidimensional cubes of data called InfoCubes and Queries. These cubes store business content in predefined hierarchies for data navigation and aggregation and are the primary sources for reports and analysis.

The SAP BW data warehouse uses a proprietary schema that makes incorporating non-SAP data very difficult. As a result, SAP BW is limited to analyzing SAP data, leaving out other valuable corporate data.

The SAP BW user interface, SAP Business Explorer (BEx), is primarily a query and report development interface for IT professionals. Business users find the BEx experience difficult for self-service reporting and analysis, resulting in minimal end user adoption.

SAP’s acquisition of Business Objects (SAP BusinessObjects) has not improved this end user experience because it continues to lack integration in critical analytical areas. For a complete comparison, please see the whitepaper comparison of MicroStrategy to SAP BusinessObjects.

For the above reasons, organizations are increasingly turning to more flexible and efficient BI solutions like MicroStrategy Reporting Suite for SAP BW. MicroStrategy Reporting Suite lets business users easily run and personalize their own reports and analyses against SAP and non-SAP data.

An Integrated End User Interface to SAP Business Information Warehouse (SAP BW)
MicroStrategy Reporting Suite serves as an ideal end user interface for business users to leverage actionable information effortlessly from SAP Business Information Warehouse.  The award-winning Web interface included with MicroStrategy Reporting Suite is intuitive to use for business people and easy to deploy for IT.  Cross-tabular (grid) reports, chart (graph) reports, first order dashboards (grid-and-graph displays), and performance scorecards are available to business users via simple point-and-click actions. 

Fully Certified Under the SAP Powered by NetWeaver™ Program
MicroStrategy SAP Services, a component of MicroStrategy Reporting Suite, is SAP certified to access SAP BW data.  MicroStrategy Reporting Suite can analyze and report directly against the SAP BW Queries and InfoCubes. 

MicroStrategy Reporting Suite for SAP BW includes MicroStrategy’s Dynamic Multidimensional Expression (MDX) Engine, which automatically generates optimized MDX syntax to query data in SAP BW.  MicroStrategy Reporting Suite also can report against the Operational Data Store (ODS) through SAP BW queries.  MicroStrategy utilizes SAP’s OLAP BAPIs (Business Application Programming Interfaces) natively to ensure the highest performance when accessing SAP BW.

MicroStrategy Reporting Suite for SAP BW – A Powerful, Free Solution
MicroStrategy Reporting Suite provides organizations with easy-to-use reporting and analysis tools that allow business users to access SAP BW Queries and InfoCubes, enabling everything from basic and advanced analysis to ad hoc reporting and data visualization.  Business users can transparently link back into SAP BW for more data, without any prior programming, while IT will not need to build onerous MDX queries or design drill paths. MicroStrategy Reporting Suite is ideal for small to mid-sized businesses, as well as departments in any size organization, that need a proven BI solution for SAP BW. 

MicroStrategy Reporting Suite is available via a free download and the license is perpetual, providing Web-based reporting of your SAP BW data for up to 100 users in your department or small to mid-sized business… at no charge.  Free online training, free online support, and other free resources help ensure your rapid development and deployment. Start reporting against SAP BW today!

Features

  • Build reports and performance scorecards against SAP BW data
  • Report, analyze, and monitor SAP BW data via intuitive Web-based interface
  • Visualize data using impactful graphs and performance scorecards
  • Create rankings and time-based comparisons
  • Perform a complete range of business calculations and build advanced analytics against SAP BW data
  • Schedule reports to run to a personalized history list
  • Ad hoc query and parameterized, self-service reporting (enabled by MicroStrategy’s object prompting)
  • Full range of interactivity from sorting, filtering, and drilling to formatting, thresholding, and graphing
  • Export to Microsoft Excel and PDF
  • Link seamlessly to detailed data in SAP BW, both inside the cube, to other cubes, and to Relational Data Sources
  • Support multiple concurrent requests from both Web and Windows users to report against SAP BW data
  • Examine SAP BW Queries, InfoCubes, and the Operational Data Store (through Queries)
  • Import and automatically map SAP BW metadata into the MicroStrategy metadata
  • Run MDX queries against SAP BW without writing any code or scripts
  • Dynamic User Creation: SAP BW users and their SAP BW roles can be integrated into MicroStrategy, reducing administration overhead by eliminating the need to administer two distinct sets of users
  • Leverage MicroStrategy reporting capabilities directly against SAP BW (no data warehouse is required)
  • Built on the MicroStrategy BI platform for flexible and scalable extensibility
  • Convenient download from MicroStrategy's Resource Center

Benefits for Business Users and IT Professionals

  • Perform statistical and advanced analysis, run performance scorecards, drill through to investigate details all from the same tool, satisfying all users’ needs
  • Extend SAP BW data analysis to all users, empowering even novice users to answer business questions and discover trends and anomalies in convenient Web-based reports
  • Quick and efficient access to SAP BW
  • View detailed information in tabular grid reports or visualize in graphs and grid-and-graph reports in a single click
  • Maintain a single centralized metadata for all data sources including SAP BW, data warehouses, datamarts, and any other data sources
  • View data from all data sources within the organization from the same Web interface
  • Easy and fast deployment of thin-client Web interface; simultaneous availability of reports from Desktop and Web interfaces
  • Improved system performance and faster queries by minimizing client-side processing and data traffic via multi-layer caching
  • Lower total cost of ownership (TCO) gained by free license, free online training, free online support, 60 days of free email support, self-service empowerment of end users, and low IT overhead

Instructions

  1. Download MicroStrategy Reporting Suite from MicroStrategy’s Resource Center
  2. Reference the MicroStrategy Reporting Suite Quick Start Guide and “Get Started Now!” how-to videos
  3. Install and activate MicroStrategy Reporting Suite
  4. Install the SAP BW Java Connector from the SAP Marketplace (refer to the MDX Cube Reporting Guide* for instructions). 
  5. To import and map OLAP cubes, refer to the MicroStrategy Project Design Guide.*
  6. To create MDX cube reports, see the MDX Cube Reporting Guide.* 

* All product documentation and access to the Knowledge Base are included with your download of MicroStrategy Reporting Suite.

Technical Details
Use MicroStrategy Reporting Suite to join data from different MDX cube sources:

  • SAP BW / SAP BI
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services
  • Oracle Essbase / Hyperion Essbase

… and relational databases:

  • Oracle
  • IBM DB2
  • Microsoft SQL Server
  • Sybase
  • Greenplum
  • MySQL
  • PostgreSQL
  • Aster nCluster
  • ANSI SQL-92
  • Teradata
  • IBM  Informix
  • HP NeoView
  • HP NonStop
  • Netezza
  • Kognito  WX2
  • IBM Red Brick
  • Vertica

… to bring your data into one cohesive reporting application.  See the MicroStrategy Reporting Suite architecture diagram for a graphical representation.  For specific version support information, please reference the Readme file included in the free MicroStrategy Reporting Suite download. 

Integration with SAP
The MicroStrategy BI platform integrates with SAP BW 3.1 and 3.5 and SAP BI 7.0. MicroStrategy’s dynamic MDX queries are optimized for and fully certified with SAP BW using SAP's SAP’s OLAP BAPIs, providing the business users with seamless access to the data stored within SAP BW.

Requirements

  • Windows, Linux, or UNIX Operating System
  • Web Server, e.g. Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS)
  • SAP BW 3.1 and 3.5, and SAP BI 7.0
  • Database for metadata repository storage, e.g. MySQL, PostgreSQL, or Microsoft SQL Server

More Information

Related Offerings
The following products are included complimentary for two named users as part of the free MicroStrategy Reporting Suite download and can augment reporting capabilities: