Lots of features and functionality enhanced in Web Intelligence reports in BI 4.2 SP3 release.

Client Parity

Web Intelligence HTML client has been improved highly and it’s align the functionalities with java applet. Below are the improved and added functionalities.

• Save as – you can do save as to your document and save into different name.
• Format Number – Right click and do format Number for all integers / number objects.
• Conditional Formatting – Format your document based on some specific conditions
• Create documents with BEx queries and Excel spreadsheets as data sources
• Create ranking, subqueries, and complex filters
• Change Source Wizard

Custom Elements

Custom elements have been added with additional settings in the formatting options which can help you to fine tune how custom elements are displayed in reports.

SAP HANA Direct Access

A variable manager for documents based on SAP HANA views has been introduced so that you can answer prompts, input parameters, and mandatory variables before selecting objects in the query panel. This function / facility was not present until SP3 and input parameters and variables were prompted only at refresh time.

Using the variable manager, view available data source variables, set or edit values for every data source variable and fix or prompt values of data source variables upon refresh. With this latest addition, report designers can answer variables before querying an SAP HANA view, but also manage these variables in the Query Panel.

SAP HANA Online mode

Partial results are more visible in documents with an icon displayed on each block whose data have been partially retrieved. Navigation paths can now be displayed so that you can check how Web Intelligence performs drilling operations and navigates through SAP HANA objects.

SAP BW

• Web Intelligence now supports linked nodes.
• SAP BW InfoProvider’s last data update date can be retrieved using the QuerySummary() function.
• For SAP BW authored universe, usage statistics are also sent to SAP BW.

Geomaps

In SP3, Geomap can support geo-qualify merged objects and variables, as well as geo-qualify objects using longitude and latitude coordinates.

Shared Elements

Shared elements now support geomaps, custom elements, embedded pictures, categories, and comments. In addition, a new automatic cleaning mechanism that remove useless queries whenever a shared element is added to a report to increase overall performance.

When publishing a shared element, it is also possible to directly link it to its source report element. A new document option is available to automatically update shared elements in the document when opening it, if new updates are available.

Group of input controls

Webi Report Filters and input controls were independent, leading to inconsistent selections and a complex experience when selecting values from large lists that couldn’t be restricted progressively. In WebI 4.2 SP3, reports designers can now create groups of input controls that interact with one
another, enabling report consumers to define progressive selections by restricting the lists of values of an input control based on the selection made for a previous input control.

References

References are shortcuts to cells whose data you want to reuse. They have been introduced to provide more flexibility when designing reports. You can use references anywhere in a report or in a formula.

Comments

A series of enhancements has been brought to the commenting feature. You can now comment on specific report elements such as charts and tables, but also on individual cells within a table. An icon is displayed next to each block or cell that contains comments. Comments are now also scheduling and publishing compliant, and can be saved along with the document.
Refresh queries in parallel

The parallel data provider refresh feature now supports BEx queries, and new settings have been added in the Central Management Console and the information design tool to let you fine-tune parallel queries at a connection level.

Sets

Set is a structure that contains multiple lists of values for key enabled dimensions in the business layer. The sets can contain static or calendar based data and sets are designed and defined in the Information Design Tool.

Merge variables

You can now merge dimension variables coming from two different queries. With this addition, you can clean up your data using variables and merge them.

Change Source

Additional change source scenarios are now available, and you can now change source to or from SAP HANA Direct Access or BEx .UNX universes.

Publishing & scheduling

Web Intelligence now supports recipient delivery rules, making it possible to send the publication only if it contains data or if it has been fully refreshed.

New MemberAtDepth() function

You can now retrieve members of a hierarchy at a chosen depth using the new MemberAtDepth() function, and display the hierarchy as a fold-able tree.

Miscellaneous

• New Data Source view in the Available Objects pane.
• New Query view in the Available Objects pane.
• New possibility to display both value and percentage in Pie charts.
• New StatusOfData paramater for the QuerySummary() function to get the last update date of a BW Info
• Provider.