Good-Bye DESKI and Good-Bye SAP BO

system · February 15, 2011, 11:52am

Thank you! I’m sure lots of people would use it if it was there, the other thread where a number of people are using workarounds suggests a good number of people are ‘trying’ to use it.

That said, we could always install a v5.x client standalone and just cross our fingers for compatibility…

norty303 (BOB member since 2003-03-19)

system · February 15, 2011, 2:46pm

Free Hand SQL is one of the top two enhancements requested and planned for Web Intelligence.

Dave Rathbun (BOB member since 2002-06-06)

system · February 15, 2011, 2:48pm

I guess I can abort this Crystal installation then…?

norty303 (BOB member since 2003-03-19)

system · February 15, 2011, 4:10pm

I agree 100% on this one. Probably because I have some experience with Crystal and it is extremely hard and cumbersome to pick up without any type of paid training and years of experience; unlike Deski. But as seen they decided to replace DESKI with Crystal so you either have to jump ship or deal with it.

One more note: about everyone who keeps saying DESKI was only a ADHOC tool. Again, this mental block is because the powers at the helm wanted to push Crystal; that’s it. There is nothing you can do in Crystal that you couldn’t do using DI. Especially on the maintenance side where you would be better off creating a new Crystal report - this sentence from experience using Crystal.

Moving forward I do like what I am reading about the new universe(.unx) hope its as good as they say.

di652 (BOB member since 2005-02-24)

system · February 15, 2011, 5:07pm

I’ve had plenty of time to play with it, and I can say that it is as good as they say. 8) Of course, like any new tool, it’s not without bugs, but so far, I haven’t discovered any show stoppers.

MichaelWelter (BOB member since 2002-08-08)

MarkP · February 15, 2011, 5:27pm

What’s the other one?

system · February 15, 2011, 6:10pm

Custom groups. The “binder clip” icon from the Deski toolbar.

Dave Rathbun (BOB member since 2002-06-06)

system · February 15, 2011, 6:38pm

Hurrah, no more cumbersome If Else If .

Mak 1 (BOB member since 2005-01-06)

system · February 16, 2011, 3:30am

We can do free-hand SQL in WebI, as long as we have the same number of fields of the same type on the report. It is not that hard to do it…and that got us in trouble.

Yes, coming from the Full Client world, I used free-hand SQL a lot before. But free-hand SQL is really a bad practice in my humble opinion. For example, we have several WebI reports that have embedded SQL pointing to, say, table A. They are working perfectly fine until the Data Warehouse team decided to change the field names. Then we have to go back and modify every single report that is pointing to this table A. But what if you miss one or two reports? You won’t have such concern if you are using the universe. All you have to do is to make one change on the universe and done with it.

The good 'ole Objects Oriented Programming principle of “write once and reuse it all” still true in report development.

substring (BOB member since 2004-01-16)

MarkP · February 16, 2011, 12:26pm

substring:

We can do free-hand SQL in WebI, as long as we have the same number of fields of the same type on the report. It is not that hard to do it…and that got us in trouble.

Yes, coming from the Full Client world, I used free-hand SQL a lot before. But free-hand SQL is really a bad practice in my humble opinion. For example, we have several WebI reports that have embedded SQL pointing to, say, table A. They are working perfectly fine until the Data Warehouse team decided to change the field names. Then we have to go back and modify every single report that is pointing to this table A. But what if you miss one or two reports? You won’t have such concern if you are using the universe. All you have to do is to make one change on the universe and done with it.

The good 'ole Objects Oriented Programming principle of “write once and reuse it all” still true in report development.

I don’t think anyone will disagree with that - it’s more the ability to use Webi as an excellent presenter of ad-hoc SQL queries that simply can’t be done in SSMS,Toad, etc anywhere or would take far longer in Excel.

system · February 16, 2011, 1:41pm

Again, a good example of people’s mindset being stuck in a ‘production reporting’ environment, rather than a versatile reporting and data analysis tool.

3 cheers for the grouping too

norty303 (BOB member since 2003-03-19)

system · March 1, 2011, 12:19am

Hi All,

I have been reading this post with interest having been in this field for some time.

As a long time Business Objects user, I think if if SAP BO were serious about removing deski and have customers use webi or crystal then a better report conversion tool needs to be developed to allow deski reports to be modified to a new Business Objects format, without the need (and additional costs) to redevelop reports. I think this is one of the real issues being felt on the ground by businesses Ive worked with.

I am pleased to see that SAP BO are reading this post from a Senior level and I hope they take these posts constructively as BI space is becoming more and more competitive.

Regards

mitch1 (BOB member since 2004-04-14)

MarkP · March 1, 2011, 1:29pm

Paulo/Mary,

Are there any updates for us?

I am thinking in terms of a gap analysis of Deski 3.1 functionality that won’t be in Webi 4.0 - knowing what is there may help encourage people to stay with SAP BO rather than move to something else.

The extras that Webi can do are immaterial for this discussion - it’s far more important to know, in the words of one user, “why my new system can’t even do what my old one can”.

system · March 1, 2011, 6:22pm

This has been covered in an ASUG webinar last month. Basically, these are the DeskI features that are planned in future WebI releases:
– Freehand SQL
– Custom grouping
– User-defined hierarchies
– Split-canvas
– Templates, personal lists, personal variables
– Excel data provider on the server-side

And these are the DeskI features that are NOT planned in future WebI releases:
– Visual Basic data provider
– XML data provider
– Multiple VBA macros
– Complex filters
– value-based breaks

If you did not attend that webinar, you can find the recording on ASUG.com. The title is something like SAP BusinessObjects DeskI Migration Roadmap.

Hope this helps.

substring (BOB member since 2004-01-16)

MarkP · March 2, 2011, 9:26am

Complex filters is now officially my new biggest “not in Webi” gripe.

system · March 2, 2011, 2:04pm

Really? I do complex filters in Webi all the time. 8)

MichaelWelter (BOB member since 2002-08-08)

system · March 2, 2011, 2:09pm

I believe that “complex filters” refers to the “calculation wizard” for creating correlated sub-queries in Deski. I had to get that cleared up earlier in this topic.

Dave Rathbun (BOB member since 2002-06-06)

system · March 2, 2011, 2:13pm

Michael,

Trying doing:

Match(<Resorts>,"F*")

anorak (BOB member since 2002-09-13)

system · March 2, 2011, 2:21pm

I think such condition can’t be done in DeskI query builder either. Must be done in a universe as a predefined filter.

Marek Chladny (BOB member since 2003-11-27)

system · March 2, 2011, 2:24pm

And if anyone is interested, attached is my list of Webi shortcomings. It is based upon Webi Rich Client in v3.1 SP3. There is no mention of VB or anything to do with Hyperlinking or Drilling, as I have managed to almostly completely avoid them in the past 15 years. No doubt the listed could be extended.
What Webi Can’t Do.xls (25.0 KB)

anorak (BOB member since 2002-09-13)