BusinessObjects Board

PGHBOUG 2016-03-31 Meeting (UPitt)

Save the Date then join us for the next Pittsburgh BusinessObjects Users Group meeting. The summer meeting will be held on Thursday March 31, 2016 at University of Pittsburgh. It will be our annual combined meeting with our friends at #ASUG

Call for Presenters, Sponsors and Topics is now open

If you are interested in presenting at our next meeting, please let me know what topic(s) you would like to present.
We are currently looking for Sponsor(s) for our meeting. If you (or your organization) are interested in being a sponsor for our meeting, please contact me for more details.
If you are interested in having a topic covered at the meeting, please feel free to let me know so that I can try and find someone who can present on that topic.


Chris Pohl :us: (BOB member since 2002-06-18)

Chris see you there for sure!

Meeting Registration ~ Thursday March 31st 2016 ~ University of Pittsburgh

Registration is now open for the next Pittsburgh BusinessObjects Users Group meeting. The spring meeting will be held on Thursday March 31st, 2016 at University of Pittsburgh. The meeting will be co-located with the ASUG Pittsburgh Chapter Meeting and will include collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh Center for Supply Chain Management as well as the Katz School of Business.

Very special thanks to all of our sponsors:

Location: University of Pittsburgh William Pitt Union, 3959 Fifth Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Attendance: Free - Advanced Registration Required
Parking: Suggested parking at the Soldiers and Sailors Parking Lot on Bigelow Boulevard
Registration: If you plan to attend, please contact Tammy directly and let her know your name and company.


Chris Pohl :us: (BOB member since 2002-06-18)

PGHBOUG Tentative Agenda ASUG Agenda to follow in future communications

08:00 - 08:30 Registration and Breakfast
08:30 - 08:45 Welcome & Announcements - Mark Hopkins, Tammy Datri
08:45 - 09:00 Pitt Center for Supply Chain Management Overview - Prakash Mirchandani, University of Pittsburgh SCM
09:00 - 09:45 Partnering for Process Improvement: A Pitt Six Sigma Case Study - Jim Kimpel, University of Pittsburgh
09:45 - 10:00 Break
10:00 - 11:00 Blue Buffalo: Using Real-Time Operational Analytics to Transform Decision Making - Brian Jordan, Director, Data & Analytics, DecisionFirst Technologies, A Provtiviti Enterprise
11:00 - 12:00 Get, Set, Go Mobile BI - Rajesh Ponnurangam, InfoSol
12:00 - 01:00 Birds of a Feather Lunch
01:00 - 02:00 Boost Life Cycle Management and Backup & Recovery Best Practices - Sebastien Goiffon, GB&Smith
02:00 - 02:50 UNX Adoption - Fred Walther & Peter Warren, APOS Systems
02:50 - 03:00 Break
03:00 - 04:00 Xcelsius vs Lumira & Design Studio - Rajesh Ponnurangam, Infosol
04:00 - 04:15 General announcements (IBIS, SABOC, GBN, openSAP, SAP Influence Opportunities)
04:15 - 04:30 Wrap-up and Giveaways - PGHBOUG Steering Committee & ASUG Chapter


Chris Pohl :us: (BOB member since 2002-06-18)

Partnering for Process Improvement: A Pitt Six Sigma Case Study

Six Sigma is a data driven process improvement methodology. With a commitment to experience-based learning, Pitt’s Six Sigma course incorporates field projects where teams of MBA students work under the direction of industry Black Belt mentors to solve real-world problems for clients. This session not only provides an overview of Pitt’s Six Sigma program, but also presents the results of a recent filed project.

Blue Buffalo: Using Real-Time Operational Analytics to Transform Decision Making

Blue Buffalo, a natural pet food company, leverages SAP HANA sidecar to provide real-time operational KPIs and analytics across their organization. By combining SAP and non-SAP data with SAP’s visualization capabilities they are making strategic decisions across all functional areas and key business initiatives while gaining unprecedented insight into financial and operational health.

  • See how they gained real-time visibility into product inventory, materials and distribution to determine the viability and profitability of in- house manufacturing
  • Review the real-time analytics in a mobile friendly dashboard that enables plant managers to improve material utilization, fill rate and team effectiveness.
  • Learn how they combined third party data with their HANA ECC information to analyze product demand and manufacturing planning
  • Understand how SAP HANA helped them make sound business decisions that are key to their planned globalization goals

Boost Life Cycle Management and Backup & recovery best practices

Sebastien Goiffon (GB&Smith) will share customer stories from his 20 years of BOBJ administration around LCM, Backup and recovery best practices

Get, Set, Go BI Mobile
In the ever-expanding mobile world it is imperative to consider the most convenient way to view BI content on a mobile device. What are the steps required to build a mobile dashboard? How do I use my mobile device for agile visualization and reporting? Which is the best tool for a quick turnaround in mobile deployment? How does the new Design Studio help in creating native HTML5 dashboards for iOS devices without any hassle? How does Web Intelligence and SAP Lumira help in providing quicker and better visualization in the mobile space?
This session will address all of the above questions in detail. A live demo to deploy mobile content using Xcelsius, Design Studio, WebI, SAP Lumira and SAP Crystal Reports will be demonstrated. The attendees can compare and contrast the different deployment options between the tools.

UNX Adoption - Fred Walther & Peter Warren, APOS SystemsUNX adoption planning should begin with a full understanding of the benefits of UNX technology, and its applicability to BI needs and data source requirements going forward. This session will cover key advancements and benefits of the UNX semantic layer, factors impacting different UNX adoption strategies, and effective use of technologies which can streamline the adoption process.

Xcelsius vs Lumira & Design Studio
SAP BusinessObjects dashboards (aka Xcelsius) has been one of the most popular dashboarding tools for over a decade. More recently Lumira and Design Studio have been heavily promoted by SAP to BusinessObjects customers. Do Lumira and Design Studio compete with Xcelsius? Who are the target customers for these new tools? Which tool should I choose for dashboarding? What would happen to all the dashboards created using Xcelsius? This session will address all of the above issues in detail. A live demo of the features and capabilities of these tools will be demonstrated. The pros and cons of using Xcelsius over Design Studio/Lumira will be analyzed.


Chris Pohl :us: (BOB member since 2002-06-18)

Updating with the ASUG group agenda (this is the combined meeting between both of our groups … see above for PGHBOUG agenda):

ASUG Chapter Meeting Agenda:
08:00 - 08:30 Registration and Breakfast
08:30 - 08:45 Welcome & Announcements - Mark Hopkins, Tammy Datri
08:45 - 09:00 Pitt Center for Supply Chain Management Overview - Prakash Mirchandani, University of Pittsburgh SCM
09:00 - 09:45 Boosting Warehouse Efficiency with SAPUI5-Based Barcode Scanning Mobile App - Ritesh Menon, Icture, LLC
09:45 - 10:00 Break
10:00 - 11:00 Ariba Integrated Implementation to SAP - The Rules before Tools Paradox - Meredith Baldock, Westinghouse Electric Company
11:00 - 12:00 SAP Workflow - Why Companies are not using Workflow as much as they Should - Peter Demtschenko, LeverX
12:00 - 01:00 Birds of a Feather Lunch
01:00 - 02:00 Good Things Come in an XS Package - A leading Fortune 500 company Implementation of HANA XS Web and Mobile Applications - Brian Halas, Hitachi Data Systems
02:00 - 03:00 Business Process Efficiency using Winshuttle - Dale Whitaker, Braskem America
03:00 - 04:00 Xcelsius vs Lumira & Design Studio - Rajesh Ponnurangam, Infosol
04:00 - 04:15 General announcements
04:15 - 04:30 Wrap-up and Giveaways - PGHBOUG Steering Committee & ASUG Chapter


Chris Pohl :us: (BOB member since 2002-06-18)

Boosting Warehouse Efficiency with SAPUI5-Based Barcode Scanning Mobile App - Ritesh Menon, Incture, LLC

This presentation covers how a major e-commerce retailer could boost efficiency in their warehouse by using SAP UI5 based mobile app for scanning SKUs. This covers the thought behind by UI5 was chosen as the technology of choice, the components of SAP Process Orchestration at play as well as how UI5 could pave it’s way as a mobile app and not as a desktop app.

Ariba Integrated Implementation to SAP - The Rules before Tools Paradox - Meredith Baldock, Westinghouse Electric Company

This presentation and discussion will look at the procurement and accounts payable challenges (technology and outsourced partner solutions) that were encountered before, during, and after the Westinghouse Electric Company implementation of Ariba. Focus is on the integration, alignment, and maintenance of the two primary systems (SAP and Ariba) and how internal shadow IT systems play a role in whether integrity of such a complex environment can be maintained.

SAP Workflow - Why Companies are not using Workflow as much as they Should - Peter Demtschenko, LeverX

All companies face the same challenge today: How to accomplish more with fewer resources but still provide greater agility, better accuracy, traceability and transparency. SAP Workflow needs to be an integral part of your business processes to better leverage your investment in SAP. Understand the challenges customers face implementing SAP workflow and how you can better sell it within your organization. LeverX Integrated Process Solution (IPS) leverages client experiences and enables your Business Users to create and maintain SAP business processes and significantly impact your business. Manage business processes for documents, product change, material masters, BOM’s and many other SAP objects from logistics, sales, procurement, quality, assets and beyond SAP business processes that can run in any SAP UI, made simple, clear and agile.

Good Things Come in an XS Package - A leading Fortune 500 company Implementation of HANA XS Web and Mobile Applications - Brian Halas, Hitachi Data Systems

A leading Fortune 500 Food Manufacturing company is simplifying and transforming their Enterprise Information Management architecture by powering it by SAP HANA. Besides using SAP HANA for BI, they are also using the HANA XS application engine to build new, high performing, web and mobile applications combining transactional and analytical functionality. By leveraging the power of the HANA XS engine, data from both SAP BW on HANA and HANA Enterprise are exposed as ODATA Web Services, consumed in HANA XS web applications and presented in a user friendly way using the SAPUI5 controls. This session will cover the specific case study of the HANA web applications architecture and HANA data model, lessons learned and best practices and recommendations derived from these project experiences.

Join us to hear a presentation directly from the Hitachi Consulting SAP HANA XS Application Architect responsible for the solution design and implementation.

Business Process Efficiency using Winshuttle - Dale Whitaker, Braskem America

As our business grows, so does our customer base. Master data is being flooded with new customer requests. How do we keep up with the volume of new customer master entries without adding a body? Create an Excel based form similar to what the business was already using that integrates Winshuttle scripts and complete the SAP entry/update with error notification.


Chris Pohl :us: (BOB member since 2002-06-18)