SAP PROJECT FOR AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY

SAP for Automotive solutions support key industry sales and service processes that deliver superior customer value - and drive profitable, long-term customer relationships. Sales and Service Organizations are responsible for marketing, selling and servicing vehicles and for a positive ownership experience after the purchase.

For an introduction of Sales & Service Organizations, their players, their concerns, their key questions and trends, read the Getting Started with Automotive Sales & Service Organizations or download the article "Getting Started with Automotive Sales & Service Organisations". In the section below you can find information on the different solution areas in Automotive Sales & Service including customer success stories, business transformation studies, and published blogs.

With SAP solutions for Automotive, you can automate and streamline:

• Vehicle sales management
• Aftersales support and service
• Service parts management
• Dealer business management

Vehicle sales management

Vehicle sales management - Manage the entire vehicle life cycle - so you can deliver the right vehicle to the right place at the right time. For vehicle importers and distributors, SAP supports the global shift from make-to-stock to make-to-order strategies.

About The New, New Automotive Dealer Portal 

SAP Automotive Dealer Portal is part of SAP Business Suite 7.0. Read this overview to learn about the functionalities of the new SAP Automotive Dealer Portal.

Enabling Close collaboration with Automotive Dealers for Vehicle Sales Management 

When dealers purchase vehicles, they must have access to the systems of the importers and OEMs. The quality of this access significantly impacts the effectiveness of the cooperation between dealers and importers. This can be achieved by the use of the automotive dealer portal what is operated by the OEM, importer or wholesale organization as a web-frontend of their own SAP ERP solution for their retail network. This blog describes the business benefits of the automotive dealer portal for vehicle sales and gives an overview on the features and functions, as available per the Business Package "Automotive Dealer Portal for Vehicle Management 1.4" (EhP4).

The Architecture of the new Automotive Dealer Portal 

Shiny layouts, easy navigation and some handy features for daily users are aspects of the SAP Automotive Dealer Portal, but what comes with the new technology, the SAP Web Dynpro? Get insights on the concept of the one-system approach, the set-up of user access and basics on the architecture using SAP Web Dynpro for ABAP.

Campaign Management with Channel Partners 

Running campaigns is a core task of any marketing organization. Read this blog to learn about Campaign Management with a Channel Partners business scenario offered in SAP CRM.

Lead Management with Channel Partners 

Once a campaign has been executed, we can expect customers to respond to the campaign via a multitude of channels such as calls to your customer support center and visits to your partners. Each of these customer enquiries are potential leads and SAP CRM's powerful lead management capabilities allow you to create, manage, distribute and track leads within your organization and with your partners.

How to Distribute Leads Automatically to Partners in SAP CRM? 

The video in this blog shows how a channel manager selects leads to be distributed to partners and using predefined rules maintained using Rule Policies. Based on criteria within the lead and channel partner the best suited partner is determined by the rule and assigned. The channel manager can manually distribute the lead to a specific partner as well.

Collaborative lead processing with channel partners via Adobe Interactive Forms 

Discover a simple and powerful way to distribute leads to channel partners with SAP CRM via Adobe Interactive Forms.

Integrating Marketing; Sales efforts 

The video in this blog shows how SAP CRM Marketing can help better coordinate lead qualification and lead distribution to the proper follow-up channels to integrate Marketing and Sales efforts.

Collaborative Campaign Management 

Collaborative Campaign Management improves channel marketing effectiveness and efficiency. This functionality in SAP CRM enables Cross-channel campaign management, Partner-customized campaigns and Partner-customized communications.

Vehicle manufacturer Iveco improved its warranty- and vehicle-management operations                   

Consider how Italian industrial vehicle manufacturer Iveco improved its warranty- and vehicle-management operations using the SAP for Automotive solution portfolio - streamlining vehicle-ordering processes, enhancing revenue-cycle management, and providing online order-management for importers and distributors.

Grupo Q drives down costs and fuels growth                 

Read why El Salvador-based Grupo Q - which sells, services, and finances automotive vehicles in Central America - chose software from the SAP for Automotive solution portfolio to drive down costs and fuel growth. With SAP software, it now has the support it needs to become a world-class organization.

Proton Edar implements a comprehensive solution for vehicle distribution, sales, after-sales, and finance                   

Read how the marketing arm of Malaysia's national car manufacturer implemented a comprehensive solution for vehicle distribution, sales, after-sales, and finance with SAP ERP. The solution integrates with manufacturing systems and enables collaboration with dealers and government entities.

Toyoto Material Handling                 

Find out how Toyota Material Handling got the lift it needed from SAP Customer Relationship Management and SAP NetWeaver components. The company increased the efficiency of its sales force, enabled better decision making, and provided real-time sales and service for its customers.

Volkswagen of South Africa             

Consider how this Volkswagen subsidiary - faced with an increasingly competitive market - transformed customer service, exploited marketing campaigns and sales leads to improve brand value and scale for ongoing growth, and created an IT environment for future growth with the SAP Customer Relationship Management application.

Aftersales support and service

Aftersales support and service - Align all aftersales service - including service sales and marketing, customer service, service delivery, and service parts logistics - to maximize profitability and revenue, improve customer service, and reduce costs.

Quality Insight for the Automotive Industry 

Quality Insight is necessary to protect not only customer but also the Brand. This article discusses the various data building blocks that allow companies to achieve real insight.

Warranty Processing via the new Automotive Dealer Portal 

The new Automotive Dealer Portal made by SAP includes: Vehicle Sales Management, Spare Part Sales and Warranty Management. The new Automotive Dealer Portal typically is hosted by the OEM or importer for the dealer or service provider as a portal web front-end. This blog talks about the third component, Warranty Management within the new Dealer Portal. Warranty process challenges are discussed, how the Dealer Portal helps address these challenges, solution details and benefits are given.

Read an About The New, New Automotive Dealer Portal and learn about the The Architecture of the new Automotive Dealer Portal.

Efficient Spare Parts Processing with collaborative Dealer Portal 

The new Automotive Dealer Portal includes: Vehicle Sales Management, Spare Part Sales and Warranty Management. This Automotive Dealer Portal is typically hosted by the OEM, Distributor or importer for the dealer or service provider as a portal web front-end. This blog talks about the second component, Spare Parts Processing within the new Dealer Portal. A short overview of part processing is provided here.

Archiving in automotive Warranty 

Read this introduction of archiving warranty claims with the standard transaction SARA for Warranty in SAP for Automotive.

Introduction to the Interaction Center Agent Inbox 

The SAP CRM Interaction Center supports multi-channel customer interactions in the domain of sales, marketing and service. In this blog entry, we will drill down into Interaction Center functionality, and take a closer look at the capabilities of the Interaction Center Agent Inbox.

SAP CRM 7.0  Interaction Center Agent Inbox Enhancements 

Read this blog to learn about enhancements of the Interaction Center Agent Inbox in SAP CRM 7.0. The Interaction Center Agent Inbox is an integral part of customer interaction processing for agents.

Basics of Installed Base Management  in SAP CRM 

Anything a customer owns is an asset for him and the management of these assets becomes an integral part of it. To be an efficient service organization and to serve the customer better maintaining a record of the customer's assets therefore becomes extremely important. In SAP terminology the customer asset is termed as installed base and the management of these assets is termed as Installed base management.

Zhengzhou Yutong Bus                   

Learn how Zhengzhou Yutong Bus Co. Ltd. used the SAP Customer Relationship Management application to become a more customer-centric company. See how the company used the software to optimize sales leads, gain business insight, improve service, and increase revenues.

For more examples of successful implementation of Aftersales Support and Service, have a look at these documents linked above: Volkswagen of South Africa, Proton Edar, Iveco.

Service parts management

Service parts management - Integrate service parts planning and logistics to reduce service and maintenance costs - and increase reliability, availability, and return on assets - while improving customer service.

Bajaj Auto - Simplifying Spare Parts Planning and Distribution                   

Find out how Baja Auto's planning and distribution process became more streamlined, leading to improved spare parts availability and greater customer satisfaction after implementing SAP® software. Bajaj Auto Ltd., the flagship company of India's Bajaj Group, is the world's fourth largest manufacturer of two- and three-wheeler vehicles. Its manual process for planning and distributing spare parts was inefficient and could not handle growing complexities.

Ford Motor Company                   

Read why, when Ford Motor Company decided to overhaul its service parts management systems, the auto giant chose to team with SAP to develop a world-class service parts planning solution. Now Ford has enhanced the quality of its customer service with improved planning capabilities and greater supply chain visibility.

Dealer business management

Dealer business management - Streamline and automate dealer operations, including customer management, vehicle sales and administration, and vehicle service and parts management, making it easier for customers to buy vehicles and acquire needed services, parts, or accessories.

Analyze and Improve Dealership Profit Margins with SAP DBM and BusinessObjects                 

Learn how SAP solutions that dealers use to run their day-to-day operations will help in gathering and analyzing data to provide actionable intelligence. SAP DBM and BusinessObjects together, deliver powerful yet very user-friendly and easy-to-use tools to capture and analyze the various aspects of dealership operations.

Web Based User Interface for Service Advisors: Making Service Advisors' Life Easier 

A lot of feedback we have received from customers for previous versions of DBM addresses the simplicity of the transactions and the usability of the screens for workshop personal. With DBM 7.0 we have conducted extensive research and worked with some of our strategic customers to see how their employees are using DBM and what can be improved.

Better Service Processes in Tough Times (Enhancements/News within DBM 7.0 for Vehicle Service)               

In the difficult economic times, customers usually delay buying new vehicles and tend holding on to their vehicles for a little longer. While the margins of new vehicle sales are under enormous pressure, dealers see the need to compensate this by streamlining their growing service business. Therefore improving workshop operations is at the center of the focus for many dealerships and DBM 7.0 brings a lot more to the table than previous versions.

Parts Process in SAP Dealer Business Management  7.0 

Parts department is one of the key revenue generating areas in any dealer operation. Read Moncumbu Raju's blog to take a look at some of the feature & functions.

Customer Management within SAP Dealer Business Management Application, Release 7.0 

Customer Management is a strategic approach for planning, steering and processing customer interactions. The overall goals of effective and efficient customer management are to win new customers, to retain those the company already has, to reestablish relationship with former customers, and to reduce the costs of customer service. This blog talks about the the most important enhancements and benefits of SAP Dealer Business Management Application Release 7.0 (SAP DBM 7.0).

What’s new with SAP DBM 7.0 

Read this blog and find out how SAP Dealer Business Management can enable automotive dealer organizations to integrate processes, know their customers throughout their life-time at any time and manage the enterprise operationally, tactically, and strategically.

Combining Automotive Wholesale and Retail with SAP for Automotive 

Merging businesses and their unique processes is a challenge of its own, and coping with potentially disparate IT infrastructures to achieve a reasonable TCO is another strife. The SAP Dealer Business Management (DBM) and the SAP Vehicle Management System (VMS), both based on SAP ERP, provide comprehensive functionality for key scenarios of retail and wholesale businesses.

Technical Enhancements within Dealer Business Management (DBM) – the Flowerpot and Actions 

Discover how you can use actions to enhance the order engine (OE) component of the DBM 6.0 industry solution.

DBM Value Increase for Asset 

Read this example to learn how adapt your system to make an increase of value of an asset possible.

ERPs and Dealerships: Coming Soon? 

Fragmented systems at dealerships have not kept up with development, and cannot efficiently support today's fast-moving, competitive and multi-faceted business. The key is to take a more integrated approach to IT, and use an ERP to provide better visibility and control in vehicles sales, service, customer care, and parts supply across the dealership.

The Dealer Sales Process: Enabling the Front Line (Part 1) 

When a customer comes into a dealer's showroom, that's a valuable chance to sell a vehicle. But the benefits of taking advantage of that opportunity run deeper, because that sale is also an entry point for selling other services and products, including financing, insurance, service contracts, extended warranties and accessories-not to mention ongoing service. It is, ideally, the beginning of a lasting relationship, and dealers need to arm their salespeople to succeed in those opening interactions, and build solid relationships with customers.

The Dealer Sales Process: Enabling the Front Line (Part 2) 

Tom Wright, Industry Principal at SAP America, Martin Schwarz, Senior Scientist at Automotive Insight, and Ute Gramann, SAP AG, BPX Automotive, explored the need to support frontline sales efforts at the dealer. In the second blog of the series, they continue that discussion, looking at the kind of CRM tools and processes needed by salespeople, and how dealers can make the best use of those tools.

AMAG Automobil und Motoren AG           

Read how this leading Swiss automotive dealer chose SAP Dealer Business Management to provide for better sharing of customer data between its many dealerships. As a result, the company has improved the management of its customer master data and, most importantly, customer service.

For another example of how SAP Dealer Business Management can help you, read how Grupo Q was able to reduce costs by implementing SAP for Automotive.

SAP BI/BW Implementation tables

 Countries 
T005 Countries

Currency 
TCURC Currency codes
TCURR Wisselkoersen
TCURT Currency name
TCURX Decimal places for currencies.

Unit of measure 
T006 Units of measure

Calendar functions
T247 Month names
TFACD Factory calendar definition
T015M Month names
TTZZ Time zones
TTZD Summer time rules
TTZDF Summer time rules (fixed annual dates)
TTZDV Summer time rules (variable dates)
TTZDT Summer time rules texts
TTZ5 Assign Time Tones to Countries
TTZ5S Assign time zones to regions

Enterprise structure 
 Definition
 FI T880 Company
T001 Company code
CO TKA01 Controlling area
LO T001W Plant / sales organisation
T499S Locations
TSPA Division
SD TVKO Sales organisation / company code
TVTW Distribution channel
TVBUR Sales office
TVKBT Sales office text
TVKGR Sales group
TVGRT Sales group text
T171T Sales district text
MM T001L Storage locations
T024E Purchasing organization
T3001 Warehouse number
TVST Shipping point
TVLA Loading point
TTDS Transportation

 Assignment
CO TKA02 Assign company code to controlling area

LO T001K Assign plant (valuation area) to company code

SD TVKO Sales organisation / company code
      TVKOV Distribution channel / sales organisation
       TVKOS Division to sales organization
       TVTA Sales aria
       TVKBZ Sales office to sales area
       TVBVK Sales group to sales office
       TVKWZ Plants to sales organization

 MM T024E Purchasing organization / company code
       T024W Plant to Purchase organization
       T001K Link plant ( = valuation area) / company code
       TVSWZ Shipping point to plant
       T320 Assignment MM Storage Location to WM Warehouse

Financial accounting
 Company code
    T004 Chart of accounts
    T077S Account group (g/l accounts)
    T009 Fiscal year variants
    T880 Global company data
    T014 Credit control area

Fi document
    T010O Posting period variant
    T010P Posting Period Variant Names
   T001B Permitted Posting Periods
    T003 Document types
   T012 House banks

Not categorized
 TVFK Billing doc types
  T390 PM: Shop papers for print control
  T179 Materials: Product Hierarchies
  T179T Materials: Product hierarchies: Texts
   TJ02T Status text
   TINC Customer incoterms
   TVFK Billing doc types
    T390 PM: Shop papers for print control

Semantic key in Write optimized DSO

Understanding Write-Optimized DataStore keys:
 
Since data is written into Write-optimized DataStore active-table directly, you may not need to activate the request as is necessary with the standard DataStore object. The loaded data is not aggregated; the history of the data is retained at request level. . If two data records with the same logical key are extracted from the source, both records are saved in the DataStore object. The record mode responsible for aggregation remains, however, the aggregation of data can take place later in standard DataStore objects.
 
The system generates a unique technical key for the write-optimized DataStore object. The technical key consists of the Request GUID field (0REQUEST), the Data Package field (0DATAPAKID) and the Data Record Number field (0RECORD). Only new data records are loaded to this key.
 
The standard key fields are not necessary with this type of DataStore object. Also you can define Write-Optimized DataStore without standard key. If standard key fields exist anyway, they are called semantic keys so that they can be distinguished from the technical key.
 
Semantic Keys can be defined as standard keys in further target Data Store. The purpose of the semantic key is to identify error in the incoming records or duplicate records. All subsequent data records with same key are written to error stack along with the incorrect data records. These are not updated to data targets; these are updated to error stack. A maximum of 16 key fields and 749 data fields are permitted. Semantic Keys protect the data quality. Semantic keys wonu2019t appear in database level. In order to process error records or duplicate records, you must have to define Semantic group in DTP (data transfer process) that is used to define a key for evaluation. If you assume that there are no incoming duplicates or error records, there is no need to define semantic group, itu2019s not mandatory.
 
 
The semantic key determines which records should be detained when processing. For example, if you define "order number" and u201Citemu201D as the key, if you have one erroneous record with an order number 123456 item 7, then any other records received in that same request or subsequent requests with order number 123456 item 7 will also be detained. This is applicable for duplicate records as well.
 
 
Semantic key definition integrates the write-optimized DataStore and the error stack through the semantic group in DTP.  With SAP NetWeaver 2004s BI SPS10, the write-optimized DataStore object is fully connected to the DTP error stack function.
If you want to use write-optimized DataStore object in BEx queries, it is recommend that you define semantic key and that you run a check to ensure that the data is unique. In this case, the write-optimized DataStore object behaves like a standard DataStore object. If the DataStore object does not have these properties, unexpected results may be produced when the data is aggregated in the query.

Implementation project Activities for SAP BI/BW

1. Part of BW upgrade project from 3.1 to 7.3.
2. Regression testing of all the BW extractor,error handling and bug fixes.
3. Reconciliation of all the BW reports with R3 data.
4. Requirement Analysis and preparing High Level Design (HLD) document, User Requirement Specification (URS) document,Effort Estimation.
5. Conducting Client sessions for Requirement Gathering and recommending BW Reporting level changes
6. Understanding the current landscape and advising Client on how they can consolidate all their existing Reports from different IT systems into SAP BI Reporting
7. Recommending BW data flows in order to replace existing non-SAP applications across the entire IT landscape and integrating it into a single uniform system
8. Handling High priority tickets, CRs and other deliverables
9. Participated in Knowledge Transfer sessions before the shadow support and prepared the play back session ppts given to the client. 
10. Debugging highly complex ABAP routines.
11. Responsible for Data load scheduling(Daily/weekly/monthly) as well as load monitoring,process chain optimization.
12. Analysed the reasons for frequent load failures and fixing the errors and make sure that data is available for reporting.
13. Providing support for BW related activities in R/3 system.
14. Interacting with the customer in getting requirements and providing value addition solutions if required.
15. Preparing and participating weekly and Monthly Status meeting with the customer.
16. Participation and providing inputs in the Pre and Post planning round meetings.
17. Monitoring regular process chain and sending status to the user.
18. Have given Knowledge Transfer on system landscape and data flow from different interfaces present in the system to the new joiners to the project.
19. Creating DSO,Cubes & Open Hub's.
20. Documentation related to Logistics
21. Testing routines.
22. Creating Process chains. 
23. Loading and monitoring data in Production system.
24. Checking and Monitoring Performance of Queries.
25. Go-live Cut over activities

Real time project of sap bi

Real-time Project issues 

Project point of view,

how many process chains u have -  1800 + chains

and how many loads per day  -  3 schedule per day ( G1, G2, G3 ),  G1 is
for Europe Region ( starts at 6:15 am IST ), G2 is for Asia region  ( Starts
at 7:30 pm IST), G3 is for US region ( starts at 12:30 pm IST ).

*modules of projects* -

FSS  ( Financial Services )
PGS ( Procurment of Good and Supply),
GAME ( Global Asset  Management system )
StBC ( Sell to Business Customers ),
StRC ( Sell to Retail Customers )
HM ( Hydro Corbon Managment ),
LSC ( Lubricants supply chain management )

*data source whic u have used -*

2LIS_BAITEM -  Sales Item
2LIS_BAIHDR  -  Sales header
2LIS_12VCITEM  -  Delivery Item
2LIS_VDHRD  -  Delivery Header
2LIS_VCItem -  Billing item
These are some of SAP standdard Data sources, serach in google with  "SAP
standdard Data sources", u can find many more.
**
*title of project   -*  Shell BAM ( GSAP )
*Object of project*  -

*Shell* is a global group of energy and petrochemicals companies, operating
in over 145 countries and employing more than 119, 000 people best known to
the public for service station and for exploring and producing oil and gas
on land and at sea. GSAP will replace Shell’s fragmented Enterprise Resource
Planning systems with a harmonized global platform, critical to the delivery
of OP-One benefits. Shell aims to reduce the number of Enterprise Resource
Planning systems in oil products from 123 to less than 10.
*flow of project*   - Not clear with the question, U just can't explain the
flow of the projects but can explain flow of a particular Report.
like from which source system data is coming to BW, where u are storing it
in BW etc,

Eg : R/3 system --> 2LIS_BAITEM -->PSA-->ABAP Routine ( Update rules )
-->ODS --> Cube --> Multi Provider --> Query  ( explain Logic in the query )
--> Report name.

*roles and responsibilities -*

  - Monitoring Data load activities and recovered failures in Dev, Quality
  system as part of Unit Testing**


  - Preparing the process documents for each and every enhancement.**
  - Handled the tickets of different severities by following SOP (Standard
  Operating Procedures) and never missed the SLA (Service level agreement).
  **


  - Involved in solving high-prioritized tickets regarding extractions,
  performances issues and also Data load failures.**
  - Extensively worked on process chains to automate the Deleting indexes
  in Info cubes, Process of info packages, creating indexes, ODS activation,
  further updating, PSA request deletion and Attribute change run so on.**
  - Experience using the Open Hub Feature to export data from SAP BW to
  external systems (Flat files / Database tables).**
  - Involved in Unit testing, Integration testing, Regression testing and
  User acceptance testing in different servers.**
  - Deleted the Delta queues by running the programs for different
  applications. And filled the set up tables in production during the
  downtime. Before upgrading the BI7.0 system.
  - Having experience in RMI&OPSM   interfaces technology.
  - Enhancing the existing reports as per the new requirement.
  - Monitoring the daily loads to various data targets in the system.
  - Monitoring the process chains on the basis of daily, weekly & monthly.
  - Manual loading and rolling up the data into data targets.
  - Maintaining the logs for each manual load.
  - Created aggregates to improve the query response.
  - Performance tuning of queries using aggregates, indexing of Info cubes.
  - Responsible for the Rev track system in maintaining, creating RevTracks
  for the PGS area

used in transports   -  Shell uses the toll RevTrac  to transfer the objects
from Dev to Production systems.

Above details are different from project to Project. Understand and prepare
some thing similar to ur project as well.

Finding list of PSA tables and Size in BW system

1)  First we need to find list of PSA tables available in BW system. To achieve this we need to go to DB02 Tcode first and select "Tables and Indexes" as shown given below.

2) Provide input as shown given below and hit enter.

3) You will get the information as shown given below.

4) Now perform sorting on size in descending order. Here we will get to know the PSA tables according to their size.

5) Now based on the table name, we can find the data source information.

Please go to SE11, provide PSA table name for which you want to find the Data Source Name as shown given below.

With this information, we can find the PSA table sizes and their data source names to take action further to keep system clean.

Webi on HANA

What is SAP HANA?

SAP HANA is a super-fast in-memory database enabling new possibilities in terms of analytical reporting and real-time data acquisition and consumption.

Is SAP HANA really real-time?

The term “Real-time” can be ambiguous. Let’s say SAP HANA can be super-fast, depending on which context.

Analytical reporting: HANA is designed for on-line analysis. It can calculate and execute millions of data at sub-second speed. Of course it will depend on other factors like creating an optimal HANA model (Analytical Views) and the type of queries you’re sending to HANA. Also bear in mind that HANA will execute queries very quickly but it does not have the control over the amount of data it is fetching (see question on Bad Design).

Data acquisition: HANA is shipped with ETL and replication tools that can load data from operational systems to HANA in a matter of seconds.

Data consumption: HANA solves the issue of having to maintain aggregate tables for performance (data is fresh and live, no need to wait for the next ETL batch).

What is SAP BOBJ Web Intelligence?

Web Intelligence (WebI) is an interactive reporting tool that can access relational as well as multidimensional datasources via the concept of Universes. The reports can be viewed online or offline thanks to the microcube, an embedded local in-memory cache engine. In case of Hana, WebI will access it through relational access.

What are Universes?

A Universe is a metadata layer that allows Designers to map to the underlying data sources into familiar business terms and optimize the queries access to the database (in this FAQ the database would be SAP HANA). This allows business users and analysts to create, access, analyze and share business content easily across the enterprise. Also referred as "Semantic Layer", the Universes allow IT to control access to the data and guarantee its integrity and validity.

Is SAP Web Intelligence really real-time ?

In order to display data coming from HANA into Web Intelligence, you will need first to execute the query on the HANA side, transfer the data through the network and load data into the local cube, execute some calculations and display these data into Web Intelligence. Depending of the data volume these actions can take from less than 1 second to much more time.

Why Web Intelligence is using a microcube / local cube ?

The micro cube is mandatory and an important part of the Webi architecture design. Having a microcube has a lot advantages when designing and consuming a Web Intelligence reports, and it has been designed for a vast majority of databases. The main benefit is that it can offer offline analytical capabilities like report viewing, drilling, quick filtering, local calculations:

•   The WebI calculation compensates missing data source expressiveness (cross table, multi-context evaluation, advanced functions like Previous, …) . It requires to fetch raw data first before performing local data processing
•   It enables Multi-data Provider support, which requires local data materialization for data synchronisation
•   It enables data historization (if not available from the data source) which allows users to create data snapshots, and make features like Track Data Change possible.

Moreover it can avoid unnecessary round trips to the database and be very performing if the report is well designed and sized (remember microcube is in local memory). In the context of HANA, designing a Web Intelligence is a matter of balance between performance and functionality (for example Track Data Change will not available if you are using Query on Drill), but the idea is to have the smallest subset of data loaded in the microcube and to push down all the heavy calculations down to HANA.

What is a typical use case for Web Intelligence with SAP HANA ?

In order to best leverage Web Intelligence with SAP HANA, you need to design reports that require intensive aggregation and calculation on huge amount of data that will be processed almost instantly by HANA. Another example is to create analytical reports that can answer a user’s business questions upon live requests, for example a drill-down report, going from summary data to detailed data. In this scenario, SAP HANA will aggregate the results on-the-fly after each user drill interaction, and WebIntelligence will only retrieve the results needed in the report, thus leading to a smaller microcube. You can leverage these types of workflows using the "Query on Drill" feature in WebIntelligence.

How can I best leverage SAP HANA with Web Intelligence

In order to leverage the in-memory capabilities of SAP HANA, all the calculations and aggregations have to be done in SAP HANA for high performance analytical reporting. In this scenario, Web Intelligence should avoid pre-loading too much data into local cache (microcube) as this could cause performance issue due to too much data crossing the network, loading the data into the microcube and displaying the data into Webi. Web Intelligence only needs to retrieve the results calculated by HANA, needed for the report.

What is the best BI tool to leverage HANA

SAP HANA doesn't change the positioning of SAP BI4 tools. You still need to choose the right tool for the right job.

What is the most performing way to access SAP HANA from Web Intelligence.

Web Intelligence can only access SAP HANA through a universe. The most optimal way is to create HANA information views (Analytical View or Calculation Views) and to map them directly into BI4's Information Design Tool. See link "Create Universe on HANA best practices".

For more information, please refer to this must-read document  “Creating a Universe on SAP HANA Best practices”http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-23256

My Web Intelligence report is connected to SAP HANA and I don't see much performance difference with my previous database.

The value of SAP HANA can be highlighted in analytical workflows. Its performances are outstanding in processing calculations and aggregations. If you're trying to refresh a static Webi report with loads of data, some or insignificant performance gains could be noticed in the query execution phase, but the fetching phase will depend on other factors like the network transfer, the loading of data into the microcube or the rendering of this data into WebI. Just by replacing your old database by SAP HANA will not lead to sub-second performance. You still have to implement BI reporting best practices (e.g., query on drill, query stripping etc…) and Universes/HANA views design best practices in order to fully leverage the power of SAP HANA.

How to quickly analyze the performance of Web Intelligence on HANA?

The performance can be broke down into 3 different parts (HANA Database, Network, and Web Intelligence). The quick and dirty way to check the performance is to install HANA studio on the same box as the BI4.0 system and to compare the query performance using these two tools. Use advanced monitoring tools like Solution Manager / Wily Introscope for a deeper performance investigation.

Time spent in Hana	You have to retrieve the SQL generated into Webi and paste it into HANA studio and run it. In HANA studio you will see the time to execute the request into HANA and the fetching phase to retrieve into HANA studio. Check the execution phase while you execute the query in HANA studio.
Time spent in the Network time	You need to change the “max displayed rows in result” setting in HANA Studio (maximum is 99999 rows). Check the fetching phase while you execute the query in HANA studio.
Time spent in Webi	Check the data manager in WebIntelligence (includes execution and fetchingphase performance but only shows seconds)

What is Query Stripping?

Query Stripping is an automated way to remove ("strip") unnecessary objects from a Web Intelligence query, for example if a report doesn't need those objects to display the correct results. This feature avoids sending too big queries to the database and reduces the size of data transferring across the network.

As of today, this feature is only available for OLAP datasources. Query Stripping is available for HANA and relational universes in BI4.1. However report designer can a similar technique by simply removing objects from the Query Panel that are not used in the report, thus simulating the Query Stripping behavior.

What is Query on Drill and how to use it?

The Query on Drill will send a new query to the database each time a user performs a drill action. As SAP HANA executes queries very fast, the user has instant access to "live" data each time he drills down or up.  This feature helps reducing the amount of data going through the network by pushing down the calculation to SAP HANA and retrieving only the results into the microcube.

On the contrary, by using the default "Scope of Analysis" drill function, the drillable data needs to pre-fetched into the microcube. If a dimension (or characteristic) is not in the scope of analysis (aka not in the microcube), WebIntelligence sends a new query to the database. This new “out of scope” query can lead to some performance degradation in traditional databases if the data volume to be aggregated is huge.  This is why when using traditional databases, DBA's need to create aggregate tables in order to provide acceptable query performance for their end users. The main inconvenient of pre-aggregating data are the maintenance costs, the lack of freshness of data (e.g., some customers perform ETL to update their aggregates once a week or more) and the lack of flexibility (the queries need to be anticipated, and if a user requests data that are not pre-aggregated, this can lead to long waiting times)

With SAP HANA, this technique retrieves each drill step with sub-second performance, regardless of the data volume.

Bad Design - What you should avoid doing using Web Intelligence with any database including SAP HANA ?

Also please note that creating a detailed report containing fine grained data, like a 500-pages invoice or a big detailed operational report, is not mind-blowing use case for HANA. You won’t leverage much of the analytical capabilities of HANA. 

As for any other databases, wide open queries (e.g., select * from Analytic View) are also to be avoided and safety belts should be implemented at universe and HANA level to avoid runaway queries.

And remember that bad design translates to bad performance.

Always remember, when designing BI reports, with any DB fast or slow, that bad design leads to bad performance. Make sure you design your HANA model for optimal performance. Make your BI4 reports answer relevant business questions and avoid querying unnecessary data that you put too much load to the database and network. Do not use BI tools as a data extraction tool!