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SAP Lumira Discovery: Connecting to non-SAP Data Sources (SQL and Big Data)

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This is part of the SAP Lumira Discovery blog series.

SAP Lumira Discovery connects directly to a wide range of non-SAP data sources ranging from Databases, Cloud applications and Big Data systems through JDBC drivers. Once the data is imported, we can refresh it as required subsequently.

(Note: Discovery can also indirectly connect to a lot of data sources through SAP BuinessObjects Universe, thereby expanding the possibilities and reusing existing investments in SAP BI)

Acquire non-SAP Data (SQL and Big Data) in SAP Lumira Discovery - 1

A similar approach is followed for Big DATA, where Discovery supports Hadoop and Spark through Apache and Impala through Cloudera connectors.

Acquire non-SAP Data (SQL and Big Data) in SAP Lumira Discovery - 2

 

A full list of SQL sources can be found under : Main Menu > Preferences > SQL Drivers

 

Acquire non-SAP Data (SQL and Big Data) in SAP Lumira Discovery - 4

Once the connection is established, we would be able to access the tables or query using freehand SQL.

Acquire non-SAP Data (SQL and Big Data) in SAP Lumira Discovery - 5

 

Interested to learn how to leverage SAP Lumira for your enterprise (or) train your business users in SAP Lumira Discovery? Reach out to us today.

The post SAP Lumira Discovery: Connecting to non-SAP Data Sources (SQL and Big Data) appeared first on Visual BI Solutions.


Implementing Reference Bands in SAP Lumira Designer – Part1

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One of the effective ways of highlighting important information or driving people’s attention towards the pain points is by using Reference bands in charts.

In the earlier blog, we discussed about The importance of Reference Bands and Lines. Now, let’s us see how easy it is to create one in SAP Lumira Designer leveraging Visual BI Extensions (VBX).

Implementing Reference Bands – Fixed Limits in a Chart

Sample Data

Consider the following sample data, which lists Sales till the current reporting month along with the forecasted values.

We will be using Plot bands to highlight the Forecasted values from the Actuals. Assuming that you have already configured the VBX Column chart with the Data, let’s get started…

Step 1: Navigate to the additional property sheet and select X Axis Tab from the Menu option. Scroll down to the Plot band property and configure the following properties.

  • Tick the checkbox to enable the Plot Band
  • Define the range of the Plot Band (From= 8, To= 12 in the example below)
  • Set the color of the Plot Band (light blue – ‘#A9C6DE’ in the example below)
  • You could further style it using the border color and width property (Color= dark blue ‘#2C4E6C’ and width=1 in the example below)

 

SAP Design Studio/ Lumira Designer using VBX- reference Band property Sheet

 

Step 2: Next, we need to provide a label to the plot line

  • Tick the checkbox to enable the Plot line label
  • Set the label text (‘Forecast’ as seen below)
  • Align the labels. If required, you could use the X and Y offset settings for better positioning (vertical alignment= Middle and Horizontal alignment= Center)
  • Font properties (color, style, font size and family)

 

SAP Design Studio/ Lumira Designer using VBX- reference Band property Sheet

Voila! VBX Column chart with Plot Band is ready

Reference Band, Plot Band, SAP Lumira Designer, SAP Designer Studio, SAP Lumira 2.0

Dynamic Reference Bands

There are a couple of use cases, where you would like to change the Plot band dynamically. For example, based on the actual month you would like the position of the plot band to change in order to highlight the forecasted months. This could be achieved using the following Visual BI Extensions for SAP Lumira Designer (VBX) APIs

DSXSetXAxisPlotBandFrom(value) – Set the start value of the Plot band range
DSXSetXAxisPlotBandTo(value) – Set the end value of the Plot band range

Some of the other formatting properties are as follows:

DSXsetXAxisPlotBandEnabled(value) –  Enable/ Disable the Plot Band
DSXSetXAxisPlotBandColor(value) –  Assign color to the plot band

Dynamic Reference Bands using Visual BI Extensions (VBX) APIs

 

In the next blog, we will be looking at how to create Variable Limit Plot Bands. So, stay tuned….

Looking to create charts with Reference bands?

Click here to download a FREE 15-day trial of Visual BI’s Extensions for SAP Lumira Designer (VBX).

The post Implementing Reference Bands in SAP Lumira Designer – Part1 appeared first on Visual BI Solutions.

Chart Property Editor in SAP Lumira Designer

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Editing and formatting charts in SAP Lumira Designer is slightly different and simplified when compared to options available in Design Studio.

While chart properties can be edited in Design Studio using the chart Additional Properties tab, in Lumira Designer, everything related to the Chart Configuration is handled within the Chart Configuration property. Developers can select the Chart Configuration property and click on the button to bring up the “Configure Chart” window.

Chart Property Editor on SAP Lumira Designer - 1

Chart Configuration Property in SAP Lumira Designer

This editor displays all available chart properties that can be modified. As each property is changed, the changes are reflected immediately in the Preview area.

Chart Property Editor on SAP Lumira Designer - 2

The ‘Configure Chart’ Window

There are 2 tabs available in the Configure Chart editor – Charts and Properties. Let’s look at some of the options available in each of these tabs.

Configure Charts – Charts Tab

Chart Property Editor on SAP Lumira Designer - 3

The “Charts” tab in SAP Lumira Designer can be used to select or change the chart type, and to configure the measures and dimensions used in the axes and legends. There are also new chart types available in SAP Lumira Designer:

  • Box Plot
  • Funnel Charts
  • Network Charts
  • Marimekko Charts
  • Tag Cloud

Combination charts are not available as separate chart types but we will look at how to create them later on in this blog.

Configure Chart – Properties Tab

The “Properties” tab provides options for chart and plot area formatting. The area of the chart to be formatted can be selected from the dropdown. Note that dropdown properties change depending on the type of the chart selected.

Chart Property Editor on SAP Lumira Designer - 4

Common chart properties such as backgrounds, borders, gridlines, tooltips, plot area selection (lasso), text fonts and colors can be changed by selecting the appropriate chart area from the dropdown.

Salient Points to Note

Changing Series Colors

In cases of charts with multiple measures, changing colors from the Bar/Column option is available which changes the color of all the series in the chart. Individual chart series colors can be changed by clicking on (selecting) the required series measure alone and then changing the color from the Properties tab.

We can also assign different colors to different members of the same series, such as in the screenshot below. To do this, select the required member bar/column and then deselect all the other members of the series that are not required (or double click on required member alone). Changing the color now from the Properties tab only changes the color of the selected member bar/column. This feature is useful in cases when different colors need to be assigned to different values belonging to the same measure.

Chart Property Editor on SAP Lumira Designer - 5

Changing a particular value in a series in SAP Lumira Designer

In such a case, color assignments made to individual values are permanent and are retained by the measure/dimension even when they are removed from the chart and added once again, unless explicitly changed by the developer.

In addition to the above feature, one improvement that could be made in the tool is to pin colors to measures. That way, measures would retain the same color even if it they are reordered or removed or added back.

Legend Width

It is now possible to change the width of the Legend area quite easily just by selecting on the Legend area and modifying its properties.

Chart Property Editor on SAP Lumira Designer - 6

Changing Legend Widths in SAP Lumira Designer

Pictograms as Markers

Another cool feature retained from Desktop Lumira is the ability to use Pictograms and shapes to represent data values in case of Column and Bar charts. To do this, just select Column (or Bar) from the dropdown menu and choose required shape/pictogram to represent the data in a fun and graphic manner.

Chart Property Editor on SAP Lumira Designer - 7Chart Property Editor on SAP Lumira Designer - 7

Pictograms in SAP Lumira Designer

Different Chart Types for Different Series

Developers also have the ability to change the chart type for different measures. To do this, click on the settings button on the required measure within the Measures area. Chart type can be changed to Column, Line or Stacked. This way, we can turn simple charts into combination charts. We can also assign measures to Primary/Secondary axes using this option.

Chart Property Editor on SAP Lumira Designer - 8

Changing Chart Type for Series in SAP Lumira Designer

Few other useful features in the tool could include option to provide axis scaling as part of chart properties, Hierarchical legends, data labels for certain chart types (Bullet chart, Funnel chart and Box plot) prefixes and suffixes for axis labels.

That concludes our quick review of Chart Configuration properties. If you have any further questions, feel free to reach out to us  here.

The post Chart Property Editor in SAP Lumira Designer appeared first on Visual BI Solutions.

SAP Lumira Discovery: Connecting to Salesforce using JDBC and OData

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This is part of the SAP Lumira Discovery blog series.

Connecting to Salesforce via JDBC

SAP Lumira Discovery connects to Salesforce.com via its JDBC connector for data acquisition. Data once imported can be later manually refreshed as required.

Acquire Data from Salesforce and OData in SAP Lumira Discovery - 1

Basic requirements include server URL (entered against Proxy Address field) and your credentials.

Acquire Data from Salesforce and OData in SAP Lumira Discovery - 2

For the password, you need to enter Salesforce password+token key. The key consists of 10 characters and can be found in Salesforce.com > My Settings > Personal.

Once done, you can select a table from the list of tables or write freehand SQL query to preview the data before completing the acquisition.

 

Connecting to OData

SAP Lumira Discovery can also acquire Salesforce data as an OData feed via Generic OData 2.0 connector. This requires the setting up of an API Server.

A quick note about OData: The OData protocol enables the creation and consumption of REST APIs, which allow Web clients to publish and edit resources, identified using URLs and defined in a data model, using simple HTTP messages. OData shares some similarities with JDBC and ODBC; OData is not limited to relational databases.

 

 

Acquire Data from Salesforce and OData in SAP Lumira Discovery - 3

Enter your credentials to proceed to the next stage. Once done, you can select entities or use freehand SQL to preview the data before completing the acquisition.

Acquire Data from Salesforce and OData in SAP Lumira Discovery - 4

Interested to learn how to leverage SAP Lumira for your enterprise (or) train your business users in SAP Lumira Discovery? Reach out to us today.

The post SAP Lumira Discovery: Connecting to Salesforce using JDBC and OData appeared first on Visual BI Solutions.

SAP Lumira Discovery: Connecting To Flat Files (MS Excel, .csv)

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This is part of the SAP Lumira Discovery blog series.

So far, we reviewed how SAP Lumira Discovery connects to various types of data sources: SAP sources, Non-SAP sources and sources such as Salesforce. In this blog, let’s review how SAP Lumira Discovery can connect to flat files such as Microsoft Excel and comma separated files.

SAP Lumira Discovery handles flat files well and can manipulate multiple sheets at the same time for analysis. Let us review some of the file connect options available:

SAP-Lumira-Discovery-Acquiring-Data-from-Flat-Files-MS-Excel-.csv-1
 

1. Microsoft Excel

When selecting Microsoft Excel as the source, SAP Lumira Discovery opens the File Explorer from where you can select the appropriate Excel workbook (.xlsx, .xls, .xlsm).

Once you select a file, you would see a preview of the data with some additional options.

Acquire Data from Flat Files (Excel, csv) in Lumira Discovery - 1

From this screen, you have options to perform additional operations such as:

  • Add additional files (by adding the ‘Add File’ icon on the right)
  • Select a specific worksheet
  • Append data in all worksheets (if they are in the same format)
  • Ignore specific columns for upload
  • Select a custom range for import

 

2. Copy from Clipboard

SAP Lumira Discovery allows users to copy data from a website, pdf document or a spreadsheet table and use the same in the visualization as a static data source. To do this, you need to use the ‘Copy from Clipboard’ option. The user is first prompted with options on how the data must be interpreted from the clipboard, with a preview of the data and options to parse the data.

Acquire Data from Flat Files (Excel, csv) in Lumira Discovery - 2
 

3. Text Files

In this case, you can acquire options from text files of varying formats (e.g. .csv, .txt, .log). The options would be slightly different compared to the ones shown for Excel data source.

Acquire Data from Flat Files (Excel, csv) in Lumira Discovery - 3

Interested to learn how to leverage SAP Lumira for your enterprise (or) train your business users in SAP Lumira Discovery? Reach out to us today.

 

The post SAP Lumira Discovery: Connecting To Flat Files (MS Excel, .csv) appeared first on Visual BI Solutions.

Conditional Formatting in SAP Lumira Designer

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Conditional Formatting has been traditionally used in visualizations & tables to bring attention to specific data values by formatting them differently (red = alert, green = good) based on one or more conditions. Hence the name conditional formatting.

In SAP Design Studio 1.6, there were some limitations in using Conditional Formatting:

  • Conditional Formatting Rules had to be defined at the BEx query level (or in Analysis for Office) so that they could be viewed on Crosstabs or InfoCharts in the front-end
  • Rules had to be individually defined (sometimes repeatedly) on each Chart you wanted to apply them on.

With SAP Lumira Designer, it is possible to:

  • Define Conditional Formatting rules within the SAP Lumira Designer development environment
  • Define rules globally and apply them to required components
  • Define & modify rules during runtime

In this blog, we shall see how to

  1. Define conditional formatting rules during design time
  2. Apply or edit rules during runtime using the context menu
  3. Apply or edit rules during runtime using scripting

 

1. Implementing Conditional Formatting During Design Time

Implementing Conditional Formatting during design time requires the following three steps.
 

1.1 Create Conditional Formatting During Design Time

Rules must be set up as a separate ‘Technical Component’ within SAP Lumira Designer. This helps us define rules once and apply to one one or more components, without having to repeat rule definitions for each component.

Conditional Formatting in Lumira Studio - 3

Note: You can only create one ‘Conditional Formatting Settings’ technical component in a SAP Lumira Discovery application. This single component can accommodate one or multiple rules that can be applied selectively to one or more component(s).
 

1.2 Create/Edit Rules Within the Conditional Formatting Rule Manager

After creating the Conditional Formatting Settings Technical Component, individual formatting rules can be set up using the ‘Rules’ property (in the Properties sheet).

Conditional Formatting in Lumira Studio - 4

Clicking on the ‘Rules’ property brings up the Conditional Formatting Rule Manager, where the required conditions or formatting rules can be created or edited.

Conditional Formatting in Lumira Studio - 5

Rule definitions can be based on Measures or a Dimension. All the measures/dimensions available in the data sources used in the application are listed in the formatting rule editor. Measures can be compared against a hard-coded threshold value:

Conditional Formatting in Lumira Studio - 6

In case of formatting rules based on dimensions, the member of the dimension needs to be defined as the threshold value:

Conditional-Formatting-in-SAP-Lumira-Designer1Conditional-Formatting-in-SAP-Lumira-Designer1

 

1.3 Assigning Conditional Formatting to UI Elements

Once the rules have been defined under the technical component, these rules can be applied to Charts and Crosstabs within the application using the ‘Conditional Formatting Settings’ property. One or more rules from the list of rules defined in the Technical Component can be applied to the component. Note that the property ‘Conditional Formatting Visible’ must be set to ‘true’ for the formatting to be visible during runtime.

Conditional Formatting in Lumira Studio - 8

Conditional Formatting in Lumira Studio - 9

A crosstab with conditional formatting applied looks like this:

Conditional Formatting in Lumira Studio - 10
 

2. Implementing Conditional Formatting During Runtime

SAP Lumira Designer allows users to set Conditional Formatting rules at runtime.

However, one pre-requisite for this is to have the Conditional Formatting Technical Component set up during design-time.
Note: One exception to this pre-requisite is the Crosstab component which can work even without the technical component set up during design time. However the runtime Conditional Formatting rules manager looks different in this case. See image attached for the crosstab component without a ‘Conditional Formatting Settings’ technical component set up during design time. Note that rules based on Dimensions cannot be applied to the crosstab in this case.

Conditional-Formatting-in-SAP-Lumira-Designer-1

When the ‘Conditional Formatting Settings’ technical component is added during design time and assigned to the crosstab, the front-end UI changes as shown below. As shown, rules based on Measures and Dimensions are both available.

Conditional-Formatting-in-SAP-Lumira-Designer-2

During runtime, rules already defined during Design Time can be added, modified or deleted – but such changes are not persistent. They would be applicable and available only for that particular session.

Conditional Formatting in Lumira Studio - 11
 

3. Implementing Conditional Formatting During Runtime Using Scripting

Run time Conditional formatting can also be enabled using scripting. For example,the following script can be written on the ‘On Click’ event of a Button, for instance, to add rules to a crosstab in the application:

CONDITIONAL_FORMATTING_SETTINGS.openRulesDialog(CROSSTAB_1);

Upon clicking the button during runtime, the user would see the Conditional Formatting Rules Manager.

Note: For this to happen, first the Conditional Formatting Settings component needs to be added to the application, and the ‘Conditional Formatting Visible’ property needs to be set to ‘true’ for the component.

 

Conditional Formatting in Lumira Studio - 12

Note:

  1. Any rules that are defined at runtime are available only during that particular session.
  2. Any rules that are defined during design-time or run-time override conditional formatting configured at the BEx Query level

Got questions? Click here to get in touch.

 

The post Conditional Formatting in SAP Lumira Designer appeared first on Visual BI Solutions.

Data Connectivity Options in SAP Lumira Discovery

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This is part of the SAP Lumira Discovery blog series.

This blog summarizes connectivity options available in SAP Lumira Discovery that were discussed in depth in the following blogs:

SAP Lumira Discovery facilitates quick access to data sources from its home page. From here, you could leverage either the data source list, recently used list or perform a quick search to select an appropriate data source.

 

Acquire Data (SAP, non-SAP, Big Data, Excel, Salesforce, etc) in SAP Lumira Discovery - 1
 
A user would initially require details such as System, Authentication Type, Server, Port, Instance, Username, and Password to set up connectivity. As a general note, except for flat files, SAP Lumira Discovery maintains row level security as defined in the underlying data source.

We can classify the data connectivity into 4 groups depending upon the technology/tool stack:
 

1. Excel, CSV, Text, Copy from Clipboard

These mainly include data sources which are structured as rows and columns. They can be placed in local desktop, but the folder structure needs to be maintained for data refresh.

For more details on flat file connectivity, visit our blog here.
 

2. SAP Data sources

Data sources that belong to the SAP technology stack have the best compatibility with SAP Lumira Discovery. Of these, the first three options in the list below have the best connectivity and feature support like SSO capability and save without data.

  • SAP BW (Live and Import)
  • SAP HANA (Live and Import)
  • SAP Universe (Import)
  • Others: SAP ERP, Business One, HANA Vora

For more details on connectivity to SAP data sources, visit our blog here

 

3. Non-SAP Data Sources

This option provides connectivity to all 3rd party data sources which include databases, cloud applications and big data. No Live connectivity is available here and data is imported in all the cases.

  • 3rd party SQL
  • Salesforce and OData
  • Big Data

For more details on connecting to Salesforce & OData, visit our blog here. For other non-SAP data sources, visit our blog here.
 

4. Data Source Extensions

There are scenarios in which a unique data source is required and the required driver may not be found in SAP Lumira Discovery. The workaround for that would be to use the SDK component to establish this connection if it has an open API/JDBC connector.

Interested to learn how to leverage SAP Lumira for your enterprise (or) train your business users in SAP Lumira Discovery? Reach out to us today.

 

The post Data Connectivity Options in SAP Lumira Discovery appeared first on Visual BI Solutions.

A Step-By-Step Guide To Implementing Bookmarks in SAP Lumira Designer

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For those of you familiar with the concept of bookmarks in SAP Design Studio, the new SAP Lumira Designer shouldn’t bring too many surprises. The principle behind implementing bookmarks remains the same, with a few changes to the APIs used and the abilities of the bookmarks. However, there are some key differences too. For example, with SAP Lumira Designer, you can choose which components need to be saved as part of the bookmark, and designate bookmarks as local or global. In addition, the options to implement Fragment and Portable Fragment bookmarks are no more available – as they are fully integrated under a single canvas.

Regardless of whether you have worked with bookmarks in previous versions, you’ll find the following step by step instructions helpful to implement bookmarks in your SAP Lumira Designer application.
 

1. Set up the application

 
Let us consider a simple application which has Dropdown menus, couple of data sources and a chart to display the data. Here is the Outline View and the canvas of the application:

Bookmarks in SAP Lumira Designer - 1
 

2. Add a Bookmark

 
A prerequisite for implementing bookmark capabilities on an application is to set up the ‘Bookmark’ technical component on the dashboard. To do this, navigate to the Outline View, right-click on ‘Technical Components’ and select ‘Bookmarks’.

Bookmarks in SAP Lumira Designer - 2

You should now be able to see the newly created ‘Bookmark’ technical component on your dashboard.
 

3. Select components to be saved as part of the Bookmark

 
Select the bookmark technical component you have just created and navigate to its properties. Select the property ‘Definition’ and select the components that you want to save as a part of bookmarks users would create. In our application, we want to save the states of the Drop-downs, the chart, and the data sources. So, we select those components in the definition property of the bookmark.

Bookmarks in SAP Lumira Designer - 3
 

4. Set up the Access Type for the Bookmark

 
The ‘Access Type’ property defines whether or not bookmarks created by a user are private. This can take 2 values:

  1. Personal – Any bookmark created by a user can only be seen by that particular user, and other users cannot see these bookmarks.
  2. Global – Any bookmark created by a user can be seen by all users accessing the list of bookmarks on that application.

For our application, we are going to go ahead and set up these bookmarks as ‘Personal’.

5. Implement the logic to Save, Load, Delete and Retrieve All Bookmarks

To implement bookmarking capability, we are going to give users the options to save a new bookmark, view a list of all saved bookmarks, load an existing bookmark from the list and delete an existing bookmark from the list.
 

a. Save a Bookmark

 
To save a bookmark, the following line is written within the button event script.

BOOKMARK_1.save (title, description);

On execution of this API, the instance of bookmark is created and a unique bookmark ID for the same is generated. There are two parameters that you can pass, both as strings:

  1. Title – A title that can be used to identify your bookmark when a list of bookmarks is obtained
  2. Description – Additional text that can be used to describe the bookmark itself.

In addition, the ‘save()’ API also returns a value (BookmarkID) which contains the ID generated by the bookmark.

Bookmarks in SAP Lumira Designer - 4

In our application, we will go ahead and allow users to enter a value for the title, and save the bookmark when the ‘Save’ button is clicked.

Below, is the script we use to save bookmarks. This has been written within the onClick event of BUTTON_SAVE:

//Obtain the value for the ‘title of the bookmark
var Title = INPUTFIELD_1.getValue();

//Save the bookmark and capturing the returned bookmark ID

var Book_ID = BOOKMARKS_1.save(Title);

//Add the newly saved bookmark to the list of bookmarks

LISTBOX_1.addItem(Book_ID, Title);
 

b. Load a Bookmark

 
To load a saved bookmark, we use the following call:

BOOKMARKS_1.load(id);

This script takes one parameter – id – which is the id of the bookmark that we need to load. In our application, since every bookmark that was saved was loaded into the list box (refer earlier script), we can retrieve the id from the selected value in the list box and load the corresponding bookmark.

The following script is written within the onClick event of BUTTON_LOAD:

//Gets the ID of the selected bookmark from the listbox
var Book_ID = LISTBOX_1.getSelectedValue();
//Loads the selected bookmark by passing the obtained ID
BOOKMARKS_1.load(Book_ID);
 

c. Delete a Bookmark

 
To delete a bookmark, we can make use of the following script:

BOOKMARKS_1.delete(id);

As above, the id can be retrieved from the selected value in the list box. Alternately, you can also delete ALL bookmarks at once by using the following script:

BOOKMARKS_1.deleteAll();

In our dashboard, we are going to implement the script used to delete just the selected bookmark. The script for this is to be written on the ‘onClick’ event of BUTTON_DELETE:

//Deletes the bookmark selected within the list box
BOOKMARKS_1.delete(LISTBOX_1.getSelectedValue());
//Removes the deleted bookmark from the list box

LISTBOX_1.removeItem(LISTBOX_1.getSelectedValue());
 

d. Get a list of all Bookmarks

 
In addition, we may also need to retrieve the list of all bookmarks so that they can be loaded into the list box during application startup. We use this script for this purpose

BOOKMARKS_1.getAll();

This API returns a list of all the bookmarks as an array of bookmarks. The developer writes the script and then adds each bookmark in the array to a dropdown or a list box.

In our application, we have used the following script in the ‘on Startup’ event of the application:

//Gets a list of all the bookmarks as a bookmark array
var Bookmark_List = BOOKMARKS_1.getAll();
/*Loads the list of bookmarks in the bookmark array
 * one by one into the list box using a loop*/
Bookmark_List.forEach(function(element, index) {
LISTBOX_1.addItem(element.id, element.title);
});

These few simple steps should allow you to implement a simple Bookmark functionality for your application users. The functionality for bookmarks can be extended of course, giving users the option of being able to choose whether their bookmarks are personal or global, choosing a folder into which they want to save their bookmarks etc. We will be covering these steps as part of a subsequent blog in our series – so keep watching out for this!

Got questions? Click here to get in touch.

The post A Step-By-Step Guide To Implementing Bookmarks in SAP Lumira Designer appeared first on Visual BI Solutions.


Data Source Modification Through Chart Properties in SAP Lumira Designer

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To configure a chart in SAP Design Studio, we often need to edit the initial view of the data source and this requires us to switch between data source modification and chart property windows. SAP Lumira Designer changes the way we customize our charts by introducing a new chart configuration window. Apart from changing various chart properties, we can also modify the data source within this window and quickly see how the visualization changes.

The Chart Configuration Window

In SAP Lumira Designer, the chart-specific properties that were earlier located in the Additional Properties window is now moved to the new Chart Configuration window. The option to select the chart type is removed from Properties tab and we can now change the chart type inside the Chart Configuration window.

Data Source Modification using Charts Configuration - 1

When we open the Chart Configuration window, we have options to change the chart type, swap or rearrange measures and dimensions and modify properties of different parts of the chart such as the axes, legends, tooltips, etc. For more details on chart formatting properties refer to our Chart Property Editor blog.

Data Source Modification using Charts Configuration - 2

Data Source Modification

Within the properties of the chart, you should notice an additional option labelled “Allow Data Source Modification”. This property will allow us to modify the dimensions/measures in the rows/columns of the data source from within the Chart Configuration window.

Data Source Modification using Charts Configuration - 3

Once the Data Source Modification property has been enabled, when users navigate to the Chart Configuration window, they should be able to see the option to add or remove objects to the axes of the chart.

Data Source Modification using Charts Configuration - 4

Let’s consider an example where we have ‘Sales Amount by Region’. Now, we want to change the chart around to display ‘Cost Amount’ and ‘Profit / Loss’ in addition to the Sales Amount. We can achieve this by using the option to add additional Dimensions/Measures to the Chart’s Data Source from within the Chart Configuration window.

Data Source Modification using Charts Configuration - 5

Once we’ve added the additional measures, our chart should look like the one previewed in the screenshot below:

Data Source Modification using Charts Configuration - 6

The Chart title automatically changes based on objects that are added. If required, we can change the title using the ‘Properties’ tab within the Chart Configuration window.

The Properties tab can be used to modify different parts of the chart such as the legends, labels, axes, tooltips etc.

Data Source Modification using Charts Configuration - 7

The Chart Configuration window allows developers to preview a chart even when the Data Source linked to the chart has not been loaded (i.e. ‘Load in Script’ has been set to ‘true’).  However, when using the Chart Configuration window for Data Source modification, there are a few pointers to keep in mind:

  1. Adding or removing dimensions/measures within the chart configuration window affects the original data source. So, any other component linked to the data source will be affected.
  2. When ‘Allow Data Source Modification’ is set to ‘true’, users will also be able to modify the data source using the ‘Chart Feeding Panel’ during run time.
  3. Any background filters set on the data source cannot be edited.

Conclusion

The Chart Configuration options within SAP Lumira Designer has integrated the additional properties of a chart from previous versions of SAP Design Studio with certain additional options such as being able to swap dimensions between rows and columns and even change the chart type, all within one single window. But it also introduces newer options such as the ability to modify even the data source through the configuration, as we’ve just seen.

Got questions? Click here to get in touch.

 

The post Data Source Modification Through Chart Properties in SAP Lumira Designer appeared first on Visual BI Solutions.

Data Preparation in SAP Lumira Discovery

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This is part of the SAP Lumira Discovery blog series.

SAP Lumira Discovery provides lot of data preparation options when you import the data.

Upon acquisition, SAP Lumira Discovery converts the data into a flat file structure (rows and columns). This makes it easier to combine data across multiple sources.

Once you complete the data acquisition, select the DataView option.
 
SAP Lumira Discovery Series - Prepare Data - 1
 
Here, you would see the tabular data with following options:
 
SAP Lumira Discovery Series - Prepare Data - 5
 

  1. Save – Save the document to the local repository or the BI Platform
  2. New Dataset – Ability to Import a combination of different data sources
     
    SAP Lumira Discovery Series - Prepare Data - 2

    Note: Live connections have been disabled with this option


     
  3. Refresh – Perform a manual data refresh
  4. Undo – Same as the generic Undo function
  5. Redo – Same as the generic Redo function
  6. Create Calculations – Option to create custom measures and dimensions
  7. Merge Datasets – Perform simple joins (inner or left outer join) by adding columns
  8. Append Datasets – Perform simple union by adding more rows of data
  9. Link Datasets – Perform data blending
  10. Grid – Detailed row level information
  11. Facet – Summarized view of the information
  12. Export as File – Option to export data as Excel or CSV
  13. Measures – List of numeric field that can be aggregated. Upon right clicking a measure, we would get the following options as shown.
     
    SAP Lumira Discovery Series - Prepare Data - 3
     
  14. Dimensions – Fields in the columns which can be character, numeric, geo, date or time fields. Upon right clicking a dimension, we would get the following options (changes a bit based on the data type)
     
    SAP Lumira Discovery Series - Prepare Data - 4
     
  15. Data Sources – List of all data sources
  16. Dataset – List of all the measures and dimensions
  17. Summary – Summary view of the data

In the subsequent series of SAP Lumira Discovery blogs, we shall see how to combine data from multiple sources, concatenate strings, build hierarchies, define custom groups, derive custom dimensions and measures, use formulae and more.

Interested to learn how to leverage SAP Lumira for your enterprise (or) train your business users in SAP Lumira Discovery? Reach out to us today.

 

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String Concatenation in SAP Lumira Discovery

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This is part of the SAP Lumira Discovery blog series.

String concatenation is the operation of joining character strings end-to-end. For example, the concatenation of “snow” and “ball” is “snowball”. There are practical scenarios when we need to concatenate two columns. For example, we may want to concatenate customers’ first & last names in a report.

SAP Lumira Discovery supports various data formats for concatenation. For example, it can concatenate:

Two strings : <First Name> <Last Name>
Alpha Numeric : <State> <Zip Code>
Multiple strings : <$> <Sales> <M>

There are 3 different ways to achieve concatenations in SAP Lumira Discovery,

1. Using the Concatenate Function

Build a custom dimension using the “Concatenate” function available under “Create Calculation” or the formula icon as shown below,
 
Concatenation options in SAP Lumira Discovery - 1
 

2. Using the ‘+’ Operator

Another method is to use the ‘+’ operator in the formula bar available under “Create Calculation”

 

Concatenation options in SAP Lumira Discovery - 2
 

3. The Context Menu

From the DataView, you can Ctrl+Select multiple columns and perform a concatenate operation

 

Concatenation options in SAP Lumira Discovery - 3
 
Interested to learn how to leverage SAP Lumira for your enterprise (or) train your business users in SAP Lumira Discovery? Reach out to us today.

 

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Combine Multiple Data Sources in SAP Lumira Discovery

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This is part of the SAP Lumira Discovery blog series.

A very common need for enterprise data consumers is the ability to merge data from multiple sources. An example would be the need to validate sales data against budget data stored in a spreadsheet (or another database).

In SAP Lumira Discovery, you can combine data from different sources in three different ways.

  1. Append: Addition of new rows to the existing data set
  2. Merge: Adding new columns to the existing dataset
  3. Blending: Linking data which makes business sense

 

1. Append

 
Appending two datasets is similar to performing a union between them. The mandatory prerequisite for appending one dataset to another is that both the datasets must have equal number of columns of similar data types.
 
Combine Multiple Data Sources in SAP Lumira Discovery - 1
 
For example, let us assume that the sales orders for 2011-13 is present in dataset A and for year 2014 is present in a separate dataset B.

To perform the append operation, we now need to do the following:
 

Step 1.1 – Adding the data sources:

 
Open SAP Lumira Discovery and add the data sets by clicking the below highlighted icon
 
Combine Multiple Data Sources in SAP Lumira Discovery - 2.1
 

Step 1.2 – Appending the data sources:

 
Click on the ‘Append Datasets’ icon to perform the append operation. In this process, let us append the dataset B to dataset A.
 
Combine Multiple Data Sources in SAP Lumira Discovery - 3.1
 

Step 1.3 – Mapping the fields:

 
Now map the respective fields that correspond to each other.
 
Combine Multiple Data Sources in SAP Lumira Discovery - 5.1

 

Note that the number of fields in both the data sources remains the same before and after the append operation. Only the number of records vary.
 

2. Merging Data

 
While Append adds the records of data set B to data set A, Merge adds columns from dataset B to dataset A. The prerequisite to have a common key column of the same data type.

Merging can be done in two different ways:
 
Combine Multiple Data Sources in SAP Lumira Discovery - 10
 
Inner Join: In this method, the resulting dataset will only retain records with the common key.
 
Combine Multiple Data Sources in SAP Lumira Discovery - 11
 
Left Outer Join: In this method, all the records from the first dataset would be retained. For records that do not have a matching row in dataset B, null values would be filled in the new columns.

The result of the two types of merge operations are outlined below.
 
Combine Multiple Data Sources in SAP Lumira Discovery - 8.1
 
Let us consider the following datasets outlining Co2 emissions for 2011 and 2015.

Dataset A – Data for year 2015:
 
Combine Multiple Data Sources in SAP Lumira Discovery - 12
 
Dataset B – Data for year 2011:
 
Combine Multiple Data Sources in SAP Lumira Discovery - 13
 
The result of the two types of merge operations are outlined below.
 
Combine Multiple Data Sources in SAP Lumira Discovery - 14
 

3. Data Blending

 
Data blending can be done when there is no common key but having a common column (e.g. Country) using which the data can be blended.

Let us assume two data sets – one set having sales actuals at state (and thus the country) level, and another dataset having the sales budget – but ONLY at the country level.

In such cases, blending is recommended over doing a merge.

Reason: If you were to merge the datasets, the budget would be repeated for every record at the state level, and aggregation would add up repetitive budget values for the same country. At the same time, blending would look up the budget data after the first data set has been aggregated. The concept of blending is also known as a post-aggregate join – meaning that the lookup happens after aggregation – and is a very powerful feature of Self Service BI tools.

Some key differences between data merging & data blending are as follows:

  • Data Merging happens at the data level, while Data Blending happens at the UI/visualization level; blending is done in a specific scenario to solve a specific question.
  • Blending usually happens when the two data sets are of different granularity
  • Blending performs the role of an excel VLOOKUP whereas merging performs the function of a SQL Join

Let us see when we should use data blending instead of data merging with an example.

When the second data set does not have a primary key to lookup, the merge is not possible. In the case below, Manager is the common dimension between the datasets.
 
combine multiple data sources - 4
 
In this case, we have to use data blending. The linked data in this case will contain the correct values for net value when compared to that of merged data.
 
combine multiple data sources - 5

 

The type of data linking can be changed as shown below:

  • Maximize the visualization in which linked data is used.
  • Right click on blend link in the “Datasets in use panel”.
  • You can change the type of join which includes Left Outer, Inner, Full Outer and Exception.

 
combine multiple data sources - 6
 
Full outer join is not available while merging. As these joins will apply in the visualization level and not in dataset level, there will not be any performance issue even when we use Full Outer join.

There are eventually three approaches we can take based upon the final storyboard,

  • Live Connection: HANA and BW have live connection options and limited combinations would be possible only with their respective live sources.
  • Imported Data: If the data is imported (SAP, non-SAP, flat files), we can perform all the combinations across the data sources.
  • Independent Data: This approach is when no combination is needed between the data and all visualizations on the storyboard will have individual sources

Interested to learn how to leverage SAP Lumira for your enterprise (or) train your business users in SAP Lumira Discovery? Reach out to us today.

 

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Building Hierarchies in SAP Lumira Discovery

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This is part of the SAP Lumira Discovery blog series.

According to Wikipedia, Hierarchy is an arrangement of items (objects, names, categories, etc.) in which the items are represented as being “above,” “below,” or “at the same level as” one another.

SAP Lumira Discovery supports most of the hierarchies from SAP HANA and BW. But there have been multiple scenarios in which the business users would want to build their own hierarchies or try customizations. So how would we leverage SAP Lumira Discovery in these scenarios?

SAP Lumira Discovery supports 3 types of hierarchies,

  1. Date/Time: Year – Quarter – Month – Date / Hour – Minute – Seconds
  2. Geographical: Region based : Country – State – City / Lat and Long
  3. Custom: define your own hierarchy

 

1. Date and Time Hierarchies

 
SAP Lumira Discovery is smart enough to detect date (calendar icon) and time (clock icon) fields in the design view. But the date field alone would not be sufficient to perform trend analysis. Instead, we would need an option to drill through different levels like Year-Quarter-Month-Day. The Date/Time hierarchy provides this functionality with one-click.

We can find this option by right clicking the appropriate dimension as shown below,

 

Building Hierarchies in SAP Lumira Discovery - 1
 
On click, the hierarchy is generated automatically and can be found on top of the dimension list as shown below,
 
Building Hierarchies in SAP Lumira Discovery - 2
 
This hierarchy can then be leveraged into the visualizations for trend based analysis. SAP Lumira Discovery can also be used to implement fiscal year hierarchies and date hierarchies with only two dimensions (year and quarter).
 

2. Geo Hierarchies

 
SAP Lumira Discovery also allows you to leverage data for geospatial analysis. This helps us in performing location based analytics on a geo map with the ability to drill through different levels of granularity.

We can find this option by right clicking the appropriate dimension as shown below,

 

Building Hierarchies in SAP Lumira Discovery - 3
 
There are two options to create a geo hierarchy,

Using Names: We define Country – Region – Sub-Region – City levels using appropriate dimensions and SAP Lumira Discovery maps it using the NAVTEQ database (part of the in-memory velocity engine).

 

Building Hierarchies in SAP Lumira Discovery - 4
 
We would then need to complete the mapping of the locations to finalize the hierarchy.
 
Building Hierarchies in SAP Lumira Discovery - 5
 
NOTE : NAVTEQ has a limitation of displaying only cities with population above 100k.
 
Building Hierarchies in SAP Lumira Discovery - 6
 
How would you go about handling this limitation?

Using Latitude and Longitude: The above limitation can be overcome by using latitude and longitude values with the corresponding dimension.

 

Building Hierarchies in SAP Lumira Discovery - 7
 

3. Custom Hierarchies

 
Apart from Geo and Date/Time, SAP Lumira Discovery can also create hierarchies on set of dimensions based on customization.

Example : Product Category > Product Sub-Category > Product Type

Right- click on a dimension and select Hierarchy -> Custom.
 
Building Hierarchies in SAP Lumira Discovery - 8
 
Create Hierarchy window pops up. Select the dimensions on which you want to create the hierarchy. Selection should be made in correct order and then click on Create.
 
Building Hierarchies in SAP Lumira Discovery - 9
 
The hierarchy is created and listed in the dimensions’ list.
 
Building Hierarchies in SAP Lumira Discovery - 10
 
NOTE : Hierarchies once created can only be renamed or deleted, you would not be able to edit them. Since the process is simple and fast, we can do a quick rebuild. If the dimension is numeric we can also leverage them in a date hierarchy and if a character then in a geo hierarchy.

Interested to learn how to leverage SAP Lumira for your enterprise (or) train your business users in SAP Lumira Discovery? Reach out to us today.

 

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Implementing Reference bands in Lumira Designer – Part 2

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In the earlier blog we looked at Implementing Reference Bands having fixed limits in SAP Lumira Designer

Now let’s look at creating Reference bands for Variable Limits.

 Visual BI extensions, VBX, SAP Lumira Designer, SAP Design Studio

Implementing Variable Limits Reference Band in a chart

Sample Data

Consider the following sample data, which lists Amazon Stock value for last 1 month – High, Low, Actual and the variance (difference between the highs and the lows)

sample data - variable reference bands in SAP Lumira Designer

To create a variable plot band, we would be using the VBX Dual Axis chart as it gives us the flexible to choose the data series type. (Area, Line, Stacked charts……)

Step 1: Drag the VBX Dual Axis chart and select the required data for the chart in the chart properties.

 

Reference bands VBX Property sheet

Click on Data Selection and select the following Measure columns –  Variance, Low, Actual.

Please note:  The order of the measures is important to configure this use case.

Reference bands VBX Property sheet

Step 2: Navigate to the additional property sheet and select Data Series Tab

  • Set the series colors for each of the measures (Variance = light grey, Low = white and Actual = orange)
  • Set the Series Type for each of the measures:
    1. Variance = Area Spline Stacked
    2. Low = Area Spline Stacked
    3. Actual = Spline

 

SAP Lumira Designer-Reference bands VBX Property sheet

 

Step 3: Configure the other series properties

  • Set the Series Y axis as 1 for all the measures
  • Rename the Variance measure as ‘High’. This would be handy to configure the tooltip information later.

SAP Lumira Designer-Reference bands VBX Property sheet

 

Step 4: Configure the marker properties

  • Enable the Apply Marker Customization property by checking it
  • Disable the Markers for both measures – High and Low
  • Enable the Marker for Actual Measure
  • Set the color and size of the marker (Color = Orange and Size = 4 as seen below)

 

Step 5: Navigate to the CSS tab and paste the following piece of code in Theme code box. Don’t forget to enable the Custom Theme property

 

SAP Lumira Designer -Visual Bi extensions (VBX) Custom Theme property

Step 6: Navigate to the legends tab and disable the legends

 SAP Lumira Designer -Visual Bi extensions (VBX) Legend property

 

Step 7: Navigate to the Title and Subtitle Tab and set the following properties:

  • Title / Subtitle Text
  • Horizontal Alignment (center as seen below)

SAP Lumira Designer -Visual Bi extensions (VBX) Title property

SAP Lumira Designer -Visual Bi extensions (VBX) Sub title property

 

Step 8: Lastly Set the X axis property as follows:

  • Label rotation (-45 in the example below)
  • If needed, X and Y offset for better label alignment

SAP Lumira Designer -Visual Bi extensions (VBX) X axis property

 

Finally, we have a variable reference line displaying stock information.

Visual BI extensions, VBX, SAP Lumira Designer, SAP Design Studio

Additional useful references,

Importance of Reference lines and Bands

Implementing Reference Lines in SAP Lumira Designer

Click here to download a FREE 15-day trial of Visual BI Extensions for SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio/SAP Lumira Designer.

 

 

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Dynamic Conditional Formatting in SAP Lumira Designer

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Conditional formatting is a powerful visualization cue used in most dashboards to help the users direct their attention to things that need attention. It enables the user to add color coding and visual cues to help highlight matters of concern or attributes that aren’t going well

There are 2 ways of applying Conditional Formatting:

  1. Static: Static Conditional Formatting is a scenario where the limits are fixed to static values. One such example would be

Sales > 60K: Good

Sales < 40k: Bad

These values are static (hard – coded) and have to be specified at design time at the component level and cannot be changed during runtime.

  1. Dynamic: Dynamic conditional formatting is when the limits or rules are based on another measure which cannot be fixed at design time but would depend on the transaction data itself.

One such example would be to benchmark the actuals against targets and targets can vary based on the level of drilldown and a static value for conditional formatting would not apply in this case.

Actuals < Target: Good

Actuals > Target: Bad

The conditional formatting feature in SAP Lumira 2.0 is limited to an extend since users can only perform Static conditional formatting. So, what if the user wanted to compare against dynamic value i.e. values coming from the data source? This is where our Visual Bi extensions(VBX) comes in

Visual BI Extensions (VBX) Charts offer robust conditional formatting options where the users can compare against both static and dynamic values.

Visual BI extensions support the following use cases for Dynamic Conditional formatting

  1. Single Data Cell – Dynamic
  2. Single Measure
  3. Percentage based

 

Conditional formatting based on a Single Data Cell

Using VBX extensions, you’re no longer limited to static values for setting chart alerting rules. You can make chart alerting dynamic by binding the threshold value to a data cell within a data source.

A typical example would be to compare sales of a Product against the average sales of all products, such that the Products below the average sales are highlighted in orange.

Here, our Highlighted measure/ Comparison Measure is Sales and Comparison value is a Data cell i.e. Average Sales of All Products

Conditional formatting rule:  If Sales < Average Sales: Orange

Conditional formatting in SAP Lumira

 

Conditional formatting in SAP Lumira

 

Conditional formatting based on a Single Measure

VBX extensions allows you to set the threshold value based on measures defined within a data source. This helps you dynamically set the thresholds for each dimension values.

Example, let’s say you want to highlight Product Categories where Sales has dropped as compared to the previous period. As seen from the data each product category has a different target values. Here, our Highlighted measure/ Comparison Measure is Actual Sales and Comparison value is Previous Year Sales

Data

 

 

Conditional formatting in SAP Lumira

Conditional formatting rule:  If Current Year Sales < Previous Year Sales: Red

Conditional formatting in SAP Lumira

 

Conditional formatting in SAP Lumira

 

Percentage based conditional formatting

VBX extensions allows you to set the conditional formatting based on percentage of the Target Value achieved.

Consider an example where you want to dynamically highlight Months based on the percentage Target achieved. Here, our Comparison Measure is the measure Actual Sales and our Target is Target Value

Data

 

Conditional formatting in SAP Lumira

Conditional formatting rule:  If Actual has achieved 50% – 75 % of Target: Red

If Actual has achieved 75% – 90 % of Target: Orange

If Actual has achieved 90% + of Target: Green

Conditional formatting in SAP Lumira

 

Conditional formatting in SAP Lumira

 

Using Visual BI extensions(VBX) for SAP Lumira Designer one is not just limited to charts for conditional formatting but our Maps, Selectors and utility also provide advanced conditional formatting features.

For more information on conditional formatting in Maps checkout the following links:

Conditional formatting on a Map in Design Studio

Conditional formatting for Maps in SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio

Click here to download a FREE 15-day trial of Visual BI Extensions for SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio/SAP Lumira Designer.

 

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Scatterplot Customization in SAP Lumira Designer

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At Visual BI, we are constantly tasked with unique visualizations requested by our customers which challenge the boundaries of what is possible in standard SAP Design Studio/ SAP Lumira Designer. This often leads to a  mashup of Standard SAP Lumira Designer and Visual BI Extensions(VBX) to create visualizations that bring in a lot of value by helping them solve their business problems.

Problem Statement

To achieve the following use case, we would need to customize the data labels to display dimension names instead of measures. Such customization would require a lot of scripting and CSS using standard scatterplot in SAP Lumira Designer. This could be easily achieved using the Visual BI extensions(VBX) Scatterplot.

 

Scatter plot in SAP Lumira Designer

You could also be more creative and replace the county labels with flag images, like one below.

Scatterplot with Images in SAP Lumira Designer

Scatterplot

Scatterplots are mainly used for correlation analysis between 2 measures. They help us understand the relationship between the measures by plotting them on X and Y Axis respectively. This way each data point is an intersection of the 2 values being analyzed which are represented with different symbols and color, depicting distinct groups in some use cases. Further, they are also used for outlier analysis and clustering

Let’s look at the step by step process of fulfilling the above requirement

 

How to create a Scatterplot using Visual BI extensions (VBX) ?

Sample Data

 Sample Data for scatter plot

 

Step 1: Drag the Visual BI extension (VBX) Scatterplot to the canvas and navigate to the Data Series Property Tab.

  • Enable Data Labels
  • Set the Series color to white for all the dimension members (#FFFFFF)

Sap Lumira Designer , Visual Bi extensions

Sap Lumira Designer , Visual Bi extensions

 

Step 2: Navigate to the Legends tab and disable the Legends

Sap Lumira Designer , Visual Bi extensions

 

Step 3: Next navigate to the Title tab and set the Title formatting properties as follows:

  • Title Text
  • Alignment (for more flexibility use Horizontal and Vertical offset)

Sap Lumira Designer , Visual Bi extensions

 

Step 4: Navigate to the CSS Tab, check the Custom Theme property and copy the following script.

Sap Lumira Designer , Visual Bi extensions

Sap Lumira Designer , Visual Bi extensions

 

Step 5: Navigate to the Subtitle Tab and uncheck the subtitle option

Sap Lumira Designer , Visual Bi extensions

 

Step 6: Set the X axis properties as follows:

  • Set the Label suffix to %
  • Set the Title text and alignment
  • Set the grid line to color – No fill

 Sap Lumira Designer , Visual Bi extensions

 

Step 7: Navigate to the Y Axis Tab and set the properties as follows:

  • Set the prefix to €
  • Set the Title text and alignment

 Sap Lumira Designer , Visual Bi extensions

 Sap Lumira Designer , Visual Bi extensions

 

Our scatterplot is ready

 Scatter plot in SAP Lumira Designer

 

You could also create the same by using a Bubble chart with similar customization.

However, Bubble chart requires 3 measures as compared to scatterplots which require only 2 measures. To achieve the above use case using bubble charts, you would need to create a dummy variable for the bubble size.

For innovative use case on bubble charts click here  

Click here to download a FREE 15-day trial of Visual BI Extensions for SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio/SAP Lumira Designer.

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Considerations While Migrating SAP Design Studio Applications to SAP Lumira Designer

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In our earlier blog, we reviewed the step-by-step instructions to migrate your SAP Design Studio applications to SAP Lumira Designer. In this column, we shall review some considerations that you may want to keep in mind while doing the migration.
 

SAP Design Studio to SAP Lumira Designer – Some Migration Considerations

 
Content Version: Once the older version of Design studio is migrated to new Lumira Designer 2.0, the application content version would be 2000 (refer image). Due to this change in the content version, the new SAP Lumira Designer application would not be backward compatible.
 
SAP Lumira Designer - Conversion Tips & Tricks - Part 2 - 1
 
Global Variables: Global variables in SAP Lumira Designer are available in a separate folder in the outline pane as opposed to the properties tab of the application. In the newer versions, SAP Lumira Designer also supports additional variable types such as arrays (refer image below).

The global variables earlier defined in SAP Design Studio continue to retain their type, URL Parameter property and default values seamlessly after migration. Post migration, developers will be able to lookup references by right clicking the variable, thus easily getting rid of unused variables and also provide descriptions for better readability.
 

SAP Lumira Designer - Conversion Tips & Tricks - Part 2 - 2

Additional variable types in SAP Lumira Designer


 
Additional Themes: SAP Lumira Designer supports both Blue Crystal and High Contrast black themes from SAPUI5 m mode of Design studio. SAP Lumira Designer does not support SAPUI5 mode and hence the Platinum and Mobile themes are obsolete.
 
SAP Lumira Designer - Conversion Tips & Tricks - Part 2 - 3
 

Change in CSS Classes: In Lumira Designer, CSS classes for some components have been modified to optimize CSS usage. If you have created custom themes for SAP Design Studio applications, you may need to address the CSS classes in your custom theme to make it compatible with the SAP Lumira Designer document.
 
Bookmarks: Scripts for Bookmarking in SAP Design Studio have now been deprecated in SAP Lumira Designer. Bookmark is now available as a technical component with enhanced scripting functionalities.
 
SAP Lumira Designer - Conversion Tips & Tricks - Part 2 - 4
 
The new bookmark technical component allows developers to specify the components that need to be bookmarked and define scripts to execute during on-load event of these bookmarks.
 
SAP Lumira Designer - Conversion Tips & Tricks - Part 2 - 5
 
Due to change in application genuine ID, bookmarks created in SAP Design Studio 1.x will not be available in SAP Lumira Designer unless they are recreated as a technical component.
 
Personalization & Exports: Personalization scripts and Exports have also been deprecated and are now available as Personalization Technical Component and Exporting technical component. We also have a new API available to get the personalized state as a bookmark.
 
Conditional Formatting: SAP Lumira Designer continues to support exceptions defined at the query level in UI components like crosstab and spreadsheet. However, there is a new technical component in SAP Lumira 2.0 for Conditional formatting where preset and dynamic rules can be defined and assigned to multiple components. Where BEX exceptions and conditional formatting component coexist, configurations made in the technical component take precedence.

Got questions? Click here to get in touch.

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Custom Groupings and Hierarchies in SAP Lumira Discovery

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This is part of the SAP Lumira Discovery blog series.

Custom Grouping allows users to create a new dimension by combining existing dimensions. SAP Lumira Discovery allows users to perform Custom groupings on the fly to group data for ease of analysis and reporting.
 
How to create custom groupings?
 
In the Data View, right-click on the Column on which you want to create the Custom Grouping and select Group by.
 
custom groupings and discoveries in SAP Lumira Discovery - 1
 
There are two kinds of groupings supported in Lumira Discovery,

  1. Group by Selection: used mainly for text fields
  2. Group by Range: used mainly for numeric and date fields

 
Group by Selection
 
When you are grouping by Selection, the Group by Selection window will appear as below.
 
custom groupings and discoveries in SAP Lumira Discovery - 2
 
In the above example, a Custom group is created on State based on its location. The custom group that you create will get added as a new dimension. In the Group Selection window, you can specify the name of your custom grouping in Dimension Name. You can then specify the Group Names and add members from the list on the left. You can add new groups by clicking on the plus icon in the top-right. Groups can also be deleted by clicking on the Delete icon next to the group name. There is also an option available to group all the remaining values.

Below highlighted column is the custom group that has been create –
 
custom groupings and discoveries in SAP Lumira Discovery - 3
 
Group by Range
 
Custom Groups can also be created based on Range. The below window appears when Group by Range is clicked.
 
custom groupings and discoveries in SAP Lumira Discovery - 4
 
Here again, a new dimension column is created for the grouped values. We can specify the name of the new dimension. For the interval definitions shown in the screenshot, 5 intervals will be created consisting an equal number of alphabets from A to R. The state names beginning with the remaining alphabets will be grouped under ‘Others’ as defined. Below is the resulting column.
 
custom groupings and discoveries in SAP Lumira Discovery - 5
 
We can then replace these range values with the dimensions name as desired.

We can now create groups in SAP Lumira Discovery without having to rely on changes in the backend systems to categorize our data for better analysis. This functionality will be very useful while creating buckets to group a set of dimension values together or while grouping locations according to their geography. Users can then drill down on required groups to view pertaining data in more detail. Creating groups makes analysis easier and our visualizations cleaner. This can then later be leveraged in Custom Hierarchies.

Interested to learn how to leverage SAP Lumira for your enterprise (or) train your business users in SAP Lumira Discovery? Reach out to us today.

 

The post Custom Groupings and Hierarchies in SAP Lumira Discovery appeared first on Visual BI Solutions.

Custom Dimensions and Measures using Formulas in SAP Lumira Discovery

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This is part of the SAP Lumira Discovery blog series.

Custom dimensions and measures are like any other fields available in the data set, except that you create them yourself during design time without having to make changes to the backend. SAP Lumira Discovery allows users to create custom dimensions and measures on the fly; this is a pretty simple yet powerful feature. The ability to customize dimensions and measures at design time provides users the flexibility to play around with data to create insightful stories.
 

Creating custom dimensions and measures

 
Custom dimensions and measures can be created in several ways in SAP Lumira Discovery –

You can head to the below highlighted icon available in Data View or Design View to Create Calculations
 
Custom Dimensions and Measures using Formulas in SAP Lumira Discovery - 1
 
You can also right-click on the dimension name in the panel that lists all the dimensions and measures available in the data set and then select Create Calculations
 
Custom Dimensions and Measures using Formulas in SAP Lumira Discovery - 2
 
You can also right-click on the dimension or measure column in the Data View and then select Create Calculations
 
Custom Dimensions and Measures using Formulas in SAP Lumira Discovery - 3
 
When you click on Create Calculations using any of the above options, an Editor pops up to,

  • Create: specify whether you are creating a custom dimension or a custom measure
  • Name: provide the name of the custom dimension or measure
  • Simple Formulas: specify the calculation for the custom dimension or measure

 
Custom Dimensions and Measures using Formulas in SAP Lumira Discovery - 4
 
Below the formula editor is a dropdown menu called Functions which lists a set of pre-defined calculations. There are a range of calculation options available. Each of these functions also have an explanation and an example to their right which makes customizing dimensions and measures much easier for users.
 
Custom Dimensions and Measures using Formulas in SAP Lumira Discovery - 5
 
There is also a Dimension dropdown menu available which lists all the available dimensions and measures in the dataset on which you want to create the custom dimension or measure.

You can also use a function within a function to create custom dimensions or measures. Here, I wanted Customer Information in the following format Customer ID – Customer Name for which I have used the below mentioned formula –
 
Custom Dimensions and Measures using Formulas in SAP Lumira Discovery - 6
 
Publishing to SAP HANA

When we use a HANA view as our data source, a new option called ‘Data Mode’ is visible next to the ‘Preview’ button. Data view displays all the dimensions in the data source along with the number of occurrences. We can also change this to display any measure of our choice.
 
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When we create a new calculation in an SAP Lumira Discovery story, we may often need to reuse them in other stories. In this case we can export the manipulated data back to HANA and publish it to an existing or a new HANA view. To do this, head over to the File option and select Publish to SAP HANA.
 
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This opens a new window where we can select the required HANA view and publish our data changes. We also have options to create a new view or package within this window.
 
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The option to create custom dimensions and measures is an extremely useful feature and it is also easy to use. It allows users the flexibility to play around with data and publish the manipulated data back to SAP HANA. These options make it easier to customize dimensions and measures for creating insightful stories, or reusing them in other stories by publishing to HANA.

More details on the individual features can be found by clicking on the hyperlinks/title. This information is based on the current product and road map and is bound to change.

Interested to learn how to leverage SAP Lumira for your enterprise (or) train your business users in SAP Lumira Discovery? Reach out to us today.

The post Custom Dimensions and Measures using Formulas in SAP Lumira Discovery appeared first on Visual BI Solutions.

Simple Use of Formulas in SAP Lumira Discovery

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This is part of the SAP Lumira Discovery blog series.

SAP Lumira Discovery is an integrating data visualization software that consolidates all the granular details in a simple single view from multiple data sources. This allows insertion of calculated measures and dimensions in the form of formulas. Those formulas support 5 different functions,

  1. Character
  2. Date and Time
  3. Misc
  4. Numeric
  5. Operator

These functions will help you to create calculated measures and dimensions during the design time. For example, if you want to display variance and variance % of cost and the data source doesn’t have the variance measure, the query does not demand an alteration, instead this can be achieved during the design time in SAP Lumira Discovery.
 

How do we achieve this?

 
Let’s assume to have a data source Sales, and consider Material, Sales and Cost
 
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Click create calculation.
 
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Calculations pop up will appear and select measure. Enter name of the calculated measure.
 
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Enter the formula for variance. Click the Measures drop down menu located below the formula area and we will get list of the measures which we have in the data source.
 
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Now, double click on the required measure to use in formula.

Here the formula for variance is (Sales – Cost). Use this formula and click ok.
 
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You can find the calculated measure under measures list,
 
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An important feature to note is the small tutorial which guides us on how to use each formula,
 
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We can use this measure in visuals to analyze the variance.
 
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This is a simple use case for formulas. Also refer to the blog on Custom Dimensions and Measures

More details on the individual features can be found by clicking on the hyperlinks/title. This information is based on the current product and road map and is bound to change.

Interested to learn how to leverage SAP Lumira for your enterprise (or) train your business users in SAP Lumira Discovery? Reach out to us today.

The post Simple Use of Formulas in SAP Lumira Discovery appeared first on Visual BI Solutions.

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