TM1 9.5.1 SAP Connector

[vaneagle]

Hi All,

We are exploring using the SAP connector to extract data from SAP and SAP BW.

Has anyone else gone through this process?

If so, Was there much of a performance impact on the SAP side? Obviously depending on how much data getting pulled back will have an impact!

What challenges on the system side did you face?

Is your business better of with the SAP Connector or worse off? Is life easier or harder? Better productivity?

For the SAP IT Team was it easier with or without the SAP Connector?

What benefits did you acheive?

Other considerations?

Many questions I know but I am very curious to see others think and have experienced.

vaneagle

[vaneagle]

wow, that good hey!

Ok, any other version of the SAP connector or do people just not use it when they have SAP / BW?

[Alan Kirk]

wow, that good hey!

Ok, any other version of the SAP connector or do people just not use it when they have SAP / BW?

Can't speak for anyone else, but with the two SAP ECC6 systems that we use we just get scheduled, exported flat files. However we don't need to update the data very often; once per day is the maximum and more importantly it takes the queries a while to run anyway, so it's better to schedule them overnight. In those circumstances the exported flat file method works better for us than the SAP Connector would.

Obviously if we had need of more regular refreshes we'd look at that option, but it just hasn't been necessary up to this point.

I'm sure that there are some TM1 users using it, but whether there are enough of them who happen to see this thread and/or have time to respond to it is anyone's guess.

[tomok]

I doubt you'll get any replies. Up until just recently the SAP Connector was a separate product, and quite expensive at that. I've done numerous projects with SAP but used flat files on all of them except for the latest one and the client used Cognos Datamanager on that one because they needed to load Cognos Controller too. IBM probably decided to bundle it in because they weren't selling it to anyone anyway.

[vaneagle]

Thanks for the replies.

Only reason we are investigating it is it is now free with 9.5.1. Otherwise we would stick with our flat file extracts. Hopefully it won't be too slow extracting the data we are after. Time will tell.

[Ronan Clifford]

Hi,

I am also looking into the process of getting the connector turned on between SAP and TM1. Due to the size and scale of some of the processes I currently use SAP for, having connector seems the most logical approach. Has anyone gone through the process yet? It would be great to get some feed back.

Thanks,

Rónán

[David Usherwood]

I have seen some quite negative postings but not recently. Two possibilities:
1 The issues were sorted by IBM;
2 Users gave up.
It would be very good to know whether it is being used in anger anywhere.
I do know sites who looked at it and went for Cubeware Importer instead.

[Ronan Clifford]

Thanks David. Have been looking online and you are right, not much word on success stories.

I currently have a feed coming from Oracle into a data warehouse and then on into TM1. The company are in the process of switching to SAP so would like to have the same straight through processing that hopefully this connector will allow.

[moby91]

On how to use the TM1 Package Connector see the Chapter 8: "Access SAP Data Sources Using IBM Cognos TM1 Package Connector", page 133 to 165, in the Cognos Proven Practice: "IBM Cookbook for IBM Cognos 8.4 for use with SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse" ->


http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/data/ ... ge468.html
SAP Cookbook For IBM Cognos 8 BI

Summary:
This document is intended to provide a single point of reference for techniques and product behaviours when dealing with SAP BW and SAP ECC as data sources in IBM Cognos 8 BI. UPDATED

Topics covered include:

* SAP BW Objects and Bex Queries
* IBM Cognos 8 Framework Manager and SAP BW
* IBM Cognos 8 Report Studio and SAP BW
* IBM Cognos 8 Query Studio and SAP BW
* IBM Cognos TM1 9.5.1 and SAP ECC & SAP BW
* IBM Cognos Virtual View Manager (VVM) and SAP ECC

http://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/dw/d ... okbook.pdf


When you intend to use the TM1 Package Connector, in addition to a TM1 consultant you will need a seasoned BI consultant to take care of the Package Connector itself, as it is basically a Cognos BI application, and a seasoned SAP Business Explorer (BEx) consultant to develop the BEx queries to be executed by the Package Connector.

[lotsaram]

When you intend to use the TM1 Package Connector, in addition to a TM1 consultant you will need a seasoned BI consultant to take care of the Package Connector itself, as it is basically a Cognos BI application, and a seasoned SAP Business Explorer (BEx) consultant to develop the BEx queries to be executed by the Package Connector.

I concur. That's a pretty accurate summary. Maybe you don't need a true Cognos BI guru as setting up the Framework Manager packages in itself is quite straightforward but you certainly need someone on the SAP BW side who does really know their stuff. Tuning BEx queries seems to be a real dark art, getting the segmentation variables right (that is do you get best performance with fewer larger queries or more smaller queries) seems to be achievable only via trial and error and can make a huge difference to performance.

[vaneagle]

Hi,

Have recently been through the process is dev and you don't need a COGNOS Bi guru as such. A TM1 consultant yes.

There are some 'tricks' that the manual's don't provide. Once we get this promoted to production i will have the task of writing BW queries which i will then use to tap bw to get the data into TM1. The SAP cookbook mentioned is not to bad to follow though nothing replaces experience....

vaneagle

[gmellor]

I have recently taken on the support for our Head Office's version on TM1 where they are using SAP Connector on 9.5.1 fairly successfully..... But they could not get it to work on 9.5.2. A ticket has been logged with IBM, i will update this post if they come back with anything useful.

[paulcunnington]

Hi Guys, just joined the forum so be gentle with me!

Will post my comments in the commercial sector.

Paul

[tomok]

Hi Guys, just joined the forum so be gentle with me!

The only thing I'll say is that there is a commercial section for spamming. Don't hawk your wares in the support section.

[qml]

Tomok is right. @paulcunnington, you really need to read the forum policies before posting. Specifically look at these two points:

- Similarly if you have services or products that you want to promote, you can make a single "introducing me or my product" post in the Commercial forum. (...)
- If a user posts about a problem that they're having and you think that your product or service can fix it, please link them to your post in the Commercial forums. "Boosting" your product in the main forums isn't acceptable.

[paulcunnington]

Thanks Guys, got the message and good luck!