SAP BI books, books & books!

It’s a great era for those of us who like to learn about SAP BI topics by themselves, at your own pace and at a moment that is the most suitable. We have the openSAP online courses on HANA and BI4, there is Twitter, the blogs, podcasts and of course the good old books. Lots of SAP BI books I must say. In this post I made an overview of the books that just have been released and the ones that are coming in the near future.

Implementing SAP HANA, by Don Loden, Jonathan Haun, Chris Hickman, and Roy Wells, ISBN 978-1-59229-856-3, 838 pages.

Currently the #1 selling book at SAP Press about the more than epic HANA platform; the #1 topic at SAP TechEd this year. This book offers the practical details about implementing SAP HANA, plus the integration of SAP Data Services and the SAP BusinessObjects BI tools with SAP HANA.

100 Things You Should Know about SAP NetWeaver BW, by Andrew Joo and Buntic Georgian, ISBN 978-1-59229-447-3, 369 pages.

100 tips and tricks to make your work as a SAP BI consultant more efficient. Real-world examples/problems, short chapters, practical step-by-step instructions and a lot of screenshots. Cookbook style, so I like!

Getting Started with SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio, by Xavier Hacking and Jeroen van der A, ISBN 978-1-59229-895-2, 504 pages.

Yeah of course the book I worked on myself needs to be in this list. A brand new book on this brand new tool, covering everything you need to know to get started with Design Studio! More info and a nice discount coupon code here.

Universe Design with SAP BusinessObjects BI: The Comprehensive Guide, by Christian Ah-Soon, Pierpaolo Vezzosi, and Didier Mazoué, ISBN 978-1-59229-901-0, ±650 pages, expected release December 2013.

I think this book will be the first in-depth guide to the Information Design Tool, which can be used to create those BI4 UNX universes.

Predictive Analysis with SAP: The Comprehensive Guide, by John MacGregor, ISBN 978-1-59229-915-7, ±500 pages, expected release December 2013.

I joined the hands-on session at TechEd to play around with Predictive Analysis for the first time. I expect this book to bring me a bit further than the basics and do some real analysis and modeling.

Integrating SAP BusinessObjects BI with SAP NetWeaver (3rd Edition), by Info Hilgefort, ISBN 978-1-59229-923-2, ±550 pages, expected release December 2013.

I love the first two editions of this book. They were really helpful in setting up the SAP BusinessObjects BI platform on top of SAP BW. This version will be up to date for BI4.1.

SAP NetWeaver BW: Administration and Performance Optimization, by Jesper Christensen and Joe Darlak, ISBN 978-1-59229-853-2, ±750 pages, expected release June 2014.

BW is not dead (yet), so this one is for the back-end guys to keep BW running smoothly. I expect this book to cover a lot of the contents of the 2010 release SAP NetWeaver BW: Administration and Monitoring, but we’ll see.

So, which one(s) will be under your Christmas tree next month?

Getting Started with Design Studio book now available (coupon code in post!)

Getting Started with SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio is available for order right now! If you haven’t picked it up at the SAP Press book stand at SAP TechEd Las Vegas or Amsterdam you can get your copy now at SAP-Press.com. Make sure you use coupon code QR7N5G when finishing your order, which will give you a nice $10 discount. This offer is valid until December 31st, for any book format you choose (hardcover print or ebook).

So what can you expect from this title?

SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio is one of the youngest and most promising new toolsets in the SAP BusinessObjects product portfolio. It is being positioned by SAP as the primary tool for creating interactive analytical applications for the web and mobile devices. This book will help you to learn not only the technical ins and outs of this new tool, but also provide you with the required contextual knowledge to position Design Studio in your existing SAP BI landscape. By the way, don’t worry about the technical stuff. No pre-existing knowledge is required as we will walk you through every aspect of Design Studio in a step-by-step way, using a lot of screenshots.

The book starts with a broad overview of Design Studio. In the first chapters we introduce you to the product, compare it with other SAP (BI) products and discuss several use case scenarios.

Next we follow this by going through every detail of the application. First we walk you step-by-step through the installation procedure. Then we describe the application environment and the general process of building an application. Next we describe every available component and its properties in detail.

Once you have mastered the basics, we go into more depth about how you can enhance an application. We describe how you add interactivity and give you a set of guidelines for creating applications. We then walk you through the creation of two complex applications. The source files and code for these applications are available as a download.

I put the table of contents in the Read More section below this post so you can check the contents and structure in more detail. So have fun reading our book and let us know what you think. Also don’t forget to use the coupon code QR7N5G when ordering!

Getting Started with SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio – Xavier Hacking and Jeroen van der A – SAP Press – ISBN: 978-1-59229-895-2

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Getting Started with SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio book

Wow, it’s not even three years ago that I announced the release of the SAP BusinessObjectsDashboards 4.0 Cookbook here at this place, and now I can already announce a second book I worked on: Getting Started with SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio, which will be published by SAP Press. This time I teamed up with my Interdobs colleague Jeroen van der A to write this book.

As the title already indicates this new book is all about one of the youngest SAP BusinessObjects tools: Design Studio. Design Studio offers a toolset to create interactive analytical applications and dashboards on top of SAP BW and SAP HANA data sources. The apps we can create with this tool are fully HTML5 compatible and can therefor be run on any device. Design Studio is also introduced by SAP as the successor of the current BEx Web Application Designer and SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards (Xcelsius).

At the moment the book is going through its final edits and reviews. Our goal is to have it available just in time for SAP TechEd Las Vegas, which is at the end of October. When the final edits are done I will post some more information on the exact contents of the book.

Getting Started with SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio – SAP Press
ISBN: 978-1-59229-895-2

Wish I could share my espresso beans with @Hyronimous and @xjhacking, who have devoted many a late night to this: http://t.co/Toeb8164Au

— Kelly Grace Weaver (@kellygweaver) September 6, 2013

@Hyronimous Looking forward to giving you your weekends back VERY soon!! 🙂

— Kelly Grace Weaver (@kellygweaver) September 7, 2013

Remember that Design Studio book I teased? You should probably check it out. http://t.co/Toeb8164Au

— Kelly Grace Weaver (@kellygweaver) August 29, 2013

SAP Press finally goes e-reader!

As of this month SAP Press offers its books not only in paper and from its online library, but also in downloadable formats PDF, ePUB and Mobi.

I’ve read (and reviewed) a lot of the SAP Press books on SAP BI and most of them are really really good and worth the money because they save me a lot of time. I always make sure I also get the online version of the book too, so I have all the information accessible all the time to look up things when I’m on the job.

The online library feature is nice, but you always need an active internet connection and you can’t scroll through the books as fast as in a PDF-file on your local machine. So I’m glad they finally offer this most-wanted feature.

We are pleased to announce that more than 25 of our newest releases and most popular titles are available right now in multiple download formats. Going forward, ALL newly published titles will have e-book download formats available (in addition to print and online formats) upon publication.

SAP Press now offers the following digital formats:

PDF to run on Macs/PCs, desktops/laptops, iPhones/iPads and a multitude of other devices.
ePUB for tablets, mobile devices or eReader.
Mobi files can be read on any Kindle device.
The already available Online Library to be used within an Internet browser like Chrome or Safari.

These files are DRM free so you can use them really on any device. The only limitation is that you can only download each format 5 times and the file will have a digital watermark.

They eventually will also provide e-book version of older titles. If you haven’t ‘upgraded’ your print book to an online/e-book version you should hurry; next month they will kill this $10/20-upgrade option. I have no idea why.

Please note, codes printed inside books and free trials that have not been activated or upgraded will ALL expire after December 7, 2012. You must activate and/or upgrade by this date. Any unused codes or expired trials can no longer be utilized under any circumstances after December 7, 2012.

Check it at SAP-Press.com.

Book review: SAP NetWeaver BW and SAP BusinessObjects – The Comprehensive Guide

Let’s have a look at another SAP BI book that SAP Press released this year: SAP NetWeaver BW and SAP BusinessObjects – The Comprehensive Guide. SAP Press is on a great streak and later this year we can expect even more releases from them on HANA, Web Intelligence, ABAP for BW, SAP BusinessObjects Administration and Security.

But, let’s go back to the SAP BW/BO Comprehensive Guide. My first thought when I unwrapped this book was: “Wow, this one is FAT!” Look at it; almost 800 pages! Like most of the SAP Press books this one text-intensive with a 75/25 text to picture ratio so this would take some time to go cover to cover.

I got a bit worried when I scanned the topic list. This book discusses the whole (!) SAP Business Intelligence spectrum. This is SAP BW en SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform (including Data Services) for the backend, and for the frontend the BEx tools (Query Designer, Analyzer, Web Analyzer, Web Application Designer) and the complete SAP BusinessObjects portfolio (Web Intelligence, Crystal Reports, Analysis, Dashboards, Explorer). Even BW Integrated Planning and SAP SEM-BCS have their own chapter. This is a whole lot of content to cover, even in a 800 pager.

They left the horrible BEx Report Designer (yes it still exists somewhere!) out of scope and at the time of writing Visual Intelligence and SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio weren’t that far in development. HANA and SAP Mobile are mentioned a few times but not really discussed in detail. By the way this book is updated up to SAP BW 7.3 and SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0.

After reading it I feel a bit confused. It is not clear what the real purpose of this book is and what should be the right audience for this publication? Let me take you through it.

It starts of in the first part with an introduction to the business intelligence and its concepts (“What is BI, what is a Data Warehouse etc.) and introduces the BW and BI4.0 platforms and their features. This ‘overview’ part is written on a level that is understandable for newbies or managers without any knowledge of the SAP BI world they might be entering.

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