Step-by-Step to define a Scorecard with Trend Charts visualizations. We will try to go through all possible charts.

First, we start with a data source, using a CSV will allow you to reproduce this locally (app will be available for download). Our data source is looking like this:

To show more features, we will allow 2 free dimensions for charts.

1. As usual, add scorecard, attach data source and pay attention on selection of the row scope... 2 dimensions should be free, 3 dimensions are in the data source rows, it means we can select only the first dimensions.

2. the initial generated scorecard looks like this:

3. we will concentrate on column 3 (currently bar chart). Even you cannot see this in the selection dialog for Actual Values, the selection is as below. The generated selection cannot be displayed correctly in the dialog.

I have marked the dimension which is not selected in the dialog. When you follow the initial blog, Design Studio 1.6 - View on Scorecard Component you can analyze what this selection means.

* Scope is the first dimension (regions), so this will get removed as this is controlled by rows.

* We do not select the second dimensions (product groups), therefore from this dimension we get selected all members - this can be later controlled by "with results" or "without results".

* In the third dimension (quarters) we select the "Summe" member, it means there will be all sums selected.

* Last part are the measures - we select billed quantity

The effect are 5 product groups as bar chart.

4. now we will switch to the line chart. to make the selection a bit more interesting, we will select line chart (in the example I have copied the column to column 5).

Desription: Billed Quantity for Internet by Quarters

Selection:

In this case, I want to show a line on Internet as product (dimension 2) group and all quarters (dimension 3). Still, as the dimension 1 is controlled by row scope, the selection in this dialog is only to visualize it better.

As in the property "Selection Mode" we select "All Members, skip results", the visualization will show only 4 quarters:

5. to make bettter comparison across rows, you can always deactivate the automatic scale, then it looks like this.

Now, you can see that some lines are at the bottom of the row (e.g. 657T in row 2) and some are very hight (e.g. 5347T in row 3). This is because I have set the scale to:

6. LIne chart has one additional function - you can set a fix value for target, then the properties look like:

and then additional line for target will be placed:

7. now we go a bit further, we will change to Bubbles Chart. This chart can handle 3 measures - X Y and Z axis, where Z is the size of the buble.

8. We will select the data for X axis additionally, basically the second measure.

and very important...

9. set again fixed axes minimum and maximum values, this will allow you to compare between rows.

10. then the effect is like this:

(red marked are the points)

- so this chart can bring you the distribution based on 2 dimensions.

11. of course, you can put also third dimension for size - I will use the first dimension as this query has only 2 dimensions.

do not forget to adjust also the manual max and min for the bubbles. now the bubles are a bit different, the size is changing.

and also in those charts you can use the conditional formats as described in Scorecard: Step by Step to Nice Visualization (Conditional Format).

Example

I have exported the data source to CSV and the example is available here.

applications/SCN_SCORECARD_LINE-20160421234814.zip

You can find the scorecard definition together with used CSV data source - it works locally.

Based on those 3 blogs on the definitions, feel free to ask any missing topics.

Each year the Business Application Research Center (BARC) is conducting survey across the SAP customers on the topic of BI and is then collecting all the feedback from the customers and present their findings and their view on the overall portfolio in comparison to other products.

I can only highly recommend to take this short survey (takes about 15 minutes of your time) as you are not only get to share your feedback, but you will also receive a summary of the survey and I am sure it will be an interesting read.

Please following this link - BARC BI Survey 2016 - and take the 15 min to give your input to this survey.

    Standard Design Studio analytic components such as chart and crosstab do support of drill downs along a hierarchy. Drill Down functionality can be modeled a number of different ways. In any case, drill down implementation should meet following requirement:

• intuitive user interface;
• convenience of use;
• consistent look with other components.

In my drill down implementation I tried to meet all the requirements mentioned above.

I created an analytical application that uses SFLIGHT data model data and drill downs along following hierarchy Carrier -> Airplane Type -> Flight.

If user clicks on Carrier, then data is filtered by selected Carrier, drill downs changes to Airplane Type.

Selected Carrier is displayed in custom built Filter Line.

If user clicks on Plane Type, then data is filtered by selected Plane Type and drill down is changed to Flight.

Selected Airplane Type is displayed in custom built Filer Line.

Filter Line displays not only filter values, but also drill down level.

Filter Line allows to navigate one level up by clicking on Airplane Type tile cross icon.

Filter Line also allows quickly navigate all way to the top of the hierarchy clicking on Carrier tile cross icon.

Attached is an exported model (change extension to zip prior to importing)

You have plans to build a dashboard application, but which SAP technology should you go with?

You have a choice of technology ranging from:

1. SAPUI5, which in turn is based on OpenUI5 and HTML5.
2. SAP Fiori, which is based on the SAP Fiori UX and SAPUI5.
3. SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform, with its associated ‘Design Studio’ Application.

All these options come with pros and cons depending upon your use case. Starting with one of these technologies, for the all right reasons, doesn’t necessarily mean that sticking with that choice in the long term is right, should you find your use case changes.

The trick is to ensure that any project, based on one technology, stays within its sweet spot and doesn’t scope creep into the other.  If you allow it to scope creep, then you may need to consider switching technologies.

This blog is intended to give a high level overview of these technologies mentioned, helping you to ensure any project either stays within its sweet spot, or allowing you to be more conscious of the others. Hopefully then, enabling you to switch technologies at a time when there would have less impact to overall cost of ownership.

Development

SAPUI5

A development environment of your choice allows complete coding freedom with JavaScript and HTML. There are hundreds of rich UI controls to re-use plus many richer controls, for example:

• A Model-Viewer-Control (MVC) for the separate the representation of information from the user interaction.
• Data binding controls to perform actions on data allowing for linking to a UI controls.
• Navigating and routing controls.

There are many more available at openui5. Your IDE can be anything of your choosing. However you can also use SAP Web IDE or Eclipse with a SAPUI5 Tools add-on.

SAP Fiori

If you intend to develop a SAP Fiori app you will probably use the:

• SAP Web IDE (for building on top of ABAP and SAP HANA Cloud Platform).
• SAP HANA Studio or the SAP HANA Web-based Development Workbench (for HANA native applications).

All are capable for building Fiori applications.

A comprehensive set of services are provided including things like User Experience, Analytics, Security, Internet of Things and Storage etc. All this within a Web IDE that provides features including:

• CVOM Chart controls
• Templates and samples and an extensive library of existing applications
• Drag and drop WYSIWYG development environment
• Develop on the web, but publish/export to any destination including the cloud, Fiori Launchpad on premise, enterprise portal.

If you are just changing the look and feel of an existing app then no coding is necessary, however assuming you’ll building a custom app, as the focus of this blog, then you will need to write code to manage the data, the visualisations and the overall “mechanics”.

A ‘mock server’ simulates back-end calls making it easy to test an application without the need to deploy it. A mock data editor helps you create the data in the right format.

Whilst samples and a library of applications are provided, for a custom application it is unlikely that you could extend any of these, though that is a possibility. You are likely to build a new application from scratch using a template.

BI Platform

Design Studio provides a WYSIWYG client side development environment in an Eclipse Framework. The environment comes with components you can simply drag and drop onto your canvas, such as charts, tables, maps, scorecards etc. Whilst you can build a simple dashboard without scripting, typically at least some scripting is required is enable things like loading data sources in the background; or managing layers on a map component to enable a user to interact with it. The script will be server-side Java script and CSS style sheets. The environment is designed to reduce coding and so naturally there are parts of the application you cannot touch. So it’s not as flexible as native UI5 coding from that perspective, but then it’s not meant to be.

A comprehensive set of components are provided. However if you wanted a different visualization or custom component then the SDKs provides the answer, with many open source components available via GitHub or available to purchase with support from Partners through SAP Analytics Extensions Directory.

Developing a visualisation once and re-using the same visualisation in Lumira is possible.

Sweet Spots

Data

SAPUI5

The SAPUI5 library provides controls to consume and manage OData data streams. Most of the RESTful URL parameters are handled automatically however you need to bind data to elements.

Your data sources are thus limited to only those that expose OData consumption.

SAP Fiori

Adding to SAPUI5, SAP Fiori data provides an OData Model editor with a SAP Web IDE plug-in. Data used, to ‘instantly preview’ can either be the live data or ‘mock-data’ provided by the Web IDE framework.

Developing in the cloud for on premise data typically requires the use of a secure tunnel, with the SAP HANA Cloud Connector, between SAP HANA Cloud Platform and your premise. As mentioned earlier, the mock data and mock server removes any barriers to rapid develop-test cycles.

HANA/S4HANA exposes OData streams with Core Data Services (CDS) Views. Re-use of existing CDS views is possible. BW Queries exposes OData by enabling “Easy Queries”

BI Platform

Connect directly to BW and HANA OLAP sources or with Universes for almost all relational sources making the list of data sources truly vast.

Existing BW Queries and HANA Views with direct connectivity providing native support. For example OLAP features that come out-of-the-box include things like

• Hierarchy support
• Time-dependent characteristics
• Drill-down

The relational features, though the Universe Semantic Layer, include things like

• Abstraction of technical complexity of the database implementation to a business orientated view
• High re-use of the Universe since it has a rich query interface allowing for varied and complex queries
• Multiple data sources and the joining of data across them
• Optimised SQL generation provides very comprehensive performance optimisation including things like parallel queries, dynamic in-line views, dynamic use of aggregates, etc.

Design Studio provides the ability to re-use your existing HANA/BW or BI Platform investment in Universes and all the security controls around that. This may also include filtering of data by user/group, or dynamically switching data connection depending upon the user/group.

Even if you chose not to use Design Studio for your custom application, you can still use the BI Platform to expose Universe data via a RESTful ODdata data stream. The BI Platform provides an ‘OData Query Service’ allowing you to create a query ‘on the fly’ and retrieve data. This means you can re-use your semantic layer, connect to almost any data source, and not require the skills to create OData schema and connect it to data.

Sweet Spots

Change and Life Cycle Management

SAPUI5

You need to manage this entirely by yourself.

SAP Fiori

Environment (dev, test, prod) are managed with the use of multiple HANA Cloud Platform accounts. You need one for each environment. This with the ability to import/export to/from Git and external applications provides the change manage controls for your application.

BI Platform

Version Management check-in and check-out is provided out-of-the-box allowing developers to manage their content development. Promotion Management allows you to add all the associated content in a single ‘promotion job’ providing comprehensive control over the promotion of content from one environment (dev, test, prod) to another. It also allows you to be sure that a complete package is operation in the target.  Features like rollback are provided too allowing easy recovery options. Integration with SAP CTS+ is also available should you want to ensure any SAP dependencies are managed as one package.

Sweet Spots

Updating

SAPUI5 / SAP Fiori

Whether you develop a custom app from scratch or you are able to extent an existing Fiori application, then updating to the new version shouldn’t be too problematic. Some basic testing would be needed at a minimum.

Extending an existing Fiori application reduces the re-development as the extension doesn’t actually touch the original application allowing you to gain from any improves SAP provides.

BI Platform

Updating the BI Platform and Design Studio application shouldn’t be complicated either. Any existing application should always work in a more recent product version, though again, some basic testing would be needed at a minimum. Often, though not always, updating will introduce performance optimisation for just ‘republishing’ the same Design Studio Application to the BI Platform providing a ‘free’ performance boost with almost no effort.

Sweet Spots

License

SAPUI5

It’s completely free of license.

SAP Fiori

You can obtain a free 90 day trial and it’s also free for all SAP customers.

BI Platform

You require the SAP BI Suite license. If you have an old Dashboards (Xcelisus) license then you also have the rights to use Design Studio, though you’ll need to double check with your SAP representative. Users consuming data through the BI Platform need to be licensed.

Sweet Spots

Enterprise Features

SAPUI5 / SAP Fiori

Enterprise features are limited to the data source. For example S4HANA sources provides security on the data via Authorisations.

BI Platform

A comprehensive suite of out-of-the-box features including:

• Auditing of user activity for compliance regulations
• Language and translation support
• Security and access right management covering resources, data access, application rights/features
• Tenancy management
• Lineage and impact analysis with the use of Information Steward, Auditing and ‘Query Builder’ queries on the CMS database.

Sweet Spots

Integration with Fiori Launchpad

SAP Fiori

Built for the Fiori Launchpad adding tiles or adding cards to Fiori Overview Page is straightforward. This enables you to create a ‘Smart Business Cockpit’.

BI Platform

A simple app launcher tile can be added to the Fiori Launchpad to allow the user to open any BI Platform document, including a Design Studio Application. This blog is for how to add a tile to open a Lumira document, but the principal explained applies to Design Studio Applications, or any document type supported by ‘OpenDocument’.

Sweet Spots

Performance

SAPUI5 / SAP Fiori

The client browser loads metadata services that are bound to controls and this can impact performance. So you may need to avoid loading, for example, the big chart library (CVOM) until you really need to use it. Equally loading multiple OData calls will impact performance. You can bundle multiple OData calls into a single OData operation (with $batch) to keep under the recommend 2 sequential calls per dialog step.

BI Platform

Just like a custom SAP Fiori application, the Design Studio Application also needs to be designed with performance in mind, for example loading data sources in the background and parallel loading of those data sources.

There are a bunch of things and recommendations to follow, see SAP Note 1931691 - Performance hints for Design Studio applications

Generally speaking, a simple Fiori applications will load quite fast, potentially faster than an equivalent Design Studio application. However as soon as you start to add more complexity, adding charts and more interactive controls, then the Design Studio application will typically outperform its Fiori equivalent.

When using Scorecard and the micro charts, there is sometimes a requirement to mark one row with special color to visualize the exception or some other property (attribute). In the blog Scorecard: Step by Step to Nice Visualization (Conditional Format) I have explained how to use the predefined values (good, bad and 10 others known from BW):

in order to mark the chart.

Sometimes you have your own color which you would like to use..

There are 2 options to achieve that.

Option 1.

When you scroll down, there is one "Custom" position - but when selected, nothing is happening. This is intended, as this position is prepared to allow custom definition which can be made in CSS. The use case is, you want to have one member always in some custom color.

First, go to the CSS and define the custom with following content:

.makeItPink .sapXTableBCItemValue.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableBCForecastBarValue.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableCmpChartItemValue.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableCmpChartBarValue.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableCmpTileItemValue.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableCmpTileItemScale.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableCmpTileBarValue.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableCmcLbl.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableUiCommonsJCValue.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableMacLbl.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableUiCommonsNCValue.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableUiCommonsNCScale.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableDmcDelta.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableDTBItemValue.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableMacTarget.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableMacChart.Custom,
.makeItPink .XTableHBMCValSclCnt.Custom {  color: pink;
}
.makeItPink .sapXTableBCBarValue.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableDTBBarValue.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableDTBBarValue.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableBCBarValueMarker.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableCmcBar.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableDmcBarDeltaInt.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableMacChart.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableMacLine.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableMacThreshold.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableUiCommonsNCIndicator.Custom,
.makeItPink .sapXTableUiCommonsNT.Custom {  background-color: pink;
}
.makeItPink .XTableHBMCSgmnt.Custom {  fill: pink;
}

the code above is:

* definition all required classes to overwrite the Custom class in all charts.

* definition also "makeItPink" class which you can use in column definition (property "Cell CSS Class")

Then, go to the scorecard and add in this column the class "makeItPink", like here:

as this is defined in one column only, the custom color will be visible in one column, like here:

Alternative is to place the special class on scorecard level, in the general property "CSS Class"

Then all columns will apply the Custom color:

In this case, in column with column chart, only one row is pink as there is additional definition to make it happen:

(this is just to show the logic, of course such "condition" makes no sense - it is just selecting the pure number, you should use the conditional definitions from BW system or definitions created in Analysis Office)

In real live you can also use the "member" selection to select one member to custom color in big tables (like a table with 100 products) - you can mark one special product as you want.

Using the setCssClass method you can also change the definitions in the runtime (assigning different overwrite classes in scorecard)

Option 2.

If you need to have more custom colors, you can also overwrite the standard classes, those are:

ConditionBad1

ConditionBad2

ConditionBad3

ConditionGood1

ConditionGood2

ConditionGood3

ConditionCritical1

ConditionCritical2

ConditionCritical3

then, you can use the structure from above:

.makeItBlue .sapXTableBCItemValue.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableBCForecastBarValue.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableCmpChartItemValue.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableCmpChartBarValue.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableCmpTileItemValue.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableCmpTileItemScale.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableCmpTileBarValue.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableCmcLbl.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableUiCommonsJCValue.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableMacLbl.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableUiCommonsNCValue.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableUiCommonsNCScale.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableDmcDelta.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableDTBItemValue.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableMacTarget.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableMacChart.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .XTableHBMCValSclCnt.ConditionBad1 {  color: blue;
}
.makeItBlue .sapXTableBCBarValue.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableDTBBarValue.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableDTBBarValue.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableBCBarValueMarker.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableCmcBar.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableDmcBarDeltaInt.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableMacChart.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableMacLine.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableMacThreshold.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableUiCommonsNCIndicator.ConditionBad1,
.makeItBlue .sapXTableUiCommonsNT.ConditionBad1 {  background-color: blue;
}
.makeItBlue .XTableHBMCSgmnt.ConditionBad1 {  fill: blue;
}

Changes requried:

1. makeItPink to makeItBlue

2. .Custom to .ConditionBad1 (this one which you want to overwrite)

and the effect is:

(I have changed the Custom to Condition Bad 1 which is now overwritten)

Marking ONE value in column micro chart

Thanks to the finding of Maria Daniela Petersen Marichal, there is also an option to mark one value in the column chart.

How to make it?

1. you have to select a dimension which is IN the chart, it means a dimension which is NOT in row scope definition. In this example it is the DIST_CHANNEL dimension.

2. you can select the key of this dimension and define like this:

The "Member Presentation Part" is depending on your setting how you display members (key / text or text / key).

-> here the KEY 1 corresponds to Dist Channel "Fax", so you always will see FAX as pink.

The effect is:

You are restricted to 9 different members (as the conditional display is restricted to 9 values)

The example app can be downloaded in the repository.

Example

I have exported the data source to CSV and the example is available here.

applications/SCN_SCORECARD_CUSTOM-20160502175636.zip

I hope this explainations will help to understand the custom color

Please meet Anand Chellappa, (pictured to the right) who is a BI Architect responsible design and deployment of global BI data warehouse and BI reporting in Tetra Pak.  Anand is also an ASUG Volunteer for the ASUG Dashboarding Special Interest Group.  His session is A3747 Tetrapak BI Reporting Strategy and Business Empowerment with SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio, Wed, May 18, 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM S331A

The abstract reads as follows:

"Learn how Tetrapak is synergizing IT and business to drive agile business intelligence (BI) strategy using standardized, repeatable, and clearly understood processes across the organization. This session will present the key driving principles for deploying BI strategy within Tetrapak, where Performance = People+Process+Tools."

I asked Anand some questions about his session and below are his replies:

Q: What do you hope attendees will take away from your session?

Attendees would able to draw some similarity to the IT challenges Tetra Pak had to go through and How We have successfully Implemented the strategy to overcome it

Q: Why should people come to your session?

With the disruption happening in the IT world in relation to the technology, this session does take you thru how Tetra Pak has adjusted and embraced change

themselves to take advantage of the changes to drive benefits in terms of cost and agility

Anand's co-presenter is Sukumar Natarajan of SAP, pictured to the right..

See a sneak preview of some their slides below:

Source: ASUG/Tetra Pak

Anand and Tetra Pak are very active in the ASUG Design Studio Influence Council, influencing enhancements in the area of bookmarks and context menus.

Source: ASUG/Tetra Pak

Listen to Anand explain their real world experience, and learn how you can apply it back at your place of work.  I encourage you to add sessionA3747 Tetrapak BI Reporting Strategy and Business Empowerment with SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio to your agenda today

Resources:

ASUG BI Annual Conference Session Schedule

ASUG BI Session Schedule with links

Upcoming ASUG Webcasts

Join ASUG May 10 What's New with Design Studio 1.6 Feature Pack webcast

Dear Design Studio Guru's / Users / Lovers

Do you like SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio and would you like to give your thoughts in the direction of analytics? Please do participate in the 2016 BI Survey and provide your insights for Design Studio to make it count in the bigger story..

The more feedback received, the better we can anticipate in where the analytics market is heading towards = SAP to invest into.

as a participant you will receive a summary of the survey results, enter into a draw to win one of ten $50 Amazon vouchers and best of all your experiences are included in the final analysis.

The survey takes approx. 15 minutes of your valuable time, but make result in a massive time saving in the future.

you can enter the survey via ; https://digiumenterprise.com/answer/?link=2877-RS4BPJGG

The survey is opened until the end of May 2016

thanks for your time in this

Merlijn

For those who are on BW as data source you probably have also attributes (display attributes) in your queries and dimensions. Those attributes can be accessed in scorecard to define the columns and properties.

How to Start?

First, we will attach a data source and activate the attributes:

In my query, I can find attributes on more dimensions, eg. 0D_PH2 and Calendar Year/Month

Using the initial view editor, I can mark the attributes I want to see in my drill down.

The effect is, right to the dimension member the attribute is visible. Those are visible also directly in crosstab component.

Placing Attributes in Scorecard

In Scorecard, attributes are not visible in the beginning. You can nevertheless select them in column definition.

Using this data source we will get such scorecard generated:

Now, we will start adding attributes for Calendar Year/Month, the "Number of Workdays". First, we add a column (copy the Calendar Year/Month column - this is the easiest way).

Setting Up Attribite as Display

Then, we change the description and also the content definition. This is the main point.

and now the attributes are visible:

What you can make more with Attributes?

You can consider attributes as a "normal" input method, therefore all conditional display setting will work exactly same as in the example with Scorecard: Step by Step to Custom Color in Charts (pick visually one value) and Scorecard: Step by Step to Nice Visualization (Conditional Format).

So, I can easily select the other attribute - number of days in a month for formatting. Those are giving 28,29,30 and 31 as input.

Definition for column 1, background:

and the effect is:

As usual in this case, you are restricted to 9 different conditional displays - which should be ok for picking up some special attributes and visualizing them.

Important to Know

I forgot to mention, that the attributes will be addressed in the definition of scorecard columns by index

Binding:

     {0CALMONTH/attributeMembers/0/text}

This means, be careful when changing the attributes in result set. Once you add new attribute it will be placed at the end of the attributes. The problem will occur when you remove some attribute and the index will change. Doing that, you have to go again into the column definition, then the new index will be recalculated again. There are more context information saved (like attribute name), so the index can be recalculated as long the attribute is available.

The resultset after my change (I have removed all and inserted in different sequence)

Example

I have exported the data source to CSV and the example is available here.

applications/SCN_SCORECARD_ATTRIBUTES-20160509175330.zip

You can find in it 2 Scorecards and 2 data sources. The first one will not work offline, the second is an CSV and will display data including the attributes.

with new release of SAP UI5 (OpenUI5 Blog - First Preview of OpenUI5 1.34) there are some new controls available - one of them is Planning Calendar - see at OpenUI5 Explored.We have already Design Studio SDK: Activity Viewer (manual Gantt Chart) in community package which is serving with similar functions, this control can bring a bit different visualization.

Important:

* Works only with Design Studio 1.6 SP2 and higher!

* Works only in M mode (as this is M-control of UI5)

The good point on integration of UI5 controls is, due to the generation of integration code the effort to get it as SDK extension is very low - as described in Design Studio SDK: New Unified UI5 Components. It means, there is a need of very small adjustments and the rest is based on properties specified in UI5 definitions.

What is Planning Calendar?

Basically it is a display option for events and header, each with dates (start and end) and other properties.

and it allows also month / year selection in runtime

In the properties you can define:

* Rows

* Appointments

* Headers

Date Entry

Similar to the (updated) Activity Viewer you can enter dates with following mask:

* YYYYMMDD

* YYYYMMDDHHMM

* YYYYMMDDHHMMSS

Options in Runtime/Properties

The general options allow you to set start date and also the view type (month, day, hour)

Download & Use

This component is available on the community package, release 3.0 for Design Studio 1.6, as in SCN Design Studio SDK Development Community

Documentation

Component List - SCN Design Studio Community -> look for the component in the list.

Any thoughts?

feel free to add as usual...

Enhancements Ideas?

if you have good ideas (to those who would like to contribute but cannot code...) - place an "issue" with tag "enhancement" under Issues · org-scn-design-studio-community/sdkpackage · GitHub

with new release of SAP UI5 (OpenUI5 Blog - First Preview of OpenUI5 1.34) there are some new controls available - one of them is OpenUI5 Explored - Breadcrumbs.

Important:

* Works only with Design Studio 1.6 SP2 and higher!

* Works only in M mode (as this is M-control of UI5)

This component makes the navigation easier.

It is basically a list of links (UI5 version) which can have URLs behind.

In Design Studio component, it is still possible to maintain URLs, but the main focus is to fire click event to BIAL script.

This is the visualization in Design Studio (exactly same as in the example)

The Links can be defined in APS:

or even using BIAL methods:

BREADCRUMBS_1.cleanAllLinks();BREADCRUMBS_1.addLink("L1", "My New Link");

The second option is adding more dynamic, you can always adjust some content, or even lock some link (disable).

Download & Use

This component is available on the community package, release 3.0 for Design Studio 1.6, as in SCN Design Studio SDK Development Community

Example Application

applications/SCN_BREADCRUMBS-20160511215635.zip at master · org-scn-design-studio-community/applications · GitHub

Documentation

Component List - SCN Design Studio Community -> look for the component in the list.

Any thoughts?

feel free to add as usual...

Enhancements Ideas?

if you have good ideas (to those who would like to contribute but cannot code...) - place an "issue" with tag "enhancement" under Issues · org-scn-design-studio-community/sdkpackage · GitHub

What’s New Design Studio Feature Pack ASUG Webcast Summary

This was an ASUG webcast provided by SAP yesterday

Source: SAP

As usual, the legal disclaimer applies that things in the future are subject to change.

Figure 1: Source: SAP

Figure 1 shows what is planned for SP2

SP2 delivers new features so it is called Feature Pack.

Features shown in Figure 1 include resizable movable components, dropdown boxes as text element, and dialog as container components to use for application building

InfoCharts were introduced in release 1.6 as a new chart component.  Now you have two chart components – 1 standard, other InfoChart. InfoChart is strategic, UI5, more features than standard and SAP will put more investment on InfoChart with more features planned in 1.6 including display scaling factors and new waterfall chart

Standard chart has conditional formatting – is not possible with InfoChart, only with Standard Chart

Everything else is available in InfoChart; if start with a new project, start with Infochart

Ad hoc currency conversion will provide an API, open currency conversion dialog.  You can add an API as additional entry in Context Menu, same behavior as BEx Web – only support with BW as backend. If have Universe or HANA as backend won’t work

Figure 2: Source: SAP

Figure 2 shows the New dialog component

Define buttons on dialog filter

Resizable and movable dialog component

This is a container component, define what you want to see

Figure 3: Source: SAP

Figure 3 shows the new waterfall chart and shows the scaling factor on the charts

Figure 4: Source: SAP

In BW, with a right mouse click, you can have a defined currency conversion type, and now this functionality is possible in Design Studio – with this API you can open a dialog to do currency conversion

You can add it to the context menu.  It is available in the Ready-to-Run template

This is only available for BW backend.

Figure 5: Source: SAP

BW customers know this; this is the compacted display of hierarchy

You put dimensions to display as a hierarchical tree

This feature is only supported with BW

This is  available as a context menu.

For HANA/Universe this will be greyed out

Figure 6: Source: SAP

The filter bar, shown in Figure 6, is a new component

This is based on Fiori

You can hide or show the filter bar

Figure 7: Source: SAP

Switch, progress indicator, link, all are available in the Fiori UI5 main library

Link is available to open http link in another window

Progress indicator is bound to back end

Segmented button – define text and different interactions

In 1.6 introduced this library.

Strategic direction is the Fiori library

Fiori library is more oriented in look and feel; embed later in Fiori Launchpad

You can migrate to Fiori Library in 1.6; expect adjustment in CSS.

Out of the box, the comment feature is not available.  For a prototype, you can try the multi-line text in the Text Area using the bookmark feature.  This is basic commentary; commentary is on the roadmap

Figure 8: Source: SAP

Initial view editor, able to add dynamic calculations (today at runtime with context menu) with SP2 you can do this at design time

Also on lower right of Figure 8 shows you at design time, you can rearrange the components (which can be lengthy) into icons

Demo 1.6 SP2

Source: SAP (Demo)

This is a CFO dashboard demo of Design Studio 1.6 SP2, oriented with Fiori look and feel and color as background

In SP2 see spreadsheet bug fix improvements including context menu improvements, to be similar to the crosstab

Figure 9: Source: SAP

Roadmap – because 1.6 SP2 is not yet delivered, it is shown in planned innovation in Figure 9

Future direction is Q4 and beyond

Release for Q4 2016 – priority 1 is componentization and reusable custom components at design time and reference in other applications

If you want to change something, only change once in central component

Other priority is to rework bookmark for application changes

Interop with Lumira is a priority

Future

Next part of this, please see SAP Lumira Roadmap Update | SCN

Also from last week’s SAP Insider Q&A:

Q: Is it true, that Lumira and Design Studio will be merged in one Tool in the roadmap? If yes when?

A: SAP: Yes, it's true. We were looking into interop between Design Studio and Lumira and discovered we can go further and converge the code base. There will still be 2 experiences - one for business analysts and one for designers/developers but a single code base means full interoperability and the ability for an analyst to hand a story over to a developer who can polish it up and put it into production at scale.

Figure 10: Source: SAP

Interop with Lumira is a priority for Q4/2016

Planned convergence of BI portfolio is shown in Figure 10

Plan is to bring Lumira & Design Studio together into one product

This one product means one server BI-add-on and still keep 2 clients to serve two different user groups

Lumira Desktop for discovery, for application building use “Lumira Studio”

Users have 2 different environments with one common technology stack

Figure 11: Source: SAP

Figure 11 shows one product, 2 clients

Lumira Studio is Design Studio

Lumira Desktop is Lumira Desktop today

Common technology is BI server add-on

Enable “seamless interop” between two clients

Business user starts with Lumira and build beautiful story, using CSV, for self-service scenario and in future import Lumira stories into Lumira Studio.  IT person adds scripting, CSS, global functions and publish enterprise wide as a corporate dashboard

In another scenario, you can create own view based on corporate application you can create your own view, from Lumira (Design) Studio, go to import Lumira Studio into Lumira Desktop to can create personalized apps

Figure 12: Source: SAP

Figure 12 shows the benefits of this

When should you use Lumira? When use Design Studio?  It has been difficult with some overlap.  SAP will bring this together to combine strengths of clients, unify data access layers

Lumira has prepare room for data mashup, which Design Studio needs

One product, 2 clients with one server add-on

You can import one document to another tool

GA is planned for Q1/2017

Figure 13: Source: SAP

Two capabilities that are being planned to deliver Q4 (rampup) GA is planned next year

User defined components to reduce maintenance within design time, create own components such as KPI tile, add a text element, chart, save in categories on

BI platform, then this component can be used in any other application.  Only need to change component once and reuse it

What is the difference between SDK component and this user defined component?  For SDK need JavaScript program in the Eclipse environment; user define component is available design time using drag and drop.

Figure 14: Source: SAP

This is one of the planned priorities for Q4 2016

SAP has heard that current bookmark has limitations especially if UI changes

Bookmark will be a technical component – choose component which to bookmark

In case you want to add another drop down box the bookmark will still be valid

Question and Answer

Note: Licensing questions are still not finalized

Q: There was a bit of lag when showing the main/fiori library. Was SAPUI5 the main/fiori, or was it SAPUI5 m?

A: Fiori is SAPUI5 m on the right.

Q: When will 1.6 SP2 go GA?

A: In June, 3 weeks (planned)

Q: Are you saying that Lumira and Design Studio will become a single product offering?

A: One product, two clients

Q: when refering to CSV as data source.. is this feature usable on the BI platform or only as local file? (CSV/xls loaded on BOBJ)

A: Today it is only available locally (CSV)

Q: when using Universe as source, what is the limit of cells retrieved? any enhancement on that from 1.6 SP1?

A: Today it is 20K - no listed changes for that in SP2

We'll learn more next week at ASUG Annual Conference

ASUG Annual Conference Design Studio Sessions (next week)

Long in the making, I'd like to introduce the story behind a soon to be released Design Studio extension, mySmartApp.  Although a commercial add-on, I thought it would be of educational value to share the journey and the end result.  I'll talk about the challenges, design decisions and intent, as well as key features, with a view to receiving your opinions about the concept and encouraging further discussion.  For those that are interested in providing more direct, hands-on feedback, I'll include information about the upcoming beta program towards the end of this blog.

mySmartApp is a single, self-contained, end-to-end component which allows the very rapid design and deployment of visually appealing, engaging analytical apps without the need for any coding, in a browser-based environment with run-time configuration wizard for easy definition of content using a variety of layout options and consumption patterns.

mySmartApp:

• IS a tool for quickly deploying curated, lightweight yet sophisticated BI apps for the masses, by business users for business users
• IS a complement to the existing "ready-to-run" standard apps

• IS NOT a replacement for custom built Design Studio BI apps.  There will always be a need for specialised BI apps for specific user groups, taking advantage of both standard components and other SDK components from the List of Design Studio SDK Components as well as the SCN Design Studio 1.6 SDK Components

1)  Non-technical business users for creating code-free BI apps by focusing on business content rather than technical design

2)  Customers with small IT departments to allow them to be more productive by doing more with less

3)  Customers with large IT departments to allow rapid rollout of useful BI apps while freeing up resources in parallel to work on custom built specialised BI app requirements

4)  SAP Partners to package rapid deployment of BI apps with complementary value-added services for their clients

No need to worry about properties or scripts

Based on various SAP presentations and feedback on the SCN, I think it's safe to say that standard Design Studio is intended as an IT developer tool for creating professionally authored dashboards and BI apps rather than a tool for business users without coding experience.  While it's true that with the latest features such as property binding, it is easier to create apps without coding (or at least with less code), more sophisticated apps still require coding.  This is one of the challenges mySmartApp seeks to address.       

mySmartApp does not have an Additional Properties Sheet (APS) with a huge selection of properties, nor does it include any script methods.  This is quite deliberate as the intent is to provide an easy to use, code-free environment for rapidly building useful BI apps which simplifies the process for business users and other non-programmers.

The philosophy here is to Run Simple, where less is more.

As you can see from the screenshot below, the mySmartApp component makes up the entire BI app.  The content is not rendered on the canvas at design-time because it is defined through a configuration wizard at run-time.

Easy to deploy for IT

Since mySmartApp is a single, comprehensive, self-service component only one Design Studio app with this component needs to be deployed to the BI Platform, after which multiple views can be configured and saved as needed at run-time.  This simplifies deployment and maintenance.

Stay organised with a built-in launchpad

As shown in the following screenshot, mySmartApp includes a tile-based Launchpad to access SmartViews (explained further along) available to the user:

Combine the best of self-service and guided configuration

• Initially create views with the Configuration Wizard

The Configuration Wizard guides the user through a step-by-step process to define the content of a SmartView, as shown in the example below:

• Then edit them on-the-fly as needed

Once a SmartView has been created, end users have the option of adapting them further with the in-view editing feature.  Some examples are shown below:

The combination of Configuration Wizard and In-view Editing allows separate roles for designer and consumer if needed, whereby a designer can create SmartViews based on specific data sources and initial configuration, which can subsequently be shared with end users who can further refine these views for their specific needs.

Pick your own data source

The Configuration Wizard includes a step for selecting a data source from a BW or HANA backend system, based on a built-in data browser as shown below:

Select from multiple layouts with SmartViews

An important concept behind mySmartApp is that it takes an approach of providing a range of design patterns similar to templates, called SmartViews, with built-in configurable logic, to accelerate analytical app development.  The beta version includes two types of SmartViews as illustrated below but many more are in the pipeline and new ones will also be added based on feedback.

1. SmartTiles

This view presents a master-detail layout with a drill-down list on the left and a tile-based summary of KPIs on the main page.  It includes options to display the list as microcharts, bars and variances.  Similarly, the tiles may display either microcharts or variances.

Clicking a tile displays the corresponding detail chart which is built-in to the view:

2. SmartTree

This view allows the creation of a custom KPI hierarchy from selected measures.  The hierarchy nodes can be expanded and collapsed.  Zooming and panning is also supported.  The list on the left enables drill-down through dimensions.

Clicking a hierarchy node tile displays the corresponding detail chart, once again automatically included functionality:

Choose the look and feel from a range of themes

By default, mySmartApp implements the Blue Crystal Theme in conformance with the Fiori style.  However, it is clear from the SCN discussions and the customer feedback that there is also a desire to have the flexibility of alternative themes.  In particular, with standard functionality, theming an entire application with CSS can become quite a time-consuming process due to the need to research through debugging which style classes need to be overridden for each element.  mySmartApp provides a range of built-in themes to customise the look and feel of the app.

Below are some examples of a dark theme with gradients on the charts:

Create once, run on any device: responsive and adaptive

One of the challenges of deploying Design Studio apps, as evidenced by various SCN discussions on the topic is to provide support for different types of devices such as smartphones, tablets and desktops, particularly in an increasingly mobile world where a mobile first design is encouraged.  mySmartApp addresses this issue with both a responsive and adaptive design.  There are various definitions of this terminology but I'll define them as follows:

Responsive design keeps the same content for all target devices but simply changes the layout according to the form factor, whereas Adaptive design also includes logic to explicitly change the content for a particular target device such as smartphone or tablet.

View in your own language with built-in translation

To cater for a global user base, mySmartApp includes pre-translated menu texts.  The set of supported languages will continue to be expanded.

In this section I'll discuss the main design decisions that were made in the course of the development of mySmartApp and why.

1.  Apply the Fiori Design Guidelines

SAP's User Experience Strategy clearly sets the Fiori UX as the future direction of SAP applications.  This has been reinforced with the recent announcement of SAP's partnership with Apple whereby the Fiori Design Guidelines now also include a standard for iOS.  Furthermore, from a Design Studio perspective this commitment to the Fiori design has been implemented with the new M Mode introduced in Design Studio 1.6.

Taking these factors into account, the main reasons for this decision were:

• to ensure consistency with SAP's stated future UX direction;

• the adoption of a well-defined, enterprise grade standard like Fiori saves a considerable amount of time in terms of having a foundation to build on rather than creating one from scratch;

• since Design Studio apps can be integrated as a tile on the Fiori Launchpad, the look and feel of mySmartApp will be consistent with the look and feel of the Fiori Launchpad and other Fiori apps thereby providing a familiar, coherent user experience as defined in the Fiori Design Principles.

2.  Provide flexible theming support

Although the Fiori Design Guidelines include what I consider to be an effective style based on a flat design with subdued colours as recommended by best practices, feedback from customers has brought attention to the need for providing flexibility in this area.  I confess that personally I have certainly been an advocate of such best practices in visualisation design but have come to realise that perhaps this stance could be a little idealistic.  In particular, it became quite clear that end users such as managers and C-level executives love their dashboards with gradients, lively colours and black backgrounds and that in the real world, this habit can be difficult to break.  Rightly or wrongly, it has a genuine influence on management support, adoption of one tool over another and the proliferation of BI within an organisation.  This need is also fuelled by the "consumerization of IT" whereby business users are now accustomed to using highly engaging and visually appealing apps on their smartphones and tablets and so expect the same in business apps. 

In light of this feedback, it was decided to include a theming feature with mySmartApp to provide a balanced approach for look and feel.

3.  Allow analytics based on configurable design patterns rather than free form design

Standard Design Studio already provides a developer environment for building custom BI apps through a free form WYSIWYG drag and drop interface and script coding.  The intent of mySmartApp is to complement this with the ability to rapidly create analytics through configuration of visually appealing and engaging design patterns, allowing non-technical business users to focus on the business content rather than the details of traditional custom app development.

4.  Implement run-time configuration rather than design-time configuration

Two main reasons drove this design decision:

• By implementing run-time configuration we are able to move the design process into the browser, providing a more immersive, in-app user experience tailored for business users, whereas the Design Studio client is based on Eclipse, an Integrated Development Environment more suited to technical developers

• Run-time configuration allows for a dynamic app where both design and consumption are within the same environment, providing a seamless experience for business users

5.  Implement as a composite component rather than a standalone app 

mySmartApp is effectively a complete app within a component i.e. a composite component.  A natural question arises which asks why not then implement the mySmartApp add-on as a standalone UI5/Fiori app on the HANA Cloud Platform?  The main reasons for this design decision were as follows:

• Design Studio offers very important built-in BI plumbing for OLAP processing and data source access, including hierarchy support, navigation and drill-down which are not as easily reproducible with OData services for UI5/Fiori.  To replicate OLAP capabilities via web services for consumption in a UI5/Fiori app, the XMLA interface comes the closest but this adds the complexity of having to generate appropriate MDX queries on-the-fly to perform the desired manipulation

• When deployed on the BI Platform there are additional advantages such as security and mobile BI

• Implementing as an add-on for Design Studio complements a customer's existing BI stack rather than presenting "yet another BI tool" which has to be separately deployed and managed
  

Matthew Shaw provides a very good review of choice of technology for implementing dashboards, covering SAPUI5, SAP Fiori and the SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform, in the blog post Custom SAP Fiori for my dashboard application?  mySmartApp aims to combine the best of each of these three options into a single add-on for Design Studio.

6.  Implement as a single composite component rather than multiple discrete components

Typically a Design Studio SDK component is implemented as a discrete component, such as a chart or a table, for a specific purpose, which is integrated with the overall BI app via scripting.  However, mySmartApp is implemented as a composite component for the following reasons:

• To allow the implementation of code-free design patterns whereby the logic integrating each of the elements is embedded in the component

• To allow much tighter integration of the elements that make up the design pattern than would be possible through "wiring" of separate components via scripting

• To allow the implementation of a standardised theming architecture across all elements of the design pattern

7.  Provide Support only for BusinessObjects BI Platform Deployment

Although technically Design Studio apps can be deployed on 3 platforms: BusinessObjects BI, NetWeaver and HANA, each of these options offer support for a different set of overlapping features, with BusinessObjects BI offering the most comprehensive.  SAP's future direction for Design Studio platform support was clearly described in the blog The Future of Design Studio Platform Development whereby all future investment will go into deployment on the BI Platform.  In order to future-proof mySmartApp and take maximum advantage of Design Studio features, aligning with the BI Platform was a natural choice.

8.  Maximise the use of technology that is included with the SDK framework rather than relying on 3rd-party libraries

The Design Studio SDK already includes the SAPUI5 and D3 libraries.  The combination of the robust SAPUI5 app framework with the flexibility of D3 custom visualisations provided a comprehensive foundation for building mySmartApp without the need for specialised proprietary libraries.

If you'd like to provide hands-on feedback and influence the future development of mySmartApp, please sign up for the beta program here.  A limited number of registrations are available.  Your input and participation would be greatly appreciated.

I hope you've found this to be an informative story of the journey and thought process behind the development of a particular Design Studio add-on.  This is just the beginning for mySmartApp as we move forward with exciting plans for the future.

I look forward to receiving your questions and comments for further discussion.

Yesterday ASUG held several pre-conference sessions.  I attended the sold-out Design Studio pre-conference session conducted by Ingo Hilgefort

On Sunday the room looked like this:

Then when we started coming in the room yesterday we were greeted with a new book:

Thanks to Approyo for sponsoring the book

We had great AV team support as shown above

Then we started with a full room  By the end of the day, most everyone had their sweaters on because the room was so cold.

Source: ASUG

Above is our packed agenda.  The day went by very fast The first hour was lecture, then followed by several exercises.

Attendees learned how to set up a drop down box with their KPI tile

In the next exercise we learned more about bookmarking and personalization

I spent the most time on the scorecard exercise.  In the past I would just click "generate scorecard" but there is much more to this feature.  We went through and set up properties on each individual item.

At the end of the course, Ingo Hilgefort asked what would people change, and from my side, I wouldn't change anything.  I was impressed at how fast the attendees completed the exercises.  I want to thank Ingo and ASUG for a great day.

This week

Join ASUG at ASUG Annual Conference for these sessions:

Check this online schedule and you can also browse the ASUG Business Intelligence Community Brochure.

Dear all,

As of today working with KPI tiles in Design Studio involves assigning data points to pre-designed and pre-positioned KPI tiles. Meaning requirement or even data set changes impact your dashboard since the existing KPI tile components are static by design. To overcome that you have to adjust your dashboard for every use case and target device over and over again or create a big set of tiles and hide them if they are not used.

The same rules apply if you filter KPIs during runtime. Eventually you have to come up with a hide and show logic to visualize that behavior in an understandable way.

That approach is quite static, scales badly and is not future prone. I would like to introduce you to a component which solves all of these problems out-of-the-box.

How does it work?

At the core I am using the SAPUI5 TileContainer, the StandardTile and the CustomTile from the sap.m library. The TileContainer takes care of the management of its tiles. That means it rearranges the tiles according to the available space and creates navigation elements if necessary. Check out the video below:

[If you cannot see the video make sure to have http as request protocol and not https because the video is called over http from youtube]

Ok, that’s it for the visual part. But what about the data flow? We want the component to create as many tiles as there is information on the data source even if that changes during runtime.

For that purpose I created a property which allows you define a dimension “Tile Creation Dimension” which will be used as “tile creator”.

Choosing Tile Types and sap.commons headaches

Once setup, you can choose in between the sap.m.StandardTile (left image) and the sap.m.CustomTile (right image) by utilizing the property “Tile Type”. The CustomTile enables us to tailor the visualization of the tile to our individual needs. As a start I added a trend indicator in a similar way like the SAPUI5 GenericTile example uses it. I will add the GenericTile to the available types once the sap.m version of it becomes available on DesignStudio. Unfortunately our SCN community version of the GenericTile is not compatible with the sap.m.TileContainer because of its origin from the sapui5 commons library.

Properties to map data source characteristics to tile content are provided

The other properties allow you to match header, sub-header, value, footer and icon information on your data source so that the tile creation mechanism can put them on the newly created tiles. The formatting of the value can be altered with numeral.js formatting strings. The number formatting is local dependent.

To map icons you need to add a key of the tile creation dimension and put a valid sap icon string (e.g sap-icon://play).

To enable value coloring and trend indicators you may define the property “Comparison Dimension” with another measure in addition to the “Target Measure Dimension”. If the difference is negative your target value (footer text for the standard tile) will be colored red and a negative trend indicator will be added to it. The same behavior applies for positive differences and green colors. On top of that you can define an interval spanning the target value to ignore small changes (in percentages) using the property “Compare Tolerance (%)”. Target values within that interval will be shown in grey and a trend indicator pointing to the right.

All of the individual tile properties are available through Design Studio scripting functions on the event “Tile Press”.

Of course you have to make sure that the data breakdown on the data source assigned to the tile container has a suitable structure. The component expects a 1-1 match between the characteristics and the measures. If you need more sub dimensions you need to add more tile containers. Every instance handles only one target dimension!

Final Words

I showed you how to setup your KPI tiles in a more responsive way and explained what the current shortcomings are when working with KPI components in Design Studio.

You can get the component by installing the latest SCN SDK repository package. The SCN blog entry below can give you directions on how to work with our awesome Design Studio SDK package:

http://scn.sap.com/community/businessobjects-design-studio/blog/2014/12/10/scn-design-studio-sdk-development-community

Please note that the next build is not yet finished. I will remove this reminder once it is done.

Like all our SCN community SDK components the code is published open-source on GitHub:

https://github.com/org-scn-design-studio-community/sdkpackage

As always feel free to leave comments and ask lots of follow up questions.

Yours

Martin

    One of the most powerful Lumira analysis feature is lasso. This feature allows quickly filter or exclude chart data and focus analysis on specific area. Unfortunately this feature is missing in Design Studio. There are blogs that explain how to implement lasso in Design Studio:

Lasso selection in Design Studio Charts,  Reverse Lasso in SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio. What I did not like about aforesaid implementations is:

• Separate modeling of filter and exclude functionality;
• Necessity to clear chart selection with the help of a button or click;
• Dimension hardcoding.

What I was looking for is "true Lumira style lasso" which has both filter and exclude functionality, simple and intuitive user interface. So I came up with my own Design Studio implementation of Lumira style lasso.

    I enhanced Basic Analysis Layout Template

I added a number of things to the template. First of all added lasso_store_selection script to CHART On Select event to stored selection:

Then added POPUP_LASSO popup with lasso_filter and lasso_exclude scripts respectively assigned to filter and exclude icons/texts:

Then added LASSO_FUNCTIONS global script object

Finally added two more Data Sources: DS_2 and DS_3. They are needed to store selection (filter and exclude respectively) because CHAR selection is cleared before decision making POPUP_LASSO popup is shown.

It is not a big overhead to have two more Data Sources since they are on total data only without any drill down.

Now lets see the model in action. I use Analysis application to display Total Seats Occupied and Total Seats Occupied - Business Class Measures by Carrier using Scatter Chart. Using lasso I select 4 carrier with highest number of Total Seats Occupied

On lasso popup I choose Filter

Data is filtered to 4 selected carriers and filter line reflects that.

Now lets exclude SQ Carrier with lowest Seats Occupied. First selecting it with a lasso.

And then choosing exclude on lasso popup.

As you can see SQ Carrier was excluded and filter line reflects that

In second part of my blog I well go over BIAL script that implements Lumira Style Lasso functionality.

Attached is an exported model (unpack and change extension to zip prior to importing).

    In first part of the blog I explained how Basic Analysis Layout Template can be enhanced with Lumira Style Lasso using out the box capabilities. Now I will go over BIAL scripts in details.

    lasso_store_selection

    This script is run on CHART On Select event to stored selection. In particular:

• Number of selected members is counted (measures are excluded);
• DS_2 is filtered to include only CHART selection;
• DS_3 is filtered to exclude CHART selection;
• Lasso popup is shown if at least dimension member is selected.

var selection = 0;

// count

DS_1.getDimensions(Axis.ROWS).forEach(function(element, index) {

      if(!element.isMeasuresDimension) {

            if(CHART.getSelectedMember(element.name).externalKey!='') {

                  CHART.getSelectedMembers(element.name).forEach(function(element1, index) {

                        selection = selection + 1;               

                  } );

            }

      }

} );

DS_1.getDimensions(Axis.COLUMNS).forEach(function(element, index) {

      if(!element.isMeasuresDimension) {

            if(CHART.getSelectedMember(element.name).externalKey!='') {

                  CHART.getSelectedMembers(element.name).forEach(function(element1, index) {

                        selection = selection + 1;               

                  } );

            }

      }

} );

//count

// filter

var new_filter = '';

DS_1.getDimensions(Axis.ROWS).forEach(function(element, index) {

      if(CHART.getSelectedMember(element.name).externalKey!='') {

            if(!element.isMeasuresDimension) {

                  DS_2.clearFilter(element.name);

                  DS_2.setFilter(element.name, CHART.getSelectedMembers(element.name));

            }

      }

} );

DS_1.getDimensions(Axis.COLUMNS).forEach(function(element, index) {

      if(CHART.getSelectedMember(element.name).externalKey!='') {

            if(!element.isMeasuresDimension) {

                  DS_2.clearFilter(element.name);

                  DS_2.setFilter(element.name, CHART.getSelectedMembers(element.name));

            }

      }

} );

// filter

// exclude

var  filter_val = '';

DS_1.getDimensions(Axis.ROWS).forEach(function(element, index) {

      if(!element.isMeasuresDimension) {

            if(CHART.getSelectedMember(element.name).externalKey!='') {

                  filter_val = DS_1.getFilterExt(element.name); 

                  CHART.getSelectedMembers(element.name).forEach(function(element1, index) {

                      if (filter_val=='') {

                        filter_val = '!' + element1.externalKey;

                      }

                    else {     

                        filter_val = filter_val + ';!' + element1.externalKey;

                    }

                  } );

                DS_3.setFilterExt(element.name, filter_val);           

                  }

            }

} );

DS_1.getDimensions(Axis.COLUMNS).forEach(function(element, index) {

      if(!element.isMeasuresDimension) {

            if(CHART.getSelectedMember(element.name).externalKey!='') {

                  filter_val = DS_1.getFilterExt(element.name);

                  CHART.getSelectedMembers(element.name).forEach(function(element1, index) {

                      if (filter_val=='') {

                        filter_val = '!' + element1.externalKey;

                      }

                    else {     

                        filter_val = filter_val + ';!' + element1.externalKey;

                    }

                  } );

                DS_3.setFilterExt(element.name, filter_val);           

                  }

            }

} );

// exclude

// popup

CHART.clearSelection();

if (selection > 0) {

      POPUP_LASSO.show();   

}

// popup

    lasso_filter

    This script is run on Filter Icon / Text On Click event to filter DS_1 to include only CHART selection. In particular:

• For each dimension DS_2 filter is copied to DS_1;
• Lasso popup is hidden.

DS_1.getDimensions(Axis.ROWS).forEach(function(element, index) {

      if(!element.isMeasuresDimension) {

            DS_1.setFilterExt(element.name, DS_2.getFilterExt(element.name));

      }

});

DS_1.getDimensions(Axis.COLUMNS).forEach(function(element, index) {

      if(!element.isMeasuresDimension) {

            DS_1.setFilterExt(element.name, DS_2.getFilterExt(element.name));

      }

});

POPUP_LASSO.hide();

    lasso_exclude

    This script is run on Filter Icon / Text On Click event to filter DS_1 to exclude CHART selection. In particular:

• For each dimension DS_3 filter is copied to DS_1;
• Lasso popup is hidden.

DS_1.getDimensions(Axis.ROWS).forEach(function(element, index) {

      if (!element.isMeasuresDimension) {

            DS_1.setFilterExt(element.name, DS_3.getFilterExt(element.name));

      }

});

DS_1.getDimensions(Axis.COLUMNS).forEach(function(element, index) {

      if (!element.isMeasuresDimension) {

            DS_1.setFilterExt(element.name, DS_3.getFilterExt(element.name));

      }

});

POPUP_LASSO.hide();

  Attached is an exported model (unpack and change extension to zip prior to importing)

    lasso_store_selection

Design Studio is the reference tool retained in the SAP roadmap for the implementation of complex applications "dashboards" in web mode. It replaces other tools that previously covered the same need but are no longer held in the roadmap: BO Dashboard, Xcelsius and Web Application Designer. Thus Design Studio is a compelling solution in the Business Intelligence offering from SAP.

Using SAP Design Studio

This powerful tool is not intended to be placed in the hands of end users but is reserved for IT. The result is in HTML5 web applications that can be published on the SAP portal or be used by smartphones.

It allows you to create interactive dashboards and great precision in graphics ( "pixel perfect" tool), with possibility to have multiple tables or graphs displayed in different tabs as needed.

It also allows for the budgetary input (BI-IP input masks and PCBs since version 10.1) and execute BI-IP calculation functions (functions or planning sequences).

Features

There are several options for installation: BI4 platforms, SAP BW or SAP HANA .

The BI4 platform is recommended as it offers more possibilities:

• Access to various connected systems BW, HANA, and the BO universe Platform
• integrated mobility
• can jump to the WEBI documents (via link OpenDoc and passing parameters)

  For developers , They must also install the Windows Client Add-on (ECLIPSE) corresponding to the workstation. It is possible to develop applications locally or connected to the platform. 

The Design Studio provides direct access to numerous data sources.

If installed on platform BI4, Design Studio provides access to:

• The BW data sources (cubes, multi-cubes, virtual cubes, BEX queries). Integration with BW is perfect, especially regarding the management of hierarchies and permissions
• The views HANA (attributes, analytical, calculated) of the various systems HANA
• Other possible data via the BO universe

If installed on BW on HANA platform or, Design Studio can access only the data platform on which it is installed. 

In local mode, it can also access BW data (Saplogon) or HANA, through the ODBC connection.

The data are not stored by Design Studio but they are refreshed differently depending on the setting:

• When launching the application or later
• In order of priority or according to user request
• In groups or individually sources
• For the optional use of a script

Components 

Design Studio allows you to build a web application , starting from a predefined template or adding each component in the structure of the page.

Several components can be placed in the canvas and parameterized: containers, tables, charts, filters, drop-down list, check boxes, command buttons, text areas, etc.

The interface is based on Eclipse WYSIWYG: left up the components, bottom left the structure of the components used in the center and the canvas on the right properties for the selected component.

Datasource represent loaded data will be used in the application. A chart or graph is associated with one of these datasources to allow the display of data in the format requested.

Type components "filters" used to restrict the data from one of these datasources. This selection will automatically apply to graphs or tables that use these datasources.

It is possible to associate dependent dropdowns to each other in the application of filters. For example, state filters, City, Company can be combined to facilitate selection.

The customization of the application is enhanced by the interactive event concept. If you have activated the property "Event: select one" of a component, it is possible to enter the script in a syntax similar to JavaScript, which will be executed when you click on that component. This allows for example to hide a screen, filter a data source, refresh the data, etc.

Script creation is facilitated by suggestion functions that provide the stated objects and functions available. Since version 1.5, a page can contain executable scripts global by several components.

GEO MAP component is based on the geographical characteristics of data to enable a dynamic analysis on card performance indicators.

Application creation Steps

In practice, we realize that SAP Design Studio has benefited from the experience of previous tools and concepts such as the Web Application Designer. Here are the main steps for creating an application:

1. Start by creating datasources all of which will need given the reporting requirements, filter, etc.Several datasources can be based on the same data source.
2. Manage the initial view datasources, which consists of a selection of characteristics and ratios that will actually be used in reports, but also in additional settings (sorting, display, totals) of data to be restored which will be applied in the tables This can have a significant impact on performance.
3. Create tables and charts assigned to datasources
4. Add the formatting components
5. Set the properties of each component (display, positioning, formatting CSS class, etc.) and add the script.
6. If necessary, use the SDK to create additional components not available in the standard
7. At each step, test the results to verify the result and correct.

SAP Design Studio in SAP offers

SAP Design Studio was created to accompany two movements: the will of SAP to simplify and rationalize the offer in the application of business intelligence, and development of the HANA platform at the heart of SAP strategy.

If the WAD had the advantage of being integrated with BW-IP, and particularly powerful, and Xcelsius was recognized as a very attractive tool, SAP Design Studio takes the path of a successful merger between the two tools. It strengthens SAP's offer with a powerful tool for application developers.

It complements the range of business intelligence tools now composed of Design Studio, Webi, Crystal, BO Analysis for Excel, and the new platform Lumira BI and EPM: SAP Cloud for Analytics.

Special thanks to our SAP Mentor Tony de Thomasis for the guidance throughout the completion of the ERP Applications subject #bco6181, as well as Paul Hawking , Robert Jovanovic, Mohammad Bilal for giving us the opportunity to interact with SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio and learn more about the potential of this application.

Group : Shilpa and DIMPLE

Here is the links of some nice blogs on design studio.........

• Tammy Powlas's document on "On Background Processing"

How to set up Background Processing in Design Studio

• Nithyanandam Venu's document on "Real time chat component in SAP BusinessObject Design Studio with Node.js ,Express and Socket.io"

Real time chat component in SAP BusinessObject Design Studio with Node.js ,Express and Socket.io

This is the video for new version 1.6.....

This blog is written for part of assessment in our Unit ERP Applications subject #bco6181 as Academic project. Looking forward to have feedback on our first attempt.

Design Studio is the reference tool retained in the SAP roadmap for the implementation of complex applications "dashboards" in web mode. It replaces other tools that previously covered the same need but are no longer held in the roadmap: BO Dashboard, Xcelsius and Web Application Designer. Thus Design Studio is a compelling solution in the Business Intelligence offering from SAP.

Using SAP Design Studio

This powerful tool is not intended to be placed in the hands of end users but is reserved for IT. The result is in HTML5 web applications that can be published on the SAP portal or be used by smartphones.

It allows you to create interactive dashboards and great precision in graphics ( "pixel perfect" tool), with possibility to have multiple tables or graphs displayed in different tabs as needed.

It also allows for the budgetary input (BI-IP input masks and PCBs since version 10.1) and execute BI-IP calculation functions (functions or planning sequences).

Features

There are several options for installation: BI4 platforms, SAP BW or SAP HANA .

The BI4 platform is recommended as it offers more possibilities:

• Access to various connected systems BW, HANA, and the BO universe Platform
• integrated mobility
• can jump to the WEBI documents (via link OpenDoc and passing parameters)

  For developers , They must also install the Windows Client Add-on (ECLIPSE) corresponding to the workstation. It is possible to develop applications locally or connected to the platform. 

The Design Studio provides direct access to numerous data sources.

If installed on platform BI4, Design Studio provides access to:

• The BW data sources (cubes, multi-cubes, virtual cubes, BEX queries). Integration with BW is perfect, especially regarding the management of hierarchies and permissions
• The views HANA (attributes, analytical, calculated) of the various systems HANA
• Other possible data via the BO universe

If installed on BW on HANA platform or, Design Studio can access only the data platform on which it is installed. 

In local mode, it can also access BW data (Saplogon) or HANA, through the ODBC connection.

The data are not stored by Design Studio but they are refreshed differently depending on the setting:

• When launching the application or later
• In order of priority or according to user request
• In groups or individually sources
• For the optional use of a script

Components 

Design Studio allows you to build a web application , starting from a predefined template or adding each component in the structure of the page.

Several components can be placed in the canvas and parameterized: containers, tables, charts, filters, drop-down list, check boxes, command buttons, text areas, etc.

The interface is based on Eclipse WYSIWYG: left up the components, bottom left the structure of the components used in the center and the canvas on the right properties for the selected component.

Datasource represent loaded data will be used in the application. A chart or graph is associated with one of these datasources to allow the display of data in the format requested.

Type components "filters" used to restrict the data from one of these datasources. This selection will automatically apply to graphs or tables that use these datasources.

It is possible to associate dependent dropdowns to each other in the application of filters. For example, state filters, City, Company can be combined to facilitate selection.

The customization of the application is enhanced by the interactive event concept. If you have activated the property "Event: select one" of a component, it is possible to enter the script in a syntax similar to JavaScript, which will be executed when you click on that component. This allows for example to hide a screen, filter a data source, refresh the data, etc.

Script creation is facilitated by suggestion functions that provide the stated objects and functions available. Since version 1.5, a page can contain executable scripts global by several components.

GEO MAP component is based on the geographical characteristics of data to enable a dynamic analysis on card performance indicators.

Application creation Steps

In practice, we realize that SAP Design Studio has benefited from the experience of previous tools and concepts such as the Web Application Designer. Here are the main steps for creating an application:

1. Start by creating datasources all of which will need given the reporting requirements, filter, etc.Several datasources can be based on the same data source.
2. Manage the initial view datasources, which consists of a selection of characteristics and ratios that will actually be used in reports, but also in additional settings (sorting, display, totals) of data to be restored which will be applied in the tables This can have a significant impact on performance.
3. Create tables and charts assigned to datasources
4. Add the formatting components
5. Set the properties of each component (display, positioning, formatting CSS class, etc.) and add the script.
6. If necessary, use the SDK to create additional components not available in the standard
7. At each step, test the results to verify the result and correct.

SAP Design Studio in SAP offers

SAP Design Studio was created to accompany two movements: the will of SAP to simplify and rationalize the offer in the application of business intelligence, and development of the HANA platform at the heart of SAP strategy.

If the WAD had the advantage of being integrated with BW-IP, and particularly powerful, and Xcelsius was recognized as a very attractive tool, SAP Design Studio takes the path of a successful merger between the two tools. It strengthens SAP's offer with a powerful tool for application developers.

It complements the range of business intelligence tools now composed of Design Studio, Webi, Crystal, BO Analysis for Excel, and the new platform Lumira BI and EPM: SAP Cloud for Analytics.

Special thanks to our SAP Mentor Tony de Thomasis for the guidance throughout the completion of the ERP Applications subject #bco6181, as well as Paul Hawking , Robert Jovanovic, Mohammad Bilal for giving us the opportunity to interact with SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio and learn more about the potential of this application.

Group : Shilpa and DIMPLE

Here is the links of some nice blogs on design studio.........

• Tammy Powlas's document on "On Background Processing"

How to set up Background Processing in Design Studio

• Nithyanandam Venu's document on "Real time chat component in SAP BusinessObject Design Studio with Node.js ,Express and Socket.io"

Real time chat component in SAP BusinessObject Design Studio with Node.js ,Express and Socket.io

This is the video for new version 1.6.....

This blog is written for part of assessment in our Unit ERP Applications subject #bco6181 as Academic project. Looking forward to have feedback on our first attempt.

This is a brief recap from last Wednesday's session at ASUG Annual Conference

Source: SAP Please note the usual disclaimer applies

Figure 2: Source: SAP In this slide, SAP said they are planning to converge SAP Lumira and SAP Design Studio with still 2 personas.

Figure 3: Source: SAP SAP will merge the add-ons on the BI platform into one with 2 clients - Lumira Desktop and "Lumira Studio" (Design Studio)

Figure 4: Source: SAP This slide SAP said they are offering more "planned simplification" of the clients.  One attendee asked about Live Office; you can see from the above the plan for it is to be part of Analysis for Office.

Figure 5: Source: SAP Lumira 2.x planned themes include the following:

• Online access
• Enterprise scale
• Lumira investment – improve ease of use
• In line w/ cloud UI
• Align w/ S4/HANA Fiori concepts and standards
• Future Lumira 2.1 – move to a browser based experience

Figure 6: Source: SAP Figure 6 provides the direction and approach Note that Lumira 1.31 and Design Studio 1.6 are in regular maintenance until end of 2017

Figure 7: Source: SAP Figure 7 shows a simplified architecture and what is actually included in Lumira 2.x

Figure 8: Source: SAP

According to the SAP speaker, Figure 8 is an "important slide".

Lumira today is desktop client, and the engine is the velocity engine

In orange on Figure 8 is in-memory With Lumira Desktop you have the "freedom with what data to work – engine is consolidator Use preparation room on top of in-memory engine

With Lumira, the strongest part is data prep, velocity engine, any type of data, bring it together Lumira 2.x will have online integration to BW/HANA (no online integration to BW today)

The plan is to include UI improvements, visualization and online

Today Design Studio has strong online integration to BW, HANA

To be improved connectivity to universes, data sources, no offline capability

In the Studio plan to have velocity engine, data prep in desktop client and seamlessly use it in studio Data access is same picture Data acquisition in in-memory engine – Lumira Design Studio has BICS strength

Will get OLAP capability in Lumira and offline in Design Studio

Figure 9: Source: SAP Figure 9 is a detailed roadmap. As of end of this year, SAP said, this will be one product, harmonized development

Introduction

Bookmarks are a very important feature of Design Studio which enable dynamic, self-service applications to be developed.  There has certainly been a lot of discussion about the topic on the SCN.  The recent post about What’s New Design Studio Feature Pack ASUG Webcast Summary has provided a glimpse of what we might expect with future functionality, so I thought this would be a good time to recap the current bookmarking functionality and present a wish list of desirable features for feedback and further discussion.

Overview of Bookmarks

There are already plenty of posts describing the details of bookmarks and how they work, so here I will just provide a summary of the different bookmark types for context.  There are 3 types as follows:

Standard Bookmarks

These allow the entire application state to be saved and are specific to a user.

Fragment Bookmarks

These allow the state of a specific group of components to be saved in an application for a specific user.

Portable Fragment Bookmarks

These are the same as Fragment Bookmarks but can be consumed in other applications ("consumer" applications) by other users (as well as in the original application itself).  There are two ways to consume a Portable Fragment Bookmark:

1.  Load the Portable Fragment Bookmark in the same application that produced it ("producer" application) or

2.  In a consumer application, populate the Portable Fragment Bookmarks (also known as Smart Objects) into a Fragment Gallery component to allow users to select which fragments they wish to view by dragging and dropping onto a Split Cell Container component.

Personally, I prefer to use only Fragment or Portable Fragment Bookmarks as they are much less susceptible to being invalidated as a result of changes to the application UI, unlike Standard Bookmarks which are invalidated as soon as the application is updated.

The Roadmap for Bookmarks

To put the wish list into context, below is a slide of what is planned for future bookmarking functionality:

Source:  Figure 14, What’s New Design Studio Feature Pack ASUG Webcast Summary 

Bookmark Wish List

Based on my experiences with bookmarks so far, here is my wish list for future functionality:

1.  Provide a scripting API for programmatically traversing a bookmark folder tree model

As of Design Studio 1.6 it is possible to retrieve the bookmark folder structure as a tree model using the script API method Bookmark.getBookmarkFoldersTreeModel().  However, this tree model can only be visualised in the Tree component by assigning the model with the setModel() method.  The issue with this is that it limits the flexibility of how a bookmark folder structure can be represented from a UI design perspective.  It may not always be desirable to show the bookmark folders in a typical hierarchical tree structure as per the Tree component.  One alternative representation that comes to mind is a tile-based layout using for example the Fiori-like Launchpad SDK Component from the Design Studio SDK Development Community, in which the user could navigate the bookmark folder structure from higher levels to lower levels by drilling down through groups of tiles representing the level.

To put this into perspective, the tree representation achievable with the current standard functionality is shown below:

Bookmark Folders in Tree Component:

Bookmark Folder Structure in CMC:

Providing a scripting method to traverse the folder structure, similar to the Backend Connection technical component getRootFolders() and getChildren() methods would allow the application designer much more flexibility in terms of customising the UI for navigating the bookmark folder structure.

2.  Continue to support Fragment and Portable Fragment Bookmarks in the future "Reworked Bookmark Concept" on the Design Studio Roadmap

Although this may seem obvious, I'm just mentioning it here so as to not take this for granted.  Fragment and Portable Fragment Bookmarks are very powerful features which should be retained in the new concept.

3.  Allow users other than the creator of a Portable Fragment Bookmark to maintain the bookmark at run-time

Portable Fragment Bookmarks are very useful for centrally authoring fragments so that they can be consumed by end users. One big advantage is that such bookmarks can be centrally maintained such that any updates are automatically reflected in the consuming applications.  Here when I talk about "updates", I simply mean changes to the state of the contents of the bookmark made by the author from the producer application, such as filters or UI component state selections, such as a radio button state or a dropdown list selection.  At the moment, only the original author of a Portable Fragment Bookmark can update it.  When saving a Portable Fragment Bookmark in a producer application, with the Bookmark.PortableFragmentBookmark.saveBookmark() method using the "overwrite" option, if the current user is not the same as the original author of the bookmark then a duplicate bookmark is created.  Presumably this is by design.

But why is it important to allow editing by users other than the original bookmark author?  I can think of a couple of reasons:

(a)  What happens when the original author is no longer responsible for maintaining the bookmarks they have created because they have either moved onto a new role or left the organisation?  We now have a situation where Portable Fragment Bookmarks have been potentially consumed by many users, in an Online Composition scenario for instance, with no possibility of centrally updating these bookmarks by the new responsible person;

(b)  In a centrally managed scenario, it may be desirable to share the responsibility for updating Portable Fragment Bookmarks across several team members.

Although of course it would not be desirable to allow all users to update a Portable Fragment Bookmark created by another user, I would think this could be implemented by taking advantage of the BI Platform standard security features by assigning appropriate privileges for viewing vs updating within bookmark folders.

Now one response to this particular feature request might be that central maintenance will be supported by the "re-usable component" concept which is also on the roadmap.  However, I think there is a difference between the two and a need for both.  Re-usable components are for developers to centrally maintain the structure of common application content such as headers and footers at design-time whereas central maintenance of bookmarks relates more to end users updating the settings of bookmark content at run-time in a producer application.

4.  Allow Portable Fragment Bookmarks to be consumed in multiple applications without requiring selection from a Fragment Gallery for viewing in a Split Cell Container

In the context of "consumer" applications for the purposes of Portable Fragment Bookmarks, at the moment only an online composition scenario is supported whereby users select such bookmarks from a Fragment Gallery to compose their own layout inside a Split Cell Container.  However, I think a legitimate alternative use case instead of this previously mentioned free-style scenario is the scenario whereby multiple consumer applications are required for different purposes whereby they each have a different static part but allow the user to select only ONE Portable Fragment Bookmark for a dynamic part, where the bookmarks available for single selection are presented in a dropdown list for instance, instead of allowing the simultaneous use of multiple fragments from a Fragment Gallery.

This feature would allow for more purpose-built application use cases of Portable Fragment Bookmarks compared to the current free-style online composition approach.

5.  Allow re-mapping of bookmark data sources when promoting from one system to another

The planned Reworked Bookmark Concept shown in the slide above includes "Promotion Management support of bookmarks and folders".  I am sure this will be a very welcome new feature when introduced in future, especially taking into consideration comments on the need for this in various SCN discussions.  Although it may be a given, I'm just including this item here for the sake of completeness in that it is obviously very important to include a mechanism to re-map bookmark data sources, for instance with the Promotion Management Override feature.

6.  Allow Technical Components to be included in Fragment and Portable Fragment Bookmarks

At the moment because Fragment and Portable Fragment Bookmarks are defined by wrapping child components inside a container component such as a Panel, as far as I am aware, there is no way to include Technical components in such bookmarks.  Given that the slide above shows the new bookmarking concept as being a technical component itself where the included components are selected via the "Bookmark Configuration Selection" property, I hope this will allow selection of both UI and non-UI (technical) components for inclusion in a bookmark.

7.  Increase the robustness of bookmarks against internal changes to SDK components that are included in the bookmarks

It is quite common for the inner workings of SDK components to be updated with the release of new versions.  Upgrading to a new version of an SDK component should not break bookmarks which include that SDK component.  Specifically, the following scenarios come to mind:

i)   If a new ZTL function is added to an SDK component, this function should be active in existing bookmarks which contain this component

ii)  If an existing ZTL function is updated in an SDK component, the updated version of this function should be active in existing bookmarks which contain the component

iii)  If a new property is added to an SDK component, this property should be active in existing bookmarks which contain this component.  This is probably supported now to an extent but I'm including it here for good measure.

8.  Allow SDK component properties to be flagged as "relevant for bookmarking"

There may be situations whereby certain features of an SDK component require that the values of specific properties should not be captured in a bookmark.  For these scenarios it would be useful to include an appropriate flag in the contribution.xml file definition of the relevant properties.

Conclusion

These are my ideas of desirable features for future versions of the bookmarking functionality.  I welcome and encourage comments and suggestions from you about the above features as well as other features which would be useful based on your experiences.

Blog Series Index:  Design Studio Innovation Series - Welcome