Using Design Studio with SAP HANA end to end-Part 2

This is part 2 of this blog post, you can find the first part here: Using Design Studio with SAP HANA end to end-Part 1

After taking a look at how we can connect locally to SAP HANA in the first part of this blog post, we will now take a look how we can connect through the BI Platform and use some HANA features like hierarchies in a Design Studio Application.

Here our overall plan:

1. Create an OLAP Connection to SAP HANA in the BI Repository
2. Using HANA Hierarchies and HANA Variables in Design Studio
3. Mobilize the Design Studio Application

1. Create an OLAP Connection to SAP HANA in the BI Repository

In order to create en OLAP Connection, navigate to the Central Management Console (CMC), and go to OLAP Connections, and from there create a new connection to SAP HANA:

Note: Single Sign-On will be supported in BI4.1 as noted in the Design Studio Designer Guide.

After creating the OLAP connection in the CMC, we open Design Studio, create a new application and select the newly created connection:

Note that in the screenshot above there is also one connection to SAP HANA that has been created within the Information Design Tool (IDT), while it is technically possible to use this connection, the recommendation is to create the connection within the CMC. It is also possible to create an OLAP connection directly to a calculation view, this is represented by the first entry in the screenshot above. Do keep in mind that it has to be an OLAP connection for use in Design Studio though. Other BI Tools like SAP BusinessObjects Analysis, edition for Microsoft Office or Explorer are able to leverage a relational connection to SAP HANA.

2. Using HANA Hierarchies and HANA Variables in Design Studio

After selecting a connection we are presented a list of analytical and calculation views:

The selected calculation view contains a mandatory variable (Variable_1), therefore a prompt will appear right away:

Note that the calculation view also contains an optional Input Parameter (InputParameter_1) with a default value that is being surfaced in Design Studio. After providing a value for the mandatory variable, I edit the initial view of the datasource, which has all key figures added by default, but no dimensions (similar behaviour compared to connecting to a SAP BW InfoProvider). I navigate to a HANA Hierarchy and activate it, afterwards you can also set the "Expand to Level" property:

The hierarchy above is a level hierarchy. Parent child hierarchies are generally speaking supported as well.

The sorting of variables is respected in the prompts dialog. Initially I defined following sorting order:

After altering the sorting in the calculation view, I can either close and re-open Design Studio, or I can hit "Clear Cached Logon Credentials" in the Design Studio preferences Dialog. Afterwards, the new sorting order is surfaced in the prompts dialog in Design Studio:

Afterwards we can create a simple Design Studio application.

3. Mobilize the Design Studio Application

This is the last and fastest step. Just assign the Design Studio application to the mobile category in order to offer the application on a mobile device. Here a screenshot from the application on an iPad 3:

The Design Studio application contains a pagebook component, by swiping to the right on the iPad (or activating the checkbox), we can jump to a second page where we can enjoy the filtering capabilities of the filter panel component:

Thank you for reading and hope you enjoyed this introducction into using Design Studio with SAP HANA.

Other interesting blogs on Design Studio & SAP HANA:

How To: Update SAP HANA table using XS - a simple demo by Murali Balreddy

My experience with SAP BO Design Studio on HANA by Muralikrishnan E

Traffic Controller with SAP Design Studio on HANA...(designed for fun) by Muralikrishnan E