9 SAP BOBJ Universe Best Practices [White Paper]

 

Which KPIs are applicable to which Business Processes?  If you are familiar with the SAP Solution Map Composer (Now replaced by SAP Solution Explorer) you will know that KPIs are only defined for some business processes and that it is difficult, but not impossible to find out which KPIs are related to which Business Processes.  You do this by doing a sort of reverse lookup within the KPI panel. 

 

One of our client companies recently asked us to help them identify and rationalize their KPIs across their company.  

What we found was that they suffered from a proliferation of 'SAP BOBJ Universes'?    

In this project we found 100 Universes, with more than 40,520 distinct Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in just 33 of those universes alone!  We know that there will be more than 100,000 KPIs across this company when we finish the analysis!  As you might imagine, there is a proliferation of varying interpretations and meanings of these KPIs.

 

 

 

Clearly, no company needs or can use 100,000 KPIs.  You may think this is an unusual situation, but we find it nearly everywhere we work.   This proliferation of KPIs arises from a variety of causes:

 

 

This first group of ‘assignable causes’ of KPI variation are the result of the management of the company or outside forces.  There is no particular rank order to the list above, although Mergers and Acquisitions would probably be at or near the top of the list.  If there are changes in the definition or use of KPIs due to any of the above causes, you can address them with ‘management process changes’.

 

The above list of causes of KPI variation is more technical in nature, though of course, each cause of variation requires management attention to correct.

 

Universe Best Practices

 

1. Be consistent across the board with naming standards
   
   
1. Of thousands of errors encountered in a recent project, naming errors were the primary observed cause of errors.
   
   
2. Employee Naming, small letters in universe and Capital in another universe
   
   
2. You need track and trace capability from the Universe to the Requirement and from requirement to the Universe.
   
   
1. The Universe tool itself doesn’t have a good way to do this, so you need a database, which we have developed - The Universe Will Free Your Data!
   
   
3. You need the ability to add transformations in your universe and using your database to tell you where all it will or might affect other users.
   
   
4. Your database needs the ability to capture an unlimited number of tables/columns/free characteristics.  They should be tied together by the Universe ID.
   
   
5. The database must provide automated Revision Tracking.  In our Access KPI tracking database, we have automated the process.
   
   
6. The database must be and is web enabled to allow global visibility for collaboration.  This gives everyone access to a common database.
   
   
7. Because the database exports its results to excel, it can be used as an interface to the SAP Business Warehouse to upload files.
   
   
8. Your requirements database must provide sign-off capability.  
   
   The KPI Catalog database, exclusively developed by our guru’s at SAP BW Consulting, inc. provide these capabilities and more.
   
   
9. The database must also provide a tracking mechanism for all reports that are generated from any universe

 

Learn more on how to develop a successful SAP Business Objects Universe with our Universe Development Lifecycle guide.

 

Love to hear your comments, or learn your own Best Practice recommendations.