Today there are less than 20% of people in an organization have access to analytics and that figure is predicted to rise to 75% by 2020. More people will be leveraging data to make informed business decisions. SAP is continuously working towards the commitment of connecting more and more users to trusted data and delivering a single version of truth across any organization.
Last week Jayne Landry, Global VP and GM Business Intelligence at SAP and Eron Kelly, GM SQL Server at Microsoft jointly announced the public preview of Power BI – Excel connectivity to SAP BusinessObjects BI universes at SharePoint 2014 conference (March 3 - March 6). With this capability, SAP BusinessObjects customers can extend trusted, enterprise data based on SAP BusinessObjects BI universes to their Excel users and deliver a single version of truth in their organization. Excel users can continue to work in their familiar environment and access data from an SAP BusinessObjects BI universe. This feature is available as a data source in Power Query, an add-in within Excel.
Customers that have made significant investments with both companies benefit from a combination of trusted data and familiar tools from Microsoft and SAP. Here are some of the key benefits:
Remove data silos and seamlessly access trusted enterprise IT managed data– Connect to latest, accurate and trusted enterprise data from SAP BusinessObjects BI Universes. You can also refresh data coming from a BI universe. Today SAP BusinessObjects BI universes support over 140 data sources.
Business friendly semantics for Excel users – End users can easily work with data that is represented in simple business language instead of complex table/data structures and navigate through dimensions and measures from an SAP BusinessObjects BI Universe directly in Excel.
Drive broader BI adoption and complement existing SAP BusinessObjects BI client experiences - This functionality complements client experiences that are already available in the SAP BusinessObjects BI suite, such as Web Intelligence or Crystal Reports and will help drive broader BI adoption. With this joint capability between SAP and Microsoft products, IT departments can drive more value from their existing investments. Please note this is not a replacement for Live Office.
Here is a short video of how you can bring data from an SAP BusinessObjects BI universe into Excel similar to other clients such as SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence. Users can navigate through dimensions and measures, preview data and apply filters prior to bringing the data into Excel for analysis.
You can download the preview version of the Power BI add-in here, to connect to SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform and access data via an SAP BusinessObjects BI Universe. This connector requires SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 SP2 or later and a universe created with the Information Design Tool (.UNX extension). For latest technical details and latest updates, please refer to Terry Penner's blog on SAP BusinessObjects BI Universe Connectivity API.