Download ZR Reporting

SAP University Alliances
Version
3.6
Authors: Anjali Ramburn & Lisa Seymour
Product
SAP Business Objects
ESEFA curriculum
Level
Beginner
Focus
SAP Reporting
ZR
Reporting
Abstract
This unit focuses on different reporting
techniques as supported by the SAP software and
SAP Business Intelligence. It is aimed at students
at universities, universities of applied sciences
and other educational institutions with no
previous experience of SAP Business Intelligence
software. It can be used in the classroom or for
self-study.
On completion of the unit, students will be able
to generate operational, tactical and strategic
reports.
© SAP SE
Reporting content
 ERP information output capabilities
 Different types of reports
 SAP standard reports
- Benefits and limitations
 SAP Business Intelligence
- SAP Business Objects
• Crystal Reports & Crystal Dashboards
 Designing and creating tactical and strategic reports
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ERP information output capabilities
 Generate information in order facilitate decision-making or to assist with
other aspects of someone’s job
 Getting data in is as important as getting data out
 Quick access to vital information
 Examples of reporting outputs:
- Product ‘hot seller’ report
- Product ‘non-mover’ report
- Over 30 days outstanding orders
- Over 30 days outstanding customer payments
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What is a report?
 Output retrieved from a database and presented in
a particular format to a user.
 Can allow filtering, sorting, aggregation
 A report can be:
-
displayed online
exported to MS Excel or other softwares
e-mailed as an attachment
printed
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Different types of reports
 Operational
- Displays line item detail and lots of data
- Data is displayed using a table
- Facilitates structured decision-making
• SAP standard reports can be used to generate transactional data
 Tactical
- Displays short term summary data
- Drill down from summary to detailed data
- Facilitates semi-structured decision-making
• SAP Crystal Reports
 Strategic
- Projects the future and shows trends of the past
- Represented visually and highly interactive
- Facilitates unstructured decision-making
• SAP Dashboards
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ERP reporting capabilities
 Standard reports
 Tools for report creation (programmed/technical to
flexible reports)
- Query reporting tools
- Report Painter/Report Writer
- SAP Business Objects
• SAP Crystal Reports and SAP Crystal Dashboards Design
 How many prebuilt standard reports does SAP
have?
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ERP standard reports
 ERPs are typically preloaded with a variety of what can be
referred to as ‘standard reports’
 Standard report: prebuilt/predefined report supplied with
the ERP software
 The link below provides an overview of selected standard
reports:
http://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/ERPLO/SAP+Standard
+Reports
 SAP provides a collection of more than 2 700 standard
reports across different applications
 Designed to meet operational and transactional needs
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ERP standard reports – benefits
 Readily available! They come packaged with the
ERP software.
 Some reports are really good for operational
reporting:
• Routine daily monitoring
• Financial reports (income statement, balance sheet)
 ERP systems like SAP are implemented in thousands
of companies, so they have a pretty good
understanding of what managers need. But…
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ERP standard reports – limitations
 ERP standard reports don’t always meet the users’ needs (or
likes) – they are extremely ineffective for supporting adhoc/decision-oriented processes.
- Every organization is somehow different in its decision
support needs.
 Searching for a report among thousands of available
reports/navigating through multilevel menus is timeconsuming.
 Several reports are designed (delivered by default) to meet
operational or transaction needs only.
 Most of the reports are predefined, list oriented and provide
very limited OLAP functionality.
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Example of a purchasing report
 Menu path: Logistics > Materials Management >
Purchasing > Purchase Order > List Displays > By
Material
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SAP Business Objects (BO)
 A suite of front-end Business Intelligence (BI) applications
 SAP Crystal Reports and SAP Crystal Dashboards Design:
Independent applications used to design and generate reports from
a wide range of data sources.
 Provides easy access to large volumes of information.
 Provides better decision-making capabilities.
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Report design
 Main phases of report design
- Source the data
- Conceptualize the report based on information needs
- Design the report
- Develop and test
- Deploy and operate
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SAP Crystal Reports
 Used to produce simple, complex or specialised
reports
- Industry standard for reporting to design, explore,
visualise, and deliver reports via the Web or embedded
in enterprise applications
- Developers and designers create reports that answer
questions such as pending order deliveries or
outstanding invoices and distribute these reports to
management, enabling them to make informed decisions
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SAP Crystal Report design screen
 Automatically creates five areas in design tab
- Report Header, Page Header, Details, Report Footer and
Page Footer
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Screen components
 Report Header (RH) – used for report title
 Page Header (PH) – used for information that you
want to appear at the top of each page
 Details (D) - used for the body of the report with
the bulk of the report data generally appearing in
this section
 Report Footer (RF) - used for information you want
to appear only once at the end of the report (such
as grand totals)
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Screen components
 Page Footer (PF) – used for page number and any
other information you want to appear on the
bottom of each page
 Another area of the Crystal Reports Design tab is
the Field Explorer:
- Click View > Field Explorer. The Field Explorer, as the
name implies, contains the fields that can be included in
a report.
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Example of a Crystal Report
Page 12A-17
SAP Crystal Dashboards Design
 Dashboard and visualisation tools are essential for
providing a common view of what’s important to
your organization or team.
 These tools enhance visibility into organizational
strategy, align actions with strategy and allow users
to track KPIs, assign goals and collaborate and share
knowledge.
- Xcelsius is a drag-and-drop visualisation tool designed to
create interactive analytics for powerful, personalised
dashboards with live connections to any data source.
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SAP Dashboard workspace
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Screen components
 Canvas frame – white work area where you can place
components in order to create a visualisation.
 Components frame – includes objects that can be added to
your Dashboard.
 Properties frame – contains the setting and format options
for the selected component.
 Spreadsheet frame – incorporates an embedded
spreadsheet.
 Object Browser frame – enables you to view and select the
components on your Dashboard.
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Example of a Strategic Report
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Summary
 You should now be able to:
- Differentiate between operational, tactical and strategic
reports
- Understand how different reports enable decisionmaking in an organization
- Understand the different tools available to generate the
different types of reports
- Use SAP Business Intelligence to create tactical and
strategic reports.
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