- SAP Managed Tags:
Based on my blog „Importing Apache Web Server logs to SAP HANA for Web Analytics and Reporting“ I want to demonstrate how you could easily visualize the results of SAP HANA reports with SAP BusinessObjects Explorer using web traffic and master data. As a result of this blog I will show a report for active users in SAP BusinessObjects Explorer which is similar to Google Analytics reports for new and returning users.
Prerequisites
To get this scenario running, you need at least
- a SAP HANA instance
- a SAP HANA Developer Studio
- a SAP BusinessObjects Enterprice incl. Explorer instance connected via JDBC to the SAP HANA instance
As a data source I choose the web traffic log of Apache which is already imported as shown in my first blog. Additionally we import master data which can be joined to the traffic data, e.g. an IP address resolution table for country and regions or a user agent resolution table for web browser and device resoltion. This master data could simply be imported to HANA as it is static information in a one time import. I choose to store such master data in a column table.
Step 1: Creating the web analytics report in SAP HANA Studio
As basis for the report I have defined a set of Attribute Views which were created in the SAP HANA Studio. In each Attribute View I choose the set of attributes which should be joined to the web server data. The key attribute in the Attribute View will ensure that the master data is joined accordingly to the corresponding attributes of the web server data.
Creating a new graphical Calculation View (CVG_REGISTRATIONS_REPORT) is required to aggregate the data to the required level of reporting. It is mandadory to add the defined Attribute Views to the Calculation View before the aggregation step is done. As a measure of the Calculation View I defined the active user. Those users who did at least one activity in the web server log are treaded as active user.
Once the aggregation of type COUNT is defined in the Calculation View, the object is activated on the SAP HANA instance and ready for use in the SAP BusinessObjects Explorer.
Step 2: Creating an Information Space on SAP BusinessObjects Explorer
The graphical Calculation View on SAP HANA gets mapped as an Information Space on the Explorer application. I created a new Information Space based on the Calculation View CVG_REGISTRATIONS_REPORT. As a measure the aggregation COUNT is choosen and attributes from the Calculation View are mapped as facets.
After the Information space is defined and created, it has to be indexed to be available on the SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise.
Step 3: Publish the report on SAP BusinessObjects Exploration Views
Once the Information Space is ready for use, I created a new Exploration View Dashboard on top of that data set. The Exploration Views allows you to arrange several visualistions with filters on one dashboard.
To have a compareable dashboard like Google Analytics is offering, I need to define line charts, pie charts and a map chart, which all comes be default with the Exploration view add-on.
Compare the result of the report with the corresponding Google Analytics dashboard.
