SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio: The New Generation Dashboard Solution from SAP

SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio enables application designers to create analysis applications and dashboards – based on universe data sources – for browsers and mobile devices (iPads, for example).

The other reason we like it is that it is totally customisable but requires application development skills to carry out this customisation and this is what we do very well at Developer Solutions.

The solution contains D3 which is a Javascript charting framework. It is essentially a Javascript graphics library which is used under the hood in SAP Design Studio to produce charts and maps and graphs.

The data layer connects straight to Universes and therefore becomes part of the suite of SAP tools that all report off the same point of truth, which is quite nice.

Working in an Eclipse environment is necessary as this is where you write custom controls. Custom controls are based upon the SDK and can be built by developers and consumed by end-users. The essential development skillsets required are a knowledge of Javascript and CSS3.

SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio comes with 30-40 out-of-the-box custom controls which covers most Dashboard scenarios. The advantage with custom control development is that the customer gets what they want. E.g. a geographical map of the world of trading routes, which is being developed from scratch and that will show the flow of goods from port to port across the globe. Another good example would be, single charts that require multiple filters of data sources and that is not achievable out-of-the box.

The SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio Dashboards can be published from Eclipse directly to the SAP BusinessObjects platform.

Whatever visualisation you can think of – we can build it – to mirror your organisation’s branding and look and feel.

We at Developer Solutions are particularly excited by this development as it fills the technology gap that has been around for quite a while now and we are working with a number of our customers to develop Dashboards to help them to run their business. Long may it continue!

Written by Jamie, Senior Developer, Developer Solutions

Why I'm Batman

There’s a running joke in my house to do with bats, the 3rd eldest of my girls is a teeny bit obsessed that she is Batman. Whenever we are out and about and see someone wearing the Bat motif we joke about how they’re not the real Batman (be they 4 or 40). Only she can be the real thing as she does not overtly display the fact (much!!). “I’m Batman” is her refrain in the husky voice of the Bat and we being her family always back her up. That is, until today as I am now about to rock her world, steal her thunder and generally move into Wayne Manor as I reveal to the world that in fact…

“I’m Batman”

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Written by Conrad Rowlands, Lead Developer, Developer Solutions

Why I'm Sherlock

I’m lucky, very lucky. My life is full of many great things. I have the best fiancee and family a man could wish for, I have a dog that, uniquely within my family, thinks I’m the boss. I’m lucky enough to spend a great deal of time in Cornwall which has captured my heart in much the same way as my beloved Shropshire has. In addition I have a great job which means that on a daily basis I am Sherlock (When I’m not being Batman that is…).

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Written by Conrad Rowlands, Lead Developer, Developer Solutions

The Mighty Raspberry Pi – According to Developer Solutions

According to Wikipedia, as of 8 June 2015, about five to six million Raspberry Pis have been sold. While already the fastest selling British personal computer, it has also shipped the second largest number of units behind the Amstrad PCW, the "Personal Computer Word-processor", which sold eight million.

Windows IoT running on The Raspberry Pi is different from Windows running on a PC or tablet.  When it is first plugged in and booted– it essentially runs an app and the only app that is going to run, what’s known as headed mode.  This startup app can be replaced with a Windows Universal App.

However, the Pi can run in headless mode with no UI and no interactive apps whatsoever which is great for freeing up system resources. Any apps installed now run like services, for example, you can use it as a web server (hosted on your network).  As you do not need a front end, just a black box, it is very quick as nothing else is running and competing for resources.  It only runs the bits it needs (ASP.NET Core 1 previously ASP.NET V5). 

At Developer Solutions, we can build an app on a PC using Visual Studio 2015 and publish it over to Raspberry Pi as if it was a Windows Server running IIS in the Server room. (OK, maybe a bit of configuration will be needed – but not a lot).

The only issue that we can think of is that it is fairly new (in fact it is still in development within the Open Source community).  It is so new and is evolving so quickly that every time you look at it a new feature is added. 

The other nice thing we like is that you are able to debug code line-by-line across the network from Visual Studio, which you certainly would not expect possible with such a small device.

With some testing and development we have been able to interface forty plus items with it.  It has sensors for everything, examples include temperature, weight, distance, humidity, RFID. 

From a commercial perspective, we are in the process of working with a large manufacturer using RFID sensors and bar code scanning and also possibly using an infrared sensor to manage their stock control to highlight to the team when a bin is getting empty.

The cost is great too!  In fact it costs under £50.  Also cost-wise, implementing Windows IOT is free (if you are prepared to accept updates as and when they are released – you cannot defer them).  Unless you pay for the commercial license which lets you control updates for live systems.  You can click here for more information. 

We are MS Visual Studio developers at Developer Solutions and are familiar with this environment to build a piece of software.  We are also working with a client at the moment and taking an old piece of hardware that uses radio and serial communications and are connecting it to the Pi which in turn is connecting to the Cloud.

Industry is looking at it as serious contender for putting Windows inside things, such as fridges, cars, etc.  And that is where we see the future.  And guess what?  We like it! 

Written by Jamie, Senior Developer, Developer Solutions

Live and learn – Part 4,235

Here we are again, back again with the bane of all programmers lives:-

Dates! and I’m not talking about the kind that makes you run for the toilet or the ones that keep you regular either! There’s only one thing worse than dates and that’s the formatting of addresses which everyone seems to make up their own rules for, bygones….

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Written by Conrad Rowlands, Team Leader and Lead Developer, Developer Solutions

Coping with Large Dimensional Workflows

I have recently been working on a third tranche of ETL work for a client which is basically a reasonably complex data warehouse. Its been a great project and I’ve loved getting down and dirty with their data although there have been some frustrating elements to the project, which as I have not worked on such a complex linear project before, I did not foresee as being an issue. This blog is a discussion of the main issue which I will attempt to give a working strategy to deal with.

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Written by Conrad Rowlands, Lead Developer, Developer Solutions

Man of Distinct(ion)

Its not often that I learn something new about the fundamentals of SQL. Sure they add to the syntax all the time and you learn something  about what you can do with these addition but fundamentals, that’s basic stuff – the kind of stuff you rattle off a thousand times a day without even thinking about it . I’m talking about  stuff I should have known though it seems that I am not alone so I thought I would share this tidbit. This knowledge  is to do with the DISTINCT keyword of all things.

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Written by Conrad Rowlands, Lead Developer, Developer Solutions