Solving the Mystery of mySAP FI/CO and Siebel CRM

By Doug Adams, Product Marketing Manager, Cognos, Burlington, Massachusetts

Many organizations that have invested in Cognos solutions have built a data warehouse to meet their business intelligence (BI) needs. A few challenges might accompany this approach …

First, the data in the warehouse isn’t current enough to meet all BI requirements. The data might be a day, a week, or in some cases even a month old, though there is usually a subset of BI requirements that require up-to-the-minute information, such as to support the month-end financial close.

Another challenge facing customers is that all of the data required for a specific report might not be found in the data warehouse and in fact is stored in multiple disparate systems. Finally, above all, there is a need to combine historical data from the warehouse with current information found in the transaction system to provide context for determining the correct action for the current situation.

However, there can be difficulty in accessing the transaction system. An example of this is combining historical financial information on payment history for a customer with the current opportunities for that customer in order to determine whether or not you can expect a speedy payment or you should work with your sales organization to instill a payment policy with the customer.

IT-intensive reporting projects

These challenges have forced organizations to build a separate operational reporting solution to report off their transactional data or to ignore a subset of their business user needs. Historically for end-users this type of project involves an IT-intensive reporting tool that is typically tied to only one application (and then provides limited flexibility for the kinds of formatting users want).

These operational reporting projects have proven expensive and often introduced significant delays/challenges to meeting user demands for new reports. Ultimately, users were often faced with the time-consuming and error-prone task of manually reconciling reports from the operational system with reports from the data warehouse to produce the information they actually need.

If your organization has rolled out an IT-intensive BI tool to end-users, can they access the information they need? Chances are they can’t – and they’re not the only ones with this problem. Most users don’t understand which application the data resides in let alone how to create a report.

New Transaction Solutions

To address this challenge, Cognos has introduced a pair of new capabilities with Cognos 8 BI MR1. The first is Cognos Data Adapters for mySAP and Siebel CRM (to provide connectivity to transaction systems) and the second is Cognos 8 Report Packs for mySAP FI/CO and Siebel CRM (packaged separately, it is intended to decrease the time and effort required to produce common reports against transactional data). Now all of Cognos 8 BI’s rich features and functions – including federated query, export to PDF, and drag and drop – have been extended to mySAP and Siebel CRM.

Top Opportunities Enhanced Report from Cognos 8 Report Pack for Siebel CRM

Cognos 8 Report Packs for mySAP FI/CO and Siebel CRM is a content solution. This solution provides more than 60 pre-built reports against mySAP and Siebel CRM transaction systems, the Cognos Report Pack Views, and the corresponding Framework Manager model. Each report was built using Cognos 8 BI MR1 and can be easily tailored to meet individual customer needs.

Each Report Pack ships with two types of reports. The first is called an Enhanced Report. Enhanced Reports are heavily formatted reports that include prompts, charts, and lists, and act as examples of the types of reports users can achieve.

Sales Journal Enhanced Report from Cognos 8 Report Pack for mySAP FI/CO

The second type of report is called a Detailed Report. Detailed Reports are more list style in nature, reflecting the typical kinds of format received with the operational system, with a difference – these detailed reports can be used as building blocks and can easily be tailored and formatted to meet your individual needs, without coding or heavy reliance on IT. They also can serve as drill-through reports, allowing you to start from dashboards or scorecards, or business events that lead you to these reports when you need to see the underlying detail, live from the transaction system.

In addition to the reports, Cognos 8 Report Packs also include the underlying Framework Manager model and the Report Pack Views required for the reports to run. Cognos 8 Report Packs are packaged and sold separately as an add-on to Cognos 8 BI.

Customer List Address Detailed Report from Cognos 8 Report Pack for mySAP FI/CO

Complimenting the report packs are the new Cognos Data Adapters for mySAP and Siebel CRM. These adapters are included with Cognos 8 BI MR1 (only for customers using Cognos 8 BI MR1 or above) and utilize the native API for mySAP (BAPIs and RFCs certified by SAP) and Siebel (Siebel Business Objects layer).The Cognos Adapters are included at no additional charge and, while the pre-built content in the Cognos 8 Report Packs targets specific modules in mySAP and Siebel, the adapters provide out-of-the-box connectivity to all mySAP and Siebel modules.

Combine Data

Leveraging Cognos Data Adapters, companies can use Cognos 8 BI to develop additional BI content directly against any module in your transactional sources and combine that transaction data with other sources, e.g. combining mySAP data with SAP BW data in a single report or combining mySAP and Siebel data together to gain insights comparing Sales and Pipeline. Cognos Data Adapters are an effective solution for mySAP customers who want connectivity beyond the FI/CO module or would like different reports than what Cognos offers out of the box.

Solution components for Cognos 8 Report Packs

Cognos 8 Report Packs are comprised of three discrete components that work together to provide out-of-the-box reporting. The first layer is the Cognos 8 BI layer that contains both the Report Studio reports and the Framework Manager models. The Framework Manager models act as a simplified metadata model for each report and contain built-in controls to limit the impact on the operational systems.

The next layer is the Data Access layer containing Cognos Report Pack Views that provide the data for the reports and are built using Cognos Data Adapters. These views are an abstraction of the ERP system and are responsible for generating the optimal query against the respective ERP system. The third layer is the transactional system itself with its complex schema and proprietary API.

Extending your Siebel, mySAP investments

Cognos 8 Report Packs for mySAP and Siebel CRM are best used to complement a data warehouse to enrich reporting, not as a replacement for a data warehousing strategy. For the first time in a single report, you can present historical data from the data warehouse and current data from the transactional system. An example of this would be to combine historical financial information (data warehouse) with current opportunities (Top Opportunities Report from Cognos 8 Report Pack) to accurately project cash flow from each customer.

Cognos 8 BI Report Packs and Cognos Data Adapters extend the power of Cognos 8 BI to mySAP and Siebel CRM to provide a single solution for all users to access all BI content, regardless of data source by providing access to multiple sources within the same report or scorecard. Furthermore, Report Packs eliminate the cost and effort of separate operational reporting environments by utilizing the same BI solution you have already invested in for your data warehouse or other BI projects.