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SAP Business Planning and Consolidation, or BPC 10.1, version for SAP NetWeaver and HANA was released into general availability Summer 2014 giving planners some great new features as highlighted in this blog.
This release focuses on usability and NetWeaver platform integration so there is no Microsoft Platform equivalent with the 10.1 release as shown in Figure 1.
SAP has improved usability over the past few years by releasing a harmonized user interface strategy that straddled the various server platforms called SAPUI5. SAPUI5 works on all SAP Platforms; ABAP, JAVA and SAP HANA’s XS Engine enhancing the user experience SAP end users can expect from SAP applications as a whole. SAPUI5 is HTML5 based and therefore allows for application consumption across most mobile devices in addition to the desktop.
SAP BPC 10.1 has embraced this shift in user experience design by completely rebuilding the SAP Business Planning and Consolidation web client.
Figure 1 – The New BPC 10.1 Web Client
The ability to manage your BPC environments isn’t the only enhancement within the EPM space around mobile. EPM Unwired is now officially supported with BPC 10.1. Although EPM Unwired does work with BPC 10.0 up until this point it has been an SAP Developer Network or SDN solution.
EPM Unwired is an iPad application that can be downloaded directly from the Apple App Store. For those who are already familiar with the SAP Business Objects BI Mobile app, EPM Unwired provides customers with the same capabilities available within the BI mobile app plus new EPM capabilities in addition. From EPM Unwired end users can connect to a variety of different SAP backend applications in addition to BPC 10.1. The BPC 10.1 EPM Unwired functionality allows for end users to run reports, perform analysis and even write back data directly from those reports.
No special configuration or separate server is required in order to leverage this functionality. As long as you are able to view your 10.1 admin console on Safari from your iPad you will be able to leverage EPM Unwired to consumer your BPC 10.1 reports and input schedules.
In addition to the enhancements around user experience one of the key themes of the release is tighter integration with SAP NetWeaver and SAP HANA. BPC 10.1 allows implementers to build planning apps bottom up in addition to the more traditional top down approach to building SAP BPC applications. Similar to BW Integrated planning the BPC Embedded or Unified model allows implementers and BPC modelers to leverage their existing SAP BW InfoObjects and InfoCubes within these model types. In addition to being able to leveraging existing BW objects the embedded model allows organizations to leverage the capabilities within PAK, the HANA Based Planning Application Kit. PAK is a series of HANA based capabilities that accelerate BPC planning implementations by pushing planning functions down into the database.
BPC 10.1 helps customers get the most out of their end user experience while simultaneously providing deeper integration into the core SAP platform.
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Scott Cairncross is the founder of TruQua and specializes in business planning and consolidations and has a deep knowledge of SAP NetWeaver BW, SAP BusinessObjects, and the EPM Suite. Scott focuses on helping customers successfully implement SAP BusinessObjects, SAP EPM, and SAP NetWeaver BW. Scott is also heavily focused on bringing SAP Data into Rich Internet Applications, leveraging Flex, Cocoa, and Rich Java Tools, such as Google Web Toolkit, on both PCs and devices. Scott has participated in numerous SAP NetWeaver BW, SAP BusinessObjects, and EPM go-lives and is a regular speaker at SAP events.
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