Wednesday 17 May 2017

Consuming SAP HANA Express Edition information models in Microsoft Power BI using live connection

Initially I created my account at https://powerbi.microsoft.com. I also subscribed for the Microsoft Power BI YouTube channel.

so, I decided to play around connecting Power BI with my SAP HXE instance. Generally speaking there are two ways of connecting and consuming SAP HANA information models in Power BI: Import and DirectQuery. For this post, I will be showing my SAP HANA live data connection with Power BI (DirectQuery).

Requirements needed for this tutorial:
  • SAP HANA 2.0,  Express Edition (my installation is based on Virtual Machine). more details here.
  • SAP HANA Studio
  • Microsoft Power BI Desktop
  • Microsoft Power BI On-premises data Gateway up and running
  • SAP HANA Interactive Education (SHINE), which is part of the SAP HANA express Edition
  • Power BI App from Itunes and/or Google Play store

My Private Network setup


Quick overview of my Network layout:

SAP HANA Tutorials and Materials, SAP HANA Certifications, SAP HANA Guide

Test case scenario


My test case consists in replicating one of the SHINE Dashboard into Power BI for learning proposes only. This scenario will use continuous connection with my SAP HANA database.

SAP HEX, SHINE (Interactive Education)


The following screenshot is from you SAP HEX installation: SHINE. Sales Dashboard:

SAP HANA Tutorials and Materials, SAP HANA Certifications, SAP HANA Guide

The following are the Calculation Views used as source for Sales Dashboard:

Chart Calculation View

1 & 2 SALES_ORDER_RANKING
3         CUSTOMER_DISCOUNT_BY_RANKING_AND_REGION
4         SALESORDER_RANKING

The Calculation Views above belong to the SAP HANA Democontent package, EPM Models.

Power BI Desktop


now, down here is the same SHINE Sales Dashboard but this time built in Power BI Desktop

SAP HANA Tutorials and Materials, SAP HANA Certifications, SAP HANA Guide

Interpretation of the Charts as per Power BI Desktop:

Chart  Type Table (Information Model in SAP HANA) Fields 
 1 Pie Chart SALES_ORDER_RANKING Region, NetAmount
 2 Clustered Column Chart SALES_ORDER_RANKING Country, NetAmount
 3 Slicer CUSTOMER_DISCOUNT_BY_RANKING_AND_REGION Region
 4 Donut Chart CUSTOMER_DISCOUNT_BY_RANKING_AND_REGION Company Name, Discount
 5 Scatter Chart SALESORDER_RANKING Customer_Name, Sales, Sales Rank, and Orders

it took me very little to build this report, considering my knowledge of Power BI: (roughly a month)

Power BI Desktop: Connection with SAP HEX database


When selecting the SAP HANA database connectivity, make sure to choose DirectQuery:

SAP HANA Tutorials and Materials, SAP HANA Certifications, SAP HANA Guide

Power BI On-premises Data Gateway


Considering the understanding of the previous steps, I would suggest the following sequence:
  1. Download the On-Premises Data Gateway from powerbi.microsoft.com
  2. Install it and make sure the installation as well as the connection are successful
  3. Go back to powerbi.microsoft.com and setup the datasource (connection) for the SAP HEX
  4. From Power BI Desktop client tool, publish your report into Power BI
For steps 1 and 2: The final results must be like this:

SAP HANA Tutorials and Materials, SAP HANA Certifications, SAP HANA Guide

For step 3: the Datasource (or connection) MUST be as same as the one used in the Power BI Desktop when connecting with the SAP HXE database:

SAP HANA Tutorials and Materials, SAP HANA Certifications, SAP HANA Guide

Tip: The Username and Password here is the one you created in step 2 when installing and setting up On-Premises Gateway. it has nothing to do with the SAP HANA database (from experience)

Step 3: Power BI Desktop: Finally publishing the report into Power BI by Choosing “Publish” from the extreme top-right corner. Choose the Workspace to be published to and hit Select:

SAP HANA Tutorials and Materials, SAP HANA Certifications, SAP HANA Guide

After the completion, the status will show up:

SAP HANA Tutorials and Materials, SAP HANA Certifications, SAP HANA Guide

done. pretty easy to setup.

Using Power BI Mobile App


Now I can just jump into my Power BI mobile App and interact with my Dashboard. Screenshot from my Iphone 7:

SAP HANA Tutorials and Materials, SAP HANA Certifications, SAP HANA Guide

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