Reasons for moving from DeskI to WebI
Distributed enviroments with Desktop Intelligence installed locally on PCs
generate a very high cost of ownership for the companies:
- Software licenses for third party software, for instance for database connectivity
- Support and maintenance costs for installation of software upgrades, patches, new releases. (estimates run as high as $1000 per desktop per upgrade)
- Local helpdesk requirements
- Local language support for end-users.
Besides the cost, there is the potential risk that companies have installed different versions of the software throughout the organization, with even different service pack levels. This can require a huge administration effort.
Every PC has software installed from different suppliers. Most software vendors frequently ship upgrades and these upgrades are not installed at the same time on all PCs which might lead to incompatible combinations of software, again putting extra pressure on the support and maintenance group.
The combination of the business requirements and the technological capabilities results in a move to webbased applications. Companies move from full client to web-based solutions, mainly for financial reasons and in order to manage the architecture.
Web-based applications facilitate the process of deployment and reduce the resources and effort required for centralized management, administration and support.
Additionally, Web Intelligence offers other major benefits to move from the full client Desktop Intelligence to the web solution:
- Ease of use
- Interactivity on the web
- Extended feature set
- Suite-wide integration with other products (Xcelsius, BI Mobile, Live Office).
The added value of the web interactivity should not be underestimated: given that web-based consumers of Desktop Intelligence content have no option to edit the content when viewed in Desktop Intelligence’s HTML viewer, they have no choice but to ask report authors each time they want even the slightest modification.
Worse, many of these users’ needed modifications never happen at all because they don’t even know the report modification process.
Now consider Web Intelligence’s capabilities for interactive, web-based consumption. By giving a percentage of web-based users the rights to conduct simple report modifications, it alleviates the backlog for report modifications that Desktop Intelligence users face today. This frees up authors to focus on other, valueadded tasks that require their deep expertise in data and business.
Resuming, the conversion from Desktop Intelligence to Web Intelligence:
- Reduces the total cost of ownership (TCO).
- Increases the ease of deployment and upgrade.
- Offers better web-based performance and higher interactivity over the web.
- Is more closely coupled with other capabilities offered by SAP products such as Xcelsius, Explorer, Live Office, BI Mobile or BI widgets.
In Business Objects XI R3.1 there is a new client called Web Intelligence Rich Client ( ZABO evolution) suitable for some power users are convinced that there are benefits using Web Intelligence, but they still want to have a full client solution, in order to:
- Work with personal data, stored for instance in Excel
- Work on several documents at the same time
- Have calculations executed on the local PC instead of processing on the server
- Work offline.
There are benefits on technical level (IT), financial level (cost) and functional level to convert from Desktop Intelligence to Web Intelligence.
The conversion is a win – win for the IT department and for the business users.
Web Intelligence:
- Relieves the work of report authors and support teams:
- Many functionalities are standard features unlike Desktop Intelligence where complex manipulations were required.
- Through extended interactivity business users require less support.
- Report maintenance backlog by report authors or power users is reduced, since most modification requests can be executed by report consumers.
- Empowers business analysts:
- Several enhancements provide great flexibility and interactivity in reporting.
- They are self-serving, less dependant on authors and support teams.
- They can react faster on questions from management.
Report authors and business users in Desktop Intelligence often refer to tasks that require too many
windows and pop-up screens where they lose the overview.
Web Intelligence provides a better-organized presentation of tasks, results and properties, compared to
Desktop Intelligence. While these benefits improve the user experience for business users, they also extend to power users in terms of flexibility and productivity. The developers of Web Intelligence tried to use as few windows as possible, still maintaining the overview.
The effort spent to make Web Intelligence more user-friendly than Desktop Intelligence results in higher user productivity and lower training cost. Since the learning curve for Web Intelligence is lower, the number of report creators increases in every company, relieving the workload on the support teams, resulting in faster report delivery. Easier report maintenance will increase the life-span of the BI content and increase end-user productivity.
generate a very high cost of ownership for the companies:
- Software licenses for third party software, for instance for database connectivity
- Support and maintenance costs for installation of software upgrades, patches, new releases. (estimates run as high as $1000 per desktop per upgrade)
- Local helpdesk requirements
- Local language support for end-users.
Besides the cost, there is the potential risk that companies have installed different versions of the software throughout the organization, with even different service pack levels. This can require a huge administration effort.
Every PC has software installed from different suppliers. Most software vendors frequently ship upgrades and these upgrades are not installed at the same time on all PCs which might lead to incompatible combinations of software, again putting extra pressure on the support and maintenance group.
The combination of the business requirements and the technological capabilities results in a move to webbased applications. Companies move from full client to web-based solutions, mainly for financial reasons and in order to manage the architecture.
Web-based applications facilitate the process of deployment and reduce the resources and effort required for centralized management, administration and support.
Additionally, Web Intelligence offers other major benefits to move from the full client Desktop Intelligence to the web solution:
- Ease of use
- Interactivity on the web
- Extended feature set
- Suite-wide integration with other products (Xcelsius, BI Mobile, Live Office).
The added value of the web interactivity should not be underestimated: given that web-based consumers of Desktop Intelligence content have no option to edit the content when viewed in Desktop Intelligence’s HTML viewer, they have no choice but to ask report authors each time they want even the slightest modification.
Worse, many of these users’ needed modifications never happen at all because they don’t even know the report modification process.
Now consider Web Intelligence’s capabilities for interactive, web-based consumption. By giving a percentage of web-based users the rights to conduct simple report modifications, it alleviates the backlog for report modifications that Desktop Intelligence users face today. This frees up authors to focus on other, valueadded tasks that require their deep expertise in data and business.
Resuming, the conversion from Desktop Intelligence to Web Intelligence:
- Reduces the total cost of ownership (TCO).
- Increases the ease of deployment and upgrade.
- Offers better web-based performance and higher interactivity over the web.
- Is more closely coupled with other capabilities offered by SAP products such as Xcelsius, Explorer, Live Office, BI Mobile or BI widgets.
In Business Objects XI R3.1 there is a new client called Web Intelligence Rich Client ( ZABO evolution) suitable for some power users are convinced that there are benefits using Web Intelligence, but they still want to have a full client solution, in order to:
- Work with personal data, stored for instance in Excel
- Work on several documents at the same time
- Have calculations executed on the local PC instead of processing on the server
- Work offline.
There are benefits on technical level (IT), financial level (cost) and functional level to convert from Desktop Intelligence to Web Intelligence.
The conversion is a win – win for the IT department and for the business users.
Web Intelligence:
- Relieves the work of report authors and support teams:
- Many functionalities are standard features unlike Desktop Intelligence where complex manipulations were required.
- Through extended interactivity business users require less support.
- Report maintenance backlog by report authors or power users is reduced, since most modification requests can be executed by report consumers.
- Empowers business analysts:
- Several enhancements provide great flexibility and interactivity in reporting.
- They are self-serving, less dependant on authors and support teams.
- They can react faster on questions from management.
Comparison DeskI vs WebI
Report authors and business users in Desktop Intelligence often refer to tasks that require too many
windows and pop-up screens where they lose the overview.
Web Intelligence provides a better-organized presentation of tasks, results and properties, compared to
Desktop Intelligence. While these benefits improve the user experience for business users, they also extend to power users in terms of flexibility and productivity. The developers of Web Intelligence tried to use as few windows as possible, still maintaining the overview.
The effort spent to make Web Intelligence more user-friendly than Desktop Intelligence results in higher user productivity and lower training cost. Since the learning curve for Web Intelligence is lower, the number of report creators increases in every company, relieving the workload on the support teams, resulting in faster report delivery. Easier report maintenance will increase the life-span of the BI content and increase end-user productivity.
Very useful information provided by you.. SAP Audit Management
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