When the new BI Launch Pad has been released in SAP BI 4.2 SP4, it was possible to schedule documents but not to distribute them through publications. In SAP BI 4.3, this missing capability has been implemented in BI Launch Pad and offers the same options as in SAP BI 4.2.
In the New Publication page, enter the publication parameters. These parameters are organized by sections, displayed in two tabs. Depending on the document type, some parameters appear only after the source documents have been added to the publication.
To navigate into the possible parameters more easily, you may click the following tabs, and select the section in the corresponding menus:
- The General tab contains the generic sections that define a schedule, like the schedule’s destinations and recurrence, its attached events,…
- The Report Features tab contains the sections specific to a Web Intelligence document. Formats, Prompts and Delivery Rules are available, but Caching properties are not yet implemented.
- The Summary tab displays the publication’s most common parameters.
In SAP BI 4.3, you can still schedule a document. To provide the same look & feel as in New Publication page, the Schedule page has been modified.
When defining a schedule, you can move to specific sections through two tabs and the corresponding menus:
- The General tab contains the generic sections that define a schedule, like the schedule’s destinations and recurrence, its attached events,…
- The Report Features tab contains the sections specific to a Web Intelligence document. Formats, Prompts and Delivery Rules are available, but Caching properties are not yet implemented.
Both schedule and publication take advantage of the new options introduced in SAP BI 4.3:
- When you define the publication or schedule frequency in the Recurrence section, you can select Business Hours for the schedule to run.
- Another new option, Allow Retries, can be used to define if a failed schedule must be re-run and if so, how many times and when.
- When scheduling or publishing a document with prompts, you do not need to explicitly answer these prompts. They can be dynamically answered by using the document’s saved answers. In SAP BI Launch Pad, select the Use Prompt Values from Source Document checkbox in the Prompts section of the schedule or publication definition. Using this option leads to creating an instance for which the prompts’ values are retrieved from the source document during the scheduling or publication process. These prompt values are saved in the source document if the prompt is defined with the Keep Last Values option or has default prompt values. If previous or default values are not saved in the document, the scheduling or publication process fails.
- In the BI Launch Pad home page, click the Instances tile to display an overview of all schedules and publications run by you and their status. At the top of the page, you can find controls to filter this list by date, status, scheduled object type or just by name.
Watch this video to learn how to schedule a document:
Watch this video to learn how to manage scheduled documents: