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BEx Broadcast through email

Applies to:
SAP BI 7.0. For more information, please visit the Business Intelligence Homepage.
Summary
The article provides an insight to Information Broadcasting and its significance in industry. It
provides an
overview of the various broadcasting options available and illustrates the broadcasting of a
report to users via
e-mail.
Author: Debashish Pattnaik
Company: Tata Technologies Ltd
Created on: 12 March 2012
Author Bio
Debashish Pattnaik is working with Tata Technologies Ltd as a SAP Functional Consultant.
Debashish has got
a work experience in SAP Business Intelligence and SAP ABAP.

Information Broadcasting
The basic idea of information broadcasting is to make BI reports available to a wide spectrum of
users. This
allows the distribution of BI information via various channels in different formats to the right
people at the right
time. A broadcast can be configured to run
Only Once(immediate)
On a scheduled basis (every day, week, month)
During specific times defined by the administrator
When an event occurs (i.e., when an exception occurs)
As part of a process chain
BEx Broadcast through email
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Business Scenario
The sales users want to track the weekly sales growth. They may wish to receive the sales data
on Monday
morning. The data can be broadcasted to the users via mail based on authorizations; plant wise,
sales
organization wise, etc.

Broadcasting Report Through

Mail
Steps
Step 1: Go to Query -> Publish and choose BEx Broadcaster. It opens the portal link for
broadcast settings.
Step 2: As the portal is accessed through BEx Query designer, the object type is automatically
selected as
query.
Otherwise different options are available to be chosen from.
Step 3: To start with, click on the button Create New Setting. The setting screen
appears as
shown in the screenshot below.
Step 4: Change the description to suit your Broadcast setting purpose. You can also select the
distribution type
from the available options. Other available options are:

a) Broadcast to the Portal :

b) Broadcast to the Printer:
c) Broadcast E-Mail(Bursting):
d) Broadcast according to Exceptions:
e) Broadcast (Multi Channel)
f) Precalculate Value set
g) Fill OLAP Cache
h) Fill MDX Cache
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Distribution Options:
Broadcast E-mail(Bursting): This is used to broadcast user-specific information based on
attribute
values in the master data using the distribution list in BI. The system can control the information
so
that users only see data related to them.
Broadcast According to Exceptions: Sends an exception report only when an exception
occurs in the
report. Exception needs to be defined in the BEx Query designer. Reports are sent when a
particular
alert level occurs.
Broadcast(Multi Channel): The same broadcast setting on a BI object can be broadcasted
through
multiple channels(Broadcast by E-Mail, to Portal, or to Printer).
Precalculate Value Set: This is mainly used when targeted groups are analyzed. A variable of
type
Precalculated value sets is filled with values for characteristic values in the background.
Fill OLAP Cache: You can precalculate queries and fill the OLAP cache with generated data to
reduce the time needed to access the data.
Fill MDX Cache: It precalculates the BEx queries in background that can be used as data
providers
for other applications(Ex: Crystal Reports). This distribution type improves the performance of
Crystal
Reports. The query broadcaster precalculates as MDX result sets and fills the MDX cache. The
MDX
result sets can be called up using the OLAP BAPI.
This document concentrates only on E-mail broadcasting option.
Step 5: The E-Mail broadcasting can be done in various output formats which includes MHTML,
XML, HTML,
Online Links to Current Data and PDF.
The output format HTML enables that components of HTML page are generated by the system
in individual
files. Recipients can navigate between different filter views of the query. The MHTML output
format generates
a HTML page with all the components (HTML, style sheet, pictures, etc.) in one file. Recipients
cannot navigate
in the generated file.
When the As Zip File checkbox is checked, its ensured that its the most secure
method for
protecting the access to your data. However, the recipient must have online access
to your
system, a username, and password.
The recipient may not see the same as what you believe you sent, since the data may have
been refreshed
since you sent the broadcast. To view the latest data, an e-mail could be sent with the link back
to the online
source (requires recipients to log on to see the content).
Step 6: Now, the recipients of the mail have to be defined. Recipients can be mentioned in
various ways:

 User: BI user names of the recipients can be filled in manually or using the selection icon.
User in Role: BI roles can be entered manually or filled in using the selection options
available. All
users assigned to the particular role mentioned will receive the mail.
Email Addresses: Individual email ids can be entered. For distribution lists, the smtp address
for the
particular distribution list must be entered. You can get the smtp address from the properties of
the
distribution list in Microsoft Outlook.
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Authorization user: If the broadcast is scheduled for later execution (background processing),
the
system generates the document with the settings according to the specified user. In case, the
current
user wants to execute it immediately, the document produced takes the authorization setting of
the
current user.
User-Specific: If the broadcast is scheduled for background processing, this option enables
the
personal settings (language, date format, etc.) of the user specified in the User field. If the
broadcast
is to be executed immediately, the system generates the document using the settings for the
current
user.
Step 7: Subject and body of the email can be framed through the Texts tab. Even the
importance setting of the
mail can be chosen from the drop down list.
Step 8: In the general precalculation tab, following features are available:
Portal Theme: The theme to be used can be specified by selecting one from the available list.
The theme
defines the appearance of control elements, font size, colors of the precalculated BI object.
Only Upon Data Change: Once this is checked it ensures that the document is distributed only
in case the
document has been changed since the last distribution.
Excel 2000 Format: This option appears only when the output format is chosen as XML (MS
Excel). If this is
selected, the system creates the document in Microsoft Excel 2000 format. Otherwise, Microsoft
Excel 2003
format is created by default.
Variable Assignment: Values can be assigned to the querys input-ready variables
(variables
defined during query creation). The query is precalculated using these variable
values. These
variable values are set whenever an online link is opened.
When the option Online Links to Current Data is chosen as output format, we can
find a
General Link Generation tab instead of General Precalculation as was available
earlier with
other output formats. The Ignore button is preselected which indicates no variable
assignment
for the query. Values to variable can be assigned by selecting the Determine here
option. The
assigned values of the variable are appended to the url of the online link. The query
is started
with these variable values whenever this link is opened.