8. Dashboards for BPMon

Introduction

SAP Solution Manager 7.2 provides a cross-application dashboard framework called "Dashboard Builder". This framework allows you to create dashboards for various applications, e.g. for Business Process Monitoring, IT Service Management, Change Management. You can use the dashboard builder to create more high-level dashboards for your alerting and monitoring information from BPMon. Various graph types and tile sizes are available. 

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In Solution Manager 7.2 SP3, BPMon based dashboards cannot yet be automatically migrated. If you are using dashboards for BPMon information in 7.1 and you migrate to 7.2, you have to manually reconfigure your BPMon dashboards. Please note that the dashboards displaying BPMon information in the BPO Dashboard framework will no longer work in 7.2 Dashboards displaying Analytics information in the BPO Dashboard framework will continue to work in 7.2.

This page describes the configuration of dashboards for BPMon information. For more generic information for the Dashboard Builder, check the Application Help for Solution Manager 7.2 SP3.

Authorizations for Dashboard Builder

In order to configure dashboards in the Dashboard Builder, you need a user in the SAP Solution Manager system (where you configure your dashboards) and a user in the BW system (data source for the dashboards). Normally, the BW will also be in the SAP Solution Manager system, but sometimes it could be a different client than the productive client. Your user needs the following roles:

How to access dashboards

Access the Dashboard Builder via transaction SOLMAN_WORKCENTER. This will open the Solution Manager Launchpad. Here, choose the tile “Configuration – Analytics and Dashboards”.

Note: Since the Dashboard Builder is a cross-application dashboard framework, it can be called via various tiles in the Solution Manager Launchpad.

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Navigation in the Dashboard Builder

In the Dashboard Builder,  you can navigate to your dashboard via the tree on the left side. Dashboards are sorted by categories. Category “Business Process Operations” is available for your BPMon Dashboards.

You can edit dashboards here or access the dashboard in display mode via the respective button.

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The URL of the display mode allows you access to individual dashboards in display mode. You can provide the users with the URL, so they can directly access their dashboard.

In the display mode of the dashboard, you can zoom into individual tiles to display the legend for the graphic

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Currently, the zoom of a tile in the display mode are the only chance to access the legend for the graphic.

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Create Dashboard

Navigate to your dashboard via the tree on the left side. You can find some sample dashboards in node "Dashboard Templates" to get an idea about what tiles are available.

Use the button "+" to create a dashboard.

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Provide a dashboard name and assign a category.

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Dashboards can be transported. Assign a transport request or create the dashboard as a local object.

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Create Tile

Dashboards consist of tiles. Once you have created your dashboard, navigate to that dashboard in the Dashboard Builder and use button “+ Custom Tile” to create a new tile in your dashboard.

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On the following screen, provide descriptions for your tile. You can specify a name, a subhead text and a description text. See in the above example where the texts will appear in the tile.

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Specify the chart type (Visualization) and the size of the tile. There are special (micro) chart types for 1x1 tiles.

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Assign data source type “Business Process Monitoring” to display information from Business Process Monitoring in the tile.

Afterwards, select the value help for “Data Source Name”. This will open the list of available dashboard key figures for Business Process Monitoring.

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Find here Alerts and Metrics accessible from

• the Alert Store (ALERTS_T/),
• the Metric Store (MS/) and
• several BW Multiproviders (e.g. ALERTS/ or STC/) .

Choose the appropriate data source according to the required level of detail, level of aggregation, evaluation horizon, etc.

Use the filter and search options to find the alerts or metrics you want to display in the dashboard.

All metrics and alerts configured in Business Process Monitoring are available for the dashboards. The alert figures for alert & event reporting read from BW Multiprovider, include also:

Select e.g. a metric you want to display in the tile.

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For the selected metric, you can display the values currently available. This helps you check that there is data to display for the metric you have selected.

Choose “OK” to include the selected metric in your tile.

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After you have assigned the metric to the tile, press “ENTER” to ensure that all available filter and grouping fields for the metric are correctly displayed in the configuration screen.

In section “Available Fields” you can see all filters and grouping fields that are available.

Section “Rows” shows fields assigned to the x-axis. Section “Columns” shows fields assigned to the y-axis.

Section “Filters” shows filter assignments.

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Save your configuration. Afterwards, the configuration screen automatically closes and the dashboard is displayed again.

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You can access the configuration of an existing tile via the cog-wheel icon in the upper right corner of the tile.

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Details for Tile Configuration

So far, we have explained the generic configuration of a dashboard tile for Business Process Monitoring.

Now we will explain some of the more detailed configuration options.

Move Fields to Tables “Rows” and “Columns”

Section “Rows” shows fields assigned to the x-axis. Section “Columns” shows fields assigned to the y-axis.

If you want to remove a field from tables “Rows” or “Columns”, mark the respective line and select button “<“. The field will move over to table “Available Fields”. 

If you want to move a field to table “Rows” or “Columns”, mark the line in table “Available Fields” and select button “>”. The field will move over to the respective table.

You can add several fields to table “Columns”. This way, you can separate the information in the tile (e.g. show the values per Monitoring Object ID).

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Set Filters

Filters are set via right-mouse click on the respective field. This opens a context menu. Choose “Filter” -> “Select Filter Value”.

You can set filters on fields in table “Available Fields”, but also in tables “Rows” and “Columns”.

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Choose the filter option and assign filter values.

For date filters, assign dates via the value help and afterwards switch to a rolling time window.

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After the filter value has been assigned, the filter information is displayed in table “Filters”.

Here, you can use the icon to switch to a rolling time window.

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Many metrics have more than one measure (sum, average, maximum, last, ...) available . The available measures were displayed in the metric catalogue when you assigned the metric to the tile. Per default, all measures are displayed as seperate values. You have to set a filter if you want to restrict the display to just one measure. See below an example of the measures available for key figure "Number of dumps" and how these measures would be displayed in a tile if you don't filter for these measures.

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To display only one measure, in the tile configuration execute a right-mouse click on field “Key Figures” and choose
“Filter” -> “Select Filter Value”.

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Assign the measure(s) you want to use. You can assign several lines. This will restrict the display in the tile to the relevant measure.

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Tile Examples

Number of Alert Groups per Business Process

If you want to configure a tile that displays the number of alerts per business process, you need to filter for a solution context. Afterwards, you can assign "Business Process" to "Rows".

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When configuring a tile for the number of alert groups or events, always remember to assign a time filter to keep the performance acceptable.

Number of Exceptions per System

Customer IDES used the Table Entry Counter monitor to detect exceptions in the business process execution. Now they want to display the number of exceptions collected via this montor via a tile.

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The filtering restricts the displayed data to one solution and ensures that only the last values of the data collection are displayed.

Current Rating per Business Process Step

Customer IDES wants to display the current status of the business process steps of process "B2B Purchasing" in their tile.

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Here, again the filter for the solution context needs to be set so that it is possible to seperate the business process steps by assigning the attribute "Business Process Step" to table "Rows".

The automatic coloring is achieved via setting thresholds on "Key Figures". In the next screen, enter “*” for field “Business Process Step”, select the rating template and choose the “a” icon.

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This opens the screen for the threshold maintenance. Enter your threshold values and select “OK”. Technically, a red rating is represented by “3”, yellow by “2” and green by “1”, so providing the thresholds accordingly can ensure the correct coloring in the tile.

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Notice that the option to provide thresholds for attribute "Key Figures" depends on the tile type (Visualization) and is only available for Bar Charts and Columns Charts.

Measured Value for a specific key figure, aggregated per day or per week

Customer IDES wants to display the measured value for the specific key figure (e.g. the number of ABAP Dumps) in their tile, aggregated per day or possibly per week.

To achieve this, they select to key figure that gets the data from the metric cube (as opposed to the metric store), as for the values in the metric cube an aggregation per day, per week or per month is possible. (note that this is not possible for values from the metric store)

To make sure that only the data for the current day is read, they set a filter for date and switch to a rolling time window. Of course it would also be possible to set a date filter for the last x days.

In the metric cube, several measures for each key figure are available. Typically, they include:

• Maximum
• Average
• Last value
• Sum

Depending on the information you want to display, it often makes sense to restrict yourself to one of these measures (e.g. last value when monitoring the number of dumps per day) via the navigation displayed below:

The finished dashboard tile will look like this:

If you want to get the distribution of the measured values over the last 7 days, include field "date" in Rows and extend to filter for day to cover the last 7 days.

Let's have a look at what this tile now looks like in a line chart:

Last but not least, let's display this information per week over the last 4 weeks. Here, we still have to define the rolling time window via date, but this time assign field "Week" to Rows.

The configured tile will look like this:

FAQ

• Question:
  I'm trying to create a custom tile in the dashboard builder in 7.2. When creating the tile, I cannot find the data source type "Business Process Monitoring". What's wrong?
  • Answer:
    Most likely, there is an issue with service ABR_FACET_SELECTOR_SRV_0001. Check this service in transaction /n/IWFND/MAINT_SERVICE. Ensure that there is one (not more, not less) system alias assigned. You can also do a test execution of the service there via button "SAP Gateway Client" and then button "Execute" in the next screen.
    Additionally, make sure that the respective SICF service is active.
• Question:
  I'm on Solution Manager 7.2 SP4. I have configured an ICMon object for the number of erroneous IDoc. Now I want to display the current number of these erroneous IDocs in a dashboard tile, using the BPMon connector. How can I do this?
  • Answer:
    Unfortunately, in SP4 you cannot do this. The necessary dashboard key figure accessing the metric store is only available as of SP5.
• (New) Question: 
  I would like to configure thresholds for a tile displaying BPMon information. But the menu entry for "Thresholds" is not available. Why can't I configure thresholds?
  • Answer: 
    Thresholds are only available for certain visualizations. E.g. for table charts and bar charts you can define thresholds. For other visualizations like pie charts you cannot define thresholds.