This blog is a continuation of the SAP BI Version Management series (VMS). In previous blogs of this series, the need for version management and SAP BI VMS options were discussed in detail. This blog will throw light on how SAP BI VMS handles objects related to platform addons like Lumira. Lumira is a powerful analytical tool and provides great visualization. However, Lumira is not part of the SAP BI platform and it is delivered as an addon. Even though it is an addon, SAP BI VMS handles Lumira like any other object which is native to the platform.

Pre-requisites

Since SAP Lumira is not native to the platform, SAP BI platform should match certain patch levels to support the addon and to be able to manage Lumira 2.x documents within VMS and other LCM tools. Lumira 2.x documents have a new object type (LUMX) and specific BI platform patches are needed to support this new file type.

SAP Lumira Version Management

As it is a visualization tool, the need for version management is very critical. A day long work might get discarded because the result was not as expected (or) the previous version was better looking than the newer version. Reverting to older versions manually is a cumbersome process as changes have to done in many places like CSS, Scripts, Initial views etc…

SAP Lumira documents can be stored to SAP BI repository like any other object in the system. They have Lumx extension and they are typed as “Lumx Document”.

Add to Version Management

From Version Management tool, they can be added to VMS like any other object in the system

As soon as they are added, CMS version and VMS version will be set to 1 and multiple versions can be maintained

Checkin

Now, this application has only one Crosstab and a chart is expected along with Crosstab as an enhancement. Chart is added to the application and has been saved to CMS. This will overwrite current version on CMS. Once the CMS version is updated, Version Management will show the availability of newer version

New CMS version can be saved to the VMS (Checkin) and this will get saved as the latest VMS version

History

Looking in to the “History” of the Lumira Document, it will show the list of versions maintained in the version management system along with a comment describing the change.

Reverting to older version

As mentioned before, there can be a need to revert to version 1 as the new version is not looking good (or) has bugs (or) has performance issues. To revert to version 1, select version 1 on “History” and execute “Get Version” option. This will replace CMS version with version 1 from VMS and users launching this application from Launchpad will start seeing version 1 that had only the crosstab.

Version Management console will show the CMS version as 1. However, VMS version will be shown as 2. Both versions are maintained in VMS. CMS can be again taken back to version 2 by using “Get version” on VMS version 2, if needed

Restoring deleted document

If a Lumira document is accidentally deleted from CMS, we can restore the document from VMS using “View deleted resources” option. However, to do this, the restore document should have been added to VMS before deletion from CMS

Select the deleted application from the list and select “History”

Select the version that needs to be restored and click “Get Version”. Deleted object will be restored to CMS

Object will be restored

However, the “Recycle Bin” might conflict with Version Management when a recovery is attempted. With 4.2, built-in “Recycle Bin” will hold a copy of the deleted document (if enabled). This will show the following warning message:

In this case, document can be recovered from “Recycle Bin”. However, Recycle Bin is limited to the last active version in CMS and that will not provide multiple versions for recovery. If an older version is needed from deleted document, then object should be manually removed from Recycle Bin and older version should be recovered from VMS.

Hope this helps and makes SAP Lumira Document Management easier. Stay tuned for more information on SAP BI Version Management.

Got questions? Let’s get in touch.