SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 SP4 Released!

By

Dallas Marks

– June 1, 2011Posted in: Administration and Security

Today, SAP released SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 Service Pack 4 (SP4).  This service pack includes the Microsoft Office 2010 compatibility that was introduced in SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 SP3 Fix Pack 3.4.  For most customers, service packs are more palatable than fix packs, so the release of SP4 is really good news.  Mobility fans should note that there is also a separate download for SAP BusinessObjects Mobile XI 3.1 Service Pack 4.  Service Pack 4 is a prerequisite for the forthcoming release of BI Mobile for the Apple iPad, which was demonstrated at the recent SAP SAPPHIRE conference and is expected by the end of June 2011.  As usual, there are separate SP4 downloads for apps such as Crystal Reports 2008, Lifecycle Manager, and Live Office.  And as usual, expect multiple tries before getting a complete and uncorrupted download from the SAP Support Portal.  I did not see any new service packs for Xcelsius 2008 or Explorer XI 3.2 (currently on SP2).

As with any service pack, always review the release notes and deploy first to a non-critical sandbox (a virtual machine is really good for this) before upgrading a production environment.  Remember that for most customers, development is really a production environment for developers.  So find a non-critical sandbox.  I’ll be doing the same over the next few days so I can articulate clear upgrade plans.

To all of the developers at SAP – thank you for getting this service pack out.  We know you’ve been extremely busy (and stressed) getting BI4 ready for general availability (GA).

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Service Pack 4 is available from the SAP Support Portal with a valid S-ID.

UPDATE: Thanks to my good friend and Diversified Semantic Layer host Eric Vallo (follow him on Twitter here) for pointing out the following link to SAP Knowledge Base article 1596293 (S-ID required).  It’s one-stop-shopping for SP4 with links to other SP4-related knowledge base articles.  And thanks to ASUG volunteer Tammy Powlas (follow her on Twitter here) for pointing out that release notes of all varieties can be found on the SAP Support Portal at http://service.sap.com/releasenotes (S-ID required).

Will your organization deploy SP4 and Web Intelligence on the Apple iPad?  Or go straight to BI4?  Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Tags: Mobility, XI3.1

About Dallas Marks

As a business intelligence architect, developer, mentor and trainer, I help organizations across the United States harness the power of business intelligence, primarily (but not exclusively) using SAP BusinessObjects products. I prefer piano keyboards instead of computer keyboards when not blogging or tweeting about business intelligence.

25 Comments

1. Deepu

   Posted June 3, 2011 at 10:42 AM

   I installed SPS4 (BOE and SAP IK) and everything went well. Direct download from service market place failed thrice and I used download manager to download the 1.8 GB file.

   I could not locate the mobileservices.war file in the install directory, I am not sure whether I need the mobile service installed for this or whether it is part of the BOE install now.

   Can’t wait to get the iPad app for BOE released!!!

   Thanks!

   Deepu

2. Dallas Marks

   Posted June 3, 2011 at 3:19 PM

   The war file is in another directory and needs to be copied to the Tomcat webapps directory. Details should be in the mobile installation guide on http://help.sap.com.

3. Andrea

   Posted June 19, 2011 at 11:03 AM

   Hi experts, i would know if with Service Pack 4 for SAP Business object Mobile XI 3.1 is possible to use the ipad apps : SAP BusinessObjects Mobile.

   A description of this:
   http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sap-businessobjects-mobile/id441208302?mt=8#

   Thanks a lot.

   Andrea

4. Dallas Marks

   Posted June 20, 2011 at 6:05 AM

   That’s what I’ve been told- that SP4 is required to use BI Mobile on iPad with XI 3.1. I’m still working on getting everything working in the lab to be certain.

5. Karthikeyan

   Posted June 28, 2011 at 1:21 AM

   Hi,

   For SAP Business object Mobile XI 3.1, do we need to separate license key or it will work with BOE license key.

   Thanks..

6. Beto Junior

   Posted July 4, 2011 at 1:23 PM

   Hi People

   I am trying install BO xi 3.1 with BO Mobile and client is IPad. Somebody know that is possible?

7. Dallas Marks

   Posted July 5, 2011 at 8:16 AM

   Alberto – Yes. SAP BI Mobile on the Apple iPad works with SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 SP4 + BI Mobile XI 3.1 SP4.

8. rajesh

   Posted July 29, 2011 at 4:58 AM

   Hi,

   I would like to know if BO Mobile compatible with BO Edge 3.1 SP3?

9. Dallas Marks

   Posted July 29, 2011 at 9:10 AM

   Rajesh,

   On the SAP BusinessObjects Enteprrise XI 3.1 platform, Service Pack 4 (SP4) is required. I would assume the same is true for SAP BusinessObjects Edge Business Intelligence 3.1. Looks like SP4 for Edge became available in the SAP Service Marketplace on June 1, 2011. As always, consult with your SAP sales rep.

10. Anthony Le

    Posted August 15, 2011 at 7:23 PM

    Hi Dallas,
    I just want to understand your statement above. When you said “service pack includes the Microsoft Office 2010 compatibility”, are you saying that with XI3.1 SP4, you can have Webi Rich Client use xlsx file format as an external data source (and also export in xlsx format)? Thanks in advance.

    Anthony

11. Dieter Macher

    Posted September 23, 2011 at 4:53 AM

    Hy all,

    I´m a BO Professional in Austria. I´m testing the connection from the SAP BI App on an IPad to connect to a SAP BO XI 3.1 SP4 environment. All step´s are done that the InfoView is running via the DMZ in the WWW but the IPad is not able to connect to the CMS. Every time I get the error “Your request is invalid (MOB 06009)” Can anyone help ??

    Thanks and nice greating from Vienna/Austria

12. administrator

    Posted September 23, 2011 at 1:03 PM

    Dieter,

    Thanks for reading! Not familiar with that error – recommend opening case with SAP Support.

13. Jai

    Posted November 17, 2011 at 2:30 PM

    Thanks for the post. Will this support to view Xcelsius Flash dashboards in Ipad?

14. Dallas Marks

    Posted December 1, 2011 at 11:25 AM

    Jai,

    To view Xcelsius dashboards on an iPad, you’ll need a third-party solution from Exxova or Antivia.

    Regards,
    Dallas

15. Ryan

    Posted December 8, 2011 at 4:29 PM

    Can this fix pack be modified to allow the installer to select which folder to extract into? We have a customer that has their C drive with not enough space to extract. The file automatically extracts to a folder on this drive. I am thinking at this point I will have to extract on my computer, then create my own compressed file to upload.

16. Dallas Marks

    Posted January 10, 2012 at 10:38 PM

    Ryan, your approach sounds reasonable.

17. M.Ejaz

    Posted January 25, 2012 at 7:35 AM

    Hi Dallas,

    If SP4 is compatible to Ms Office 2010, does that mean that using webi we can export it to MS Excel 2010 as we are using MS office 10 and not in MS Excel compatible mode 97-2003?

    Thanks

18. administrator

    Posted January 25, 2012 at 7:39 AM

    That’s what it’s supposed to mean. Unfortunately, my customer is using Office 2007, not 2010, so I cannot evaluate the results.

19. Ejaz

    Posted January 25, 2012 at 10:12 AM

    Thanks for your quick response and i thought so but for some strange reasons it still exports in compatible mode for MS Excel 97-2003….may i need to check with BO Server team…may be they need to do something on server…

    Thanks for your help

20. Akshay

    Posted February 22, 2012 at 8:20 PM

    Hi,
    My company is still on good old BO XI R2. I would want to try out Business Objects XI 3.1 sp4 Enterprise version or BO XI 4 enterprise version before I recommend it to my IT head. Can you please let me know how I can get hold of an evaluation version for this?

    Cheers,
    Akshay

21. Dallas Marks

    Posted February 22, 2012 at 8:53 PM

    Akshay,

    Software downloads are available in the SAP Service Marketplace. If you can’t find what you need, contact your SAP sales rep.

    Dallas

22. Mon

    Posted March 8, 2012 at 1:10 PM

    Hi Dallas Mark
    Could you please tell me where did you download the bussiness Object xi sp4.
    Appricate if if you tell me

    Thanks
    Mon

23. Mon

    Posted March 8, 2012 at 1:12 PM

    Dallas Mark
    Please can yu tell me where did you installed B.O sp4. Will appricate.

    Thanks
    Mon

24. Chaji

    Posted March 8, 2012 at 1:20 PM

    Hi Dallas
    If you could tell me where did you get b.O sp4.
    will appricate

    Thanks
    Syed

25. Dallas Marks

    Posted March 20, 2012 at 8:55 AM

    All SAP software should be downloaded from the SAP Service Marketplace (S-ID required).