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SAP ERP Icon SAP ERP ODBC Driver

The SAP ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live SAP ERP, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

With the SAP ODBC Driver, accessing SAP R/3 and SAP ERP is as easy as querying a database.

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Build Dashboards with SAP Data in Dundas BI


Create dynamic dashboards and perform analytics based on SAP data in Dundas BI.

The CData ODBC Driver for SAP enables access to live data from SAP under the ODBC standard, allowing you work with SAP data in a wide variety of BI, reporting, and ETL tools and directly, using familiar SQL queries. This article shows how to connect to SAP data as a generic ODBC Data Provider and create charts, reports, and dashboards based on SAP data in Dundas BI.

Connect to SAP Data

  1. If you have not already done so, provide values for the required connection properties in the data source name (DSN). You can configure the DSN using the built-in Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator. This is also the last step of the driver installation. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the Help documentation for a guide to using the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure a DSN.

    You can connect to SAP systems using either librfc32.dll, librfc32u.dll, NetWeaver, or Web Services (SOAP). Set the ConnectionType connection property to CLASSIC (librfc32.dll), CLASSIC_UNICODE (librfc32u.dll), NETWEAVER, or SOAP.

    If you are using the SOAP interface, set the Client, RFCUrl, SystemNumber, User, and Password properties, under the Authentication section.

    Otherwise, set Host, User, Password, Client, and SystemNumber.

    Note: We do not distribute the librfc32.dll or other SAP assemblies. You must find them from your SAP installation and install them on your machine.

    For more information, see this guide on obtaining the connection properties needed to connect to any SAP system.

    When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

  2. Open the Dundas BI interface, open the menu, and click New Data Connector.
  3. Configure the Dundas BI Data Connector:
    • Name the Data Connector.
    • Select "ODBC generic" as the Data Provider.
    • Check the "Use System DSN" checkbox.
    • Select the appropriate System DSN.

Add SAP Data to a Dashboard

You are now ready to create a dashboard with SAP data.

  1. Navigate to the Home page.
  2. Click Explore Data.
  3. Expand the appropriate Data Connector.
  4. Drag the relevant data from the Connector to the panel.
    • You can select an entire "table" to add, but you may need to remove Measures/Rows from the Metric Set to build an appropriate visualization. Alternatively, you can select only the fields you wish to include in the visualization.
    • With the fields selected, you can add any filters or conditions on the Measures and Rows, further customizing the visualization.
  5. Click Re-visualize from the menu bar and select the appropriate visualization for the data.
  6. Click Add To New Dashboard to add the visualization to a new dashboard.
  7. Configure the dashboard, creating dynamic visualizations of SAP data.