LINQ to SAP BusinessObjects BI Data



LINQ offers versatile querying capabilities within the .NET Framework (v3.0+), offering a straightforward method for programmatic data access through CData ADO.NET Data Providers. In this article, we demonstrate the use of LINQ to retrieve information from the SAP BusinessObjects BI Data Provider.

This article illustrates using LINQ to access tables within the SAP BusinessObjects BI via the CData ADO.NET Data Provider for SAP BusinessObjects BI. To achieve this, we will use LINQ to Entity Framework, which facilitates the generation of connections and can be seamlessly employed with any CData ADO.NET Data Providers to access data through LINQ.

See the help documentation for a guide to setting up an EF 6 project to use the provider.

  1. In a new project in Visual Studio, right-click on the project and choose to add a new item. Add an ADO.NET Entity Data Model.
  2. Choose EF Designer from Database and click Next.
  3. Add a new Data Connection, and change your data source type to "CData SAP BusinessObjects BI Data Source".
  4. Enter your data source connection information.

    To connect to your SAP Business Objects BI instance, you must set the following connection properties:

    • Url: set this to the rest API URL. After logging into the Central Management Console, choose 'Applications' from the combo box. Double-click on 'RESTful Web Service' and you'll see the access URL. By default it is, http://{Server-Name}:6405/biprws.
    • User: set this to the username of your instance.
    • Password: set this to the password of your instance.

    Below is a typical connection string:

    User=username;Password=password;Url=http://myinstance:6405/biprws
  5. If saving your entity connection to App.Config, set an entity name. In this example we are setting SAPBusinessObjectsBIEntities as our entity connection in App.Config.
  6. Enter a model name and select any tables or views you would like to include in the model.

Using the entity you created, you can now perform select commands. For example:

SAPBusinessObjectsBIEntities context = new SAPBusinessObjectsBIEntities(); var mycustomreportQuery = from mycustomreport in context.MyCustomReport select mycustomreport; foreach (var result in mycustomreportQuery) { Console.WriteLine("{0} {1} ", result.Id, result.StoreName); }

See "LINQ and Entity Framework" chapter in the help documentation for example queries of the supported LINQ.

Ready to get started?

Download a free trial of the SAP BusinessObjects BI Data Provider to get started:

 Download Now

Learn more:

SAP BusinessObjects BI Icon SAP BusinessObjects BI ADO.NET Provider

Rapidly create and deploy powerful .NET applications that integrate with SAP BusinessObjects BI.