Frequently Asked Question

Symptom

• After a SAPBI upgrade, the Need4Viz services are not anymore declared in the SAPBI CMC
• Need4Viz services are installed and started correctly

Environment

• Need4Viz : all versions
  
• SAPBI : all version BI 4.2 & 4.3

Resolution

In some cases, after a SAPBI upgrade, the Need4Viz services previously declared in the CMC are not anymore visible. You need to recreate the 13 N4V services (custom elements) in the CMC with exactly the same name as previously to make your Webi reports including N4V elements working.

If you haven't saved in a document the names used in your previous installation, you can check the following steps to retrieve them

1/ Default naming

In a default N4V installation, a file containing default names you can use is installed in the ~Need4viz installation folder.

Open the README.txt file in the ~Need4viz installation folder, the list of services is described. By default, this is the list you should find (the ports 81xx may change accordingly to your own settings) :

- Service Name = N4V GeoMaps | Service URL = http://your.tomcat.url:8101
- Service Name = N4V Gauges | Service URL = http://your.tomcat.url:8102
- Service Name = N4V Bars | Service URL = http://your.tomcat.url:8103
- Service Name = N4V Circulars | Service URL = http://your.tomcat.url:8104
- Service Name = N4V Times | Service URL = http://your.tomcat.url:8105
- Service Name = N4V Relations | Service URL = http://your.tomcat.url:8106
- Service Name = N4V Trees | Service URL = http://your.tomcat.url:8107
- Service Name = N4V Tiles | Service URL = http://your.tomcat.url:8108
- Service Name = N4V MultiGraph | Service URL = http://your.tomcat.url:8109
- Service Name = N4V Tables | Service URL = http://your.tomcat.url:8110
- Service Name = N4V RDF | Service URL = http://your.tomcat.url:8111
- Service Name = N4V Gantt | Service URL = http://your.tomcat.url:8112
- Service Name = N4V Navigation | Service URL = http://your.tomcat.url:8113

2/ Retrieve the names with a Webi report

If the default names are not working, the other solution to retrieve the previous N4V services names is to open WID files containing N4V elements and get the name of the services.

Get the name of a Webi report containing N4V elements and, in the CMC, retrieve the wid File name of the report :

On the SAPBI server, in the filestore (by default, it is in ~Installation_SAPBI/SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\FileStore\Input\... folder), retrieve the .wid file and copy it in a temporary folder (do not try to open the initial version of the wid, always work on a copy).

Rename the copy of your .wid report with the extension .zip then extract the archive.

In the extracted archive, open in Notepad++ the file DOCSPEC in the Data/RE/ folder.

In the file, search the tag PLUGINFO NAME=“com.sap.webi.rscustomelement” then CUSTOM_ELEMENT... You should then find the N4V Services names used to build the N4V elements in the Webi report.

You now just have to recreate the services in the CMC, activate them then save.

Now, you should be able to display the N4V elements, after a refresh of your Webi report.