Installing and Upgrading Reporting Universes

16.3. Installing and Upgrading Reporting Universes

Installing Reporting Universes #

Download SICSBIReporting.zip from DXC ReInsurance eDelivery.

Export Universes to the Repository #

  1. Start the designer module and login as a user modified to act as a designer.
  2. Open the universe and change the connection name by accessing Parameter from the File menu.
  3. From the File menu, select Export
  4. The designer module shows you all available universe domains.
  5. Select the target universe domain and click OK.

A message will appear when the universes are successfully exported.

Upgrade to SAP BI 4.3 UNX Version of Universes #

Information Design Tool and UNX version of universes. #

In SICS/Assure Reinsurance 25.1 we have upgraded the universes to allow for future compability with the SAP BI Software suite. This was the first release where we have delivered a full set of UNX versions of the universes. Going forward - meaning 25.2 and higher - we plan to only release UNX versions of the universe.

The new release of SAP BI (called SAP BI 2025 or 4.4) software suite which was made available in March 2025 can only use the UNX version of universes.

We have released the last version of UNV in 25.1. We do this so it will be easier to upgrade and transform into the new UNX version of universes. The 25.1 UNV universe should be seen as a “bridge” in order to easily move over to the new UNX universes. The reason for this is because the object names, and folders are the same and they are in the same location. We have done this so that when you manually change the data source from old to new it should go without any problem or at least there will be a minimum of issues in the conversion/migration of reports.

In order to open, adjust and customize the UNX version of the universe there is a new tool to use: The Informational Design Tool (IDT). This has more functionality than the older Universe Design Tool (UDT) and IDT is the tool that SAP will keep and go forward with.

There will a one time task to upgrade to UNX version of the universes in which you first have to upgrade the universe to 25.1 UNV, just like you do today. Then you have to have the new 25.1 UNX universe on the side and manually switch all the report data source from one universe to the other. As the object and folder structure are the same this process should be straightforward. Once this process have been done you do not need to do it again. Meaning by 25.2 you can again follow the normal process of overwriting the universe version with the newly delivered universe.

Change the Data source for existing reports #

These steps will change reports from using the old UNV universe to the new UNX universes. The upgrade path is therefore a bit different this time.

  1. Apply any and all customizations to the 25.1 UNV version of the universe.
  2. You will have to go from the version of universe you are currently on to this 25.1 UNV version of the universe.
  3. Add any customizations and overwrite the UNV universe versions - as a normal upgrade. This will upgrade the reports to 25.1 UNV standard.
  4. Then export the 25.1 UNX version of the universe to a different repository folder
  5. Again, apply any and all customizations to the 25.1 UNX version of the universes.
  6. Then manually switch the universe source from the old 25.1 UNV to the new 25.1 UNX. As the folder and name structure is the same between the two version this should be a very quick and easy change to do. This means that the normal path of just overwriting the old universe with the new will not work.

Future upgrade path from 24.4 or lower to 25.2 or higher #

You need to have the 25.1 versions of the universes side-by-side and move and repoint each query in the report so that the query will move from the old UNV universe to the new UNX universe. This also means that if you in the future try to upgrade from anything earlier than 25.1 you should go through this path to minimize difficulties. When upgrading from earlier versions than 25.1 the steps to go through are

  1. 25.1 unv upgrade ( this is the bridge version of the universe )
  2. 25.1 unx installation side-by-side
  3. Manually change the report data source from unv to unx.
  4. Then upgrade to the version of UNX you are going for (25.2+)

The conversion to the UNX universes is a one time operation. For future upgrades, use the normal upgrade path of just applying customizations and then overwrite the UNX universe with the new version of the UNX universe.