How to Lead and Coordinate Teams to Deliver Power BI Infrastructure Setup with SAP Data Sources

💡 Introduction

If you're just about to get started with Power BI reports that use SAP HANA or SAP BW as data sources, you will need to identify and plan all the necessary infrastructure components and work with key stakeholders in your organization.  In this blog post I'll walk you through the required coordination to ensure a smooth implementation and setup of Power BI infrastructure with supported SAP connectors.  Think of this guide as the non-technical information that Microsoft doesn't tell you in their SAP connectivity guides!

🦆 Get Your Technical Ducks in a Row

I'm not going to cover much of the technical side in this blog post as Microsoft have very comprehensive materials around it.  In fact Microsoft recently did a webinar that covers everything in great detail here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/events/sap-on-azure-training-videos/power-bi-to-sap-connectivity

Once you're good to go, it's important to line up your key Power BI ingredients with the key stakeholders in your company.

• Power BI Gateway (Windows Infrastructure Team) - As part of your Power BI setup, Power BI gateway is a key piece of infrastructure that may need to be spun up on a virtual machine. This piece of infrastructure allows us to connect our on premise SAP systems with the PowerBI.com service.
• Generic AD Account (Windows Security Team) - When publishing Power BI reports to PowerBI.com sometimes it makes sense to get a generic AD account setup and use this generic account to publish Power BI reports. If the Power BI developers are sharing the reports with other users using their own accounts which has pro or premium license, once they leave the organization, the account will also go away. In that case, the new developer will have to get the license again, re-publish all the reports and dashboards and set up the security and access again.
• Firewall Rules (Network Security Team) - When setting up the Power BI Gateway, it's important to note that there maybe firewall rules between SAP HANA or BW blocking communciations with the Power BI Gateway. Make a note to check that the Power BI Gateway and SAP HANA/BW system can commmunicate to each other.
• SAP System Configuration (SAP Basis Team) - Depending on your setup you may need someone from SAP Basis to help you with creating mapping for the SAML identity provider certificate or to create certificates required for SSO.
• SAP Authorizations and Test User IDs (SAP Security Team) - If you're setting up SSO where you have 1:1 named users passing into your SAP system you may want to define what level of access they need to have and if your design will have an impact on licensing too on both the SAP and Microsoft sides. SAP security also always want to be involved if you're exposing business data to external applications. I recommend getting them involved as early as you can.

🙋🏻‍♂️ Identify Key Stakeholders

Based on our ingredients and teams we've identified it's likely that the teams I've mentioned above may not be exactly the same as yours.  If it not apparent who th key individuals are to reach out to, here are some tips I follow to find out:

• Log a service desk ticket and wait for a response - Not the most direct approach but at least you get an official record and someone has to get back to you. You might have to do this for each infrastructure item. I find that raising tickets is an effective way to get people to act in the IT Organization.
• Search your company intranet - Company intranets have pretty good search engines these days and a few keystrokes may get your your answer faster than you think.
• Ask around! - Word of mouth is a great way to find out who can help you on your Power BI journey. Don't be shy to leverage your network.

📚Prepare your Content, Communications and Project Plan

Now that you've identified all the key people who will help you setup your Power BI infrastructure the next steps is to communicate what you plan to achieve.

I personally would prepare a slide deck with the following agenda:

• A quick introduction from everyone you've invited
• Context as to how Power BI was selected for your project
• A quick overview of your Power BI reports, underlying SAP data and a description of their business criticality
• A high level overview of the infrastructure and an overview of which components you need support on
• A timeline from each stakeholder in terms of when they can support you
• You could also communicate your desired timeline as well and communicate project deadlines, just be mindful to allow your colleagues adequate time to respond and deliver
• Any sequencing of tasks if necessary

These items will ensure that everyone who is helping you on your Power BI journey will be able to make sense of your end game objective. Make sure to run your plan by a few other colleagues for feedback in case there's anything else that can be added.

📞Organize a Meeting with Everyone

Once your Power BI infrastructure plan and timeline is figured out and you've received a few internal reviews and incorporated all your feedback, take some time to get everyone into a meeting and communicate all the due diligence you've done.

📆Plan and Execute

After your meeting you will most likely get a list of additional tasks, approvals of each individual group or stakeholder.  Sequence these items based on the various commitments you may receive and go from there. Best of luck!

🙋🏻‍♂️ I might need additional help!

If your organization needs a helping hand on implementing Power BI architecture with SAP, please feel free to reach out to me at ben@ben-kwong.com