Announcement
SAP has released on Friday June 13th 2014, as planned in the Maintenance Schedule, Support Package 04 for the following products:
- SBOP BI Platform 4.1 SP04 Server
- SBOP BI Platform 4.1 SP04 Client Tools
- SBOP BI Platform 4.1 SP04 Live Office
- SBOP BI Platform 4.1 SP04 Crystal Reports for Enterprise
- SBOP BI Platform 4.1 SP04 Integration for SharePoint
- SBOP BI Platform 4.1 SP04 NET SDK Runtime
- SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards 4.1 SP04
- SAP BusinessObjects Explorer 4.1 SP04
- SAP Crystal Server 2013 SP04
- SAP Crystal Reports 2013 SP04
You can download these updates from the SAP Marketplace as a Full Install Package or Support Package (Update).
E.g.: Full Install
E.g.: Support Package (Update)
What's New?
At the time of writing this article, there are no new section about SP04 in the What's New document. There are however tons of fixes (293 to be exact).
Supported Platform (Product Availability Matrix)
At the time of writing this article, there is no update in the SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 Supported Platforms (PAM) document.
Documentation
The usual documents have been made available:
- SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.1 SP04 Install Guide, note 2013261
- Support Package Update Guide:
- SAP BusinessObjects BI Suite 4.1 SP04 Release Restrictions, note 2013263
- SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.1 SP04 Fixed Issues, note 2013262
- SAP BusinessObjects BI Suite 4.1 What’s New, note 1838620
- Other Resources:
Forward Fit Plan
At the time of writing this article, the SBOP Forward Fit Plan has not been updated. It appears SAP BI 4.1 SP04 includes the following Updates:
- BI 4.1 Patch 2.2 - 2.4
- BI 4.1 Patch 1.6 - 1.8
- BI 4.0 Patch 6.10 - 6.12
- BI 4.0 Patch 7.7 - 7.9
- BI 4.0 Patch 8.3 - 8.5
- BI 4.0 Patch 9.1
It is therefore missing as of today SAP BI 4.1 SP03 Patch 3.2. It will likely be added as always in SAP BI 4.1 SP04 Patch 4.1
Source: SBOP Forward Fit Plan
Installing Updates
I have installed the following updates on my training server.
Updates Installed
- SBOP BI Platform 4.1 SP04 Server
- SBOP BI Platform 4.1 SP04 Client Tools
- SAP BusinessObjects Explorer 4.1 SP04
Environment
- Windows Server 2012
- 4x Virtual Processors (Hyper-V)
- 20 GB RAM
Duration
Bearing in mind my training server originally started with a clean installation of SP02 then patched to SP03 with 3x languages (English, French, Finnish), this is how long it tool to install everything.
1. As always, the Preparing to install screen takes longer and longer...
2. This chart shows the time it took waiting for the Preparing screen to disappear then the installation time. That's right, about 2.5 hours (151 minutes) just to patch SAP BI Platform 4.1 SP04 Server.
3. As always, when you click Finish, do NOT reboot straight away. Wait for setupengine.exe to go away in your Task Manager. This can take a minute or so.
4. How it looks for me now.
Past Articles
For information, I wrote the following articles about previous SAP BI Support Packages:
- SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Suite 4.1 SP03 (SP3) Released
- SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Suite 4.1 SP02 (SP2) Released
Conclusion
It's still early days and there are couple of documents that need to be updated but so far so good. No errors in the Event Viewer, every services are starting as they should and some preliminarily tests are successful.
As always, please share your how it went for you in the comments below. I'm sure this does help many people.
Thanks and good luck!
Patrick