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A great value compared to other SAP Press publications. Does not fall short on covering range of BI topics. I found it very helpful as my first book to BI. Although it seems to be designed more for the business user - but being a technical resource i found it useful to understand things from the business side.
It has another two chapters on the report designer, a module that SAP is going to let die, so one might consider this bit a waste of space. This book is the best book currently available about SAP BI reporting. So there isn't much competition. This book devotes a lot of space to the query designer - this is the central tool for all SAP BI reporting - and covers it well. Unfortunately the lack of space means these topics get short shrift, as you could easily fill a complete separate book for each of them. Besides as another reviewer mentioned, it is much cheaper.
Peter Jones decided to add a chapter for web reporting and the enterprise portal plus half a chapter each for the visual composer and integrated planning. That said, other books on this topic (mainly by Norbert Egger) aren't particularly convincing. The information broadcaster is also covered quite well and in sufficient detail. Peter Jones explains the concepts well and in greater detail then you will find elsewhere. There are lots of useful examples, tips and tricks. I suspect he did this mainly, so he could say that he had covered all the front end tools.
The VC and IP bits don't tell you much more than that these modules exist and why they might be interesting.PJ has announced a book covering web reporting and as the Web Application Designer won't be replaced before 2013 (Business Objects Pioneer in the SDK version), I am definitely going to buy it.
A true manual reporting, very detailed and can be used on a daily basis as a reference. Excellent.
The book reads well, for those who have read SAP or taken SAP classes, many of the illustrations. By far the easiest book to understand and follow on the topic, I wish I had this book before I tried to tackle the information from the SAP classes I had taken.
We are using this book at work as a foundational book for bringing new hires up to speed on SAP BI.
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