SAP BusinessObjects Useful Links

SAP BusinessObjects Links
SAP® BusinessObjects Community: http://sdn.sap.com/irj/boc
SAP® BusinessObjects Notes: https://sdn.sap.com/irj/boc/notes
SAP® BusinessObjects Articles: https://sdn.sap.com/irj/boc/articles
SAP® BusinessObjects Forums: https://sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/forums

Read more »

DASHBOARDS USING QUERY AS A WEB SERVICE AND XCELSIUS

DASHBOARDS USING QUERY AS A WEB SERVICE AND XCELSIUS

Read more »

BusinessObjects XI R2 installation Step by Step

Read more »

Evolution of the BO XI platform – from XI R2 to XI 3.1 SP2

Where were we with XI R2:

• Change to Crystal service-oriented platform (Crystal 10 architecture)
• Ability to plug Crystal Reports, Web Intelligence, Desktop Intelligence, OLAP Intelligence, Dashboard Manager, Performance Manager directly into the framework
• Single repository, security, system management, publishing, portal
• Infoview (Replaced old BO Infoview and Crystal ePortfolio)
• Central Management Console (CMC)
• Import Wizard (upgrades from BO 5, 6, XI, Crystal 8.5, 9, 10)
• Desktop Intelligence (new name for BO full client + ability to query and display Unicode data)
• Publishing, Encyclopedia, Discussions, OLAP Intelligence, Performance Management
• Changes to Data Integrator, Composer, Metadata Manager

XI 3.0

• All administration moved to the Central Management Console – CMC – with new GUI
• Bulk action support in CMC
• Central Configuration Manager – CCM is still there (to manage multiple nodes) with 2 entries : Tomcat & SIA
• Server Intelligence Agent (SIA) – handles service dependencies
• Server Intelligence in CMC – clone server deployments
• Repository Federation – replicate repository on other BO cluster
• Repository Diagnostic Tool (Infostore vs FileStore – repair inconsistencies between CMS database entries and files in FRS)
• Improved Import Wizard
• Web Intelligence Rich Client (offline viewing of WebI reports, no session timeout)
• Data change tracking in Web Intelligence
• Designer – “Database delegated” projection on measures
• Universe based on stored procedures
• Prompt syntax extension (persistent/primary_key undocumented features, finally!)
• Personal data provider – combine data from Excel, text, csv and get into a single report
• Smart cubes – support for non-additive measures (percentages, ratios) and RDBMS analytical functions
• Multi language support – dimensions, measures, prompts automatically localized to report viewer’s language
• Native Web Intelligence printing (without PDF)
• Enbed image in Web Intelligence report
• Hyperlinks dialog box makes links easy to create – syntax generated by WebIntelligence (remember opendocument()?)

What’s new in XI 3.1

• Support for multi-forest Active Directory authentication
• IP v6 support
• Lifecycle Management Tool (LCMBIAR files, replace Import Wizard)
• Saving Web Intelligence documents as CSV (data-only files) – new sheets for every 65K rows of data
• Web Intelligence Autosave
• “Begin_SQL” SQL prefix variable
• Prompt syntax extension (support for key-value pairs!)
• Business Objects Voyager enhancements
• Live Office enhancements
• WebIntelligence – Automatic loading of cached LOVs, interactive drag-drop, report filter bar, cancel refresh-on-open

What’s new in XI 3.1 SP2

• WebIntelligence Input controls
• OLAP universe based access to SAP BW using MDX
• BI services – expose WebIntelligence document components as web services
• Query on Query
• Fold-unfold UI improvements
• New SDKs – WebI Calculation Extension Points, Custom Data Provider plugin, Interactive viewing extension and integration points
• New universe SQL parameter SMART_AGGREGATE allows using most detailed aggregate tables
• @Prompt editor in universe Designer
• Backward compatibility is broken. Web Intelligence documents created using BO XI 3.1 SP2 cannot be opened in BO XI 3.1

Read more »

Business Objects XI 3 Architecture

Read more »

How to Add to the List of Existing Connections

Read more »

Interactive Viewing with BusinessObjects Web XI

Read more »

Business Objects XIr2 Installations step by step

https://share.acrobat.com/adc/document.do?docid=53d9c543-ef2e-453c-b577-9ab841966873

Read more »

Desktop Intelligence vs. WebIntelligence XI R2

Entering Deski/Webi:
For Deski:
Wizard: Universe vs. Other Data Source
4 wizard options (cell, table, crosstab,chart)
Many Microsoft formatting toolbars
For Webi:
Universes (Or OLAP) Only
No personal data files (Excel, XML, etc)
No real wizard
Limited Microsoft formatting toolbars
Interactive Mode: Can Enter By accident

Query Panel:
For Deski: Data Tab
When editing query, does add new objects to the report
Radial button for display of classes and object or predefined conditions
Button For: Save & Close/View/Run/Cancel
View Button for look at data and other functions
Add Query From Report Manager Window
Right Click in white area in Data Section
Insert New Data Wizard pops up
Report Manager: Click radial button to sort by data provider
Edit only 1 query at a time
User Objects can be created
View SQL

For Webi: Data Tab
When editing existing query, does NOT add in to the report
Edit Query/Edit Report Icon
Properties tab for queries
Predefined conditions integrated together with classes and objects
Run Query Button on top (Only 1 option)
Can selectively run only 1 instead of all queries (Refresh too)
No View Button
No statistics/view data options
Can hide the Query Filter Box
Add Query Button (To open up another query panel)
Creates a Query Tab in Query Window
Has mini speed menu for those Tabs
Report Manager: Click down arrow to sort by query
Can click on query tab to edit directly (jump around)
No regular templates option
No User Objects capability
View SQL now available
Scope of Analysis Option (Click On/Off)
Appears on bottom of query panel (Below Query Filters Box)
Creating Query Filters (Conditions) more convenient: List of Operators and some Operand settings displayed within Query Filter-Builder.
No ‘Show List of prompts’ choice in Query Filters.
(Properties?) Tab next to Data Tab has box for changing retrieval record limit or retrieval time.

Report Manager:
For Deski:
Slice & Dice Panel
Format Templates
No drag and drop templates
Microsoft Formatting Toolbars
No Report Filter Window
Drilling: Must Grab All dimensions down path, or use scope of analysis

For Webi:
No Slice & Dice Panel
“Templates” Option (Drag and Drop)
No Format Templates
No Query on Query/Subquery Calc
No Grouping (Clip Icon)
No hide Objects
No Count All
No Fold option
Dragging/Dropping within Report Window very easy.
Can drag objects directly from Results Object window to Query Filters
No personal lov’s
Limited Microsoft Formatting Toolbars
Right Click on Edge of Report: Turn To Option
4 Report Options + 1 Full Chart Options as well
Report Filter Window Option (Appears on top of display)
To Remove Calcs: Drag Off or Structure Mode or Right Click/Remove Row or Column
Custom Sorts: But less sorting options
Breaks: Less Property Options
Appear on left side via properties tab (Must drill down)
Ranking: But less property options
Properties Tab on Left:
Have to click on option to see pull down’s
Contexts now different
Prompting options far more powerful and easy to use
Formulas/Variables:
Includes most Deski functions now
IF is a Function (Not a command): Like Excel
Display Format: More Difficult
Tabs on Left: Data/Functions/Operators
Formula on Right/Bottom
Name/Definition on Right/Top
Operators list remains fixed
Subquery Done Via Toolbar Option (Not in conditions)
Linking Multiple Data Providers: Merge Dimensions
New Toolbar Option
Easy to Use Menu
Drilling: Will Drill via New Query to lower level
Snapshot more limited

Read more »

Business Objects Architecture diagram

Business Objects XI Architecture diagram

Read more »

Business Objects XI Server Architecture overview

Business Objects XI Server Architecture overview

Business Objects XI Server Architecture

Reference: The Complete Reference, BO XIR2 Administrator’s Guide

Actually we are used the relational database repository contained information such as universe definitions, security profiles, and corporate documents.

The use of a relational database allowed for a central source of metadata that geographically dispersed users could easily access.

Backups were easy, as DBAs could readily back up the database.

However, the relational repository also could be a bottleneck when binary files needed to be exported to or imported from the repository.

If your company had a large universe, downloading changes to that universe, while automatic for users, could take several minutes. The same is true of publishing corporate documents.

When a user published a report to Corporate Documents, the .rep file was stored as a BLOB in relational database. When another user accessed that corporate documents, the .rep file had to be extracted from the relational database and in a sense reconstructed on the system.

For large documents, this could take several minutes. .. this main drawback old versions…. This can covered advance technology with saving system.

In advance version continues to use relational repository but use the file system more extensively.

In XI, the relational repository is significantly small, relation database is used more as a method of maintaining pointers and relationships between Universe, reports, and Users. All of the universe definitions and reports are physically stored on the file system.

The best thing about this approach is the performance improvement. For Designers , exporting universe is pretty much instantaneous. For users, publishing and accessing corporate documents is as fast as saving the to disk.

In BO 6 multiple domains comes to separate folders with the XI repository and maintained via one CMS.

The CMS is the key component with XI, handling security and the routing of requests to other services.

If the CMS is not running, then users will not be able to log in to BO.

The Input File Repository Server (FRS) handles the process of writing the results of Report servers to the repository. The Input FRS processes the request.

The Output File Repository server handles the process of serving requests for users accessing the results of a scheduled report, called an instance. When users schedule a report, a Job server will send the results of report to the Output FRS, which stores the report in a compressed format.

The Connection server provides connectivity to the data sources such as oracle, SQl server and Teradata.

A Job servers processes reports that have been scheduled to run. It will retrieve the definitions of the report from the Input FRS, connect to data source, execute the query, format the results, and save an instance of the report to the Output file Repository Server.

Job servers replace the functionality previously provided by the BCA scheduler.

There is a Web Intelligence Job server, a Desktop Intelligence Job server, and Crystal Reports Job server.

There is also a List of values Job server for Crystal Reports lists of values, not for list of values defined in Universe.

Report Servers process reports that are executed on demand or built ad hoc. There is a Web Intelligence Report Server, a Desktop Intelligence Report Server, and a Crystal Reports report server.

Cache Servers cache individual pages of reports for Desktop Intelligence and Crystal Reports users.When a User views a large report, the Cache server sends a single page to the User’s browser.

The Web Intelligence Report server has caching abilities as part of that process, so you will not see a separate Web Intelligence Cache server.

The List of values Job server processes lists of values only for Crystal Reports documents.

It does not process list of values for Web Intelligence or Desktop Intelligence documents.

Instead, the Web Intelligence report server and Desktop Intelligence Report server handle the processing for those lists of values.

Read more »