Business Objects Tips and Tricks

· Business Objects at Penn

The following are tips and tricks for using Business Objects Desktop Intelligence more effectively, and for working around commonly experienced errors. If you have questions which are not answered by the tips below, or have suggestions for additions to the list, please contact Data Administration.

· Retrieving Data· Saving and Exporting Queries and Data· Report Formatting · Password issues· Installation issues· Other error messages

Retrieving Data

When using the "in list" feature in Deski, if you are typing items in yourself (rather than picking them from a list of values), the items in your list should be separated by commas. Do not type in any quote marks -- Desktop Intelligence will add them itself -- and do not put a space after a comma. However, if you are filling in a list of values in response to a prompt, you should separate the values with a semicolon, rather than a comma (but still no space between values).

If you notice that the objects in your universe aren't refreshed, be sure that when you first log on to Desktop Intelligence that the box labeled "Use is Offline Mode" is not checked.

If you get a "No data to fetch" message, and you're pretty sure you should be getting something, check to make sure you have configured your conditions correctly. For example: everything in the student data collection uses upper case letters. Another example: if you are entering a condition for a date in any of the financial data collections, use the full year, in other words, 06-01-2008 (instead of 06-01-08)

If you get a "Table or View does not exist" message, check to make sure the data collection is available on the warehouse status page.

To determine how many rows your query retrieved, choose "View" from the Data menu, then click on the Definition tab of the Data Manager window. The most recent execution of the query will be listed first, by date and time the query was executed, along with the number of rows retrieved, and the amount of time the database took to execute the query (please note that this time is not the time elapsed on your desktop machine).

When first testing a query you may wish to limit the number of rows retrieved to determine if your results are as expected. You can do this by clicking the Options button at the lower left corner of the Query Panel. Select "10 Rows", "20 Rows" or enter another value by clicking "Other" in the Partial Results area of the window. Remember to return the setting to "Default Value" when you are ready to retrieve all rows matching your query criteria.

You can use use wildcards in conjunction with the "Matches Pattern" operator to retrieve data that is like a value, rather than exactly equal to it. For example, using a percent sign ( % ) in the condition COA_Fund Matches Pattern 5% will retrieve all funds (to which you have access) from 500000-599999. Similarly, if you're trying to match almost the exact syntax, you can use an underscore ( _ ). For example, COA_ORG Matches Pattern '91_2' will retrieve ORG values 9132, 9142 and 9152.

If you have multiple queries in one report (one .rep file), you may want to rename your queries to better describe their use, so that when you go to edit or refresh them, you'll have a better idea of what data you'll be retrieving. To do this, go to the Data menu, and select "View Data" to display the Data Manager window. The General section of the Definition tab contains a field called "Name", which you can reuse to rename the query from the default "Query x with Universe" (i.e., "Query 1 with FINQUERY").

If you are trying to create a User Defined Object (UDO), but the universe you are in won't let you (in the Query Panel, clicking on User Objects does nothing, or Deski suddenly quits) try this: Log out, delete the .udo file for that universe, log back in and try creating the User Objects again. (Caution! doing this will remove any user objects you previously created for this universe; you will have to re-create them.)User Defined Objects all live on your local computer. They reside within one file per universe, in the following path:C:\Documents and Settings\<user_name>\Application Data\Business Objects\Business Objects 11.5\Universes\(where <user_name> is your user name on your computer) The file names will be <universe_name>.udo(where <universe_name> is the name of the universe, for example, "FINQUERY.udo" holds your local User Defined Objects for the FINQUERY universe.)

You can re-use queries between similar universes, so long as all the result objects and conditions from your query exist in the universe to which you'd like change. To do this, go to the Data menu, and select "View Data" to display the Data Manager window. The General section of the Definition tab contains a field called "Universe", which has a small button with "..." directly to the right. When you first display this window, the Universe field will display the universe against which the query is currently directed. Click the "..." button to display a list of all other universes to which you have access. Choose the one to switch your query to, and click ok. As long as all the objects in your query are available in the new target universe, that universe name will now appear in the Universe field. (This is

convenient for switching from the FINQUERY to FINQUERY Template Universe, for example.)

Saving and Exporting Queries and Data

If you have taken the time to create a query, but want to be able to save your work without running it, you have two options. The most convenient is to use click the "Save and Close" button in the Query Panel to simply save the structure of your report. If you do this, be sure to then use "Save As" to save it with a distinctive name, in the location you wish. You can then open the query and simply click the Refresh button to retrieve your data. Alternatively, once you've built your query, you can click the Options button at the bottom left of the Query Panel, and click the "Do Not Retrieve Data" checkbox, click OK, and then click Run. Again, only the structure of your report will be displayed, which you can then save. Keep in mind, though, that you must uncheck the Do Not Retrieve Data checkbox before you choose to run the query in the future.

By default, Desktop Intelligence saves queries (.rep files) in \My Documents\My Business Objects Documents\userDocs. If you work with several universes, you may find it convenient to create subfolders within that directory to better organize your work.

If you want to export the data you've retrieved for use in another application, you have a couple options:

Save As: Desktop Intelligence allows you to use the "Save As" feature to save documents in Excel, Adobe Acrobat PDF or CSV formats. Once you've refreshed a report, click on the File menu and select Save As. Select the file format you'd like from the "Save as type" drop-down list. Desktop Intelligence will then save your file with the data as it appears on the screen. This means the output will be saved and reflect section breaks, filters, special formatting, etc. The results of any variables or calculations will be saved as text, not underlying formulae. If your report has multiple tabs, and you choose to save as Excel, each tab will appear as a separate worksheet within one workbook. Similarly, multiple tabs will be accessible indidually in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) files. InfoView users can perform a similar action. If you experience undesired changes in Excel color formatting when overwritting a Excel file previoulsy saved from Deski, save it instead to different file name.(Note: This feature was not available in Business Objects 5.1.4 - the work around was to use the Business Objects Edit menu and select "Copy All", then open a blank worksheet in Excel and choose "Paste Special" from the Excel Edit menu. Choose the "Unformatted Text" option and click Ok to paste your data into the worksheet.)

Export: You can also export the raw data retrieved in your query (retaining no Business Objects post-query formatting or calculations), in a variety of file formats. From the Data menu, select "View Data" to display the Data Manager window. Click the Export button at the bottom of the Results tab, and designate file name and path, and file format (options include text formats, and .xls for Excel). If you choose the All files (*.*) format, you can also control the field delimiters used. [A word of caution about using the .xls format: some versions of Excel object to the field names used in the Business Objects classes. If you encounter an error when exporting/importing using the Excel format, try it again with either the All Files or the Text Files format, and then use the Excel Import Wizard to bring the data into your speadsheet.]

Report Formatting If you're having a problem displaying or printing pages after the first page of

a report, and you have an image of some sort as part of your report layout, check to see whether the image is part of a table with other elements. If it is, move it outside the table and see if this fixes your problem.

To minimize the processing time for your query, consider using the Desktop Intelligence toolbar icons or the Slice and Dice panel (rather than the query itself) to perform the following operations on the desktop once your query has finished:

Sort the data: You can place sorts on multiple objects using the Slice and Dice panel. You may also add breaks or report sections based on objects, and then sort those as well.

Filter the data: Once you have retrieved all the data meeting your conditions you may wish to further filter the data. Filtering via the Slice and Dice Panel enables you to include or exclude specific values retrieved. This is particularly useful when working with a large data set that you wish to manipulate many ways before deciding upon the final report format. You may set, change and remove filters as often as you wish without having to rerun the original query.

Perform calculations: You may add calculations to result objects, such as Sum, Count, Average, Minimum, Maximum and Percentage. This allows you to both view the data at the level of detail retrieved by your query and calculate at break levels you have designated. Available calculations are dependent upon the datatype of the object. More advanced calculations are also available using report Variables.

Duplicate rows - to show or not to show

Unless you intentionally go to the Options in the Query Panel and select “no duplicate rows”, Business Objects will return duplicate rows if they exist in the database.

However, Desktop Intelligence will by default show the aggregate of those rows in the report. In other words, the report may not be showing you all the underlying data. You can see all the rows if you go to the “View Data” tool, but if everything on two rows is identical in every column, then Deski will only display one row in the resulting table on the report.

If this isn’t what you want it to do, to force Deski to show all rows, do the following:

o Right click on the table in your report, and select Format Table.o On the General tab, check the box that says “Avoid Duplicate Rows

Aggregation” and then click OK.

 

Password Issues

Desktop Intelligence and InfoView do check your password when you log in. However, you must be sure to use the password change application to synchronize your Data Warehouse, Business Objects and Business Objects DB Credentials each time you change your Data Warehouse password. (The same applies if you are using Business Objects to query other Oracle databases, such as Penn Community.) If your passwords are not synchronized, your query attempts will return errors:

o If you check only the Business Objects boxes in the PassWord Changer application, and not the Data Warehouse and other database boxes, when you submit a query you will get a message saying your access is denied for password errors.

o If you check the database boxes (i.e., Data Warehouse) and only one of the Business Objects boxes, you will get this error:Connection or SQL sentence error: (DA0005) Exception: CS, Unexpected behavior

The resolution for all of the above situations is to go to the password change application and reset your password, and be sure to check ALL of the boxes.

 

Installation Issues

Symptoms are: You retrieve the installation files and unzip them, double-click the installer.bat, and get a message: "Please go to the control panel to install and configure system components." This can happen if you downloaded the installation files to a drive that is different from the one on which you are trying to install the BusinessObjects Deski client. Try downloading and unzipping to the user's desktop, and run the installer.bat from there.

Symptoms are: You either 1) get a DA0005 error, and when you click on the error message "details" it says that the DBDriver failed to load, or 2) you are installing Deski on a remote computer and you get an "openSessionLogon" error telling you it cannot establish a CMS connection.Resolution: You must log in to InfoView to activate Desktop Intelligence the first time you use it following installation. See the "Configure the Client" step in the Installation instructions for details.

You get an "Operation TimeOut" error and the message that "Your internet server is not responsive." This probably means you are trying to use an older version of Business Objects (for example, this can happen when your desktop shortcut is still pointing to the old version). When you launch, make sure you are actually using Business Objects Enterprise XI release 2 / Desktop Intelligence.

 

Other Error messages and error conditions

Reports with date prompts returning no data: If you're not getting data back when running reports with date prompts (and the same values worked in Business Objects 5), make sure you're entering the date in 4-digit year format. For example, rather than entering "7/1/07" (for July 1, 2007), enter "7/1/2007".

If you attempt to open a report and you get an error:You are not authorized to use this document. (FRM0008)try one of the following solutions:1) Is this a Corporate Document? In which case, do not try to open the local copy, but instead go to File->Import from Repository...and use the new one from the repository.2) If this is a document you created yourself on your local computer using the old version (or modified and saved on your local computer using the old version), then, if possible, use the old version -- version 5.1.4 -- to open it. Go to File->Save As... and before you save it, click the box next to "Save for all users" in the lower left corner of the screen. Then click on Save, and close it. You should now be able to open it using Deski.3) You can also get this error if you created this document yourself on your local computer, then exported it to the Repository (for example, to your "Favorites" box in InfoView), and then subsequently deleted the one on the Repository. The local one will no longer be available to you -- or anyone else! To avoid this problem, always make a backup copy of your local document, before you delete a report on the Repository.

If you've run a query, but are not seeing any results on screen other than the column header cells, you may want to check to see if any of the following features are set:

·You are viewing the Structure of the report, rather than the actual data retrieved. (Check the View menu, Strucure setting.)·There are Filters in your report. (Click on any cell that you can see, and choose Filters from the Format menu.)

·The report is folded, so that only headers appear. (First check the old checkbox on the General tab of the Standard Report Styles window, accessible from the Tools menu. If Fold there is unchecked, you may also want to check the same setting in Format/Table, to see if the report is folded there.

You log in to Deski and try to refresh a report, but get: "Error During SQL Execution: (DA0003) - CS, Job already in use".One possible cause of this error message is because Internet Explorer 7 has a default time out of 30 seconds compared with the Internet Explorer 6 time out of 60 seconds. For some queries, this is not enough time to refresh the entire query, since the client is connecting using an HTTP protocol to the server.It is necessary to extend the time-out limit on Internet Explorer 7. This can be done by adding a key to the registry.(CAUTION! The following resolution involves editing the registry. Using the Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall the Microsoft Windows operating system. Use the Registry Editor at your own risk. It is strongly recommended that you make a backup copy of the registry files before you edit the registry. End users should NOT attempt this without first consulting with their Local Support Providers.)

To resolve the error message (if you are using IE 7)1. Click Start > Run. The Run dialog box appears.2. Type “regedit” in the Open: text box. Click OK. The Registry Editor appears.3. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings.4. Add a ReceiveTimeout DWORD value with a data value of (<number of seconds>)*1000. For example, if the required time out duration is eight minutes, set the ReceiveTimeout data value to 480000 (<480>*1000).5. Exit the Registry Editor.6. Restart the computer.

If your Business Objects menu bar disappears, try the following steps: 1. From the Windows 'Start' menu, select 'Run'. 2. Type "regedit" in the 'Run' dialog box. 3. Locate and delete this folder in the registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Business Objects\Suite 11.5\default\BusinessObjects\Application Preferences\BusinessReporter\Desktop Intelligence

4. Restart Desktop Intelligence5. If the steps above do not resolve the issue, try deleting the Desktop

Intelligence folder under HKEY_USERS & the user's SID:

HKEY_USERS\<user's SID>\ Software\Business Objects\Suite 11.5\default\BusinessObjects\Application Preferences\BusinessReporter\Desktop Intelligence

6. Restart Desktop Intelligence If the Classes and Object pane disappears from the Query Panel, try the

following steps: 1. From the Windows 'Start' menu, select 'Run'. 2. Type "regedit" in the 'Run' dialog box. 3. Locate and delete these two registry keys:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Business Objects\Suite 11.5\default\BusinessObjects\Administrator User Prefs

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Business Objects\Suite 11.5\default\BusinessObjects\Application Preferences\BusinessDesigner

4. Restart Desktop Intelligence

 

If you're having problems accessing the Slice and Dice window, click the Slice and Dice button again, and, when the window doesn't appear, hit Alt+space, and then Maximize the window.

 

Components of a Report

Within a given report, you have several components: sections, blocks, and cells. As you explore information within a report, these components are not particularly important; as you try to format the report or add information to it, however, it’s important to understand which component you are altering.

SectionsEvery report has a main section. Within the main section, you can have a section header and a section footer; these are different from page headers and footers that appear in printed reports. Main section headers typically hold the title of the report but also may contain a picture or logo. Reports also may have subsections if you create a Master Detail report. Figure shows a report with section headers for each different color of wine. The report title “Average Wine Ratings By Country and Decade” appears in the main section.

BlocksA block is a set of data that contains column headings, row headings, and data values. A block also may contain titles for an individual table or chart, different from a title that applies to the entire report (main section). BusinessObjects supports different types of blocks such as a simple table, crosstab, or chart. A block is one component within a section.

Variables and CellsA cell contains either fixed text, formulas, or report variables. Cells that contain fixed text such as a title or a picture are referred to as constants; the contents of the cell never change no matter which data you are viewing. Cells whose contents change may be either a formula or a report variable. Report variables are pointers to the columns of data. When a report author builds a query, the author selects objects from the universe. These objects

become variables in a report. There are three types of report variables that correspond directly to how the universe designer defines an object:

A dimension object is denoted with a blue cube and is typically textual information by which you sort and analyze numeric measures. In the wine reports shown thus far, color, vintage, varietal, and country are all dimension variables.

A measure is a number that you want to analyze; it is denoted by a pink sphere or circle. Average Rating and Average Price are measure variables.

A detail provides additional information about a particular dimension. You may want to see the information in a list report but will not want to use it to analyze measures by. Phone number and street address are typical detail variables.

In a spreadsheet, each cell contains the actual value. In a BusinessObjects document, the cell contains either the constant value or a formula that tells BusinessObjects where to find the data value. By viewing the report structure, you can see the true contents of each cell, as shown in Figure To view the report structure, use the pull-down menu to select View | Report Structure.

The first cell is a text cell whose contents do not change, referred to as a constant. All the other cells show formulas that are used to retrieve the data values for each report variable. For example, the following formula will retrieve the individual colors of Red, White, and Rose:

=is the name of the report variable for this particular dimension object. The column and row headings (, ) as well as the measure variable that will display individual data values () make up the block. All these components together make up the report.

Components of a Document

One of the hardest concepts with BusinessObjects is the document itself. A document is not a simple report, but rather, a set of components that eventually present a report. A document contains the following components:

One or more data providers that are typically SQL queries that extract information from source databases.

A result set in which the results of the queries are stored as a microcube. You can view the results through Data Manager.

One or more formatted reports. Each report may be a different type, such as a chart, table, or crosstab. One report may have multiple report types.

Figure gives a conceptual overview of a document that is made up of two data sources: a SQL query and a spreadsheet. The document contains three reports, two that are tabular reports with a view to each result set and a third that displays a chart with data from both result sets. In many documents, you may have only one query, one result set, and one report. Alternatively, you may have one query, one result set, and multiple reports. Each report tab may contain a view with the full data set but in a different block type such as table, crosstab, or chart. Alternatively, each report may contain a limited number of columns or rows of data as you remove variables and apply filters. The structure of the BusinessObjects document allows you to explore information from multiple perspectives without ever having to requery the database. Similarly, the microcube technology allows you to seamlessly combine information from multiple data sources into one report, even if you don’t have a central data warehouse.

Home

BusinessObjects is a powerful ad hoc reporting and analysis tool. The single greatest component of BusinessObjects that will make your implementation succeed or fail is the universe. A universe is a business representation of your data warehouse or transaction database. It shields users from the underlying complexities of the database schema. BusinessObjects often refers to this as the semantic or metadata layer. In all your development efforts, you must stay focused on that purpose: business representation. If your universe becomes a glorified entity relationship model, your project will fail. If your universe includes every data element any user may possibly want from now to eternity, your project will fail.

Universes can become unwieldy for end users. Poorly defined joins will result in unnecessarily slow queries. The universe is the most important component to get right.

Keep It SimpleThis universe was difficult for the administrator to maintain and was overwhelming even to expert BusinessObjects users. The result? End users often created invalid queries and blamed the data warehouse for bad data. Casual users would ask an IT expert to create MS Access data marts that were easier for them to use, thus defeating the flexibility and empowerment offered by an ad hoc query tool and causing unnecessary data reconciliation.

To build a successful universe, keep it simple. The universe should be useful for a clearly defined group of users and should not have much more than 200 objects in it. Bigger universes are technically feasible but not user friendly. Having more universes to build and maintain may result in slightly higher maintenance costs but will significantly increase end-user productivity and satisfaction. As your target user group expands, constantly ask yourself if the needs are distinct enough to justify a separate universe. If some users need only a handful of additional objects, keep it in the same universe. However, if they need many additional objects, create a separate universe.

Figure illustrates how different user groups will need access to different information. Human resources is one group of users that needs access to salary details but does not need product sales and order information. Therefore, a Salary universe will only have information from this one fact table. Marketing people may need information on sales but will rarely need information on the individual order numbers that customer service representatives need; however, customer service representatives need both order detail and summary sales. This is an example in which it may make sense to have one universe that meets the needs of both user groups (marketing and customer service representatives). A director of the marketing group is most likely a people manager and may need salary and employee details; the director would use two universes, as including three subject areas in one big universe would potentially be overwhelming for the majority of users who don't need this information.

Universe Components

BusinessObjects administrators build universes using Designer. The key components of a universe are classes, objects, tables, joins, and contexts. As shown in Figure, classes and objects are the main items a business user sees when building a query. Objects become individual columns in a report; classes never appear in a report.

ClassesClasses are a way of grouping individual objects. In Figure, these appear with a folder icon. Sometimes these relate closely to the tables in a database but should be regrouped into business topics. In the sample EFASHION universe, the class Product is a more meaningful business term than Article and includes items from multiple tables ARTICLE_LOOKUP and ARTICLE_COLOR_LOOKUP.

Objects

Objects refer to columns of data. There are different types of objects (as explained further in Chapter 8) denoted with a square, sphere, or triangle icon in Figure 5-2. Objects can include a significant amount of intelligence and may not relate directly to one column in the database. For example, the object Sold At (Unit Price) includes a calculation of revenue/quantity. However, to avoid divide by 0 errors, it also includes an if-then-else statement to check for 0 quantities. This is one example of why Business Objects universes are so powerful and a much better alternative to providing users with direct access to tables; if-then-else statements in SQL are implemented differently for each RDBMS and are not something most users would know how to write.

Tables, Joins, and ContextsReport authors never directly see several core elements of a universe: tables, joins, and contexts (see Figure). Universe designers use tables to map data from fields to objects in the universe. Joins allow the use of more than one table in a report, and contexts resolve which join path to take when more than one path is possible. All three of these components are then combined to dynamically build SQL statements in BusinessObjects.

TablesTables are individual database tables that provide data. A table may be a physical table in the RDBMS, or it may be a view or synonym. Further, Designer provides functionality to create aliases that are treated like tables.

In a data warehouse or data mart environment, you will have two types of tables: 1) a fact table that contains numeric information and 2) dimension tables that allow a user to analyze the numeric data from different perspectives such as product, time, or geography. The fact table can have millions of detailed rows of data or can be smaller, with summary numbers. One fact table together with its associated dimension tables is referred to as a star schema. There can be multiple fact tables and star schemas within a universe.

Dimension tables are also referred to as lookup tables or reference tables. The dimension tables can be broken into more than one table; for example, detailed material IDs may reside in a MATERIAL_ID table. The groupings and product hierarchy for the material IDs may reside in a separate table such as PRODUCT_GROUPING. This type of structure, referred to as a snowflake design, is used in some data warehouses that have extremely large dimensions as well as certain ROLAP tools.

In a normalized OLTP, both the fact tables and the dimension tables may be spread across many tables. For example, order information may exist in both an ORDER_HEADER table and an ORDER_LINES table. Dimensions and hierarchies often do not exist in the OLTP (note in Figure that there is no Time or Plant table, just the

individual facility that produced the product). Only the individual material IDs, customer IDs, and so on, are stored with detailed records. BusinessObjects does not allow a universe to point to two different databases, so having data that users want to analyze together generally calls for a data warehouse or data mart. However, if this is not immediately possible, BusinessObjects provides a workaround in the end-user tool. You, as the designer, can create two separate universes: one that points to the OLTP and one that points to the dimension database. Users then would have to build two queries; however, as long as the detailed key information is named consistently between the universes, the results will be nicely displayed in one table, without the user having to manually stitch the two result sets together.

When you build a universe, you are not replicating any data from these tables. Instead, you are basically creating pointers to tell BusinessObjects where to find the data; no data is stored in the universe itself. This is a drastically different approach than a full MOLAP tool such as Hyperion Essbase, Cognos Powerplay, or Microsoft Analysis Services. Data gets replicated only when a BusinessObjects user launches a report and the RDBMS sends results back to the report, populating a micro cube in a .rep file on either the WebI middle tier or the Windows client.

JoinsJoins specify how tables, views, synonyms, or aliases relate to one another. Joins allow a user to combine information from two or more tables. For example, in the following diagram, there are joins between ORDERS_FACT and the dimension table PLANT as well as between ORDERS_FACT and the dimension table PRODUCTS. There are no joins to the SUPPLIERS table. Without this join, a user is not able to determine which suppliers provide various products. There are many types of joins.

Contexts

Contexts group related joins. A context may group a set of joins together for each star schema. Without contexts, BusinessObjects would generate SQL that contained a loop. Loops generally result in incorrect queries with fewer rows returned than expected. Earlier versions of BusinessObjects supported queries that contained only one context. As contexts were generally confusing for end users, they were best avoided. BusinessObjects now allows one query to generate multiple SQL statements, one for each context. This allows users to query multiple star schemas to create powerful business reports. Two examples follow.

Days Sales Inventory (DSIs) How many days worth of inventory do you have according to the daily sales volume? As shown in Figure, this query would involve two contexts, one with all the joins for the star schema with a SALES_FACT table and a second context with all the joins related to INVENTORY_FACT.