Business Intelligence with SAP Business Objects 4.3

Query Builder:queries for extract reports refreshed after o before a specific date which could be useful to extract Webi reports in a specific folder with their name , owner, cuid, update date that have been refreshed since a date select si_name, SI_NAME, SI_OWNER,  SI_CUID, SI_PARENT_FOLDER_CUID, SI_UPDATE_TS FROM CI_INFOOBJECTS where SI_KIND='WEBI' and  SI_NAME NOT like '%Nuovo documento Web Intelligence%' and SI_INSTANCE='false' and SI_UPDATE_TS > '2013.01.01.00.00.00' and SI_PARENT_FOLDER = 851970 order by SI_UPDATE_TS asc Removing   SI_KIND='WEBI' you can extract also other document kind select si_name, SI_NAME, SI_OWNER,  SI_CUID, SI_PARENT_FOLDER_CUID, SI_UPDATE_TS FROM CI_INFOOBJECTS where  and SI_INSTANCE='false' and SI_UPDATE_TS > '2013.01.01.00.00.00' and SI_PARENT_FOLDER = 851970 order by SI_UPDATE_TS asc You can also exclude Administrator as owner  select si_...

Visual Difference SAP BusinessObjects  Business Intelligence 4.0  - Version 4.0 SP2 Fixpack 5 Features - Visual Difference framework allows easy identification of changes - Comparison plug ins and viewers for each BI content type. (Eventually…) - LCMBIAR viewer answers: “How is this version of the BI application different from a previous version?” - Future service packs will provide comparison viewers for universes and other content types - For example, will answer: “What is different between these two versions of a universe? Can I easily merge changes?” - Impact Analysis - Understanding which objects in a universe have changed allows tester to focus only on reports which use changed objects. See Also Visual Difference Overview

Lifecycle management console features SAP BusinessObjects  Business Intelligence 4.0  - Version 4.0 SP2 Fixpack 5 Lifecycle management console is now included in SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence servers install package. New Visual Difference capabilities allow easy identification of changes. Scriptable promotions supported via a command line interface. • Central Management Console– Visual Difference, Promotion and Version Mgmt. Lifecycle management is now in CMC: New Objects supported Categories based promotion is now supported. Server group promotion is supported however the servers are not promoted. LCM is now localized. • Job is copied • Job is migrated Update Source system of job when Overrides no longer job specific  Supports new improved BI platform Audit infrastructure There are 2 new features specifically for integrated deployments with BW: • SAP Authentication is now supported. • Integration with t...

LCMBIAR Overview - LCM Command Line Tool SAP BusinessObjects  Business Intelligence 4.0 Version 4.0 SP2 Fixpack 5 Allows to: Promote content between Development, Test, and Production SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 environments. Allows you to use scripting to automate the import of objects. Terms BIAR and LCMBIAR:   BIAR :(BI Archive) is a collection of any binaries associated with a BI object and its associated metadata, all materialized in a zip file. An LCMBIAR file is the same idea, but each object is stored in an individual BIAR. Considerations:  Lifecycle management tool is to promote objects from BI platform 4.x to BI platform 4.X version only.  Upgrades from a previous BO version to BI 4.0 must be done using the Upgrade management tool. To rollback a job you need to use the UI, not command line  LCM Command Line tool is not used when CTS+ is available. What can you do with LCM Cmd line tool?  Report d...

SAP NOTE 1634962 - BI4 - How to import or export a LifeCycle Manager BIAR file using command line utility If you need to export or import a Life Cycle Manager (LCM) BIAR in BI 4 using command line utility. Environment l SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform (BI) 4.0 l SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform (BI) 4.1 Follow these steps: 1. Create a Properties file: Start by creating a properties file (Example c:\lcm1.properties) as below. Note that the names of properties and lcmbiar files are not specific and can be anything. While the below examples are provided with Windows syntax, they are applicable to unix environments as well with minor changes to file path locations. Here is an example of a properties file to EXPORT to an lcmbiar file: exportLocation=C:/lcm1.lcmbiar action=export LCM_CMS=localhost:6400 LCM_userName=Administrator LCM_password=password LCM_authentication=secEnterprise Source_CMS=localhost:64...

BusinessObjects Environment assessment using Query builder This includes identifying unused BI content (Users, Universes, reports,etc.). We are going to see more in detail about identification of unused objects using Query Builder in this document.   Let us see how to identify unused objects in each category listed below     1. User Community          a. Users not logged in for the past 6 months             SELECT TOP 1000 SI_NAME, SI_LASTLOGONTIME FROM CI_SYSTEMOBJECTS            WHERE SI_NAME NOT IN ('ADMINISTRATOR','GUEST') AND SI_KIND='USER'           AND SI_LASTLOGONTIME < '2013.06.30' ORDER BY SI_NAME          b. Users who never logged in to system              SELECT TOP 1000 SI_NAME, SI_LASTLOGONTIME FROM CI_SYSTEMOBJECTS            WHE...

Business Objects Query Builder Among Business Objects tools there is an application named Query Builder which can be used to query the Business Objects Meta Data repository in order to collect more information and details about your  Business Objects reporting system. Its url is: http://BOserver:port/AdminTools/ How to create a query Queries are created in a language SQL like. Unlike Sql language there are not a lot of functions supported (like nesting SQL statements, the GROUP BY clause or the DISTINCT function). Below the possible functions in Query Builder within the different clauses of a query are described: (SELECT, FROM, WHERE, ORDER BY). Some examples behind: A list of the Id and Name of all universes SELECT SI _ID, SI _NAME FROM CI _APPOBJECTS WHERE SI _KIND = 'UNIVERSE' Total num ber of Web Intelligence Reports SELECT COUNT(SI _ID) FROM CI _I NFOOBJECTS WHERE SI _KIND = 'WEBI ' A list of 10 0  Crystal Reports with all properties SELE...

Cannot see connections in Report Conversion Tool Environment SAP BI 4 SP 5 In order to solve this problem I inserted the BO server name and its IP  in Hosts file under: C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc Read also: BI 4 - How to download webi rich client Webi XI 4 - Changing query data source Sap BI 4 Webi-connecting to Bex query SAP BI 4.1 Supports SAP BusinessObjects Desktop Intelligence 3.1 SP6 FP 6.1 in viewing mode Disable automerge dimension on WebI X 4.0

Integrating  SAP BO Design Studio   with SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform Enable application management on BI Platform allows: - Enable multi user-access to applications - Storage of applications and images - Embedded runtime on BI Platform - Central management of system connections The following image show how to Open and save applications on BI Platform How to manage  System connections on BI Platform SAP BO Design Studio satisfies different needs for each company role as follows Executive - Consume and interact with information using simplified BI templates - Analyze information on mobile devices Middle Management - Leverage BI applications for planning and forecasting scenarios - User product interoperability to share results with other BI clients Business Analyst - Leverage BI applications for planning and forecasting scenarios  - Create BI applications and design guided navigations Consumer - Use pre-built templat...

SAP  BusinessObjects  Design Studio  SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio   represents  BEx Web & BEx Web Application Designer successor. Design Stuido allows for intuitive design of centrally governable analytic content ranging from guided analytics to sophisticated OLAP applications and aggregated dashboards.  The product features iPad support, an  HTML5 User Interface, differents themes available for application and a WYSIWYG Eclipse-based designer, full & native support of BW BEx queries, direct connectivity to HANA as well as an advanced scripting engine. Available features in detail: - Intuitive WYSIWYG design environment for designers - Large set of design components (buttons, tabs, dropdown menus etc.) - Extend via scripting language (subset of JavaScript) - Enterprise Ready Life Cycle Management - Central Supportability - Theming & Customizing iPad Support built-in Apps are ready for immediate usage on ...

Error: Microsoft Office XP and later applicatations: Excel, Word, Outlook or PowerPoint must be pre-installed. Environment  BO XI 3.1 SP 4 Xcelsius 2008 SP 4 Live Office XI 3.1 SP 4 If you need to install Live Office on a pc with Office 2010 already installed you will get the following warning: In can bypass this error with a  a workaround wich aims to avoid that MS installer checks if Office is installed. In order to do so you need an MSI editor, we suggest http://www.instedit.com/ So follow these steps: Create a copy of   Lifeoffice.msi file located in the Package folder. Open with InstEd the  Lifeoffice . msi file and select the “Tables” tab and click on LaunchCondition; Then delete the row which refers to Office ( “EXCELl10 OR OUTLOOK10″) and save the file. Then run this modified  Lifeoffice.msi,  previous error will not appear any more and you will accomplish your installation! Please note that this Workaround ...

Before importing an universe in Translation Manager    the Best practise I feel to suggest is to make a local back up of the universe using BO Designer  you need to translate!! In this case  if after exporting the translated universe on CMS you will find the Universe is in some way corrupted you can recover it quicky form  the Designer! Read also related posts: Business Objects Translation Manager Translation Manager Exporting documents How to use Translation Manager Translation Manager Substitution mechanism

In order to migrate  a universe from a prior CMS release (XI R3.1 and XI r2)  to a BI 4 CMS, you must use the Upgrade management tool  (UMT)  that is provided with BI 4. SAP Business Objects 4.0 BI 4 includes two universe development tools: - The universe design too l, which is an upgraded release of the Universe Designer tool you are familiar with if you are an existing Business Objects customer wich creates a UNV file . - and the new Information design tool (IDT) , which is the new universe authoring tool provided with BI 4 that produces a UNX file . A UNX universe file is published on the CMS  is the result of a merge of three components that are designed in the information design tool.: -  CNX files for connections -  DFX files for data foundations -  BLX files for business layers A UNX is the result of CNX + DFX + BLX where: the data foundation    (DFX )  contains a schema  of tables and joins f...

Translation Manager Exporting documents to the CMS After you translate the document, you need to select it for publishing and export it to the CMS.  You can publish it into as many languages as are ready . A built in document analyzer provides statistics on the percentage of the document that has translations so you can decide if you are ready to complete the publish step before exporting to the CMS. Universes can only be exported to the same file location. Web Intelligence documents can change locations. 1. Go to the Language Management view. 2. Click the value in the Ready to export to CMS column for the language or languages that you want to export to Yes. 3. Select Export to CMS from the File menu. A message appears to prompt you to save the document before exporting to the CMS. 4. Click Yes. The Export Universe/Webi Document dialog box appears. 5. Click Export to export the document and save it in the local file that is shown a...

The substitution mechanism (also known as the fallback) provides the metadata information about the strings translated status. You can define: • The languages in the document definition. The languages must first be set to "YES" for the "Ready to Export to CMS" attribute. • The substitution language for the document. A document has one substitution language identified as fallback language . You define or edit one substitution language in the Translation Manager. This doesn't impact any workflow changes on the consumption side (InfoView or Web Intelligence Rich Client). As an example , a document is translated in English, French and Italian. The substitution language is English. If you want to view its Spanish version even though it is not translated you will view its substitution language, i.e. English. See Also: How to use Translation Manager Translation Manager Translation Manager Exporting documents

Translation Manager BO XI R 3.1 Let see how to use this translation tool: First of all you need to logon on BO  CMS Then you have to import the Universe (in our example) to translate At this point you must select the chosen universe by selecting it and  clicking on the button "ADD" , in this way the Universe will be saved on the local machine The following image shows  how will appear a translated universe form Italian to English language, you can see in the f irst two columns  the original language name of the objects and from the third column on (if you need to translate the universe in more than one idiom) the language you want to translate to. Beside for each object, you will have three rows: one for the name one for the description and one for the format (date, currency, number and so on). You can also translate prompts name and hierarchies name as you can see in the bottom of the following image. See Also: Tra...

Business Objects Translation Manager (BO XI R3.x) Beginning from Business Objects Enterprise XI 3.0, SAP Business Objects provides a new support for multilingual content (Web Intelligence documents and universes) in order to allow the designer to create reports for a multilingual audience. The plus is that instead of having to create a report for each language, its content will be translated and the document will be displayed in the reader’s language, Translation Manager is the tool that provides a complete framework to support multilingual content in XI 3.x: • It proposes a simple graphical interface for easy and simple translations • It is fully integrated to the XI 3.x and supports all the supported CMS authentication modes as well as the offline mode. • It can collaborate with external translation tools by exporting and importing XLIFF (XML Localization Interchange File Format) files; the XML format for exchanging localization data. • It manages more than 1...

Version Management feature in the lifecycle management console The lifecycle management console tool enables you to manage versions of BI resources that exist in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform repository. It supports both Subversion and ClearCase version management systems. Let see  how to use the Version Management feature in the lifecycle management console tool. In order  to  create and/or manage different versions of an infoobject, follow the below directions: Log into the lifecycle management console - LCM In home page, select Version Management from the drop-down list. Enter the login credentials, and click Login, then the Version Management window appears. If you want to change the host system click on the 'Servers' icon and Login with different credentials. From the left panel of the "Version Management" window, select the folder to view the infoobjects whose versions you want to manage. Select t...

In the Lifecycle Management Console, the new Dashboard Objects allows to check relashionship with universe query, dependences on QaaWS and universe objects in QaaWS connections, and/or dependences on WebIntelligence reports, Crystal reports and Universe objects with Life Office Connections. All the dependent objects can be promoted together. See also: Lifecycle Management Console LCM Managing infoobject versions How to import or export with lifecycle from cmd line

The Report Conversion Tool (RCT) is a tool useful to convert a Desktop Intelligence Report to WebIntelligence report. Let see ho to use this tool: Open it from Programs -> Business Objects 3.1 (or BI 4.0) Log in with Enterprise account Open Public Folder or Favorites Folder in order to select Deski report you need to convert: Select your report and clic the botton in order to move it in the right window: Select the last check box on the right if it is a Free Sql report otherwise click on the button 'ahead'  the conversion will start. The final result could be : a full conversion; a partial conversion; no conversion at all. as you can see from the following image: You could also choose a connection in order to save conversion result in order to audit this process, in this case you have to check the box in the second part of the window and you have to select one of available connections: In this way...