July 19th, 2010 by admin
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Reviewed the data model and loading today with the DBA. To explain the reason for not enforcing RI through foreign key constraints there are few concepts.(see page 536 of the toolkit book mentioned below for more explanation)
1) This is a read only data mart not an operational system so there are single threaded ETL jobs and read only queries. The ETL process handles the RI by loading the Dimensions and Facts as part of a single correlated load stream. This means there are not outside applications adding and removing rows so RI can be maintained by the ETL application logic.
2) We are not rejecting fact records based on their keys. If keys don’t match an appropriate value in a dimension, then the value is added to the dimension (e.g. new title is added)
3) We are not rejecting dimension records based on their keys. If keys don’t match the lookup attribute table then the Unknown key is used (i.e. -1)
Example: So if a series of web sites that have an invalid country code we are still going to load web site attributes into the sites dimension tables, but we will insert the key for an “unknown” country into the country foreign key.
4) We needed to first load a significant amount of data in order to validate that the data model was going to match the proposed model. We can always add foreign key constraints but since items 2 and 3 handle valid and invalid keys programmatically they constraints would not come into play.
From Oracle: “Unlike many relational-database environments, data in a data warehouse is typically added and/or modified under very controlled circumstances during the ETT process. Multiple users typically do not update the data warehouse directly; this is considerably different from the usage of a typical operational system. Thus, the specific usage of constraints in a data warehouse may vary considerably from the usage of constraints in operational systems”
Recommended reading:
Data Modeling Essentials -Graeme Simsion – ISBN 1-850-32877-3
The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit – Ralph Kimball (and others) – ISBN 0-471-25547-5
June 21st, 2010 by admin
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After reading the document I thought that it was going to be a cool new tool for disaster recovery. I thought that boe_reposcan would publish orphaned files left in the file repositories after a database outage.
I event spent the time to update the script syntax and find the proper location to execute the program
./boe_reposcan.sh -dbdriver oracledatabasesubsystem “-connect “UID=BO_data;PWD=b0_data;DSN=database-server;HOSTNAME=ip-address;PORT=1521” -repair -inputfrsdir “/usr/apps/bobj/bobje/data/frsinput” -outputfrsdir “/user/apps/boj/bobje/data/frsoutput” -scanfrs
But to no avail. the program told me that my reports did not synch with the repository but I was on my own to republish them. After all that work comparing I think a synch option would have been the perfrect match
I will add this as another item for Admin Launch for the future.
./boe_reposcan.sh -dbdriver oracledatabasesubsystem “-connect
UID=BO_NEXUS_data;PWD=b0_nex1s_data;DSN=bradpit;HOSTNAME=bradpit;PORT=1521” -inputfrsdir /usr/wbol/bobj/bobje/data/frsinput -outputfrsdir /user/sbol/boj/bobje/data/frsoutput -scanfrs
May 28th, 2010 by admin
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My Highlights
- Met with new product managers of Webi Intelligence and BI On-Demand
- Everyone I met had a challenge with BOE that we could assist with
- Other BOE parters were ready to talk about collaboration
- Got to see my sister who lives nearby
- Great feedback at my presentation on Data Quality
May 5th, 2010 by admin
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We get a lot of question on how Open Document compares to Report Launch. In a conversation with our sales team I tried to summarize the vast differences. Opendoc is a single URL that can only call a single report at a time ….and for Webi can only return to the viewer or PDF
Report Launch’s “call report” is an application that will provide a consistent ways of calling both Crystal and Web Intelligence reports using single sign on.
On- demand refresh
On demand scheduling
Report List
Last Scheduled Instance
Last Bursted Instance
List of Historical Scheduled Instances
List of Historical Bursted Instances
It can also support the following formats
PDF
XLS
PPT
CSV
TXT
HTML
XML
These are the basics. There are also more complex features for complex solutions.
Cached Results
Report Parts by Name
On the fly Dimensional Slicing
- Challenge us with something you need and I can tell you if CallReport already handles that.
Kevin McManus
April 14th, 2010 by admin
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Busy Spring on tour. I will be speaking a the Dallas / OK ASUG meeting in Plano BusinessObjects Installation Concepts.
Address is
SMU – Plano Campus
5236 Tennyson Parkway
Plano, Texas 75024
9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Just spoke at the Central Texas conference in March in San Antonio on Xceslius Project Management and will be speaking in May at SAPPHIRE in Orlando on Web Intelligence Data Tracking techniques.
March 26th, 2010 by admin
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An article on cloud to premise integration reminded me of one of my favorite features. See ZDnet article here
Its good to see SFDC and SAP playing nice. Last year we released a connection that links SalesForce to SAP BusinessObjects. This reportlaunch is
useful for those SAP BO customers that need enterprise reporting embedded into SalesForce. Hopefully this will be a good trend of cloud to premise connections
Kevin McManus
www.mcmanussoft.com
March 22nd, 2010 by admin
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What we do: Some asked recently for what was going on related to our tools. Here is a summary
At a 50K foot level we have 5 tools
1) Report Launch allows you to embed Crystal and Webi reports from any application without needing the SDK.
2) Dashboard Launch (You will have to see this). Caches webi content and many other things for really fast dashboards. SAP certified too
3) Admin Launch – bleeding edge web based BOE administration tool that you can train to do what you need it to do for you (beta just started).
4) Audit Launch : Export extends BOE auditing for advanced analysis by syncing CMC attributes into an extended audit database. Audit Launch Import syncs security from 3rd party apps into BOE
5) Activity Launch – allows you to create business activity monitoring events into report schedules and trach when a batch of schedules completes so you can continue the notification or event process
All of our software is 100& web based on Java SDK so it runs on Windows, Unix, and Linux
February 6th, 2010 by admin
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When a company thinks that a BI system will benefit their ability to access and analyze data, a great door of opportunity is opened. Through that door will come many vendors and products that may or may not be a match for your company’s needs and abilities. From the beginning, the success of a system is establishing the needs or requirements and the proposed benefits to the company. Without these, every product can be made to look like it fits and is “just what you are looking for.”
One thing to keep in mind is that these requirements are going to change throughout the life cycle of the design process as requirement-gathering processes uncover additional application issues. Benefits can be directly related to monetary issues (such as cost savings though eliminating unsuccessful spending) as well as non- monetary benefits (such as reducing the time it takes to analyze the last month’s sales trends).
How then does a company choose which product is right-one that will match the current needs and also support the requirements of future applications? There are some simple processes that can help in this decision. The first is to break the requirements into their separate entities. These entities will separate the kinds of questions that need to be asked of the products you are considering and identify your expectations of the application.
The primary classifications are simply by data related issues and by application functionality. While other factors exist (such as corporate relationships as well as vendor characteristics) and are influential, these should be viewed as external forces on the decision process. Other external forces, such as staffing requirements, should also be considered.
This topic will be continued…..
January 1st, 2010 by admin
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Recent Question: Do you have any recommendations on installing the .NET (IIS) vs Java (Tomcat) versions? I liked the ease with which we implemented the SSO hack in IIS on our XI R2 server but I’m not if we can do the same on the 3.1 version. Also I remember that on sometime the .Net versions sometimes did not have all the functionality as the Java version is that still true?
Answer:I usually lean towards whatever web platform that IT has optimization expertise in. If they don’t have optimization expertise in either then for several reasons, I usually do the Java.
However for SSO the IIS setup is less steps than the Java version. The IIS pass through can still be done but is not a great solution if you are doing things like scheduling out reports with email links back to the system and still wanting SSO.
If you do go with Java,Normally I work with people to setup the Vintella Kerberos SSO so that there is only one web platform running on the server rather than the pass through.
December 27th, 2009 by admin
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Counted the number of states visited this year. We often drive to the client site with the family so I can limit the time away from the wife and kids. I think last year we did pretty much the same. Another one of our team mates Don did a similar trip to San Diego during a 3 week project. The family played in the ocean while he worked and they met up after work. We think its better than MISSING 4 -5 days with the wife and family. I was encouraged this year that this type of family centered business be not just part of the company but a focal point of our entire organization. We are mid trip to North Carolina with just that liltle state of Tennessee to go. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
