Posts Tagged ‘BusinessObjects’

SAP Crystal Reports Roadmap History

February 24th, 2011

When Crystal Decisions was purchased by BusinessObjects the Crystal Report designer tool was a Windows executable and had just integrated a full semantic layer that would allow multiple reports to access multiple connections and include multi-level business logic definitions in the form of a Business View.  BusinessObjects already had a mature Universe semantic layer as part of its platform and was already moving to a Java based report editor accessible over the web as well as on the desktop.

While the BusinessObjects reporting tools becaome integrated into the existing Crystal Enterprise based server engines, the semantic layers remained independent.  Each tool’s implementation of semantic layer management was quite different and each had its strengths.  In the XI version Crystal could access both the Business View as well as limited support to connect to the same Universe but the integration stopped there.

In the upcoming SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise release there is a new semantic  layer that begins to bring the best of the Universe and the Business View into a single Information Management tool.  SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise will be able to take advantage of the new semantic layer in a consistent interface as it’s Web Intelligence and Dashboard Design (previously Xcelsius ) cousins.

For connecting to other data connection types the SAP Crystal  Reports 2011 product will be released to replace its 2008 predecessor.  Later on these two versions will be combined into a single release.   Te get access to either you buy a single license…meaning by one and you get the other.

Both  Crystal Reports for Enterprise and Crystal Reports 2011 are now also available as a Java application  that allows installation on Windows and Linux based desktop machines.

My Favorite BI4 Objects #1

February 23rd, 2011

1) Alerting to BI Launch Pad. Moving alerts from the report level to the User Interface
2) Charting tooltips in Webi
3) Join multiple data sources in new UNX design tool at a Data Services Layer
4) The “Data Preview” pane in new UNX design tool that allows you to see your data as you test and object query
5) Text Analysis moved into Data Services
6) Schedule report packages of Crystal and Webi Reports
7) For SAP Crystal Reports, you can embed the content of onereport in an email.
8) For Web Intelligence documents, you can embed thecontent of one report tab in an email.
9) Export reports to the Excel 2007 workbook
10) How new versions of enteprise software creates real jobs

Typical Report Launch Requirement Q and A

February 23rd, 2011

Question: Is it possible to limit the report list view of a user in Report Launch? For example, if I decide to integrate Report Launch with an application for project A, we’d like to give the user access to projects reports only (and make the other reports the user has access to invisible).

Yes: You can set the Report Launch list to show a root folder so that the list only shows reports below that folder even if they have access to other folders.

We also have a category security model that allows your application administrators to control security on their folder of reports without giving access to the CMC

0812: Working with Auditing Data in the Activity Universe

August 9th, 2010

October 7th – Will be at ASUG speaking on how there is a wealth of information about your BusinessObjects system that is only available in the Auditing database.    Getting access to these questions (and answers) takes a good understanding of the auditing database and the confidence to extend the activity universe to meet your needs. With some real world examples we will show you how to get the answers to some tough questions.

http://asugew.asug.com/displaymod/detailevent.cfm?conference_id=95&event_id=18468

SAPPHIRE

May 28th, 2010

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

April 16th ASUG Meeting

April 14th, 2010

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.

What I Do

March 22nd, 2010

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