Please Excuse Our Virtual Dust
Please don’t let the virtual dust bother you too much. Business Objects Tips’ infrastructure was overdue for some updates and one of those touches on the look and feel. We hope to complete the work soon and eliminate any noticeable disruptions in the mean time. Thank you for your understanding.
BOT Was Down: Our Apologies, But It’s Your Fault!
I just wanted to apologize for the downtime our site experienced in the last 24 hours. I’m not sure how long it lasted, but I hope it was only for a few hours. You should know that the downtime was all your fault. Yes, the site exceeded its allocated bandwidth from the web hosting service, meaning more BusinessObjectsTips.com visitors used this site this month than any other month before now.
This is actually a good thing and a sign that BOT is growing. Also it was a sign that we needed to subscribe to a higher bandwidth service, which we willingly did. Now let’s see if we can exceed this new level! Thank you for helping us reach this new, somewhat unconventional milestone.
New Query Builder Guide Version Published – Includes XI 3.x Updates and Relationship Functions
I have finally completed my nearly 3-month long update to our Query Builder Guide. Like most things I do, the deeper I got into it the more I found that needed work.
What kept me going, and delaying my previously promised delivery time, was the realization that aside from Ted Ueda‘s famous blog entries on Path Queries and Relationship Functions, I was building the only “how-to” guide for those Query Builder and SDK Query functionalities. I dug a little deeper into each one and broke them down into their basic components, making it easy to understand how to use them and to also be able to respect their limits.
I decided that this version of the guide was such a milestone for the guide that I jumped straight paste the 1.1 version and splurged on bestowing it with the 1.2.0 Version. The truth is that the guide itself grew by 50% in file size! Yes, I added that much new textual content!
Click here to order the latest Business Objects XI Query Builder Guide
This new version includes numerous additions to bring the guide current up to Business Objects Enterprise XI 3.1. However, for those of you not yet on BO XI 3.x, please take note of something I explain clearly in the guide:
“Query Builder is based on the BOE SDK and both tools in their BO XI 3.1 versions support all of the older methods and syntax used in BO XI R2. In fact, syntax that was labeled as deprecated in XI R2 continues to function even in XI 3.1. It is certain that XI 3.x brought some new functionality, and this guide will distinguish these, but rest assured most of what you can do in Query Builder is applicable to all BO XI releases.”
In fact, BO XI R2 administrators will greatly benefit from the newly added “Relationship Queries” section. This nearly secret functionality take Query Builder to a whole new level.
Future Customers
For the many of you to whom I committed to deliver this BO XI 3.x guide update earlier, I apologize for my tardiness and I sincerely thank you for your patience and understanding. To those of you still on the fence about whether or not to get this guide, I believe I have now packed it with enough value to make your decision a “no-brainer”.
Click here to order the latest Business Objects XI Query Builder Guide
Current Customers
To the now hundreds of you who have already purchased a previous version of our Query Builder guide, thank you again for your business and come get your free updated version. Please refer to your order confirmation email to obtain the instructions on how to get your COMPLETELY FREE updated guide. If you have any trouble, just email us and we will get it for you ASAP.
Future Improvements Coming Still
If left in a vacuum I might never publish any updates because I would never feel they are complete. This time is no different. I wanted to include more sample queries for Relationship Queries and Path Queries, but I decided it was better to publish the guide now that those tutorial sections are complete and then publish another version when I have added some additional, wonderful samples of each. As you can see, we are always working to improve this guide.
OK, now I think I will publish this little posting and get on with what is left of my beautiful Saturday afternoon. I hope someone out there appreciates my little sacrifice. 
Hardly Working? No, Hard at Work on the Query Builder Guide
I feel I owe a small explanation for the lull in the new article publishing on the site. I have remained active at responding to article comments, but I haven’t published a new article in nearly a month (although I just added some details to the latest article on BO XI 3.1 Fix Packs). Anyway, I have been busy on BusinessObjectsTips.com topics, this is sure!
I have been working on a big update to our popular Query Builder guide. As many of us have discussed through email, I have been updating the guide, originally written based on BO XI R2, to include all of BO XI 3.1 new functionality. All of the XI R2 functionality still works perfectly in XI 3.1, but XI 3.1 brings some exciting new stuff like “Path Queries” and “Relationship Functions”. Writing and testing out examples always takes more time than I estimate, as also does my day job and personal life 
. I hope to finish and publish it, the new guide version, not my personal life, by the end of this month. Of course, as always you can find the guide here (link) and as always this new version will be made available freely to all previous Query Builder customers.
OK, back to work now. Thanks for your patience.
[UPDATE - March 6, 2010]: I have just published the promised guide update. Please see my new posting “New Query Builder Guide Version Published – Includes XI 3.x Updates and Relationship Functions“
Newly Released Guide: Web Intelligence Quick Reference
It has been exactly one month since I published my last Business Objects XI article. I sincerely apologize for the delay, but I promise that I did not take a holiday. I spent the past month working on enabling a new “Subscribe to Comments” feature and lately on pulling together a brand new guide which I hope you will find useful and valuable. Yes, now we can honestly state that we offer guides, that is to say, instead of offering solely our popular Query Builder guide.
We have compiled our NEW Business Objects XI Web Intelligence Quick Reference Guide from the personal feedback and cheat-sheets of seasoned Web Intelligence developers. The result is a concentrated collection of the most popular and valuable functions, WebI operators, syntax details, tips, and more, pulled together with the goal to increase WebI developer efficiency and precision and to make reports more professional and complete. We want to enable Web Intelligence reports and their developers to realize their full potential… please read more about the guide and order one here
New Feature: Subscribe to Article Comments
I have wanted to add the ability to subscribe to article comments to this web site since the first comment was left nearly 1.5 years ago. Unfortunately, this feature has not yet been built into our underlying Content Management System (WordPress). There was an outdated plug-in, but it was never approved for use with our current up-to-date version.
About one month ago I couldn’t take it anymore and I started experimenting with the out-dated plugin “Subscribe to Comments” and it partially worked (latest version is 2.1.2 at time of writing). I decided that I was going to have to get my hands dirty if I wanted to use it, so I did, and here is the finished product (scroll to the bottom of this page).
Anyway, now you can either leave a comment and simultaneously subscribe to any follow-up comments OR you can just subscribe to receive any new comments without leaving a comment (see the bottom of each article for subscription options). You can also manage your comment subscriptions using the link at the bottom of any subscribed article or in your subscription emails.
I am going to call this a beta release. Please point out any issue that you experience. I make no promises, but this should help us all get more responses and get them more quickly now. We shall see. Please share your experiences or comments right here on this new feature.
BTW, I updated the “Privacy Policy” to reflect the comment subscription functionality.
We Are a Top 25 Site, Check Us Out on xmarks
You probably found this website using a search engine. We try to write our articles so that search engines will index them and rank them well enough for our readers to be able to locate them using search engines. Another smaller source of traffic are social bookmarking tools. I haven’t really spent much time with delicious.com, but I am addicted to xmarks (formerly foxmarks), because it helps me keep my bookmarks in sync across different machines and different browsers, AND it makes them available on the web as well.
Anyway, BusinessObjectsTips.com has been recognized as a Top 25 Site for the phrase “Business Objects”. This is our first and hopefully not our last award. Yeah! What does this mean? Well, I think that it means that some of our Business Objects Tips visitors also use xmarks and they have stored bookmarks to the site. Thanks, who ever you are! We share with you our award for this accomplishment (see below). Please feel free to leave us a review there :
Want a Business Objects XI Guide? Please Let Me Know
For those of you who might have had the time to revisit this web site over the past year you might be wondering why we only have one single guide available. I ask myself this question almost everyday. I have been working on an administrator’s Life Cycle Management / Content Structuring guide for MANY months now and it is still far from being complete. Perhaps the obstacles are not so much many day job and my personal life, but rather the lack of drive to complete the guide because of doubts that there is demand out there for it.
Our Query Builder guide has sold quite so far, but I always knew there was a demand for it, because I myself struggled so much with Query Builder and its lack of documentation. I do need to go back and update it for BO XI 3, I know this. But I also feel that there are other guides I should be writing that would help make the jobs of Business Objects administrators, architects, and report writers easier.
Please help me figure out what kinds of guides would be most helpful. For example, do any of the following guides interest you enough to justify my extra effort and a few of your (or preferably your company’s) dollars:
- Quick Reference Guides, two or three pages packed with syntax and examples focused on a single topic such as Universes, Reports, Query Builder, Auditing, Import Wizard, or CMC
- Content Structuring and Life Cycle Management to improve metadata integrity
- Creating a Data Mart solution out of the Business Objects auditing data
These were just at the top of my head. Please leave a comment and share what is at the top of yours. I’d like to expand the value that this site provides to the Business Objects community, but I need your help. Thanks!
Hello!?!? It’s Called BO XI 3, not XI Release 3!
It is time to flog myself openly here. Not only to seek forgiveness, repentance, and even pity; but to avoid having to update every single mistaken reference made to Business Objects XI 3!
Once and for all “Release 3″ or “R3″ Never Was and Never Has Been
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OK, maybe some BO folks referred to Business Objects Version 12.X as “Release 3″ in the early days, but is seems a memo went out internally and externally, and apparently over my head that said the whole “Release” nomenclature was being dropped. Honestly, it was a bit derogatory and made the SW sound more “beta” than SAP-BO certainly desired. So now with the word “release” out of the picture, we are to understand that XI 3 (also called Version 12 under the covers, confusing huh?) is a whole new complete and solid full version. Given all of the hype that BO employees put on it some of us would expect XI 3 to fall just short of bringing about world peace.
Anyway, there it is. Let’s all just call it Business Objects XIR3, oops, I mean XI 3 (or even XI 3.X if you like to type and speak more).
Windows 7 is not the Answer to BOXI R2′s Prayers
I am not one to spread rumors, but I thought I might pass this little one along to see if anyone has any experience that could confirm it. Anyway, my little rumor is…
Initial tests running the Business Objects XI R2 (BOXI R2 or XIR2) web client through Internet Explorer 8 have failed miserably. Reports are that it is unusable. Unfortunately, my sources haven’t told me whether this applies to InfoView, WebI Report Reader, or Web Intelligence Java Report Panel.
If you have any experience with Windows 7 and Business Objects, please leave a comment. The more information we have the better.
Be Prepared – Windows 7 is Just Around the Corner
IF this is true, then BO administrators need to know as soon as possible. Microsoft has already put Windows 7 in release candidate status (link) and so we can assume that it could release as early as October or November 2009 and shipping simultaneously on new PCs.
Have You Heard of Path Queries in Query Builder?
Did you know that there is a tweak that you can do to your Business Objects server’s Query Builder main page “query.jsp” so that it can handle “Path Queries”? Do you know what a “Path Query” is? Do you know why you should care about “Path Queries”?
I was originally introduced to Path Queries by a posting at an SAP Business Objects Blog on the topic by Ted Ueda. The article got me really excited to try out this new syntax and seemingly simpler method of querying my CMS metadata.
Path Queries are very different from SQL queries and they are basically written like this path://InfoObjects/Root Folder/My Folder/*. This simple example would return all of the objects in the “My Folder” folder. Cool, huh?
Path Query syntax actually gets a lot deeper. It allows you to specify relationships between objects (the above example defaults to a parent-child relationship), specify filters, sort order, and they can even function as a kind of sub-select. For example, returning all groups for which the user Administrator is a member.
If you would like to learn more, keep an eye out for future articles on Path Queries or better yet, get your hands on our popular “Query Builder Guide” which completely explains Path Queries and the exciting SQL “Relationship Queries”.
New Lower Price on Query Builder Guide
I just wanted to let visitors know that we have just lowered the price of the “BusinessObjectsTips.com Query Builder Guide” to $27.00. We have heard a lot of good things about the guide from its students since its release late last year. It truly is the “The Best Query Builder Guide Ever Written”!
Just as one very small example of the benefit of the guide let me share the following excerpt:
“Query Builder’s SQL engine is not case-sensitive. This applies to both inputs in the Query Builder GUI and also queries manually added to the top text area. For many this is a welcome feature as it improves efficiency in query entry and clear query results. Others may loathe this feature as it provides less filtering functionality for object values with only case variations.”
SAP + Business Objects = SAP Business Objects… Brilliance!
It has been over a year since SAP announced its acquisition of Business Objects. During those long 14 months it seems that the branding experts at SAP have decided on a new name for BO. Yes, they brilliantly came up with the catchy and yet classic “SAP Business Objects”.
Here is what their Business Partner Announcement said on the topic:
Business Objects brings to SAP an extremely strong brand in the business intelligence and analytics category. The Business Objects brand delivers credibility with its customers as well as with those customers it shares with SAP. Brand research has shown that the combination of SAP and Business Objects produces even stronger brand recognition and purchase consideration, for both those customers that identify themselves as predominantly SAP and those that rely on other platforms.
Changes to Begin in January 2009
Beginning in January 2009, Business Objects will be known as a division of SAP as part of the new, branded portfolio called SAP BusinessObjects. This portfolio will encompass all of the solutions in the SAP BusinessObjects division, including business intelligence (BI); information management (IM); enterprise performance management (EPM); and governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) solutions. With the evolution of the Business Objects brand, the naming of individual products will also become more uniform and descriptive.
The new look and feel will be most evident in external campaign activities and Web presence. Outbound marketing campaigns will adopt the SAP visual brand identity and launch a new SAP BusinessObjects portfolio area on www.sap.com. This dedicated area, linked from the homepage of the SAP Web site, will present the full line of solutions for large, midsize and small businesses. At the same time, the Business Objects Web site — www.businessobjects.com — will be retired, and visitors will be redirected to the new portfolio area.
So what does this mean to you. Well, www.businessobjects.com will be retired, the product should remain virtually unaffected for at least another year, and your company may be able leverage their SAP contract to get BO at a discount. It does say that naming of BI products will become more uniform. So Designer, watch your back, you are about to fall under the SAP naming microscope. And you too “BusinessObjects”, I think your elusive single-word defiance and confusion is about to come to an unexplained end.
Next time SAP, just save yourself the time and $100,000′s and send me a very conservative $10,000 check and I will give you an equally powerful and catchy brand name for your next acquisition in 1/365th the time.
Officially Released: The Best Business Objects XI Query Builder Guide Ever Written!
Perhaps a few visitors to BusinessObjectsTip.com have already noticed that we posted a new guide for BO XI Query Builder on the site last month. Due to some technical difficulties and lots of other lame excuses there was trouble finding and ordering the guide. These obstacles have been overcome now and I would invite you to check out “The Best Business Objects XI Query Builder Guide Ever Written!” We know that you will find it valuable and that it will turn you into a Query Building Genius!
Back in the Saddle
Business Objects has not been kind to me for a while. I have been putting in way too many hours dealing with major product failures and trying to keep my customers up and running while BO scrambles to fix their code. I know that I am not alone in this and so I feel for anyone else out there who has been experiencing the same turmoil and BO hell.
Anyway, not to lose another moment to those issues, I just wanted to say that I am returning to active duty on this web site. I will begin contributing and building it up immediately. In fact, I already did with my latest article “Selective Operators: Allowing Users to Decide Which Operator to Use“. Check it out and let us know what you think.
My Topic Brainstorm
I have been swamped by my non-BusinessObjectsTips.com obligations, but in teh bak of my head I am working on the following new article topics:
- Report and Universe Binding: the strong bind between reports and universes that can easily be broken by accident, naivety, and dependence on past workflows
- OpenDocument: common uses, mistakes, and best practices
- Flexible Date Prompts: Dynamic and Static dates rolled into one. Stop creating multiple versions of a BusinessObjects report because of flexible date issues
- 10 Great Business Objects Professionals: Recognition for some of the most prominent BO folks out there who have probably helped you directly or indirectly.
Let me know what you think. Add a comment if you have a topic request or you have something to say about these proposed topics.
Good Night,
Julian
