CMC

Hard to Find CMC Settings Revealed

I imagine that the Business Objects development team had some heated debates about where to put various settings within the CMC application. However, I suspect that when planning out Business Object XI 3.0 and 3.1 some of the decisions were made by a single sleepless product manager with a grudge. I offer the following points as evidence supporting this suspicion. Actually, all joking aside, I am mostly writing this article for my own future reference, because I know I will forget where these selected settings are located.

Set Default Viewer URL

Honestly I wasted hours trying to find this in BO XI 3.1, on two different occasions. There is something about this one that fools my mind into forgetting where it is. This setting is essential to any administrator that uses a distinct web server, a server alias, a load balancer, or any other configuration that would change the URL users use to access the system from what BO thought it to be during installation. This URL is primarily used by BO when it sends out links to documents (using OpenDocument URLs), such as a scheduled job sending an email to users with a link to the refreshed report instance which resides with the Business Objects XI system. When you alter it, you really only want to alter the server and domain name portion.

In XIR2 you can find the “Set Default Viewer URL” setting in:

CMC > Objects > Object Settings > Processing Settings

In XI 3.0 and XI 3.1 you can find the “Set Default Viewer URL” setting in:

CMC > Applications > CMC > Processing Settings

Yes, there is quite a bit of difference in the location of those settings. With practice you may be able to remember both for a few weeks, if you are like me. I suggest bookmarking this page for future reference.

Setting Document Instance Limits

Instances if left unchecked can destroy your system. Seriously, all it takes is a lack of instance limits and a refresh every 5 minutes job. If that doesn’t scare you start thinking about the fact that there is no limiter for inbox instances. By default the scheduled job instance limits are not too bad, but you can make them more restrictive and you probably should before your users get used to your surprisingly generous limits. The only problem you face if finding where to make this setting:

In XIR2 you can find the “Delete excess instances” and “Delete instances after N days” settings in:

CMC > Settings > Limits

In XI 3.0 and XI 3.1 you can find the “Delete excess instances” and “Delete instances after N days” settings in:

CMC > Folders > (right-click top-level folder) > Limits
CMC > Personal Folders > (right-click top-level folder) > Limits

Final Words

If you want to share the location of any settings or configurations that you think are less than obvious please mention them in the comments and I will update the article with them as well to be sure that the search engines index them and help stop others developers from struggling because they can’t find the settings on their own.

Denying Security Access Explicitly in Business Objects XI 3.1

Maybe I am the only one, but I have struggled twice with this topic and so I thought that I would write this short article to make sure I remember the correct workflow and hopefully help someone else out too.

Sometimes You Just Want to Say “Stay Out”

There are times when you may want to refuse access to a specific user or user group. In my case, this is usually for a specific sub-group of users where the parent group is allowed access. To be honest, there are many reasons and some may be just to appease over-cautious administrators, customers, etc.

Most Restrictive Rights Always Take Precedence

Whatever the reason, the rule of Business Objects security is always that “the most restrictive rights always take precedence”. Knowing this, some choose to deny access explicitly, even though it was never granted in the first place, just to be sure that now and in the future that user/group does not get access.

Adding the Users or Groups

In our example we will use a folder, but this translates to any object, top-level rights, or even applications. Of course, you will want to log in to the Central Management Console (CMC) using an account that is a member of the “Administrators” group. Locate your object, we are using the “BOT Expenses” folder I created for this example. By default when I select the “User Security” option from the right-click drop-down menu on the folder I see this:

By default my environment denies access to the “Everyone” group. This is done by editing the top-level folder security in advance.
Next we need to select “Add Principal” and choose the groups to whom we want to deny access.

Assign Security – What? Why? I Want to Deny not Assign!

Click the “Add and Assign Security” button and you will see the following page:

Now here is where I was getting confused. At first I was looking for an Access Level called “No Access”, this was the BO XI R2 in me. Then I thought well, maybe it is implicit here and all I have to do is “Save” and be done. I clicked “Apply” and the screen just re-drew itself, making no changes. Then I clicked “OK” and I saw this message:

Click “OK” here just returned me to the screen depicted in the first screenshot above and erased all of the “principals”. Thank you CMC, I love you too.

So How Do You Make It Work?

OK, I will just tell you how to make it work. Return back to this screen:

Now either click the “Remove Access” button or manually un-check the boxes next to “Inherit From Parent Folder” and “Inherit From Parent Group”. Either action results in the same result. Now click “OK” and you will still get this prompt:

But this is “OK” this time… so click “OK”.

Successfully Explicitly Denying Security Access in Business Objects XI 3.1

Now you should see the groups that you select with the most desired access level of “No Access”.

Congratulations, to you if you figured this out on your own and can remember this less-than-intuitive CMC security workflow. Once you look at the removing inheritance aspect it makes sense, but it still seems like there should have been an access level called “No Access”. Perhaps, an overly cautious Business Objects XI 3.1 administrator would create a custom access level that has everything explicitly denied and call this one “No Access”, unless Business Objects XI reserves that name in which case you could call it “No Access – Thanks to BusinessObjectsTips.com!”. That would be a great name for sure.

Please read Marshall’s important note below for additional explanation.

Cleanly Stopping and Starting Business Objects Servers

I really cannot explain why it is that I have NEVER seen any documentation that advises Business Objects XI administrators on how to stop and start Business Objects properly. For those of us running part of our business on BO XI we are very concerned about minimizing errors for users and scheduled jobs while we are restarting Business Objects.

The Cleanest Method to Stop a Business Objects Environment

I have discussed this topic with my senior engineers and the following is based on the input I received from them and from my own experience and knowledge. I will label optional steps that will make your stop and start as graceful as possible; these are optional, but they are the best method to follow if you have the time to do so. Also when following the steps make certain that the step is complete and the server is completely stopped/started before proceeding to the next step. Additionally if you have a clustered environment, and you should if at all possible, then you can stop all servers of the same kind in any order or even simultaneously.:

1. Please first make note of any pre-existing disabled servers to be sure that you do not enable them mistakenly later on. Screenshots are useful and fast, just be sure to save them.
2. Shutdown your web/application layer. This will stop your users from launching new jobs and from getting strange errors as you are in the midst of your shutdown. You could just disable a proxy server (if you use one to cut off the access, but (Graceful Option) you may want to completely flush the system by completely stopping the web server.
3. (Graceful Option) Through the Central Management Console (CMC) or through the Central Configuration Manager (CCM) Disable all BO servers except for the CMS, Input FRS, Output FRS, and Destination servers.
4. (Graceful Option) Wait as long as reasonable/acceptable or until all user sessions/requests have cleared the disabled servers before proceeding to the next step. Usually 30 to 60 minutes is sufficient for any valid threads being processed.
5. Shutdown the Event Servers (use CCM or CMC). This would stop any related scheduled jobs from launching.
6. Shutdown all Job Servers (WebI, DeskI, Program…).
7. Shutdown the Destination Servers.
8. Shutdown all Report Servers (WebI, DeskI, Crystal…).
9. Shutdown any other non-CMS Servers that are still up and running.
10. Shutdown CMS. CMS should always be last. This is essential and it will make your CMS shutdown go much faster and more smoothly. It may also help reveal any problems that your CMS may be having (for example, if it won’t shutdown you’ll know it is not because of any other lingering servers in the cluster).
11. With the CMS completely shutdown you are official and completely down.

The Cleanest Method to Start a Business Objects Environment

It is assumed that EVERYTHING is down prior to beginning these steps. If your environment is only partially down we strongly recommend that you first shut it down completely before attempting a start/restart. You want to have a clean environment so do yourself and your users this favor. When starting groups of the same kind of server you can start them one by one or simultaneously, jsut be sure that all are started before proceeding to the next step. (Graceful Option) If you disabled any servers prior to the shutdown (as part of a graceful shutdown) then you should enable them immediately after they have been started:

1. Start the CMS servers. This will take a little while depending mostly on the number of objects in your environment.
2. Start Destination Servers, Input FRS, and Output FRS.
3. Start Event Servers. Also as a side note, please be aware that Event Servers must always be restarted following the restart of any CMS in the cluster.
4. Start all Report Servers.
5. Start all Job Servers.
6. Start any other servers that have not yet been started.
7. Start your web/application layer.

The Value of the (Graceful Stop/Start Method)

Disabling Business Objects XI servers allows the servers to retain and complete their current threads/work, but it stops it from accepting any new work. Nevertheless, this requires caution. If users retain access to the environment (web and application layer are up) while you are disabling servers and you disable ALL servers, or most of them to a point below capacity demands, then you will cause errors for users! Therefore, if the users do retain access to the environment disabling servers would only be done partially to the collection of similar servers (with reason). Also do not forget to enable the servers after the servers are restarted!!!

Please also see the article “The Best Way to Stop a Business Objects Server“.

Sizing Limits to Web Intelligence Report Server Maximum Simultaneous Connections

In Business Objects XI R2 newly created Web Intelligence Report Servers default to 50 “Maximum Simultaneous Connections” (editable in the Central Management Console, or CMC). In Business Objects XI 3.X the “Maximum Simultaneous Connections” setting is defaulted to 100! Can we read anything in to these changes in default settings? Do the default settings mean anything at all with regards to the settings you should have on your system?

Sizing Limits to Maximum Simultaneous Connections

General consensus of our sources tell us that XI 3.X is better coded and can handle more connections than XIR2, with regards to WebI Report Servers. Nevertheless, it would be quite a leap to say that all other things as equal as possible that XI 3.X WebI Report Servers can handle twice as much traffic. Seriously, don’t count on it.

I feel I should add personal experience and best practice here. I see the default setting for “Maximum Simultaneous Connections” on the WebI Report Server as a maximum setting. I have personally never exceeded it nor witness it exceeded by anyone. It is generally held that if you need more Simultaneous Connections then you ought to add another WebI Report Server to your environment. Of course, keep in mind that SAP Business Objects’ general guideline is that you have no more than 1 Web Intelligence Report Server per available CPU core (for example, a server with 4 quad-core CPUs has 16 CPU cores); so there is a limit there too.

Real-World Web Intelligence Report Server Sizing

A production system will generally run better having more Web Intelligence Report Servers with lower Maximum Simultaneous Connections. For example, a server with 4 dual-core CPUs would run better having 8 WebI Rpt Servers each set at 30 Maximum Simultaneous Connections than it would having 4 WebI Rpt Servers each set at 60 Maximum Simultaneous Connections in CMC. In the real-world tuning and balancing usually are based on observed performance within configuration guidelines.

To get your sizing in the right place you should know what you maximum concurrent users are (logged-in users plus concurrent schedule jobs). This number is essentially how many Maximum Simultaneous Connections you will need. So let’s say you never have more than 100 concurrent users, but you can at those peak times also have 25 scheduled jobs. Keep in mind that most users will only do one process at a time, but some like me will be refreshing one report while editing another simultaneously. A scheduled job will always only be one connection. So you can safely say that you require only 150 simultaneous connections (with some wiggle room).

Now your server had only 4 CPU cores in it. So this one is easy 150 divided by 4 will give you 37.5. Round that up, because I suggest you have at least 150 and that you keep the same number on each WebI Report Server. So you can set each one’s “Maximum Simultaneous Connections” to 38 using the CMC. In XIR2 this might be pushing the limits, but in Business Objects XI 3.X this should be a comfortable setting.

In Business Objects how can I get a list of reports using a specific universe?

I have been asked the following related questions a few times in the past months and I thought it would be a good idea to post a public answer to them. First the questions:

• Is there any way to get a list of reports that are using a specific universe?
• If I change this universe which reports will be affected?

The Answer – Yes, Definitely, Using Query Builder

The short answer to these questions is “Yes, you can”. The slightly longer answer is, “Yes, this can be done through Query Builder, the BO Auditing data*, or through the Business Objects SDK.” For the purposes of this article, I will confine my further comments to the Query Builder and BO Auditing data solutions; the BO SDK solution requires a set of skills and even licenses that many BO Developers and Administrators do not possess.

I haven’t been keeping track, but I expect that those who have emailed me this question have not studied The Best Query Builder Guide Ever Written. I just wanted to point out that our Query Builder Guide answers these questions, and provides so much more.

The Resolution using Query Builder

For those of you familiar with SQL or just the concept of tables you might think that all you have to do is join up the record of the specific universe with all of the records of the reports where it is used. Well, this is partially true. Firstly, if you know something about query builder you know that reports and universes are stored in separate logical tables and you know that you can’t really join two tables together. The solution here is two part: (1) query the record for the specific universe retrieving all associated report IDs and then (2) query for for each of those report IDs to get the reports’ identifying information.

Query the Universe’s Reports

This is a straightforward query, but be careful if you do not have the universe’s object ID, because it is possible to have two universes with the same name and you wouldn’t want to get wrong data from the start. Here is the SQL statement you need to put in Query Builder:

SELECT
si_id,
si_name,
si_webi,
si_cuid
FROM
CI_AppObjects
WHERE
si_name = 'UNIVERSE_NAME' AND
si_kind = 'Universe'

From this you will get some additional universe info and a list of all reports that are bound to this universe. Copy that list of report object IDs to a text editor and proceed.

Query the Report’s Identifying Information

Take that list of report object IDs from the previous step and parse the list so that each ID is separated by a comma. Then substitute that list for the string “111111,222222,33333 below in the SQL:

SELECT
si_id,
si_name,
si_universe,
si_cuid
FROM
CI_InfoObjects
WHERE
si_id IN (111111,222222,33333) AND
si_kind = 'WebI' AND
si_instance = 0

The output should be your desired list of reports. Now that you see the “si_universe" property you might ask yourself why I don’t query the report table for my universe’s object ID. Good idea, but Business Objects’ Query Builder query language doesn’t yet support filtering on “property bags”, and si_universe, just like “si_webi” are property bags. They hold multiple values in a single property.

The Resolution using BusinessObjects Auditing Data

If you have enabled auditing on your environment’s report servers then you can look to your Auditing data for an answer to this question. However, auditing data is not meta data; it’s records are created as the objects are used. Therefore if a report is never used then it will not be present in this data set. If this is not a concern, or if you would like to know which reports have been used belong to a certain universe, then querying the auditing data is an option for you.

Querying the Auditing Records

There are many ways to mine this data source for the data you need. For most folks the best, easiest method is to use the “Activity” universe. Here you will find the objects you need. A tutorial on this universe and the auditing data is out of scope here, but I’d like to put together a guide on the topic if I hear of any interest. Another way to mine your data is directly against the database tables (these tables are not encrypted like the Business Objects XI CMS Infostore. This certainly allows for better query tuning, but it will increase the complexity for you. You could even use the SQL of a report created against the “Activity” universe as a starting point, but be careful as that universe is full of derived tables.

Final Thoughts

Both of these steps might seem difficult at first, but with a little practice you will find that you can whip out answers to these kinds of questions rather quickly. In fact, now you have the tools to answer the reverse as well: “How can I get a list of universe using a specific set of reports?”. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

The Little Known Business Objects Program Object

Most people are only familiar with the various reporting tools in Business Objects. Of course, these are the reasons organizations set up a Business Objects instance in the first place. However, Business Objects XI has managed to include some additional functionality that goes beyond reporting. For example, BOXI can be used to publish “agnostic” documents, such as PDF, Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. In particular, nevertheless, I would like to discuss the unique functionality of the Business Objects Program Object.

A Business Objects Program Object can be used to execute a batch file, a shell script, or a binary executable. It can also run Java, JavaScript, and VBScript. Therefore, they is virtually no limit to what you can do with a BO Program Object, except for your imagination and standards. Once the association is made to the program object standard objects rights can be applied and most importantly you can schedule the object (which is where the power is).

There are a few caveats that you need to be aware of. The program will require a “Logon As” account that must have interactive login rights to the server on which the Program Job Server runs. Also, I should mention that you need a Program Job Server configured for your environment. When you create a program you are not creating a pointer to your script, but rather you are uploading your script/program to the CMS InfoStore, just like you would an Excel file if you were to load it to your Business Objects repository. This means that if you later alter the script you used to source the program object then you must create a replacement object and re-source the script.

Another couple points, when I create program objects I like to log in to CMC while logged in to the server since often I have created a driving batch file that calls other batch files on the server. Oh, and that brings up the very last point. If you are running multiple Program Job Servers and your script calls other scripts on the server you will need to place identical copies of the called scripts in the exact same path on all servers running a Program Job Server (anything less would be easier, but it would cause failures).

The following are some simple steps to create a functioning program object. They are basic, but they should get you on your way to lots of programmatic trouble. The grouping of the step correspond to the screenshots above. Click on each thumbnail to view the full-size image; I recommend opening them in another browser window (hint, right click the thumbnail image and select this option).

Step and Screenshot #1
a) In CMC, go to Objects and click the “New Object” button
b) Click on “Program” in the left-hand menu
c) Enter in the location of the program object source, the path needs to be local to the client you are using. You will need to create a test script to run if you don’t already have something in mind.
d) Select the “Program Type”
e) Select the target folder and/or categories
f) Click “Submit”

Step and Screenshot #2
a) You may edit the program object name which gets generated from the source file you loaded. The name can be anything.
b) Add other properties if desired. A good description is always helpful to others and your future self.
c) If you made changes, click “Update”.

Step and Screenshot #3
a) Click on the “Process” tab and the “Logon” sub-tab.
b) Put the account information for an account with log on rights, any rights less than interactive logon will result in a failed execution.
c) Click “Update” when done

You are welcome to experiment with the other tabs and sub-tabs, but please share you findings if you do.

The Best Way to Stop a Business Objects Server

Minimal Impact of Administrative Actions on BOXI

I would like to think that I am unique in many ways, but I think that I am very similar to others when it comes to my desire to minimize the impact of my administrative actions on my Business Objects XI instances. One way that I accomplish this is to carefully shutdown Business Objects servers in a very particular and simple manner.

Changes to Web Intelligence Report Server Require Restart

From time to time we all make changes to our Business Objects environment. Frequently I find myself making changes to the the Web Intelligence Report Servers (WIRS). Whether it is tweaking command-line parameters, CMC properties, logging status, making some obscure registry setting, or even patching DLLs; I am changing my WIRS and I need to restart it in order for the change to take effect. In some cases, my client runs 24/7 and has no real downtime and in other cases I need to make the change immediately and I need them to take effect yesterday.

The Cleanest Restart You Can Ever Perform

In most cases the changes I make will not take effect without a restart. However, if I go directly to the Central Configuration Manager (CCM) and just stop the server(s) and then restart it, any reports (edits, paging, refreshes, etc.) will fail on the user’s side (or for the scheduled job). So what can I do to guarantee this does not happen??? Disable the server. Wait. Stop server. Restart Server. Enable the server.

Detailed Cleanest BO Server Stopping Procedure

1. Disable the server: do this either in the Central Management Console (CMC) or in CCM, which ever you prefer, but I think that internally BO engineers prefer to use the CCM (its the icon with the cylinder and check mark).
2. Wait: there is no golden rule on how long to wait, any amount of waiting is still better than none. During this period the server is finishing whatever work it was assigned and the CMS is not assigning it any new requests. You can observe this on the metrics tab of the CMC page for the server (if your server has metrics). I generally wait 30 minutes and I watch the CPU utilization (CPU time) of the WIRS’s process (yes, in Windows) to see that it is dormant.
3. Stop the server: this one is easy. Just go to the CCM and stop the server you are targeting. You can do this from any server in the cluster. You should watch the executable to be certain that it goes away, disappears, or dies.
4. Restart the server: Again stay in CCM, allow for at least 15 seconds from the stop, but this will depend a lot on how long you waited since the disabling of the server, I mean if it still has any active threads it will take longer to stop (see previous step for proper shutdown before restart). Allow the server to get fully started and registered with the CMS.
5. Enable the server: again use CCM or CMC to do this. I suggest you make sure the server is started for a period of 30 seconds before you enable it and let the CMS have it back for abuse.

Note: I believe this same technique should work well for all Business Objects server, not just Web Intelligence Report Servers.

Please let us all know if you have any comments, suggestions, or anything else on your mind loosely related to this topic by leaving a comment.