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.

We all want our BOE environment to perform to the best of its ability. We want to be certain that no particular component of our environment’s architecture is a weak point or bottleneck. As a result, given the time and the hardware, most of us would love to deploy a distributed, well-balanced Business Objects Enterprise environment. In many cases this would include putting each tier or group of services on their own machine/node: the Intelligence Tier (CMS, FRS, etc.), the Processing Tier (Report/Processing, Job, etc.), Web Application Tier (where InfoView and CMC are deployed), and Web Tier (HTTP/HTTPS services). Aside for using multiple servers for each tier, if you read the documentation closely, you could be tempted to take your distribution to the next level.

What is “Split Mode”, “Split-Web”, “Split Deployment”?

The SAP Business Objects “Web Application Deployment Guide” explains that “you can deploy all web application resources on a single web application server (standalone mode), or to separate dynamic and static content for deployment to de-paired web and web application servers (split mode).” The dynamic content, the part requiring actual processing would be deployed to the dedicated Web Application Server and the static content (images and client side scripts, I believe) would be deployed to a dedicated Web Server. The reason behind creating a split mode web deployment would be to better distribute the load of Web Application Server, giving the otherwise under utilized Web Server a little more responsibility.

The following is a list of WDEPLOY supported split mode server combinations:
• Tomcat 5.5 (web app) with Apache 2.x (web)
• WebSphere 6.1 (web app) with IBM IHS (web)
• WebLogic (web app) with Apache 2.x
• Sun Java Application Server 8.1 and secondary web server

Ideals and Reality, Same or Different

My mother used to play a game with us (when we were children) that we called “same or different”. It quickly became and inside joke, a way of indirectly making a comment on something, for example, I would ask my mother something like “Business Objects, a simple/stable/scalable out-of-the-box experience; same or different”. Now I didn’t say that all of them were witty gems.

The truth of the matter is that even if you are successful at deploying Split Mode you won’t find that it makes your life, or that of your servers any easier. It is extremely difficult to get Split Mode working. The guides would have you believe that it is a simple matter of using different parameters with the WDEPLOY application. This may be true for creating the packages to deploy, but actually deploying them and getting them to function is quite a different task.

Benefits Outweighed by Costs

If you are able to get split web working then you have joined the ranks of a very select few and you have also probably burned through at least 3 or 4 of your SAP Business Objects Support Customer Message allocations. So what did all of that work get you? Not much, in fact, even if you are monitoring the servers closely you may not see any change in the actual load on the Web Application Server, even with a large user base. Not to mention, each time you install a FixPack or Service Pack you will have to recreate the magic all over again and ask yourself, was it really worth it?

These are not just my personal experiences and observations. Seasoned Business Objects consultants have expressed similar discontent with this feature. My limited Internet research (forums, mostly) also confirms my findings. I would love for anyone to share their own experience with split deployments in the comments.

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“

Not Your Father’s BO FixPack

Like everything else in life, FixPacks have changed and evolved with the Business Objects product. Some of the notable changes for BO XI 3.1 FixPacks are:

• FixPacks are no longer suite wide. You need the FixPack for the specific Business Objects product you wish to patch (such as Enterprise, Live Office, Crystal Reports 2008, etc.)
• You must first install the patch on a node where a CMS server is located. According to some SAP-BO support engineers the safest choice in a distributed environment is to install the FixPack one node/machine at a time. So if you have multiple CMS nodes, install on those first one at a time, then install on the other servers one at a time. This makes for a VERY lengthy FixPack deployment, but it is the safest method. I have also had several senior support engineers confirm that the only requirement is to patch 1 node hosting a CMS first, then after that patch is completely started you can patch all of the rest, staggering them by 5-10 minutes each.
• Stop all BO servers except for a single CMS, Input/Output File Repository Servers, CMS database, and Server Intelligence Agent (SIA). If a CMS in the cluster is not up and running the install will not work properly or at all (this is true for all servers, regardless of their role). The SI Agent must also remain up on all nodes to be patched.
• Czech and Finnish Language Packs are now available (as of FP 1.3/1.4)

FixPack Installer Beware

Here are a few cautions/warnings that stand out to me:

• EVERY Business Objects component must be on the same version. If you patch a dedicated CMS server, you must also patch any other nodes that are a part of your cluster, such as processing servers or Live Office servers, etc. Also any clients, Designer and DeskI need to be patched as well. Another reason to use WebI exclusively, no client patches needed (unless we are talking about WebI Rich Client).
• Don’t forget to redeploy the patched BusinessObjects web components. The deployment method will vary based on your original web component deployment.
• Temp Directory: When working with the Windows Installer Package, be sure to either manually extract the installation files to a desired location, or to change your user’s “TEMP” environment variable to the true location to which you want these very large and many files extracted. Actually, on second thought, ALWAYS change your “TEMP” path environment variable to a location with enough space (a few GB); I have seen the installer, in the midst of installing fill up my C: drive with temporary files that it works with after all of the unpacking and hours into the patch installation. Be careful here, plan ahead.

These are just a few of my notes and pointers for now on the top of my head. I will update this article later with my more complete notes or with any of your suggestions offered through the comments below.

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.

Business Objects IX’s Web Intelligence is a light client. You may think that it does not require you to install anything on your PC, but then you would be wrong. Firstly, obviously WebI requires that your PC have a browser. Secondly, Web Intelligence Java Report Panel requires that your client PC has a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) installation (1.5 and 1.6 are good to go).

Third, your client will need to download the WebI Java Report Panel application (in the form of temporary Internet files stored usually in your JRE installation folder). If you ever dump these (for example, as discussed in the article “Clearing the Browser and Java Cache: Do This First!“) then you will notice that your subsequent visit to the Java Report Panel (create new or modify a document) will result in a longer load time while your web client downloads the BO WebI java application.

Java Runtime Environment Installs with a Wimpy Configuration

By default I believe that the default Sun JRE’s will almost always install themselves with a very conservative (small) heap/memory consumption size. These settings can be managed on your client PC by going to “Control Panel” and double-clicking on “Java”. Once there click on the “Java” tab and then click on the “View…” button:

Java Control Panel Parameters

Web Intelligence Power User? Put Your Memory Where Your Mouth Is

Once you know which one to tweak and you focus on the “Runtime Parameters” you will see that there is an “Xms” and an “Xmx” parameter here. “Xms” is the minimum starting size of the heap or memory allocated to the process. “Xmx” is the maximum or limit of the heap/memory allocation. A good starting point here is: -Xms128m -Xmx256m, but you can go higher if you feel you and your PC are up for it. This link points to a great article on the topic of mistakes to avoid when configuring these parameters. Most importantly, always include “m” or “g” at the end of the number, never exceed your machines physical memory, and I read some where else that the effective limit here is 1 gigabyte on Windows XP/Vista (-Xms1g -Xmx1g). Sun has a good guide on this topic too(link).

Making the Change

I would first back-up your current settings, email them to yourself or something like that. Make the change and follow the syntax. Of course, you should probably not be using your JRE while making these changes, or at least close everything down and restart your WebI Java Report Panel after the changes are made. I don’t think rebooting your PC is necessary. Be sure to test your changes by launching Web Intelligence Java Report Panel and keep your eye on your system’s memory to see the impact there while testing your wonderful WebI skills to test the potential improvements you just made.

Why Would I Do This?

I have seen this change both improve performance and stability of the Business Objects XI WebI client machine. Truthfully, many support engineers recommend this change anytime a user reports that WebI is hanging or sluggish. I recommend increasing these settings. Now, I wonder if by increasing them I can reliably run to Java Report Panel sessions at the same time. Hmm… I wonder.

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

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.

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 :

I have to admit that the name “Universe Overload” tends to send my imagination going to exciting science-fiction worlds and different dimensions. I think the person that coined the phrase must have chosen it for that reason, because for me it does not seem to represent. To calm my imagination and to help the phrase prompt more appropriate understanding I tend to replace the word “Overload” with “Override”. In general, “Universe Overloads” override the default restrictions placed on the universe objects.

Then what are “Access Restrictions”?

Prior to BO XI 3, “Universe Overrides” were called “Universe Overrides”. In Business Objects XI 3.1 “Universe Overrides” we renamed (like so many other things) “Access Restrictions”. The incremental boringness of this new name is off-set by an equal increase in the descriptiveness of the name. “Universe Overrides” or “Access Restrictions” are simply object restrictions, table mapping, and row restrictions which are directly added to a universe.

How can I add or modify a Universe Overload?

You can modify/view these “Access Restrictions” by opening the universe in Designer. Then select Tools > Manage Security… > Manage Access Restrictions. Nevertheless, if you did not know that already then you will need more than this brief article to get you safely going into the exciting and futuristic world of “Universe Overloads”.