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.
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
OpenDocument – An Introduction to a Powerful Tool
If you are not yet using the OpenDocument function in your reports you might want learn a bit more about it and see if it could not meet some of your current business requirements, or better yet allow you to amaze your business partners by giving them something they didn’t yet know that they needed!
What is OpenDocument
OpenDocument is simply the ability to open a “document” (a.k.a. report, usually) directly; without having to locate the report and even without having to submit any parameters to the report (optional). A properly constructed OpenDocument URL can be placed on an page that can serve up a URL/link and then users can click on it and be taken directly to the report that the URL specifies.
Major Capabilities of OpenDocument
The OpenDocument function provides a few excellent capabilities:
- Abstraction: users don’t even need to know the report name. They could be given a URL on a web page, email, Word Document, etc. which says “Click Me to Access Your Important Report“
- Simplicity/Efficiency: users are spared navigating to a report and selecting predictable parameters each time (static or dynamic, your web coding skills are your only limits)
- Linking Reports Together: create summary and detail reports that allow for in-depth drilling on specific data or create other interesting and useful relationships between reports
Additional Information about Business Objects’ Open Document Function
BO XI introduced OpenDocument, replacing the “viewrpt.cwr” command in previous versions of the Business Objects Enterprise. OpenDoc accepts many optional parameters allowing various customizations, such as display format, parameter values, and refresh flags.
A Simple Example of an OpenDocument URL
The following is an example of a very simple OpenDocument URL using a .NET web server:
http://myserver/businessobjects/enterprise115/infoview/scripts/
opendocument.aspx?sDoc=My%20Favorite%20Report
Cautionary Note #1: Please note that OpenDocument calls use URLs and therefore they are bound to the special character limitations of all URLs. That is to say that spaces and certain other characters are not permitted. Spaces can be replaced by “%20“; however, Business Objects Web Intelligence also has a native function called “URLEncode()” that can resolve any necessary special character formatting.
Cautionary Note #2: In Business Objects XIR2 it is entirely possible to have two documents with the same name and therefore this simple example should be received in this context. The OpenDocument function supports many parameters that will allow you to pin-point your desired document and in our next article on this topic we will show you how to do this gracefully and With maximum portability across any environment.
Cautionary Note #3:
The URL for OpenDocument varies much between XI R2, XI 3.x, and BI 4.x. This means that if you are migrating from XI 3.1 to BI 4.0 you may have to change any OpenDocument URLs embedded in reports and if you have any external OpenDocument URLs you must update those.
Basic OpenDocument URL Parameter Syntax
OpenDocument can be customized to your needs through many different parameters. It is important to learn each of these and use them precisely as documented.
iDocID and sIDType
When used together these parameters can help you specify a precise document using the document’s CUID. The trouble with this is that proper document promotion techniques must be used to retain CUID parity/consistency across all environments. An example of using these is as follows:
http://myserver/businessobjects/enterprise115/infoview/scripts/
opendocument.aspx?iDocID=Aa6GrrM79sdf2334OSMGoadKI&sIDType=CUID
lsS[NAME]
This parameter allows you to specify a single value for a single prompt. “[NAME]” is the exact text of the prompt. For example:
http://myserver/businessobjects/enterprise115/infoview/scripts/
opendocument.aspx?sDoc=My%20Favorite%20Report&lsSSelect+Country=Germany
lsM[NAME]
This parameter allows you to specify multiple values for a prompt. “[NAME]” is the exact text of the prompt. For example:
http://myserver/businessobjects/enterprise115/infoview/scripts/
opendocument.aspx?sDoc=My%20Favorite%20Report&lsMSelect+Cities=[Paris],[London]
sRefresh
This parameter allows you to specify if the document should be forced to refresh its data from the database. Valid values for this prompt as “Y” and “N”. In order for this prompt to work all prompt parameters must have submitted values. For example:
http://myserver/businessobjects/enterprise115/infoview/scripts/
opendocument.aspx?sDoc=My%20Favorite%20Report&sRefresh=Y
Study the Published Documentation
Business Objects has published documentation on OpenDocument. Most of it is accurate (I think, but I recall there were some issues with the examples). I suggest looking for the document “Viewing Reports and Documents using URLs” which may carry the file name “xi3-1_url_reporting_opendocument_en.pdf”. The basic syntax is generally the same across most versions of XI and BI (as far as I have noticed).
