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. :-)