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!
Hi Julian,
The first one (QRG) seems very helpful to me.
Can you share it with me?
I worked years ago with BO versions 5 to 6. Now I need to pick it up again since i switch employer.
Thx
Wim
Thanks Wim,
None of these have been written yet. I was hoping to get some idea of which kinds of guides would be useful and in demand enough to justify my extra efforts in creating them. I appreciate your vote. Thanks!
Julian, thanks for the great site (just came across it recently) my vote would be for a quick reference guide…quick, easy and powerfully useful.
D
I have been putting all of the extra time into creating a Web Intelligence Quick Reference guide. I feel my reputation is on the line with each guide and so I want to be sure to make it great with the initial release. Regardless, as you know, I will improve the quick reference guide over time and make new versions freely available to all customers. Nevertheless, I really want to get it 99% right the first time.
However, don’t worry… it is coming soon.
I second the vote for quick reference guides. One for Query Builder would be helpful for those of us that don’t feel we need your full blown QB guide.
The problem I always run into is with running second and third queries, or combined queries. The way the inner and outer joins work is something that I have trouble grasping. They never produce the result I want.
Help on this would be great.
Hi Everyone: I just published our first Quick Reference Guide. I decided to start with Web Intelligence. Please read more about it here:
Business Objects XI Web Intelligence Quick Reference Guide
Hi John: Thanks for your feedback. I struggled with those same topics a few years ago. I will put it on my list and prioritize it. Thanks!
I would like to see a How To guide based on real life report development scenario… this topic is less discussed.
I think what people may want, like Kuldeep, are examples of problems faced by report designers and their solutions. I imagine that this would be difficult to provide because every database is different, so trying to display a sample problem that others can learn from would be a problem.
I actually would like to put in a vote for the administration side of guides. I have found it very difficult to find good administration guides or best practices. I have taken some of the training offered from SAP but it all dealt more with general information about configuration options that are offered instead of the best ways to actually set a system up.
I am pretty sure that SAP would want us to purchase their consulting services for that kind of information but I can’t justify the budget for that.
Julian, any news on a Quick Reference Guide for XI 3.0?
I still have the content structuring and promotion guide that I started but never finished because I wasn’t sure there was a demand for it, I mean enough to earn my prioritized attention. Maybe I should focus on that next.
Writing about administration is such a broad topic, could you give me a more specific idea of what kind of things you would like to see in this guide?
We do have a Web Intelligence Quick Reference guide that was written for up to XI 3.1, but I think you know about that one.
If you are referring to my long-delayed BO XI 3.x updates to the Full-blown Query Builder guide, then rest assured I plan to wrap those up within 5 to 7 days.
I hope that answers your question Rodney B.?