Xcelsius Dashboards – Integration with SQL Server Reporting Services

Pre – requisite

• Xcelsius Reporting Services (XRS) gateway needs to be installed on a web server where IIS, .NET framework and SQL Server are installed and configured.

• SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) reports need to be deployed in the SQL server, so that it can be accessible in the dashboard.

Xcelsius Connector to be used

Reporting Services Button can be used to get data from the SQL Server report which is deployed in the SQL server.   The deployed report can be accessed through the below URL

“http://servername/xrs/xrs.asmx/GetReports”

Here the servername is the SQL Server Name.

Building the Dashboard

• Create a report using the SQL Server reporting services and deploy it to the server.
• While creating the dashboard, use the Reporting Services Button to connect to the SSRS data source as below:
• In the URL box, enter the path where the reports are deployed.   On clicking the submit button, the reports in the server are listed.

• Select the target report and do the necessary data mapping in the underlying excel.
• If the report contains prompts, they would be listed in the report parameters that can be used by users at run time to pass values.
• Load the data into the dashboard based on the any one of the options available given below as per the requirement:
• Refresh on Load: Loads the data to the dashboard as soon as it is opened.
• Refresh on Interval: Loads the dashboard in periodic intervals.
• Trigger Behavior: Loads the dashboard based on an action in the dashboard.

• Generate the flash file (.swf) from the dashboard and deploy it portal for users to view the dashboard.

Hope you will be able to leverage your SQL Server environment effectively for integrating with Xcelsius dashboards.  Please get back to me for any queries.  Have an enjoyable 2011!  Happy year ahead friends!

Business Objects Query Builder

Hi all,

Hope you had some time to read on my previous blog on CMS Repository tables.  As discussed, the CMS repository is a database that contains all the information about the reports, universes and security that make up your deployment.  As the data contained in this repository is stored in a binary format, you cannot query it with conventional SQL tools.  That’s where Business Objects Query Builder comes in.  Using queries that are very similar to SQL, you can tap the information hidden away there.  Since the repository is what drives the entire BusinessObjects system, there is a lot to explore.  Query Builder requires no SDK development but can return pretty much anything an SDK query might return.

Accessing Query Builder

To access the Query Builder, point your web browser to your BusinessObjects server.  Query Builder can be found at the following URL:  http://[server]:[port]/AdminTools/.

Log on as an Administrator to get full access to all the repository objects.  From here you can start writing your query.  There are three Info objects tables that you can query:

• CI_INFOOBJECTS
  Contains objects that are often used to build the user desktop, such as favorites folders and reports.
• CI_SYSTEMOBJECTS
  Contains objects that are often used to build the admin desktop and internal system objects, such as servers, connections, users, and user groups.
• CI_APPOBJECTS
  Contains objects that represent BusinessObjects Enterprise Solutions. For example, the InfoView and Desktop Intelligence objects are stored in this table.

Following columns are the frequently used from the above repository tables

Column	Description
SI_ID	Identifies each InfoObject instance uniquely in the database. But, this is not a primary key. If the instance is deleted, the value may later be reassigned to a new instance.
SI_NAME	Name of the InfoObject instance.
SI_KIND	Identifies each row by a particular InfoObject extended class type. SI_KIND for CI_INFOOBJECTS includes Webi, Pdf, Excel, Folder, FullClient, FavoritesFolder, Inbox, PersonalCategory, Shortcut, MyInfoView SI_KIND for CI_APPOBJECTS includes Universe, Universe Folder, MetaData.DataConnection,ReportConvTool, WebIntelligence, Discussions, InfoView, CMC, busobjReporter, Designer, AdHoc SI_KIND for CI_SYSTEMOBJECTS includes User, UserGroup,Connection,secWinAD, secLDAP, secWindowsNT
SI_OWNERID	User ID of the owner
SI_OWNER	User name of the owner
SI_CHILDREN	Number of children for the Infoobject
SI_CUID	CUIDs are Cluster Unique Identifiers that uniquely identify an InfoObject, within a given cluster and also identify replicas or copies of an object across multiple CMS clusters. Because CUIDs are moderately lengthy strings they are less efficient to use and slower to query for.
SI_UNIVERSE	Universes used by the document, there might be multiple universes used in one document; you may see a list of universes’ SI_ID attached to the property.
SI_PARENTID	Identifies the InfoObject instance that operates in a parent relationship to the current InfoObject. Typically, a report that is configured to be scheduled is a parent, and each report that is copied and stored when scheduled will view the source report as its parent.
SI_INSTANCE	Identifies whether the item that is stored in the database row is an InfoObject that was created through scheduling (such as a nightly report) and is therefore an ‘instance‘.

Relationship between InfoObjects

CMS InfoObjects are organized into hierarchies based on the relationship between them. The hierarchy could be based on folder based or user group.

From above diagram, the InfoObjects relate to each other not only by folder hierarchy, they may have other relationships. For example, the SI_OWNERID is the property to identify the ownership from the user to the document.

Sample Queries

SELECT * FROM CI_INFOOBJECTS

Returns the details for all the ‘InfoObjects’ (documents, folders, and other content) in your repository; you can filter this list using a WHERE clause.

SELECT * FROM CI_INFOOBJECTS WHERE SI_KIND=’CrystalReport’
Returns all ‘Crystal Reports’.

SELECT * FROM CI_INFOOBJECTS WHERE SI_KIND=’Webi’
Returns all ‘Web Intelligence documents’.

SELECT * FROM CI_APPOBJECTS WHERE SI_KIND=’Universe’

Returns all ‘Universes’ in the BOE Repository.

SELECT * FROM CI_SYSTEMOBJECTS WHERE SI_KIND=’User’
Returns all Users in the BOE Repository.

Improving Query Performance in Query Builder

1. For improved performance use the below Indexed properties in query’s WHERE clause wherever required.

SI_CUID
SI_GUID
SI_HIDDEN_OBJECT
SI_ID
SI_INSTANCE_OBJECT
SI_KIND
SI_NAME
SI_NAMEDUSER
SI_NEXTRUNTIME
SI_OWNERID
SI_PARENTID
SI_PLUGIN_OBJECT
SI_RECURRING
SI_RUID
SI_RUNNABLE_OBJECT
SI_SCHEDULE_STATUS
SI_UPDATE_TS
SI_INSTANCE







2. Order of the above properties in WHERE clause also improves the Query performance as the Query Builder processes queries from top to bottom and left to right. So the selection criteria should be ordered from the most restrictive to the least restrictive.

For example, SI_NAME = ‘Test Report’ should be placed before SI_KIND = ‘WebI’ in the query.

I will discuss on few more queries in the next blog that will be followed by the File Repository Server details.

Happy blogging!  Have a good year ahead!

The Central Management Server (CMS) Repository

The content of the Business Objects Enterprise (BOE) system consists of the physical files and the metadata information about the physical files.
For a Crystal Report, the physical file as well as the metadata about the file should exist in the BOE system. The Crystal report is stored as a file on File Repository Server (FRS) with an extension of .rpt . The Metadata information such as report name, type, report ID, path, etc is stored as an InfoObject in the CMS Repository.
I will discuss about the CMS repository in this article.
The CMS Repository Database Tables
The CMS metadata is physically stored on a database as InfoObjects.   There are six tables, the purpose of which is given below.

Sno	Physical Table Name	Purpose
1	CMS_VersionInfo	Contains the current version of BOE.
2	CMS_InfoObjects6	Each row in this table stores a single InfoObject.  This is the main table in the repository.
3	CMS_Aliases6	Maps the user alias(es) to the corresponding user ID. For example, a user may have both a Win NT alias and an LDAP alias. Regardless of the number of aliases a user may have, in the  Business Intellengence .Platform each user has only one user ID. The map is stored in a separate table to enable fast logins.
4	CMS_IdNumbers6	The CMS uses this table to generate unique Object IDs and Type IDs. It has only two rows: an Object ID row and a Type ID row. The CMSs in a cluster use this table when generating unique ID numbers.
5	CMS_Relationships6	Relationship tables are used to store the relations between InfoObjects. Each row in the table stores one edge in the relation. For example, the relation between a Web Intelligence document and a Universe would be stored in a row in the WebI – Universe Relation table. Each relationship table has these columns: Parent Object ID, Child Object ID, Relationship InfoObject ID, member, version, ordinal, data.
6	CMS_LOCKS6	This is an auxiliary table of CMS_RELATIONS6.

The Central Management Server(CMS) repository tables cannot be queried directly. Query builder is the tool to be used to retrieve Business Objects metadata information using the virtual tables such as ci_systemobjects, ci_infoobjects and ci_appobjects.
In the forthcoming posts, I will discuss on query builder and file repository server.

Building dashboards using Xcelsius with SharePoint data

Do you know – Xcelsius dashboards can be built using SharePoint data?

Figure 1: Xcelsius dashboard built using SharePoint data

Pre-requisites

• Xcelsius for SharePoint server (XSP) installs a web part container into the Sharepoint web part library.
• After installation and configuration, the web part container can be added to the Web Part Gallery within SharePoint and any user with the appropriate rights can add the web part container to a page within the site.

Xcelsius Web connectivity Parameters to use

• SharePoint Parameter: Used to define parameters or properties in Crystal Xcelsius models that a user can change in the SharePoint environment
• SharePoint Provider: Used to give data to another Web Part published in SharePoint
• SharePoint Consumer: Used to get data from another published Web Part in SharePoint (a SharePoint List or another Crystal Xcelsius model)
• Use the File -> Export -> SharePoint option to generate the .swf file with SharePoint functionality.
• Once generated, you will be able to add and configure the SharePoint Web Part with the .swf file to publish the model

Building the Dashboard

• Add the Xcelsius document to the SharePoint document list
• Copy the shortcut to the uploaded document
• Go the SharePoint page
• Click on Modify Shared web part
• Add a web part
  • From the web part-gallery list select Crystal Xcelsius web-part
  • Use Modify Shared Web Part option
  • In the Xcelsius Visualization source, specify URL (paste the shortcut you copied from the document list) and apply
• It is possible to customize models Real-time – Change chart type, title etc when defined as SharePoint Parameter
  • Use Modify Shared web part at run time

• Add a SharePoint List, say “Sample” as a web part in the same page
• In the Xcelsius web part configuration menu, “connections” option is enabled once a list is added in the page
• In the connections, specify consume list from “Sample”
• All Sharepoint lists and Providers in the same page will be listed in the connections option.
• In order for a Xcelsius model to consume data from Sharepoint Provider, there should be two models deployed in the same page – one for the provider and one for the consumer
• The visuals in the swf file with the consumer will change based on the data from the provider once connection is set