This blog addresses a popular demand faced by BI platform administrators- an integrated and easy to use Reporting & Analysis solution for the CMS database. This demand is finally met by the new feature of BI 4.2 SP3 through its all new CMS database data access driver.
Here are a few of my findings and observations. This blog will help in building your own custom metadata reports going forward. For those who are looking for more information about BusinessObjects Open connectivity and driver details, the below information will be beneficial.
Yes. It is now easy to extract the user list from the repository without running the QB query or the Excel based macro. This is impressive. I can keep track of my license usage easily by simply scheduling this WEBI report to my Inbox every month.
Here is your Query
Now we concentrate on the BI content. I am going to try this for my Universe/Report relationships and Universe/Connection relationships.
My Query for UNV-WEBI relationship
Similarly, you can generate reports for multiple combinations of relationships- something like this.
Now it’s time to dig into the properties of each BI content individually. Here you go for WEBI.
Finally, the most interesting and the essential information for every BusinessObjects Administrator – Security. Though it is not showing each granular rights this will help us to build the Security matrix at high level with a clear cut Custom Access Level definition.
Few of my observations:
1. The Current Data foundation has only one table to capture all the metadata properties. You may require to create multiple Aliases when you need to get detailed information about multiple interrelated BI contents.
2. The way Class/Objects is organized in the Business layer is really confusing .In order to understand the current model, we may need to do multiple iterative steps to capture/understand the underlying metadata.
3. You don’t need to install the specific driver required for BO OC if you are in BI 4.2 SP3.
4. The number of relationships listed is very limited and might not be useful for complete analysis of all the Repository objects- something like User- Inbox & User-Favorites.
This is a huge leap when it comes to metadata reporting in BusinessObjects by SAP. Watch out this space for more on new features introduced as well as the continuous enhancements in BI platform ongoing basis https://bit.ly/2dLSCGY
Thanks for reading.
