Comments on: Constants, Formulas, and Variables, Oh My!

By: gobinath

gobinath — Wed, 19 May 2010 07:40:29 +0000

What is user object in report level?
What is the use of that?
variable and user objects are same or diffrent?
If i create variable the valueswhere it get stored ?

By: nod

nod — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:31:33 +0000

Ooh, Sandi, I like that idea, I think I’ll use it.

For reports run in non-Prod environments, I like to include the SID (we use oracle) so that there are no panicked phone calls when the numbers look wrong. Saves a lot of headaches!

I use a universe object (we have oracle) defined as CASE WHEN SYS_CONTEXT(’USERENV’, ‘DB_NAME’)=’ sid ‘ THEN ” ELSE SYS_CONTEXT(’USERENV’, ‘DB_NAME’) END

By: Dave Rathbun

Dave Rathbun — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:23:52 +0000

Hi, Simon, welcome. To be honest, I’m not sure why I haven’t covered that subject already. I will try to address that topic as soon as I get time.

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:49:59 +0000

On the subject of calculations, have you written up, or are you considering writing up – in your inimitable style – calculation contexts? I don’t find the vendor documentation particularly helpful.

By: Sandi

Sandi — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:05:42 +0000

Hi Dave
Well that sounds as if it may be promising!
Re naming conventions, I tend to use (and advise my customers) the v_ prefix so that all variables appear together.
I also recommend they create a v_Report_Title variable (set to DocumentName()& the report effective date) as they do a lot of report cloning and I was finding that they had a habit of forgetting to retitle their reports.

By: Dave Rathbun

Dave Rathbun — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:54:05 +0000

Sandi, welcome. While I cannot make specific comments regarding the wish list item, I can say that Business Objects appears to have been listening.

By: Dave Rathbun

Dave Rathbun — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:51:53 +0000

nod, I have seen a number of different suggestions for naming conventions. Some folks preface all variables with v_, others do something with case (as you suggested). As reports get more complex there is certainly some value in having some way to differentiate between variables and query objects.

By: nod

nod — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:04:57 +0000

I’ll share a tip I got from a colleague that is now the standard in my group. Name your variables in all upper case so it’s easy to spot which objects are report based and which are coming in from your query. When something isn’t working right a year from now, it’s easy to spot and you can get right down to fixing it.

By: Sandi

Sandi — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:49:20 +0000

Hi Dave

I just spotted your blog today – fantastic.

Oh how I agree with you on the wish list!
I deliver customised WebI training to our customers and the times I have to say that once they have created a variable it is only available for use in that document.

We have suggested that the customer sets up a BO User group of their own (they have over 300 power users across the country) and to document ‘commonly used formulae’ on a page on their intranet. Not as good as a user updatable variable repository but the best we can come up with currently.

Cheers, Sandi

PS – I also include a warning in my training when creating variables for percentages – to omit the final (* 100) if the % number formatting is to be applied but to remeber that when applying an alerter to the cell you have to consider the underlying number and not the displayed % value!