In the first post in this series I talked about different places I could place complex calculations. I reviewed some pros and cons of doing calculations during ETL, in the universe, or on a report. In this post I am going to focus only on report calculations. I will cover the formulas versus variables debate and show a couple of tricks to make working with variables a little bit easier along the way.
This presentation covers slides 10 through 12 from my 2009 GBN presentation titled “Return of the Variables” which can be downloaded from my conference page. Continue reading “Constants, Formulas, and Variables, Oh My!”
When working with the reporting suite from Business Objects there are many different calculation engines. A report developer can create custom formulas or variables in Desktop Intelligence, Web Intelligence, and of course Crystal. A universe designer can build custom objects using database functions in the universe. An ETL architect can design special query transformations. So where do you do the work?
This post covers slides 6 through 9 from my 2009 GBN presentation titled “Return of the Variables” which can be downloaded from my conference page. Continue reading “Calculation Options”
A frequently asked question on BOB is:
How can I calculate the number of business days between two dates?
The easiest answer is to use a calendar table with a flag for business days because that takes care of everything quite easily. You can even mark holidays along with weekend days and make the results more useful.
But suppose you don’t have a calendar table. Suppose you don’t care about holidays, you simply want to count the number of Monday – Friday days between a range of dates. Can you do that?
The answer is coming if you read the rest of the post. 
Note: This technique was shown in public on Monday at the GBN conference. I had written this blog post some time ago but waited to release it until after the presentation had been delivered. The presentation has been uploaded to my blog and is available for download from the conference page.
Continue reading “Calculating Business Days Between Two Days Via Report Functions”
I have uploaded the latest pdf files for my presentations from the 2009 GBN conference. You can download them from my conference presentations page. I did two presentations this year.
Return of the Variables
Presentation Abstract
It’s time to pull out some variables again as we revisit a popular topic from past conferences. Report variables can provide a more creative, efficient, and effective means of completing the detailed analysis required for your reports. The focus of this presentation is building documents, using report functions, and reviewing variable tricks that can be used to solve reporting challenges. The presentation this year will focus primarily on the SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence product and include some of the newest features that have recently become available, but there will be some goodies for users of prior versions as well.
Universe Models for Recursive Data
Presentation Abstract
Recursive data can present a special challenge to SAP BusinessObjects developers because SQL is not natively able to process the relationships. This presentation will show several different methods for modeling recursive data along with the pros and cons of each. All of the methods shown have been used on real-world projects. Attendees will gain a better understanding of the complexities of dealing with inventory models, organizational hierarchies, and other types of recursive data.
As time allows I will be adding detailed blog posts for each of these presentations. I am cheating a bit this year. I have already written two blog posts that detail most of the “Variables” presentation:
That leaves only the initial portion of the presentation to write up, and I hope to have it done fairly soon. The detailed posts for the Designer presentation will take a bit longer.
I am tired. When conferences are outside of my home area (Dallas) I generally spend the days at the conference, the early evenings doing conference-related items, and the late evenings catching up on work. When the conference is here in Dallas, I spend the days at the conference, the early evenings doing conference-related items, the late evenings catching up on home stuff, and the even-later evenings catching up on work. I hope the conference is somewhere else next year, I’m exhausted.
Some highlights from my third day at the conference…
Webi 3.x Has Cool Stuff
I attended Sandy Brotje’s presentation called “What’s New for Me?” for my first session. I already knew quite a bit of what was new myself, but different people place emphasis on different features so I decided to see what she had to offer. I thought she did a great job of summarizing but also personalizing the new features that were important to her. I should send her a link to my blog post about losing an old friend because she didn’t know what the new measure icon was. 
Explorer… Again?
I went to a presentation by Dallas Marks (check out his blog if you haven’t already) about Explorer. He did a short demo (using eFashion, imagine that! 
) but then went into the back-end process showing how to install it. I left a bit early because I ended the day with…
Recursive Data in Universes is Hard
… my final presentation of the conference. I am fairly certain I submitted a far more imaginative title, but what came back was “Universe Models for Recursive Data” instead. It was a bit misleading because only one of the four solutions I showed can be done completely in the universe, and it’s the weakest of the four solutions. I had a good crowd for the last session on the last day of the conference, they laughed at my recursive jokes, and I gave out a bunch of BOB hats.
Good times. 
So what’s next? There was a slide being shown as a backdrop during the keynote sessions that asked a question about whether there would be a Business Objects focused conference next year, and the answer provided was apparently a bit confusing. My understanding is that there will be a conference next year like this year (and prior years) but under the ASUG name. Since GBN is merging into ASUG it will no longer be the GBN Annual Conference but something similar with ASUG in front instead. I hope we can get more details out about this soon (like dates and the location) and will post here as soon as I hear anything concrete.
It’s 10:00 pm, do you know where your Dave is? He’s at home, finally, after a long but interesting day at the GBN conference. I am going to again post a few highlights from today and save some of the in-depth thoughts for later.
Computers Evolve During Stressful Times
The keynote this morning was delivered by Vicki Farrell, the Manager of Marketing Strategy from Hewlett Packard. She presented a couple of interesting points, one of which was that computer technology seems to get the biggest boost during times of economic stress. It’s at this sort of time that people really start looking to get more out of technology as a way to make up ground. She finished out her presentation with a picture of the garage where HP started. (I am sure there is a rule from HP that requires that )
Text Analytics Are Cool
I attended a presentation on text analytics that was interesting enough. I never seem to get anything that I can use in my job from these presentations, but the concept is one that I am quite interested in so I try to attend them. The presented talked about monitoring sentiment by scanning both internal project documents and external web sites. She did get a bit confused when someone asked about RSS; she thought that was some sort of sound file.
Semantic Layer Usability Testing Was Interesting
Unfortunately it was also covered by a non-disclosure agreement so I can’t talk about it. 
Too Many Universe Design Sessions
I say this with my own universe design session coming up tomorrow, but I really think we had too many sessions this year. The technology hasn’t changed that much since last year (other than some improvements in SAP BW support in 3.1) and I saw a lot of the same stuff in the few designer sessions I did attend. My stuff is not the typical Designer material so I hope it will be well received by the folks that manage to stay for the last presentation slot on the last day of the conference.
SAP Mentors Rock!
One of the best sessions I attended was delivered by fellow SAP Mentor Ginger Gatling from the SAP Labs. She did a great job of presenting – in less than an hour – what SAP is, what they do, what they had for BI before they purchased Business Objects, how the product suite fits together now, and ended with tips on how people with different Business Objects skills could leverage them in the new environment. Yes, all in one hour. And she was entertaining and energetic while doing it too.
Catching Up With Old Friends is Fun
I have chatted with quite a few BOB members and other friends I have known for years through our common interest in Business Objects. That is one of the best parts of the conference for me every year.
Lots of interesting things happening at the GBN conference today. I will share a few nuggets now, many of which I hope I will have time to expand on in the future. In no particular order…
Data Federator Combined With Semantic Layer
One of the things I heard last week was reiterated in public at the GBN conference today, that being that in XI 4.x (no scheduled release date, but could be 2010) the Data Federator product will be embedded directly into the semantic layer. What does this mean? Among other things, it means we can have multi-source universes.
Explorer (Accelerated) Is Still Hot
The keynote from John Schwarz featured yet another demo of the accelerated version of Explorer.
Xcelsius Is Still Hot
It’s hard to turn around without seeing another presentation for Xcelsius.
Old Stuff Still Works
My presentation had slides in it that I lifted from the very first Variables presentation in 1997. It still works. Steve Krandel updated a presentation from five years ago. It still works.
Text Analytics Should Be Hot
Several years ago Business Objects acquired a company that did really cool stuff in the unstructured data (text analytics) space. They should be getting more press; their systems have been integrated into Data Services now. I am planning on going to a text analytics presentation tomorrow.
I also signed up for a “usability session” on the new semantic layer tomorrow. It should be another good day.
I am going to be delivering two sessions at the 2009 GBN conference this fall. I have one scheduled on Monday and the other is on Wednesday. My first session will be about report variables, and will most likely use the 3.x line of Webi for the demonstration platform. I’ve posted about the history of the “Variables” series of presentations before. Since I haven’t done one of those for a while, the title that was submitted was “Return of the Variables.”
Session Code: 902
Title: Return of the Variables
Session Date: Oct 19 2009
Session Time: 1:30PM – 2:30PM
Room: Fleur De Lis A&B
The past few years I have done a few presentations on universe design and I have another one this year too. I just finished a project where we had to deal with recursive (hierarchical) data, and we used quite a few interesting techniques to solve those challenges. I’m going to show various ways to model recursive data and the implications each design has on reports. The subject is a bit more specific than I usually like to use for a conference presentation, but it comes up enough that I decided to submit it anyway. I hope the folks that attend will find it useful.
Session Code: 1012
Title: Universe Models for Recursive Data
Session Date: Oct 21 2009
Session Time: 10:45AM – 11:45AM
Room: Grand Ballroom D
The conference is back in Dallas again this year, which means I don’t get to travel somewhere fun. More information on the conference (including a full schedule) can be found on the conference web site.
Related Links
I have been selected to present two topics at the 2009 GBN conference (which is back in Dallas again this year). For one of them I will revive the “variables” series and present a new set of fun things to do with Webi variables. For the second I will revisit and expand upon a single topic from one of my older Universe Designer presentations: working with recursive data. The entire talk will revolve around the challenges and various solutions that can be used to represent recursive data via a universe. It’s a bit specialized, but I hope folks will find it useful.
If you haven’t made plans for the conference yet, I hope you will consider it. If your manager won’t approve a convention as a budget expense this year, consider it a training opportunity instead.
