Can I do Report Automation?

[hkingtfa]

There are periods where I am pulling the same report daily. The BOxi report has 47+ queries, and what I have been doing until now is:

1. Create the report in BOxi (47 specific queries, with 2-3 filters)
2. Run the BOxi report and export to excel
3. Run many, many pivots in excel
4. Vlookup pivot results into a table/graph in excel
5. Report out on those tables/graphs to external people

This seems totally inefficient and it is beyond time-consuming.

Any suggestions? This may not be clear either, and I would be glad to provide more information in whatever format that may be.

Really looking to make this a more efficient process, and I know I can get some solid tips here - thanks in advance!

 

[hilfy]

What type of a report is it? Crystal, Webi, Deski?

-Dell

A computer only does what you actually told it to do - not what you thought you told it to do.

 

[hkingtfa]

Hey Dell - thanks for responding.

Unfortunately, I am super new to BOxi. How can I differentiate what type of report it is?

Happy to provide this information, just not sure how to determine.

 

[hilfy]

If you look for the report in the CMC (don't open it - just find it in the folder), one of the columns will tell you what type of object it is - Crystal, WebI, etc. If it's not Crystal, you're best bet is going to be to ask this question in the Business Objects Solutions forum here:

http://www.tek-tips.com/threadminder.cfm?pid=393

-Dell



A computer only does what you actually told it to do - not what you thought you told it to do.

 

[skrandel]

I'll say it........

You do not have a report. You are using a report to build a data mart. Then you are trying to use Excel to cut this thing up into pieces.

No report should have that many queries. It simply makes no sense.

You should run the 47 queries to load a proper database and then have proper reports that can be distributed using WebI or Crystal.

Steve Krandel
Intuit

 

[hkingtfa]

Okay, my document says "Web Intelligence Document." Does that make it a "WebI?"

Does anyone have a suggested site for an intro to report automation? Or something with step-by-step instructions on how to achieve this within BOxi?

I am not sure what you mean by:

"You should run the 47 queries to load a proper database and then have proper reports that can be distributed using WebI or Crystal."

Again, thank you for all your help!

 

[skrandel]

These types of tools are intended to be put on proper databases. If you have 47 queries, then you asking the tool to do much more than it was intended for.

Some sort of data aggregation should be done regardless of the reporting tool you use.

In your case, Business Objects cannot do any more than simply run the report and export the data to Excel. The rest is up to you and some crazy windows programming you're going to have to do.

Steve Krandel
Intuit