New to BOXI - pls help

[sweetleaf]

I am very new to BOBJ and have a couple questions about universes. My task is that I've got about 20 tables (2 facts), and will need to develop a universe or two. Reports will then sit on top of the universe(s) and be used by a dozen users. I'm basically setting up a new pilot environment for BOXI within a company thats currently using CE10.

1) Are universes basically like database views?
2) I heard that BOXI universes can be made to work with Crystal 10 reports(instead of Web Intelligence). Is that true?
3) I also heard that even though they can work together that if the universe contains more than 1 sql statement that the crystal 10 report will not handle it - is this true? If any other drawbacks please mention...
4) Colleagues have mentioned that developing universes as complex as that might be is not the hardest part - and that the real challenge is in setting up infrastructure such as governance, change mgt and security for the universes. Can anyone shed light on this as this for me?
5) Any (legal) way to mix CE10 concurrent licensing with BOXI named user licenses that anyone is aware of?

These are alot of questions. Help on any of these items is much appreciated!

 

[groggle]

Answers to your questions:

1) Universes are like database views, except they don't live on the database they live within the BOE XI R2 environment and can only be accessed (in XI R2 anyway) from within the BOE XI environment.

2) You need Crystal Reports XI Release 2 to be able to use Crystal to report from a universe. CR 10 will NOT work. Web Intelligence and Desktop Intelligence can also report from an XI R2 universe. As of BOE XI R2 Service Pack 2, Crystal Xcelsius can also utilise a universe as its data source via a new feature called Query as a Web Service.

3) Crystal Reports XI Release 2 cannot utilise mutiple queries from a Universe. This is true, but once again CR10 cannot report from a Universe.

4)Developing a universe can be as simple or as complex as you wish to make it. The standard Universe Design courses are 4 full days in the classroom, which gives you an idea of how much time it takes to go through all of the features. Universes allow you to join tables, views, create materialised views, create aggregate fields, complex formulae, data filters. You can create picklists, apply row and column security and marry this to users and groups of BOE XI R2.

5) No.

 

[sweetleaf]

Thanks so much for your reply Groggle. Your information is very helpful. I guess there may be facilities baked into the product to address certain aspects of infrastructure/security/change management.

A question I guess this raises as well at least in my mind is whats the advantage in using a universe over a standard database view or database materialized view?

Thanks.

 

[hilfy]

A universe is like a db view on steroids. In the universe you set up the links between the tables, just like in a view. You also set up "filters" that provide a common means of filtering data. For example, our universes have a filter on Lender and Loan Number. When that filter is placed on a report, we're able to format the loan number behind the scenes so that it is in the correct format for the lender.

Universes also have ways to set up "measures" which are counts, sums, etc. For example, we have measures set up for Loan Count, Escrowed Loan Count, and Non-Escrowed Loan Count.

We also set up "dimensions" that translate data into a useable format. For example, the Employee_Key field gets translated into a user name using a call to a stored function.

These types of things make it easier for users to create reports without having to know much about the data structure. It sets up common calculations that you know will be the same in EVERY report where they're used instead of relying on the report designers to remember exactly what criteria goes into specific kinds of counts or the formulas needed to translate data. In other words, it greatly increases the consistency and reliability of data across reports in situations where there is a concern about "which version of the truth" is being displayed.

-Dell

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