Contexts are sometimes viewed as a necessary evil in the SAP BusinessObjects universe. If you are unfamiliar with a context, it is a universe feature identifying a specific path for a query when certain objects are used in a SQL SELECT statement. There may be multiple paths to get to a measure and depending on […]
Tag: Business Analytics
Transaction Logs on Sybase SQL Anywhere and SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1
Dallas Marks recently posted a great primer for customers tinkering with SAP BusinessObjects BI4.1 running on the default CMS and Audit database, SQL Anywhere (see related article, Getting Somewhere with Sybase SQL Anywhere and SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1). He uncovered great information for getting acquainted with SQL Anywhere, querying it, scaling it for a multi-node cluster and more. […]
VIDEO: How to Custom Group Objects in SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence 4.1 SP2
I still remember the first time I found out I couldn’t group objects in Web Intelligence like I could with Desktop Intelligence (Deski). I was in a training session and another student asked the instructor where on the toolbar was the button to group dimensions. It was just assumed the functionality would be there. When […]
Contending With BI Disruption
You can expire tools but you can’t expire content.
The Mystery of the Missing Monitoring Metrics
On a melancholy Monday morning, I meandered onto my Monitoring application in SAP BI4. Much to my mortification, my monitoring metrics were missing! Mon Dieu! Alright, that’s about all of the alliteration I can stand for one blog post. But seriously, this happened, and I’m going to share with you how to fix it. I […]
Brick and Mortar BI
The masses eagerly await the BI someone else makes for them. I’m not sure a new tool will change that.
10 Steps to SAP BusinessObjects BI4 – Get The Business Buy-In
Get your business users to buy in to your upgrade strategy.
Semantically Speaking
My friend and fellow SAP Mentor, Ethan Jewett, and I, have had a series of good conversations. We kicked things off with my original post on the rift between BW-types and BOBJ-types. It caught attention and we had some great community discussion. In the spirit of our conversation, Ethan followed that up with his thoughts […]
Is Enterprise Software an excuse for sloppy code?
If you follow the chatter on Twitter these days, there’s a newer hashtag flying around that is gaining in popularity, #EnSW, short for Enterprise Software. It helps people find other people discussing enterprise software and hopefully bringing like-minds together.
SCN Godfather Chip Rodgers recently did a stellar job explaining what hashtags are all about .
I’ve been thinking about enterprise software a lot these days. Mainly because its my job to help customers make sure they get everything they paid for with an investment in an enterprise software suite like SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence 4.0. I recommend how big the systems should be, help them build it, migrate their old content into it, and ultimately support and maintain it once that system becomes productive. BOBJ isn’t the only enterprise software I’ve maintained over the years. I’ve also worked with Microsoft SQL Sever, Hyperion Essbase (back when Hyperion still owned it), Oracle databases to some extent, and SAS, and various smaller non-SAP HRIS systems to name a few. And while most of these tools all have something to do with data and business analytics, they have something else in common, too. They’re all a bugger to work with from the implementation and administration side. So as this current conversation on Twitter continues to evolve and unfold, I started to wonder what enterprise software means to me.
Designing Business Intelligence: Users and Stakeholders
Watch this. No seriously, go watch that video and then come back. Don’t worry, I’ll still be here…
While recently watching that TED talk presented by Timothy Prestero, I was again reminded of something that I learned from Blair Wheadon while working as a product manager for Crystal Reports @ SAP: It is important to clearly define not only who is going to use your product, but also who is going to select it and who is going to pay for it. Timothy repeats this while talking about his quest for developing medical equipment for children in developing countries by using the sentence: “Who would use, choose, and pay the dues for your product.”