Tableau 7 World Tour sign up

Tableau is a very smart Business Intelligence Dashboard and Analytics application that connects to all your data sources and displays the data in a very visually appealing fashion; much like Xcelsius. Tableau allows users to publish and collaborate content with others including dashboards, interactive reports, charts, what if analysis and more on your intranet or on the web, securely.

They are having a tour across the USA and several international locations next month, January 2012. If you are near any of these locations, you may want to attend to explore Tableau hands on.

Also: http://www.tableausoftware.com/tour

Globally change user preferences in BO 3.1

Topic: How to globally change users' preferences in Business Objects 3.1

When we log into Business Objects 3.1 Infoview, by default we are brought to the Navigate/Personalize window. Then from here we need to click on Document List, My Favorites and so on, to go where we need to go. So, if a user belongs to Accounting department for example and only has access to Accounting folder, he/she needs to click on Document List and then Accounting folder, every time he logs into Infoview. Now, if all 50 Accounting employees need to do this several times a day, every day, it becomes cumbersome and valuable time is lost.

This video will walk you through on how to globally set preferences for individual groups and redirect to unique locations; e.g. Accounting group to Accounting folder, Marketing group to their inboxes and so on.

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SQL Basics in 30 Minutes - Part 3

Topic: SQL Basics in 30 Minutes - Part 3: Views and Stored Procedures. 




Views, just like the word word itself, is a part of a whole. Look at the image on the left. You can see a partial 'view' of the earth. You don't see the rest of the earth, though it exists. Just like that, a View can have columns that are not seen, i.e. hidden from users. For example, you may have a table called "Credit_Card" and that table may contain the following columns: First_Name, Last_Name, Credit_Card_Number, Last_4_Digit, Address and so on. For security purposes, you (or your company) may only allow developers to create a View called "Credit_Card_Public" that may only have the following columns: Last_Name, Address and Last_4_Digit (of the card). 

Stored Procedures, again, just like the name suggests, are procedures or SQL commands that are stored in a single object. Look at the rabbit pic at the left. Think of the rabbit as a Stored Proc. As soon as you signal the rabbit, it snaps the twig and boom; all those bundles of cash start a domino effect leading up to the last bundle. Similarly, when a Stored Procedure is executed, series of SQL commands get run, leading up to the the 'end' of the stored proc. 

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How to Migrate Personal Folders in BO

Video (slideshow) walkthrough: How to migrate specific User Folders (BO XIR2) or Personal Folders (BO 3.1 +) using Import Wizard.

Topics Covered:
1) Creating custom group and assigning desired users to the custom group
2) Migrating using Import Wizard


A problem I faced when migrating from XIR2 to 3.1 is that when I wanted to migrate specific users' or specific department's users' favorite folders. Import Wizard would only allow me to select a group, and not individual users. So, I decided to create a custom group in CMC and assign specific users or specific departments (i.e. groups belonging to those departments) to this custom group. Now, the Import Wizard would let me select this custom group to migrate, and I'd have total control over it. I can decide whether I put 1 user in this group from CMC or 100. Short video below quickly goes over the steps. Enjoy!

SQL Basics in 30 Minutes - Part 2

Topic: SQL Basics in 30 Minutes - Part 2: We'll dive into CREATE command. We'll 'Create' Tables, Temp Tables, Table Variables and Variables. We are going to 'Insert' data into this table (INSERT INTO) and we'll occasionally 'DROP' the tables.

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SQL Basics in 30 Minutes - Part 1

Topic: SQL Basics in ~30 Minutes - Part 1: Visual demonstration of Select, From and Where clauses in SQL Server 2005. I've created a little table in Excel so beginners can visual these SQL commands. 

Business Intelligence and SQL go hand to hand. You cannot be an expert BI Consultant without knowing SQL proficiently. Sure, in a large enterprise scenario, BO Admins and Architects for example may never need to type a single SQL query, but you are not likely going to be a confident consultant. In the world of BI, SQL is your best friend!

This part 1 is for absolute beginners. I didn't wan't to jump into creating tables and stuff, and thought maybe it'd be helpful for the beginners to kind have most of the important commands in one short video series. I am going to cover few more important SQL commands in the next 2 videos including Create (Tables), Insert Into, Views and more.



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Quick steps to recover BO content from Backup

Steps to recover Business Objects objects, including all types of Reports and Universes, from Backup. (look for a better, more detailed version in BO Admin guide)


You always have the following 2 components in a BOXI environment: CMS Database and Filestore folder. We'll call the current/present versions CMS_DB and Filestore. 


1) Stop all BOXI services from CCM.


2) Get a copy of CMS_DB from yesterday or whenever you had a proper working BO environment, from where you could retrieve your lost objects; rename it to CMS_Backup. System Admins or DBA will get you this. Place CMS_Backup in any DB server. 


3) Rename your current Filestore folder to Filestore_Current. 

4) Get a copy of the Filestore folder from the same date as you got your CMS_DB backup in #2; put this in the same directory where you have Filestore_Current. 

5) Create a Data Source X (ODBC or whatever u guys use) and point to CMS_Backup.

8) Point CMS (service) from CCM > CMS > Configuration > using X to CMS_Backup. 

9) Start CMS, Input File Repository, Output File Repository. BO will act as if it's in the past; we'll call this BO Historic. 

10) Start Import Wizard and Import your lost objects. Source BO > Destination BIAR > browse and pick your Reports, Universe, etc from this BO Historic > BIAR them. 

11) STOP all BO services

12) Rename Filestore (which is really from Filestore folder from backup) to Filestore_Backup. 

13) Point CMS to your CMS_DB using the existing Data Source. 

14) Start ALL BO services. 

15) Import your lost objects from the BIAR file to present environment. Import Wizard > Source BIAR > Destination BO > Automatically Rename blah blah blah > done.