Dissecting Auditor using VIEW

Topic Intro: Querying Business Objects Audit Database directly by creating a View.

Video Walkthrough: As I've mentioned in the previous video, we're gonna create a VIEW in the BO Audit Database using the following code that's available on Bob Forum and other places on the web. We will also run some test SQL queries to find some Audit information directly from the Audit database.

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create view AUDITOR_View as
SELECT        server_process.application_type_id as [Application_Type_ID],
              cast(application_type.application_type_description as varchar(50)) as [Application_Type_Description],
              audit_detail.detail_id as [Detail_ID],
              audit_detail.detail_text as [Detail_Text],
              detail_type.detail_type_id as [Detail_Type_ID],
              cast(detail_type.detail_type_description as varchar(50)) as [Detail_Type_Description],
              audit_event.Duration as [Duration],
              audit_Event.Error_Code as [Error_Code],
              cast(audit_event.Event_ID as varchar(32)) as [Event_ID],
              audit_event.Event_Type_ID as [Event_Type_ID],
              cast(event_type.event_type_description as varchar(50)) as [Event_Type_Description],
              cast(audit_event.Object_CUID as varchar(32)) as [Object_CUID],
              audit_event.Start_Timestamp as [Start_Timestamp],
              cast(audit_event.User_Name as varchar(50)) as [User_Name],
              cast(audit_detail.server_cuid as varchar(32)) as [Server_CUID],
              cast(server_process.server_name as varchar(50)) as [Server_Name],
              cast(server_process.server_fullname as varchar(50)) as [Server_Fullname],
              cast(server_process.server_version as varchar(50)) as [Server_Version]
FROM APPLICATION_TYPE INNER JOIN
             (SERVER_PROCESS INNER JOIN (
                 (AUDIT_DETAIL INNER JOIN (
                      AUDIT_EVENT INNER JOIN
                          EVENT_TYPE ON
                              AUDIT_EVENT.Event_Type_ID =
                              EVENT_TYPE.Event_Type_ID) ON (
                                  AUDIT_EVENT.Server_CUID =
                                  AUDIT_DETAIL.Server_CUID) AND
                                     (AUDIT_DETAIL.Event_ID =
                                      AUDIT_EVENT.Event_ID)) INNER JOIN
                                          DETAIL_TYPE ON
                                              AUDIT_DETAIL.Detail_Type_ID =
                                              DETAIL_TYPE.Detail_Type_ID) ON
                                                  SERVER_PROCESS.Server_CUID =
                                                  AUDIT_DETAIL.Server_CUID) ON
                                                      APPLICATION_TYPE.Application_Type_ID =
                                                      SERVER_PROCESS.Application_Type_ID

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Business Objects Auditor: SETUP

General Intro: Proper Auditing is an important part of any business, which allows decision makers to see the behind-the-scene views of their business. Business Objects is no different. It is essential for all BO Administrators to have in depth knowledge about the Auditing concepts in Business Objects XI platform. Auditing in Business Objects reveals second by second detailed activities of all users actions including refresh, read, schedules, failures, logins; and server actions including, session duration, session server, session server type, and much much more.

Video Walkthrough: We will go over the basics of Auditor and how to configure Auditing in Business Objects.

Topics Covered:
1) CMS configuration to set up Audit.
2) Enabling available auditable actions for auditable servers via CMC.

What is Business Views?

> What the heck is Business Views?? That's what I said to myself when I saw Business View Manager for the first time! So, don't worry if you haven't used Business Views or are just found out about it. It's pretty straight forward and easy. I learnt it in 15 minutes basically, simply by trying to create all the 5 Objects of this application, so can you!

Quick Intro: You can think of Business View Manager like an alternate mini version of Universe Designer. Just like you can throw in 10s of tables in Designer to create an Universe and use that universe to build DeskI or WebI reports, you can do the same thing using Business View Manager by throwing in 10s of tables or custom SQL to create a 'Business View' and use that in Crystal Reports. For the super geeks, please feel free to gobble up the Business Views™ Administrator's Guide and share with us your discoveries, thanks!

Video Walkthrough: How to use Business View Manager to create Dynamic List of Values and use them in Crystal Reports.

Topics Covered:
1) Introduction to Business View Manager, part of Business Objects XI R2/3.1.
2) How to create Data Connection, Data Foundation, Business Element, Business View and List of Values.
3) How to use List of Values in Crystal Reports to create cascading prompts.

Auto Restart BO Servers with a Batch job and Schedule it

Video walkthrough (all the way at the bottom): How to automate Business Objects' Services/Servers in Central Configuration Manger so that they restart every night, every week or however you'd like to schedule them.

Topics Covered:
1) Creating a batch job to restart any/all Business Objects Services
2) Scheduling the batch job according to the need of your environment

Business Objects, as you all know (well, the BOE people at least) runs using several types of servers-which are called 'services' in Windows. But we will refer to them as 'servers' because that's how BO decided to call them and that's how we see them in CMC.

One of the most essential tasks of maintaining a promptly responsive, error free and fresh Business Objects environment is to restart Business Objects services on a regular basis. If you are an Admin or have access to the machine where your BO software is installed, you can see the activities of BO, including it's servers' activities from the Event Viewer. Every so often, there are warnings and errors that get generated by BO servers. Sometimes, the WebI Report Server may generate "...Communication failure" error or the CrystalRAS may generate some registry error, or the CMS may generate "Database Access Error..."; you get the idea.

Of course, you may Google the error messages and try to get to the bottom of the problem - which is the best approach, by the way, but if you just create a batch job to automatically restart all your BOE servers, you will see your environment performing significantly better and most errors will disappear.

I've seen on few sites the suggest the batch to restart the servers in this manner:


NET STOP “Web Intelligence Job Server”
NET START “Web Intelligence Job Server”

NET STOP “Program Job Server”
NET START “Program Job Server”

NET STOP “Report Application Server”
NET START “Report Application Server”

and so on - you get the idea. STOP and START a server right away. I, however have it set up slightly differently - STOP all and then START all. I don't know if mine is better or the aforementioned is better, but I like mine better because it just looks 'cool' and it has a symmetry to it. :)

For those of you who are like 'wtfff' at this point and or new BO admins setting up your 1st batch job, here's a brief intro to Command Prompt in Windows. Do this: Start > Run > CMD (and then hit enter). Type NET and hit Enter. These are the basic commands. We will use START and STOP commands for restarting BO servers because all BO servers are also found in the Services - Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services or type "Services.msc" in the Run window (see above) and hit enter.

WARNING:  Make sure, you are NOT in your Production environment when you are trying / setting up this batch job. Because the moment you STOP a server - that's it, all users utilizing that server will get error message or a failure and if you happen to STOP CMS, then it'll be a chaos and you'll surely get some yelling from your boss. So, do you testing on your Development/Test environment and if you don't have any, schedule an outage and or take permission first.

Also, I came across many time where every server would STOP and START perfectly, except CMS-it doesn't start up, remains shut down. For that our systems analyst put a delay in between the STOP and START segment using the "sleep.exe" command, found in Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools. And we also used the START command for CMS several times so that if the CMS doesn't start at the 1st attempt, it'll start up at one of the following attempts. If you do not have "sleep.exe" tool, then simply remove it from the code below and

NOTE: You must change the code below, because this code is meant for my environment only and every environment has as different number of servers that are up. For example, I have 4 Web Intelligence Report Servers, but you have only 2. So, edit/delete accordingly.

Code: BATCH Script to Automate Restarting of Business Objects Server  (click here to open the code below on a new page).

@echo off
rem
rem This script restart several services on this server (Business-Objects-Server)
rem
rem batch script created by: Administrator
rem batch script created on: 12242009

set log_file_fdr=C:\restart_service\logs
set log_file=bob_restart_svc.log
if not exist "%log_file_fdr%" md "%log_file_fdr%"

for /f "tokens=*" %%i in ('time/t') do set ttime=%%i
for /f "tokens=*" %%j in ('date/t') do set ddate=%%j

net stop "World Wide Web Publishing Service"
net stop "WinHTTP Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Service"
net stop "Crystal Reports Job Server (2)"
net stop "Crystal Reports Job Server"
net stop "Crystal Reports Page Server"
net stop "Crystal Reports Cache Server"
net stop "Program Job Server"
net stop "Report Application Server(4)"
net stop "Report Application Server(3)"
net stop "Report Application Server(2)"
net stop "Report Application Server"
net stop "Web Intelligence Job Server"
net stop "Web Intelligence Report Server(4)"
net stop "Web Intelligence Report Server(3)"
net stop "Web Intelligence Report Server(2)"
net stop "Web Intelligence Report Server"
net stop "Destination Job Server"
net stop "Event Server"
net stop "List of Values Job Server"
net stop "Output File Repository Server"
net stop "Input File Repository Server"
net stop "Connection Server"
net stop "Central Management Server"

sleep.exe 60

net start "Central Management Server"
net start "Connection Server"
net start "Input File Repository Server"
net start "Output File Repository Server"
net start "List of Values Job Server"
net start "Event Server"
net start "Destination Job Server"
net start "Web Intelligence Report Server"
net start "Web Intelligence Report Server(2)"
net start "Web Intelligence Report Server(3)"
net start "Web Intelligence Report Server(4)"
net start "Web Intelligence Job Server"
net start "Report Application Server"
net start "Report Application Server(2)"
net start "Report Application Server(3)"
net start "Report Application Server(4)"
net start "Program Job Server"
net start "Crystal Reports Cache Server"
net start "Crystal Reports Page Server"
net start "Crystal Reports Job Server"
net start "Crystal Reports Job Server (2)"
net start "WinHTTP Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Service"

net start "Central Management Server"

net stop "IISAdmin" /y
net start "IISAdmin"
net start "World Wide Web Publishing Service"
net start "FTP Publishing Service"
net start "HTTP SSL"
net start "Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP)"
net start "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)"


sleep.exe 60

net start "Central Management Server"

sleep.exe 60

net start "Central Management Server"


echo %ddate% %ttime% Business-Objects-Server services have been restarted.>> "%log_file_fdr%\%log_file%"

:end
exit
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How to Retreive List of Objects from an Universe

Visual walkthrough: How to extract list of all Objects, Conditions, Hierarchies, Tables, Joins, Contexts and Parameters from an Universe using Designer.

Topics Covered:
1) Exploring the Print/PDF Options of the Designer
2) Saving universe as PDF to get the list of all desired details of that universe

Steps:
[1] Once you have your universe opened, go to Tools > Options and select the appropriate options:



[2] Select your options. Make sure to select Objects and Hierarchies to get the tree structured view (see below, Step 6).



[3] Save the universe.



[4] Make sure to save the universe as PDF.



[5] Here's your universe summary:



[6] Universe details:



[7] And finally, snapshot of the actual universe; in this case, our favorite - Island Resort Marketing. You get the snapshot by selecting "Graphical Structure" from step 2.



End. 

How to create Custom LOVs in Dimensions

Video walkthrough - How to Create and or Edit Custom List Of Values (LOVs) in Dimensions of Business Objects Universes.

Topics Covered:

1) Creating and Editing Context based Custom LOVs

2) Sneak peak at how Business Objects actually generates all Dimensions' List Of Values

Scenario:

You have 35 Customers which is tied to a "Customer" dimension. Amongst these customers, 25 of them made reservations and they are tied to a dimension called "Reservations" and 21 of them actually converted into sales and they are tied to "Sales" dimension.

While creating reports using the universe containing the above dimensions, if your Marketing team wants to see only the 25 customers in their Query filter or if your Accounting department wants to see only the 21 customers in their Query filter while building WebI reports, we'd need to create 2 additional dimensions based off of the original "Customer" dimensions and we may call them "Reservations Customers" and "Sales Customers". From the Designer, we will have to go to the properties of these latter 2 dimensions and modify their default LOV.

Once we've successfully created custom LOVs of the 2 new customer dimensions, then if the Marketing team and the Accounting team drags in their respective customer dimensions in their Query Filter, they will only see 25 and 21 customers, not the entire list of 35 customers.

See video for complete walkthrough...

Migrate Universes from Development to Production

Universe Migration steps:

This is one of the ways to migrate a universe from Development to Production universe if you want to keep them consistent and identical.

We'll use a generic example: X and Y are the same universe in different environments-Development and Production respectively. It's always best practice to archive all universes that need to be updated, using Import Wizard's BIAR (Business Intelligence Archive Resource).

So we have:

* Dev Environment: Universe X

* Production Environment: Universe Y

1) Update: Universe X (add dimensions, tables, etc - update this universe)

2) Copy: Copy Universe X and name it "Universe X - Copy" (in Development)

3) Migrate: "Universe X - Copy" to Production from Development (Using Import Wizard)

4) Backup: Universe Y (Either create a copy of this in Production or BIAR it)

5) Designer: Open "Universe X - Copy" (in Production)

6) Data source: Update Data Source of "Universe X - Copy" with the Data Source of "Universe Y"

7) Publish to Prod: Rename / Replace "Universe X - Copy" to "Universe Y"

8) Delete Universe Connection that got carried over by "Universe X - Copy" from Dev to Production.

9) Delete "Universe X - Copy" from Production

10) Delete "Universe X - Copy" from Test

Finally, the updated Universe X from Development is now the new Universe Y in Production.