BO Q's - 3

1) Is there any way to set up a prompt that will allow a

     User to select one value, many values, or type 'ALL' for all values in a list?

Ans: (@Select (Sales Geography\Country Group) IN @Prompt ('Select Country Group or enter * for all groups','a','Sales Geography\Country Group',multi,free) ) OR

('*' in @Prompt ('Select Country Group or enter * for all groups','a','Sales

Geography\Country Group',multi,free))

2) What is the limit on the number of objects I can pick from a list of values    and    can I increase the limit?

Ans: BusinessObjects restricts the number of objects that can be picked from a list of values to '99'. It is possible to increase this limit by adding a MAX_INLIST_VALUES value to your database prm file. This parameter is not in any driveren.prm file by default. To use it, you must enter it in the [RDBMS] section under the (GENERAL) subsection. If you do not enter this parameter, the default value is 99.

       Your database has a constraint on the number of values that can be present in an inlist condition. Oracle for example, allows thousands of values.

3) How can I calculate the number of hours between two dates?

Ans: The best way to do it (and the fastest) is to do it in the database. If you simply subtract the two days, you will get a number in the format D.T, where "D" is the number of days, and "T" is the fraction of days in decimal form

4) How do I create cascading or nested prompts?

Ans) Let's start at the Highest Level that we'd need a prompt for. That would be the Resort itself, since we need to know what Resorts we're interested in.

       Edit the List of Values for the Resort object.

       Check the Automatic Refresh Before Use option.

       Click Edit.

       Bring Country into the Conditions and set it to: in list Prompt

       Click Save and Close

       Click Apply and edit the next LOV object

5)  I've deleted a universe and I'm in a mess! What do I do now?

   Ans) A  repository backup that your DBA could restore to a temporary location.

           Import the Universe from that Location using Supervisor or Designer   Module.

                                                     

6)  What is synchronization?

   Ans) Synchronization happens when BO creates two queries for you but doesn't really understand how to merge the result sets. Say you have a product table, an inventory table, and a sales table. You join products to inventory on product code and place that join in the inventory context. You join products to sales and place that join in the sales context. Create the product code object from the product table, the inventory measure from the inventory table, and the sales measure from the sales table. When you create a report in the query panel, you'll get two JOINED queries.

           BO understands that it can write a query with inventory and product and another with sales and product and put them back together by product code.

            If you're getting synchronized queries, you've got messed up contexts, joins not in the proper contexts or objects in the query that aren't from dimension tables joined to both facts. It is very rarely ever acceptable to have synchronized queries.

7)  How do I migrate universes between repositories?

  Ans)   It is not advisable to have multiple repositories, sometimes it is necessary.

            Log into Designer, using the Key of the repository that currently contains     the universe.

            Import the universe.

           Click on File - Save As, and, in the Save As dialogue box, check "Save for all users".

           Click Save, and then Yes, to overwrite the existing universe.

           Log back into Designer, using the Key for the destination repository.

           Open the universe, and give it a new connection.

           Export the universe.

8)   What's the difference between secured, personal, shared, full-client, and ZABO connections?

 Ans)  There are three types of connections:

         Secured: stored in the repository

         Personal: stored on the workstation, and usable only by the BusObj user that        created it

         Shared: stored on the workstation, but usable any BusObj user.

      

         Your method of connecting to the repository:

  

           Full-client (FC) means you are using middleware that is on your workstation

           ZABO means the middleware is on the ZABO server.

          

           Method  Sec  Per  Shr

                   FC         Y    Y    Y

                   ZABO    Y   N   N

9)  What is a fan trap; why is it a problem, and how do I resolve it?

    Ans)  A Fan Trap is a one - many - many relationship. This would happen if you are using a Summary and a Detail table in one query. Fan Traps can cause numbers to multiply. Business Objects resolves this transparently by using 2 queries.

10)  What is a chasm trap; why is it a problem, and how do I resolve it?

   Ans) The Chasm trap occurs when two "many to one" joins converge on a single table. It is a one - many - one relationship. You will get incorrect results when the following circumstances exist:

           A "many to one to many relationships" exists among three tables in the universe structure. The query includes objects based on two tables both at the "many" end of their respective joins. There are multiple rows returned for a single dimension.