Business

Business Objects are designed for the business professionals to help them for retrieving the data from the corporate databases in such a way that they can access data directly from the desktop. The document created on retrieving data can be analyzed and presented in the formats known as Business Objects. These can be used by higher-level management as an OLAP tool as a major part of the decision-making system. In short, we can say that Business objects can be studied as reporting, integrated analysis, and query who have the purpose to detect solutions for business professionals by gaining data for them.

It has some characteristics which are described below:

• For Querying and Data Analysis: It provides Ad-hoc querying and complex data analysis.
• For Total cost: It offers total cost of ownership low because of integrated, highly available, scalable and have a BI enterprise platform.
• For User-Interaction: Data Objects are easy to use and highly user-friendly in just a quick amount of time.

Business Objects have many pros which are shown below:

• Due to extremely user-friendly, these are easy to use
• Have a good Graphical User Interface
• Used those Business Terms that are familiar to Business Professionals.
• Presents powerful reports for a small amount of time.
• With the use of Web I, these deploy the document on an enterprise basis
• Have dragging and dropping option

The designer is the module used by designers for developing and maintaining Universes. It is a set which is related to Business Object IS. Here Universe refers to the semantic layer which keeps apart the end users from the technical issues that may be associated with the databases. But Universe designers have the possibility to make available this to the end users. They can do this by moving these as a file through exporting files to the central repository or through the system of files.

There are mainly two kinds of modes linked with them. These are:

• Enterprise Mode
• Workgroup Mode

Business Objects provides the various data sources to access data from them but you have the possibility to access data from RDBMS. Here are some main databases which use RDBMS:

• Oracle
• MySQL
• IBM DB2

Custom hierarchies are defined in Universe to provide the drill down which is customized between the objects that may belong to the same or different classes according to the user needs. These can be created by selecting Tools option and after that select Hierarchies in BO designer. (Tools->Hierarchies in BO designer).

Drill Down is the type of procedure-related with multidimensional analysis which is inside the Business Object.

The chasm trap is created when the values in the fact tables get inflated. This condition arises in the dimensional schema-based universe because in this we have the only one-dimensional table which is joined with two fact tables. So, when we drag a measure from both fact tables and also dimensions from the dimension table, the value of flat tables that is measured gets inflated. This situation is known as a chasm trap.

Two methods to solve the chasm trap:

• Using SQL parameters: In the Universe SQL parameters, the option constructs a lot of queries for each measure that needs to be chosen. This helps in generating isolated SQL statements for each measure and provide the correct result.
• By joining different contexts: The better approach to solving the chasm trap is to include two joins in two different contexts which will generate two synchronized queries and hence the problem will be solved.

It represents the particular join path that can be between the tables or between the specific group of joins for an individual query. The object created on a column table from a specific context is compatible with all the objects from the same context by default. If the objects of different contexts are used, then to avoid any incorrect results or loopholes, separate SQL statements are used and the result from all statements is combined in a micro cube.

Creation of Context: Contexts can be generated manually or by the features available in the Context called as detect Context. In general, the contexts are created on the basis of business requirements or logical calculations, so detect context has not much use. To do manually follow the following steps:

• Go to Insert Context
• Provide the name to the context
• Choose the joins that should be present in a context

Your Context is ready. If you are creating Universe Context, then all the joins must fall in at least one context but shortcut joins can be excluded from the list

There are many @functions used in Business Objects. The list is shown below:

1. @Aggregate_Aware: This function is used to define one object for measures in fact table. This scenario is caused when we have the same fact table in different grains. The syntax is:
@aggregte_aware(highest_level.lower_level)
2. @Select: This function is re-used for an existing SELECT statement.
3. @Where: It is used to find the where clause of an existing object.
4. @Prompt: This function is used to ask the end user to enter any particular value in a given domain
5. @Script: It is used to recover the visual basics of applications’ macro’s result.
6. @Variable: The value assigned to the name or variable will be referenced using @Variable.

As clear from the name, a derived table is the table which is created using an SQL query in a universe from the database level. The columns of the derived table are the columns selected in the query.

Uses of Derived table:

• It is used for complex calculation while report level can’t use here. These types of calculations done in query level itself.
• Another use of derived tables is to access tables from a different schema with the help of dblink.

Yes, a derived table is different from view. A derived table is created in-universe while a view is created in a database level.

Generally, the view is preferred over a derived table in cases when the onus of calculation remains in a database and it does not load the BO server. But where the developers have not right to access the database, then a derived table is the only solution there.

In case, if we have three tables in a universe joined in such a way that the first table has a one to many joins with the second one and that second table has a one to many joins with the third table, this situation is known as fan trap. The value of the measure is inflated if the measure in the 2nd table is dragged along with any dimension of the 3rd table.

The solution of fan trap: To solve the condition of fan trap, create an alias of the middle table or 2ns table in such a way that if a normal table is joined with the first table then an alias which is created is joined with both 1st and 3rd table. We will use the other dimensions of the 2nd table from the alias table and the 2nd table’s measure from the normal table.

Index awareness is the property to assign indexes to the values of the universe. With the index awareness, the values in the filter conditions of the queries providers that are built from the universe are replaced by their corresponding indexes. Usually, the values in the filter conditions arrive from the dimension table and a join is required with the fact table to gain this value. But, if an index awareness is implemented, there is no need for this join and hence this join is eliminated. To get the value, the query filter takes the corresponding index value from the fact table itself.

Implementation: To implement index awareness, first identify the dimension fields which are to be used in a query filter. First, find the keys tab in the edit properties of the object. In this tab, the primary key is defined from the source primary key of the table from which the object is derived. And the relationship of the database columns for all foreign key with the other tables has to be defined here. The universe becomes index aware if this is done for all the required dimensions.

Linked Universes includes those universes which have the property to share the common components such as classes, joins, parameters and joins. The one universe has the role of the core universe and other which is derived is called as a derived universe. The types of the universe are defined below in detail

There are mainly two types of linked universe. These are:

• Core Universe: It is the main universe to which the other universes are linked. It contains the common components of the derived universes. It represents the re-usable library for the components. Depending on the behavior of components of the core universe, it can be classified as master or kernel universe.
• Derived Universe: The derived universe contains a link to the core universe which helps derived universe to share the components of core universe. If the linked universe is kernel universe, then components can be added to the derived universe. Otherwise, if it is mater universe, then all the components of the core universe are contained in the derived universe.

There are three approaches to linking universes. These are:

Kernel Universe Approach:

• In this approach, the one universe contains the core components which are then added to the derived universe.
• The derived Universe contains the core components of kernel universe as well as its own specific components.
• If any change is made in the kernel universe, that change also is shown in the derived universe.

Master Universe Approach:

• The master universe contains all the possible components
• Some components can be hidden in the derived universe according to the relevance of target users. And the visible components in the derived universe are always a subset of the master universe.
• In derived classes, new classes and objects can’t be added.
• Any change made in Master Universe will be reflected in the derived universe.

Component Universe Approach:

• The two or more than two universes are merged in one universe and made a single universe.
• The components of all the universes are combined in a single universe.

Drill modes help to analyze the data from the different angles and different states of details. There is mainly four type of drill modes. These are:

• Drill Up: This mode takes the user to the one level up in the hierarchy.
• Drill Down: It has the capability to allows the user to analyze the data deeply by going deeper in the specific layers of that data.
• Drill by: Using this drill mode, we can analyze the other data that belongs to another hierarchy by moving in that hierarchy.
• Drill through: Instead of presenting the granular level of data to the user, it shows only the relevant data that being analyzed.

Slice: It is used to rename, reset and delete the blocks.

Dice: It is used to display and removes the data.

Slice works with Master/detail report while Dice turns the tables and cross tables into charts and vice versa.

1. Personal Connections: These are created by only one user while other users can’t use.
2. Shared Connections: In this type of connection, other users can also use my server which is a shared one.
3. Secured Connection: This type of connections overcomes the limit of above two connections. It has the rights which can be set on documents as well as objects.

Differences: The difference shown by the following table

There are many products which are related with Business objects and these are: