I tried to google this but I failed.
Is there a way (I know it is, found this link but with insufficient details) to connect to crystal server's database?
We are runnig many reports daily which sometimes fail, sometimes don't run at all, we accept this as a part of server imperfection. The issue is, that checking each reports instance through CMC is very inconvenient and time consuming. If I could check it directly in some other way it would be much easier to manage.
The server version is 12.0
While the CMS repository is a plain database, querying it directly (using SQL) is discouraged, unsupported and generally a bad idea.
If you want to query the repository, you have several other options:
Use the built-in Query Builder web application (a web application called AdminTools, normally deployed on your application server). This offers a SQL-like interface for querying the repository, though a lot of SQL features are not available (e.g. table joins). Official documentation is also generally lacking for Query Builder, but if you're interested, there's a very good guide available here.
Use the Java or .NET SDK to query the repository. SDK documentation is available on SAP SCN. This is the most powerful option, but also requires you to do everything yourself. And it will take some time to become familiar with all the different classes and how they relate to the BI Platform.
Use a 3rd-party tool. Different solutions exist, with different feature sets, although it seems that most stopped working when BI4 came out, and the ones that exist usually require a server component as well.
Additional information:
How to browse CMS repository (SAP Wiki)
Query Builder in BO – Browse / Query BO Repository
BusinessObjects Query builder - Basics
Using Query Builder to Explore Your BusinessObjects Repository
You could also more-or-less automate the querying of the repository (although it's very basic) by following the instructions outlined in this blog post.
Related
Is is possible to do reporting (using crystal report or any third party tool) in .Net core with Postgres as a database?
I searched quite a lot but I couldn't find any solution to this. Need guidance in the right direction for this.
I would recommend choosing a reporting technology, which doesn't depend on your "technology stack" or vice versa.
I'm using SQL Server Reporting Services (which support many different database engines):
generate Reports via HTTP url access
embed Reports within Websites too
"manage" Reports via SOAP
In fact, everything happens using ordinary HTTP requests. I could be using any technology, which speaks HTTP...
I've no idea what you're trying to achieve ("do reporting" isn't that specific, you know ;)), but maybe it helps.
Morning all,
I have recently deployed Crystal Reports 2013 and Crystal Server 2013 in a test environment, as we are currently using the 2008 version of both products.
As this deployment is in a test environment; I am keen to implement and try out as much as possible to implement the best solution as possible.
One of the things I have enabled is Auditing. Once set-up I went looking for the best way to utilise this but everything seems to allude to needing a Universe creation tool (Information Design Tool) which I don't have and can't obtain, as our SAP products are provided via a third party and we don't have access to the BI Client Tools.
So I'm back to trying to figure this all out via custom Crystal Reports.... I've read plenty of articles, one which provided me with the links needed between the Database Tables, but there don't seem to be any articles on what tables etc to use.
Has anybody done this?
Thanks in advance for any help, I'm tearing my hair out at the minute!
Direct RBMS access
Have a look at the official SAP documentation (I'm using the BusinessObjects manuals, but information in them should apply to Crystal Server as well), more specifically the Business Intelligence platform Administrator Guide (SP doesn't really matter, auditing doesn't tend to change much within a major release).
There are two sections that are important for you:
The Auditing chapter, more specifically the section regarding Audit events.
The Auditing Data Store Schema Appendix, which contains all the detail regarding the audit schema you could need.
Using a universe
Have a look at the SCN blog post Unlock the Auditing database with a new Universe and Web Intelligence Documents for BI4.1. It contains a download link to an LCMBIAR file which you can import into your BI4 environment, without the need for a universe client tool. There's also a webinar and documentation available. The prebuilt WebI documents should save you a lot of time.
Requirements:
BI Platform BI 4.1 Support Pack 5 or greater for the Web Intelligence Documents
BI Platform BI 4.1.x for the Audit database to be queried
Instructions:
Download the content (take the highest build numbered zip file)
Import one of the five 'Universe' LCMBIAR files into your system using Promotion Management (it will go into BI Platform Auditing folder)
Import the Web Intelligence LCMBIAR file (it will go into BI Platform Auditing folder)
Edit the connection that is imported (in BI Platform Auditing folder) with the correct login credentials.
Open the Web Intelligence document STA1 - Start here - Events over time.wid as your starting point!
The only issue might be with step 4, where you need to edit your connection. I don't know if you'd be able to edit the imported connection through the Crystal Reports application?
A question regarding the integration of the document management system Alfresco into Oracle Application Express (APEX) based on CMIs-repository:
The aim is to use APEX as the portal-page and Alfresco showing it's results (document lists) based on search parameters coming form APEX.
A search result from a CMIS-query should be displayed in an APEX page-region.
Unfortunately I have no experience in this sector (REST, CMIS) - so any advice would be welcome!
A related question regarding user authentication and authorization via CMIS does also arise.
Has anyone out there implemented something like this or used these components together, yet?
The first thing that pops into my mind is making the choice where you want your communication with the repository to take place: client side or server side?
Alfresco supports Web Scripts, so I would be possible to create a javascript-heavy thick client which connects to your repository, get information about your files and redirect to their download links.
The alternative would be to design some way to connect to the repository from the database server. Again there are many ways to do this. You can connect to the repository during your page load and use PL/SQL regions to fire scripts that connect to your repository, get the data you want, and render your region with that information.
Another way would be to periodically check the repository for changes, and maintain a 'shadow copy' of the repository within your oracle database tables.
Of course all of these solutions have their own drawbacks.
There are some queries for which we need resolution before we purchase sitefinity 5.0 license. I would really appreciate if could get answers to these
What are the recommended guidelines to setup the sitefinity project in the source control? If there 4 to 5 developers working on the project, what should be the starting point in setting up the initial codebase? Do every developer has to create the sitefinity website and DB on their dev-boxes?
Is it recommend to setup a common DB for the sitefinity website where all the dev-machine would be connecting to do the development, if not what is the alternative approach?
Is there any online documentation available related to build and release of sitefinity web applications, other than publishing from within the visual studio?
Thanks
Gaurav
We've been developing with Sitefinity since version 2, with multiple developers.
To answer your questions specifically:
Have a single developer (ideally your lead dev) create a clean sitefinity visual studio solution on their local machine. Check it into your source control repository and have each additional developer pull down a copy from there. You're now all in sync.
In terms of database location, two approaches work - either have each person run a local database, and in the web.config setup the connection string location as . (i.e. local). That way no one needs to check out the web.config to run it. Otherwise use a common development/testing server for the database. We've found the easiest way is to each have a local DB, unless multiple devs are working on very specific tasks together at the same time.
I have not seen any online documentation related to building outside of visual studio. If you have TFS or a MS build server, it should work fine as well.
In general, there is nothing 'special' about Sitefinity's architecture that separates it from any other .NET / MSSQL solution. Best practice that falls under these technologies still applies.
My experience with source control has been one of two options. If you are using SQLExpress user instance databases (that is an mdf in the App_Data folder) I've found versioning everything except this database file and the dataconfig.config file in the configurations folder will allow every developer to run their own copy of the website.
from there you can either do some kind of manual merge of the database or just create a new one for deployment.
This option works best if your developers are simply working on features, and don't need to be working on an actual website, modifying content that has to keep in sync.
Alternatively, if they do need to work with live content and it all has to be the same, create the database in a shared server they all have access to, and version everything (since the connection string should be the same for both).
This works best if your developers are doing work to support existing content as opposed to say creating modules that manipulate the database (creating tables, columns, etc), because keep in mind with this method, everyone will be accessing and modifying the same database.
Personally, my preference is option 1, because it allows each developer full control over their environment. the source could then be merged and shadowed to a staging server, so that the main site content is only affected by this one instance.
I hope this is helpful!
I would like to use the information contained in BusinessObjects repository as a datasource for a Crystal Reports. Unfortunately, this information isn't persisted in a simple table structure--most of the properties are stored in encrypted, binary fields.
The are a number of ways to access BO's repository:
'traditional' SDK (Java, COM, .Net)
SOAP SDK (http://[server:port]/dswsbobje/services/listServices)
query tool (http://[server:port]/businessobjects/enterprise[11|115|12]/adminlaunch/query/)
Option 1 won't work in my situation, as I would like to deploy the reports with BO Enterprise, rather than a customized web application.
Option 2 may work, but I'm not certain how well Crystal Reports interfaces with SOAP, especially since it would need to connect to a second SOAP service for authentication.
Option 3 doesn't work because it returns HTML (not XHTML)
My most-viable option at this point is to re-write #3 to return an XML document and create the supporting XSD. If I do so, I'll probably post the solution on github.
Another option would be to (somehow) add a REST wrapper around the SOAP services. This sounds like a pretty daunting task.
Has anyone had any success doing what I need to do?
The SOAP option would be the most straight-forward, as enabling Web Services is a very simple option toggle in one the XML config files followed by a restart of Tomcat.
REST options may be available already, but would depend on your specific BO version. I'm pretty sure that Explorer had some type of REST option during the XI R2 era, and as of BO 4.0, SP4, you should be able to do this: http://help.sap.com/businessobject/product_guides/boexir4/en/xi4_bip_rest_ws_en.pdf
Finally, you have the option of direct ODBC access to the repository database. As of 4.0, MS SQL Server 2008 is the default for Windows, IBM DB2 for unix or linux, but MySQL (the prior default option) can still be used as well. ANy of these should be straight forward to access, and provide more detail than the standard repo interface.
If you go that direct-access route, for security reasons I would recommend a proxy setup, or replication into a database that already handled your reporting needs.