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.
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.
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.
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.
I want to build a website that displays data from an external databases. The data must be displayed in the form of charts, because charts are more expressive. I've never developed any websites yet, can anyone give me some advice about existing web frameworks and what are the advantages and disadvantages of them?
Which framework should I choose? The data are stored in an SQL Server. Because new data report types might be required in the future, the framework must be easy to modify and expand.
This is purely subjective and there are many answers to this. With that said I'll tell you what I'd use:
You mentioned that your database is using SQL Server. I'll assume that you'll want to host your website on a windows server for sake of argument. Given that, I'd choose either ASP.NET or ASP.NET MVC given that they are natural picks for a windows server hosting websites on IIS. Then I'd find myself a nice jQuery charting plugin see this SO question.
Does anyone know good ways/tools/approaches for using Crystal Reports with Salesforce.com?
I know that Crystal Reports for Salesforce exists but I'm wondering what other possibilities there are...
It looks like your data is tied up with salesforce.com if you can export data you could use crystal reports independent of salesforce.com.
Other links on exporting data:
http://sfdc.arrowpointe.com/2008/04/28/do-you-backup-your-salesforce-data/
http://ideas.salesforce.com/article/show/97976/Export_All_via_Data_Loader
http://ideas.salesforce.com/article/show/23579/Scheduled_Data_Export_to_backup_database
Our solution may not work for you, but we've decided to host our reports on an external reportserver which is written in c# and exposes a SOAP based web service because the Crystal Reports for Salesforce solution you mentioned didn't offer us the flexibility we needed.
The process is essentially:
Salesforce makes a soap based call to the report server
Report server collates data from Salesforce via the Salesforce Soap API
Report server renders the report and returns it to salesforce
To answer my own question, we eventually decided to set up a local read-only copy of the Salesforce database in MS Sql Server, and develop reports based on that. This allowed the report-writing people to use all the familiar SQL tools they know, without the restrictions on what-can-be-joined-to-what that the native Salesforce database has.
We're using a piece of software called DBAmp to do this - It makes Salesforce appear in SQL Server as a 'linked server', and provides stored procedures you can use to download entire Salesforce tables, or just download changes to a Salesforce table since the last time. This makes it very easy to set up a local copy of the data that gets updated every night.