Linking Dimensions across different data providers.

Some times you need to define more than one data provider in your report. A common example if you trying to build master detail report having actual data divided between 2 data base table. In this case you have to create 2 separate data providers. While you creating the second one, a pop up wizard will prompting you to link the common dimension between 2 data source. If there are common dimensions between the 2 data sources and with same of type, name and same list of values them the linking will done automatically without the need to prompt the user for action.
If you creating a report that reads data from one database data source and the other reads from an excel file, and there is a common dimension that you need to link with. Just open
Data --> View Data --> definition tab then select your dimension from the left pan.
You will notice the link button at the bottom of the page.
When you click on the link button a window with 2 pans will displayed. You can select the dimension that you want to link with from the right pan while you can select the dimension that you want to link to from the left pan. Click the link button in the middle area.
If you want to unlink 2 dimensions then Go to Data --> View Data --> Definition tab then select your dimension from the left pan and click unlink button.
Example # 1:

Universe # 1 (Current Account Universe)
Class	Object Name	Dimension / Measure	Type
Customer Segment	Segment Code	Dimension	Number
	Segment Description	Dimension	Char
Customer Sub Segment	Sub Segment Code	Dimension	Number
	Sub Segment Description	Dimension	Char
Program	Program Code	Dimension	Number
	Program Description	Dimension	Char
Regional Information	Region	Dimension	Char
	Area	Dimension	Char
	Branch	Dimension	Char
Time	As of Date	Dimension	Date
	Week	Dimension	number
	Month	Dimension	char
	Quarter	Dimension	char
	Year	Dimension	number
Measures	Balance	Measure	number
	profit	Measure	Number
Universe # 1 (Current Account Universe)
Class	Object Name	Dimension / Measure	Type
Customer Segment	Segment Code	Dimension	Number
	Segment Description	Dimension	Char
Customer Sub Segment	Sub Segment Code	Dimension	Number
	Sub Segment Description	Dimension	Char
Program	Program Code	Dimension	Number
	Program Description	Dimension	Char
Regional Information	Region	Dimension	Char
	Area	Dimension	Char
	Branch	Dimension	Char
Time	As of Date	Dimension	Date
	Week	Dimension	number
	Month	Dimension	char
	Quarter	Dimension	char
	Year	Dimension	number
Measures	Credit card balance	Measure	number
	Credit card profit	Measure	Number

 
Report # 1

	Current Account		Credit Card
Segment	Balance	Profit	Balance	Profit
High Affluent
Mass
Lower Mass

 
In this example we want to retrieve current account data from current account universe and to retrieve credit card data from credit card universe. Some one may ask why we don't keep both tables in the same universe and make just one query to retrieve date. This may happen because we want to make separate universes for separate products.
Create first data provider:

• Universe: Current account

• Dimensions: Year
• Measures: Balance and profits.
• Filter: year = 2009

Create second data provider:

• Universe: Credit Cards
• Dimensions: Year
• Measures: Credit Cards Balance and Credit Cards profits.
• Filter: Year = 2009

In this report the linking will done automatically because the year dimension have the same name, type and list of values across the 2 universes.
What if the segment dimension having different name in credit card universe? Customer group for example. In this case when you create the second data provider the linking window will displayed to prompt the user to select the linking dimension.
Example # 2:
Now if you have an excel file with loans data and you want to include loans information in your report.
Excel file Data

Segment	Balance	profit
High Affluent
Mass
Lower Mass

 
You will need to do as follow:

• Open your report.
• Create a new data provider based on another data source.
• Select excel file.
• Complete the wizard.
• Go to Data --> View Data --> Definition tab then select your dimension from the left pan and click link button.
• Link segment dimension form loans data provider with segment dimension from current account data provider.

Manage Security with business objects designer.

If you are a universe designer, you will need to specify access levels for groups and users for your universe.

To manage user and group access to your universe do as follow:

• Tools à Manage Security à Manage Access restrictions
  
• The window divided into 2 pans
  
  • The left pan displays available restrictions
    
  • The right ban display users and group.
    

Restrictions:

• Object level: you can restrict user or group from access a specific object.
  
• Row level: you can restrict user or group from access specific rows from specific table based on criteria.
  
• Table mapping: display data from another table for user or group.
  
• General restriction: connection, control, SQL
  

Example:

We want to create the following restrictions:

• Restrict user / group from accessing profit object. (object level)
  
• Restrict user / group to display VIP customer's data based on VIP flag column. (row level)
  
• Display data for retail users / groups from retail data table instead of displaying it from the corporate table. (table mapping)
  
• Limit number of rows retrieved by user query (general)
  

 

To preview user and group access to your universe do as follow:

• Tools à Manage Security àpreview net access restrictions.
  
• Select user or group that you want to preview access for.
  
• Click preview.
  

Notes:

• You can create mixed restriction that mix many types of restrictions (object, row, table mapping and general)
  
• If you apply the same restriction to more that one group then you can specify priority for them.
  

What is Scope of Analysis?

Scope of Analysis is one of the most powerful features in business objects. Now you can easily build your custom hierarchies and use them in your report to navigate through data. To make it easy I will consider a small example then go step by step starting from building the universe and end with how to use the drill feature to navigate through data.

Example:

We have one fact table that contains daily sales and number of customers against branches.

Fact Table:

As of Date	Branch CD	Number of Customer	Total Sale
30-Nov-2008	101	10	4245
30-Nov-2008	102	30	543
30-Nov-2008	103	20	6434
30-Nov-2008	104	40	6543
30-Nov-2008	105	28	3264
30-Nov-2008	106	36	657
30-Nov-2008	107	48	677
30-Nov-2008	108	48	675
31-Dec-2008	101	45	546
31-Dec-2008	102	54	765
31-Dec-2008	103	63	658
31-Dec-2008	104	23	768
31-Dec-2008	105	98	876
31-Dec-2008	106	67	786
31-Dec-2008	107	34	453
31-Dec-2008	108	21	564
31-Jan-2009	101	23	546
31-Jan-2009	102	43	545
31-Jan-2009	103	67	654
31-Jan-2009	104	32	654
31-Jan-2009	105	45	675
31-Jan-2009	106	21	765
31-Jan-2009	107	45	675
31-Jan-2009	108	67	546
28-Feb-2009	101	64	657
28-Feb-2009	102	21	865
28-Feb-2009	103	36	324
28-Feb-2009	104	73	143
28-Feb-2009	105	15	432
28-Feb-2009	106	24	324
28-Feb-2009	107	53	324
28-Feb-2009	108	21	532
31-Mar-2009	101	64	321
31-Mar-2009	102	54	432
31-Mar-2009	103	23	543
31-Mar-2009	104	25	543
31-Mar-2009	105	53	546
31-Mar-2009	106	21	564
31-Mar-2009	107	68	544
31-Mar-2009	108	54	654
30-Apr-2009	101	34	546
30-Apr-2009	102	43	654
30-Apr-2009	103	21	567
30-Apr-2009	104	54	764
30-Apr-2009	105	21	675
30-Apr-2009	106	65	765
30-Apr-2009	107	32	765
30-Apr-2009	108	11	745
31-May-2009	101	33	546
31-May-2009	102	45	547
31-May-2009	103	56	564
31-May-2009	104	78	544
31-May-2009	105	98	654
31-May-2009	106	76	546
31-May-2009	107	65	654
31-May-2009	108	54	567

 

Branch hierarchy Table:

Region		Area		Branch CD	Branch
Central		First Area Riyadh		101	Branch 101
Central		First Area Riyadh		102	Branch 102
Central		Second Area Riyadh		103	Branch 103
Central		Second Area Riyadh		104	Branch 104
West		Jeddah		105	Branch 105
West		Jeddah		106	Branch 106
West		Mekkah		107	Branch 107
West		Mekkah		108	Branch 108

 

Time hierarchy Table:

As of Date		Month		Quarter	Year
30-Nov-2008		Nov		Q4	2008
31-Dec-2008		Dec		Q4	2008
31-Jan-2009		Jan		Q1	2009
28-Feb-2009		Feb		Q1	2009
31-Mar-2009		Mar		Q1	2009
30-Apr-2009		Apr		Q2	2009
31-May-2009		May		Q2	2009

 

 

Build The Universe:

To build the universe just adds the Fact Table and the 2 hierarchy tables. Make the proper joins and create 3 main classes:

 

Tables:

• Fact Table.
  
• Branch Hierarchy table.
  
• Time hierarchy table.
  

Classes (Universe window should be like this):

Fact Table (class)

----------------------

| -----> As of Date (Dimension)

| -----> Branch Code (Dimension)

| -----> Number of Customers (Measure) [Sum]

| -----> Total Sales (Measure) [Sum]

 

Time Hierarchy (Class)

----------------------

| -----> As of Date (Dimension)

| -----> Month (Dimension)

| -----> Quarter (Dimension)

| -----> Year (Dimension)

 

Branch Hierarchy:

-----------------------

| ----->Region (dimension)

| ----->Area (dimension)

| ----->Branch CD (dimension)

| ----->Branch (dimension)

Joins:

First Table		Second Table	Join criteria
Fact Table		Branch Hierarchy table	Branch CD = Branch CD
Fact Table		Time hierarchy table	As of Date = As of Date

 

Hierarchies:

By default in business objects it consider every dimension created as a standalone hierarchy. By for some cases as our example you want to define a custom hierarchy like time, geographical information and customer segmentation…etc. in our example we need to build 2 custom hierarchies.

Click on hierarchies button from the editing tool bar or go Tools --> Hierarchies

Select the custom hierarchy option and then start building your hierarchy.

You can just add the Time Hierarchy class and Branch Hierarchy class from the left ban to the right ban. Or you can click new button from the right ban. Then type you hierarchy name. after that start adding dimensions from the left ban to your hierarchy tree. When you finish you can start order your hierarchy level by clicking move up and down buttons. Your hierarchy tree should be like this at the end:

Branch Hierarchy:

-----------------------

| --------- > Region

| --------- >Area

| --------- >Branch

Time Hierarchy:

----------------------

| --------- > As of Date

| --------- > Month

| --------- >Quarter

| --------- >Year

Note That if you even store all your data as detailed in one big table you will be able to build your hierarchy based on dimension that you will select to construct your customer hierarchies. For example assume if the fact table looks like this.

As of date	Month	Quarter	Year	Branch	Area	Region	No of Cust	Total Sales

 

This table is no more fact table and we call it a detail table.

 

Scope of analysis:

Now after we finish bulding our univers let go and build our report. Assume that we just need to build a very simple report like this

Year	2008		2009
Region	No of Cust	Total Sales	No of Cust	Total Sales
center	342	23432	234	23432
west	234	23424	424	324

 

Create a new report based on our universe that we build earlier. Select region, year, number of customer and total sales then run the report. After that click on the drill icon (Analysis --> Drill) and then right click on any of the selected dimension (region, year) you will find that there is no option to drill by.

Now edit data provider (Data --> Edit data provider) and click view SQL button for the tool bar. You will find that the data selected are just the four columns that we have selected. Now to find what Scope of Analysis do click on the Scope of Analysis button and select both time and branch hierarchies. Please note that you can expand the hierarchies build before and select a specific dimensions. Let's assume that you want to analysis your figures by quarter, and year only and you are not interested in monthly figures or daily figures. Then all what you need is to put a check mark in the check box beside year and quarter in the time hierarchy tree when you open the scope of analysis window.

Now click again on view SQL button and note that all dimension with a check make beside in scope of analysis added to your SQL statement even if you didn't select them in the query builder window (remember that we have selected 2 dimensions [region and year])

Run the report after that.

 

Drill:

After running the report click on drill icon (analysis à drill) and then right click on region you will find that you can do the following:

• Drill down: will go to the second level of the hierarchy. In our example it will display the area information and note that there is a drill down filter (combo box) displayed in the drill down filter tool bar. If you right click again on are and select drill down you will go to the second level (branch) and so on. If you filter on a specific region from the drill down menu it will just display the selected region date.
  
• Drill up: will go a level up. If you were in area and click on drill up it will return back to region.
  
• Drill by: a menu will displayed contains all hierarchy that you have selected in scope of analysis. The menu should be like this if you right click on region dimension
  
• Drill by:
  Area
  Branch
  ----------
  Quarter
  

 

• Drill through: to select another dimension that you didn't select in scope of analysis. In our example it will be month because we select year and quarter only from the time hierarchy tree.
  

 

• Scope of analysis: if you want to update hierarchies that you want to analysis your data according to.
  
• Set as drill filter: make this column a drill filter that you can filter your report data from it.
  

 

Universe

A universe is a data abstraction layer which is built with the BusinessObjects Designer tool. The universe dose not contains any data itself, it only acts as an interface. This layer is where you define your "Business Objects" [Dimensions, Measures, Details and Filters] according to your business requirements. You will need also to define a valid database connection to the database schema that you want to use to build your universe. Then you can select tables you want or create new derived tables from the existing ones. You can also create joins between tables or let the designer tool automatically detect any reference join defined in the database schema by a reference constrain. The good point is, if the schema for the data base is changed later you will not need to go through all old reports that you build to change them. Just when you change them once in universe it will be reflects in all reports.

This is a simple way to understande the roll of the universe
Database --> Schema (Tables + Columns) --> Universe (Objects [Dimentions, measures, detailes and filters]) --> report.