BO Interview Qs

Question What is the difference between detect alias and detect context?

Answer

We should use Detect Aliases and Detect Contexts to formally identify and resolve loops. i.e.if a loop contains only one lookup table then the loop can be resolved by detecting the alias. If a loop is having 2 or more fact tables(multiple fact tables) then the loop can be resolved by detecting context.

Question

How many ways we test the universe & Report?

Answer

By doing integrity check we can test universe & By coping report query and run in backend(oracle,sql server...) we can test the data by comparing both.

Question

What is the multi value error ? Is there any types of Error in BO\

Yes,#MULTIVALUE error is there in BO.It's common when u r trying to use multi valued multiple objects in section. Answer Go through error documentation for further details...

Question

What is difference between custom hierarchy and report based heirarchy?

Answer

By default one class having one hierarchy ie called report hierarchy.Custom hierarchy we can create in designer

according our req.

Question

Can we apply Rank and Sort at a time on a single report

Answer

No we can't apply rank and sort at a time on one object in one single report.If we try to apply , BO asks if you want to over write the previous condition.

Question

What?s universal join in BOs?

Answer

The level of join between two universe with a matching coloumn

Question

I have three predefined prompts. In a report it will come randomly. How they will come in a specified format?

The Prompts will appear in the alphabetical order. To make them appear in the order of our requirement, need to prefix a numerical with the prompt Answer Actually you can sort prompts Eg: @Prompt('End Date','a','Hidden Objects\Collect Date Prompt',mono,free,, {'Today'},User:7) This will put End Date as the "seventh" prompt.

Question

What are the user requirements in a universe?

Answer

Database connections, key column, joins and check for loopif you need mesures, metrics,

Question

When to use local filter and when to use global Filter?

Answer

Think this should be in the Reporter Forum but, a local filter would apply to just a single block (table, cross tab or chart) within your report. a global filter would apply to all blocks in your report, so if you had many tables the filter would apply to all of them

Question

Give the notes and functionalities of cascading prompts,@script in business objects

Syntax @Prompt ('message', ['type'], [lov], [MONO|MULTI], [FREE| CONSTRAINED]) where message is the text of a message within single quotes. type can be one of the following: 'A' for alphanumeric, 'N' for number, or 'D' for date. lov can be either a list of values enclosed in brackets (each value must be within single quotes and separated by commas) or the name of a class and object separated by a backslash and within single quotes. MONO means that the prompt accepts only one value. MULTI means that the prompt can accept several values. FREE refers to free input as opposed to CONSTRAINED, which means that the end user must choose a value suggested by the prompt. Description Is used to create an interactive object. In the Query Panel, this type of object causes a message to appear. This message prompts the end user to enter a specific value. Note The last four arguments are optional; however, if you omit an argument you must still enter the commas as separators. Example In Where Clause: City.city IN @Prompt ('Choose City', 'A', {'Chicago', 'Boston', 'New York'}, MULTI, FREE) In the Query Panel, the object prompts the end user to choose a city.

Answer

Question

what all will be exported to the repository, when we export a

universe ?

when we export a universe first time,a unique identifier is allocated to the universe and this identifier is updated on the local version of the universe in the universe domain. If we export the universe to a diff,domain and now the universe has an identifier for diff-domain (EX:exporting a universe from a development domain to a production domain) when a designer exports the universe to the Repository (universe domain) they must export all the related LOV files(which contains the data values associated with an object) to the document domain.

Answer

Question

is there any other repository domains rather than universe,security,doccument?

Answer

No there are only 3 repository domains for BO 6.5 i.e universe, security and document.

Question

What is a Data Cube ? What is its use ?

Data cube will present in BO tool. Answer Data cube is used for storing the data values which we are using in the documents.We can clear the data cube by using purge command.Data provider is used to retrived the datas from data cube to documents.

Question

Are Data mart and DWH normalised or denormalised ? Do both of them exist in the same tier ?

Answer

Yes both can exist on the same tier because Datamart is a subset of data warehouse and it supports a particular region, business unit or business function. The data in the Datamart and DWH is Denormalized and optimized for OLAP systems.

Question

State the difference between Webi and Infoview

In infoview you can create a webi documents i.e wid documents, you can open, schedule, save it as an excel or pdf or business objects document(.rep). Answer Webi is a part of Infoview Info view is portal, thru which u can access webi, webi is web based reporting tool.

Question

clearly explain the difference between union and group

The difference between union and group is as follows: take two tables t1 and t2.in t1 we have columnss like a,b,c,d. and t2 has a,d,e,f.so union means t1 union t2 i.e getting result from both tables i.e a,b,c,d,e.,f where as group performs on a indiviual column in a particular table. Union:- is used to combine the data of more than two tables which are having same structure Group:- is used to combine same type of data of a perticular column of table

Answer

Question

My query takes 30 min to refresh ...there is any performance tunning is there to reduce refresh time?

- make sure to have the right context Answer - apply right indexes on the tables

Question

Can someone please give some information on REPORT BURSTING and how to do it in BCA as i have to split the report and send diff reports to diff people

Answer

If some part of the data in your report is sensative, you can't risk sending the whole report to everybody, even to those who need to see the least sensative part of report ! Solution is Report Bursting. You can send reports to BCA for scheduled processing & distribution to users based on THEIR profiles (profile = user

rights) & not based on your profile ! BO 5 & WebI 2.5 procedure to do this : Open the document, click "Send to BroadCast Agent" on Doc Exchange toolbar. In Actions tab select "Refresh with the Profile of Each Recipient" In the Distributions tab select "Distribute via the Business Objects Repository. (only option to enable you for Report Bursting) click To, select recipients, Schedule it & OK. In WebI 2.5........... in Refresh options Select Scheduled Refresh & click send on Scheduling Options, Set "Refresh According to the profile of each recipient" to Yes & OK.

Question

Can you please clarify the difference between compatible and incompatible objects? when we will use these two?

When you are defining Aggregate tables in Universe design, you need to create hirarchies for aggregated objects, for that you need to make the relative objects incompatible (the objects which are of lower level of aggregation -- not of hirarchy). Answer If you have Year,Quarter,Month,Day as a hirarchy, while aggregation, you need to define as follows Year - Quarter,Month,Day Compatibles Quarter - Month, Day Compatibles, Year Non-compatible Month - Day Compatible, Year,Quarter Non-compatible

Question

What is thumbnail?

Answer

BusinessObjects Enterprise lets you preview a report using thumbnails. You can request the server to take a snapshot of the first page of the report and return it to the browser as an image file. This image can then be displayed as part of the Report Details page. To retrieve a thumbnail, a separate page needs to be created because the code that writes an image to the screen erases any text that may have previously been there.

Question

Can you please clarify the difference between compatible and incompatible objects?

We can select or choose compatable n incompatable objects through aggregator navigation in the designer. with this method the performance increases tremendously. Answer instead of checking for each n every object only the compatable objects are only looked for aggregate awareness. year:-month,quarter,week,day are compatable but customer class is incompatable .

Question

Can you please clarify the difference between compatible and incompatible objects?

We can select or choose compatable n incompatable objects through aggregator navigation in the designer. with this method the performance increases tremendously. Answer instead of checking for each n every object only the compatable objects are only looked for aggregate awareness. year:-month,quarter,week,day are compatable but customer class is incompatable .

Question

Can someone please let me know the things we can do in WEBi and cannot do it in FULL CLIENT and vice versa for BO6.5

) we can create\edit Universe in the full client but not in WebI Answer 2)WebI has comparatively less functions to use than in Full client 3) In Full Client we can write macros\addins but i am not sure whether we can do the same in WebI or not.

Question

What is the dense rank?

The DENSE_RANK function computes the rank of a row in an ordered group of rows. The ranks are consecutive integers beginning with 1. The largest rank value is the number of unique values returned by the query. Rank values are not skipped in the event of ties. Rows with equal values for the ranking criteria receive the same rank. The DENSE_RANK function does not skip numbers and will assign the same number to those rows with the same value. Hence, after the result set is built in the inline view, we can simply select all of the rows with a dense rank of three or less, this gives us everyone who makes the top three salaries by department number. ex: Give me the set of sales people who make the top 3 salaries that is, find the set of distinct salary amounts, sort them, take the largest three, and give me everyone who makes one of those values. SELECT * FROM ( SELECT deptno, ename, sal, DENSE_RANK() OVER ( PARTITION BY deptno ORDER BY sal desc ) TopN FROM emp ) WHERE TopN <= 3 ORDER BY deptno, sal DESC / DEPTNO ENAME SAL TOPN ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------10 KING 5000 1 CLARK 2450 2 MILLER 1300 3 20 SCOTT 3000 1 <--- ! (in case of rank JONES will have 3 and dense rank will have 2) FORD 3000 1 <--- ! JONES 2975 2 ADAMS 1100 3 30 BLAKE 2850 1 ALLEN 1600 2 30 TURNER 1500 3

Answer

Question

How to break a Date field into Year, month, week,day?(For example: I have a field INVOICE_DATE. Now i want to break it as Year, month..... i.e. in time dimension.) DO i need to have some changes in Universe?

Answer

Create objects in your universe with date functions.

Let's say your DB is Oracle. In your "Select" statement of new object called year, try to_char(INVOICE_DATE, 'YYYY') similarly for month create object called month & repeat process, simply replace'YYYY' with 'MM' of 'MMM' in the select statement. & so on.

Question

Currently I am sending the report to users in excel format,if there is no data also the report will be sent,Is there any option in BO to stop report from being sent if there is no data in the report?

Answer

The time interval will be fixed for sending the report If you are generating or not a default report will be sent regularly, to stop sending you have to condact your admin

Question

I would like to know if Business Objects can be installed on Solaris server. If no is their a way were in I can install BO on windows(Microsoft server) and interface it with Solaris (solaris has the crystal reports).

Answer

We can install BO in sun solaris server. Install the server components like Configuration tool & Administration console and configure the solaris machine as Primary node.

Question

How we drill up week to Month?

In data Warehouse when u change + symbol to - , u would c all the aggregation level in that + this is called rolling down. So if u again click over that - it would again compressed back to +. This is call drill up. Answer your Aggregation levels woudl b like Year>Month>Week>Day>Hour>Minutes>Seconds. So by changing the symbol from - to + at month aggregation level u can drill up.

Question

What is the diferrence between slice and dice and cross tab report?

Answer

Cross tab report is like at the intersection of 2 dimensions measure is displayed.like if we have two dimensions year and product and a measure revenu,revenue is displayed at the intersection of year and product.

Question

Product date sales p1 20/Jan/1999 100 p1 20/Feb/1999 200 p1 20/apl/1999 100 p1 20/DEC/1999 50 p1 20/Jan/2000 100 p1 20/mar/2000 500 now i want query like product ,sum of actual year ,sum of business year p1 450 750 here actual year means 1 Jan 1999 to 31 st Jan 1999 business year means 1 st APR 1999 to 31 st mar 200

Guess you can try this (select product,sales S_A_Y from info where date >= 1 st Jan 1999 & date =< 31 st Jan 1999 groupby product) sal1 , (select product,sales S_B_Y from info where date >= 1 st Apr 1999 & date =< 31 st Mar 2000 groupby product) sal2 where sal1.product=sal2.product ;

Answer

Question

What is the diferrence between slice and dice & drill through

Slice and dice means change the postion of the data like move the data from rows to columns drill mode means allow u to analyze the data in different angles and different levels of details.. Answer in drill mode different types of analysis's are there like drill up, drill down, drill accross, drill through. drill through means option to select any step or level directly from the current level.. these are the main difference between slice and dice and drill through

Question

How can we do load testing for Webi Reports? (Example if I have have to test one webi reoprt for Concurrent users refreshing report at one time)

You can do Load testing for Webi Reports using Load runner tool. 1) Install loadrunner in your system. ( to use loadrunner you need admin rights). 2) Generate loadrunner scripts. 3) Use controller(which is present in loadrunner) to get the results. Answer Using loadrunner tool you will get these results: a) Maximum Running Vusers: 50 ( Given by the testing person, you can increase virtual users if you want) b) hits per second. c)Average response time for every transaction like login,click on the particular link,logout etc., d) Errors per second. e) Connections per second.

Question

What is the difference between condition & filter.

Answer

Conditions: these retrievals the data based on the condition (universe level)Filter: it brings the data and filter; performance will be slow (report level)

Question

How achieve the many to many relation ship in Business Objects...

Answer

If you have two tables with many to many relation ship, take the keys of those tables and form a 1-1 relationship table. then you can connect both the existing tables to the newly formed table using the key.

Question

How to filter repeatative values in the report to get distinct

values. Example: In any database we can use distinct command But My Report source is flatfile.Therfore,I cann\'t manipulate source system. Is there any command or function to filter repeating records/values in the report.

Using the eliminate duplicates option is one way. In a clightly different scenario, duplicates could come up due to the design structure of the report. e.g. Answer In some specific cases, one may want to display a value in one field (say in a folded report) but multiple values come up (which could give you a COMPUTATION ERROR). To avoid such situation, one can define a variable which would e the max of the original field required. That ways the same value is fetched and also only one value is returned

Question

What is the diferrence beteeen tabular report& cross tab report

Answer

Tabular reports is a 2D format and Cross tab reports is a 3D format. Most of the operational/formated reports will be created in tabular form and most of the analytical reports are created in the cross tab report form (Product VS Year VS Sales amount)

Question

Can you add the Cascading promprts in Business Objects? (Based on Country prompt selection you need to provide the option to select Sate/Province in the next State prompt. That means dynamically refresh the data load in the state list values)

i know one approach ..we have to creeate these in Univrse design level.. Answer this makes some process.. that means..we have create objects..ans in conditional we to create prompts..

Question

What if a cartesian product pop up block appears when

running a report. Does it give wrong values? How to solve this issue?

Cartesian product is getting incorrect results. for instance if we have a cham trap or a fan trap n we din't solve them after checking the integrity also we get duplicate results of the same record ie nothing but cartesian product. Answer ex:we have customer,orders,loans classes orders for one product if the product_price is 150$ it will appear twice in the report due to traps bcoz of the cartesian product thats why to solve the cham trap we create context and in order to solve fan trap we create alias table.

Question

Which versions are used in the BO dashboard work?

Answer

Bo XI R2

Question

How do we test the reports in the business objects? How to creates the tabs in the reports?

Answer

In the central mangement consol one can test the report. jsut go to the link http://ipadress:port no/businessobjects/enterprise11/admin/en/admin.cwr .every thing can chk from the bo.

Question

When we use aggergate awarness function in designer?

1. In order to solve fan trap in busines objects we either create alias table or aggregate awareness function 2. Through aggregate navigation we can also select the compatable as well as incompatable objects Answer Ex:-year, quarter, month, week, day year:-quarter, month, week, day are compatable objects quarter:-year?class is incompatable and month, week, day are compatible. 3. We specify the objects in descending order

Question

What is meant by Object Stores?

Answer

Object store is nothing but the container of object which is created after rpt file run once.

Question

Please explain about Alerts in Bo's, Under what situation we need to use alerts

Answer

Here alert means to highlighted data in a particular report.in every report we can apply alerts situtation like, sales revenue per city wise.here city field we can apply alert,condition like sales revenue >=50,000

Question

What is drill filter and it's usage ? How many types of filters are there ?

Three types of drill is in BO.1.drill up,2.drill down,3.drill thro'. drill up means second->minutes->hour->->day Answer drill down means region->country->state->district drill thro'--wht ever u want that element

Question

What is report template in B.O?

Report Template is a specimen for your future reports. You create a report from scratch, say make it Master-Detail Report with charts, put your company logo, add some default colors(something like same colors your company uses for its documents, webpages etc.) & then save it as BO Report Template file. Answer Next time when you are creating new reports, & select use Templates option, your report saved as template will be listed in the box. If you select it, your new report will automatically use all color formats, & table-chart structures, logo....whatever you used in your template report file. Advantage : 1 time devaelopment of display & structure format, for multiple reports use. i.e. Time Saving. No need of formatting for all standard reports.

Question

How to schedule the report in B.O?

Answer

We can schedule the reports through broadcast agent.

Question

How many universes can be created in a project

Answer

We can create any number of universe, but at a time we can open only one universe, generally number of universes should be equal to number of sub-domains.

Question

How to generate the report from excel sheet?

Start BO, Select "Others" on Data Providers wizard page, from drop down menu, select "ersonal data files", Answer specify file location & check the box "First Row contains Column names" this will help you in creating Objects. click Ok. Start building your reports.......

Question

What is a derived table in data warehousing?

Answer

it is similar to views,it is mainly used to restrict the datas

Question

How to execute the plsql procedure from the report by clicking with mouse

Answer

We can select either tables or procedures or views as our data to generate our reports.In the designer in bo's we can select tab "insert" n select the particular data source for generating the report through mouse click.

Question

How to select different data providers in business objects?

Once you have your report generated, right click in the left window (your variables) click on "New Data Provider" follow the wizard. & you are done. Answer If trying to use diff. data provider for different reports, after creating 1 report, right click on the Report1 tab located at the bottom, click insert new then the procedure is same to add data provider.

Question

In the BO universe, how to link two universe, like i have one universe in sales.uni and another is marketing.uni

Answer

In BO Designer, from File Menu -> Parameters -> Links tab on Universe Parameters box. Click Add link to link the universe. The linking universe should be exported and imported from repository before linking.

Question

i have some queries that i have one project in bussiness objects, like computer pheripheral(nrps) for sales, in that i have face question like what is the main objectives of ur projects

Your objectives for this project will be your Report Requirements. whatever the requirements are baselined, you will develop the universes & create simple, complex reports. Requirements can be : Standard sales reports -- Location wise, product line /category wise etc. Complex Reports -- some reports using multi-data providers, report level variables & using report enhancements with the help of SDKs(.NET /JAVA) Ad-Hoc Reports -- Misc. reports which end users can create using your universes & are not the part of your Standard Reports. & Overall Objective will be ----------------Empowering the Key Decision Makers with historical Information in accurate, consistant,analytical format of flexible Reports (reports that can be sliced & diced as per requirements) for accurate & predictive Strategic Decision making.

Answer

Question

What is a fantrap in Business Objects?

Actually FAN TRAP is a problem that occurs in Universe Level. Loop occurs while we design the universe. Two Types of Loop Problem: 1) FANTRAP PROBLEM solved by ALIAS METHOD: Definition: Two One-to-many table link eachother is in turn linked another one-to-many table. Answer 2) CHASM TRAP PROBLEM solved by CONTEXT METHOD: Definition: Two Many-to-one table converges on one single lookup table. Loop can be detected while INTEGRITY CHECK is done. An option is there as "Check for LOOPS" available. By "Detect Loop" we can choose what to be applied for solving the loop.

Question

What is Nested prompt and how to create this prompt?

Nested prompts are called "Cascading Prompts" in BusinessObjects environment. try searching for this keyword. Answer to create cascading prompts, you need to edit the properties of an object & impose another prompt as a condition.

Question

How Do U Create Report in BO,If given Fixed length file ( Notepad) as source?

Answer

To create a report using notpad (.txt files) : 1.open BusinessObjects --> new report 2. select data provider as Others instead of universe, from "Others" drop down list, select "Personal Data Files", File selection box appears, specify the location of your text file, if you have saperated data by tabs in text file select "Tabulation" if by comma then "Comma Saperated" (I dont remember the exact caption for this option) & if space

saperated then select "Charectors"(I dont remember the exact caption for this option) if you have specified column names in your text file, check the box "First Row contains Column names" Run the report.

Question

Kindly numberWhat are the steps to be taken to schedule the report?

Answer

As far as i know we schedule the reports through broadcast agent.

Question

What are the steps to do to use Alerts in BO?

Alerts are used to alert some part of the data if any change occurs . select the part of the data in the report where u want to keep alerts n just click on alerts in the tool bar which is present in the third line from menu bar besides rank then a window pops up n we ca n give some condition where in if it crosses that an alert is sent.

Answer

Question

How do you design a universe?

Answer

The design method consists of two major phases. During the first phase, you create the underlying database structure of your universe. This structure includes the tables and columns of a database and the joins by which they are linked. You may need to resolve loops which occur in the joins using aliases or contexts. You can conclude this phase by testing the integrity of the overall structure. During the second phase, you can proceed to enhance the components of your universe. You can also prepare certain objects for multidimensional analysis. As with the first phase, you should test the integrity of your universe structure. You may also wish to perform tests on the universes you create from the BusinessObjects User module. Finally, you can distribute your universes to users by exporting them to the repository or via your file system. For a universe based on a simple relational schema, Designer provides Quick Design, a wizard for creating a basic yet

complete universe. You can use the resulting universe immediately, or you can modify the objects and create complex new ones. In this way, you can gradually refine the quality and structure of your universe

Question

What is aggregate awareness and how can we use it?

Aggregate awareness function is used to aggregate the values present in the classes in decending order. for instance we have year,quarter,month,week tables Answer then we sum the year,sum(quarter),sum(month),sum(week) in decending order respectively. we also select the compatable as well as incompatible objects through aggregate navigation so that it improves the performance of the system in generating the report.