Business Objects XI 4.0 Features and Expected Release Date

 Below is a couple of tidbits of information regarding the next major release of Business Objects – XI 4.0.

• Business Objects XI 4.0 will be made available in the SAP Marketplace come October. Customers who would like to use it in a Production environment will need to request permission from SAP.
• Desktop Intelligence will not be included in this release – https://wiki.wdf.sap.corp/wiki/display/globalregions/DeskI+End+of+life
  The only way to get Desktop Intellignence reports onto XI 4.0, is to first convert them to Web Intelligence in XI 3.1 or use the Report Conversion Tool.
• Web Intelligence will now be called Interactive Analysis.
• Business Objects XI 4.0 will only be a 64-bit release.
• Business Objects XI 4.0 will use Tomcat 6 with Java 1.6.
• A single WAR file for InfoView and CMC.
• Timeout settings are now accessible in one place and will include a timeout warning.

Modifying your Existing BusinessObjects Enterprise Server or Client Installation

Just a word of advice to any Administrators thinking of modifying an existing BusinessObjects server or client installation.

If there is a requirement to add additional components to an existing deployment, be wary of the build version of the newly added component(s) if you are running Service/FixPack(s) ontop of a base installation. As BusinessObjects will install these new features from the base installation, hence the Service/FixPack will need to be reapplied.

How to Disable (Grey Out) the System Name on the InfoView Logon Page

The steps described in this article detail how to disable (grey out) the System Name displayed on the InfoView logon page. Doing so will ensure that users can only navigate to a particular environment (e.g. Development) through a chosen application server, as well as removing the possibility of users accidentally typing in an incorrect system name.

Note: These steps apply to Business Objects XI Release 2.

How to set a default System Name on the InfoView/CMC Logon Page

The steps described in this article detail how to create a Cluser Name (e.g. @BOENV) and set this as the default name that appears in the System field on the logon page for InfoView and the Central Management Console.

 Note: These steps apply to Business Objects XI Release 2.

How to Perform a Silent Installation of Business Objects XI R2 Client Tools

Performing a silent installation allows Administrators to automatically deploy Business Objects software without prompting for information during the install. Note: Silent Installation commands can be executed at the command line or included in your own scripts.

For a Single Client Tool:
“<Path to setup.exe> /qn+ REBOOT=ReallySuppress CLIENTLANGUAGE=EN INSTALLLEVEL=4 INSTALLSWITCH=”Client” ADDLOCAL=”Clients,ClientFeatureName”

For Multiple Client Tools:
“<Path to setup.exe> /qn+ REBOOT=ReallySuppress CLIENTLANGUAGE=EN INSTALLLEVEL=4 INSTALLSWITCH=”Client” ADDLOCAL=”Clients,ClientFeatureName1,ClientFeatureName2,ClientFeatureName3″

Example: Universe Designer
setup.exe /qn /qb REBOOT=ReallySuppress CLIENTLANGUAGE=EN INSTALLLEVEL=4 INSTALLSWITCH=”Client” ADDLOCAL=”Clients,Designer”

Relative vs. Absolute Hyperlinks in Web Intelligence

Below is a list of some of the different types of hyperlinks that can be used to open Web Intelligence reports. These hyperlinks can be incorporated into the actual Web Intelligence reports themselves (linking between reports), inserted into InfoView as a hyperlink object or used externally (emails, website dashboards, etc).

Absolute Hyperlink using Document Name

http://<server name>:8080/businessobjects/enterprise115/desktoplaunch/opendoc/openDocument.jsp?sDocName=Document%20Name

Relative Hyperlink using Document Name

../../opendoc/openDocument.jsp?sDocName=Document%20Name

How to set various Web Intelligence Timeouts

In this post I will list a number of timeout settings that can be modified throughout a Business Objects XI R2 Enterprise deployment, that can alter the time limits associated with running Web Intelligence reports.

Application: Central Management Console

Navigate to: Home > Servers > Web Intelligence Report Server > Properties

Description: The Connection Time Out property dictates the number of minutes before an idle connection to the Web Intelligence Report Server will be closed.

Note: The value should be equal to what is set for the –RequestTimeout switch (i.e. CORBA timeout).

Corrupt Web Intelligence (WID) File

Recently had a customer report an issue with a particular Web Intelligence report, which upon attempt of being opened would return the following error message: “Web Intelligence cannot perform the intended action on this document. (WIS 30650) (Error: INF)”.

If we tried to Modify the report, the same initial error message would appear followed by a second: “An internal error occurred while calling the ‘getDocumentInfosMDP’ API. (Error: WIS 30270)”.

Further investigation revealed

How to change the default session timeout value for the Java InfoView

The default session timeout value for InfoView is set to 20 minutes, the following steps in this post describe how to change this value. Note: These steps are only applicable to a Business Objects Enterprise XI Release 2 deployment under a Java Framework.

How to change the default session timeout value for the Java CMC (Central Management Console)

The default session timeout value for the CMC is set to 20 minutes, the following steps in this post describe how to change this value. Note: These steps are only applicable to a Business Objects Enterprise XI Release 2 deployment under a Java Framework.