The morons haven’t left at Business Objects
I had high hopes that with a new major release of BusinessObjects Enterprise, Crystal and Xcelsius things would improve somewhat. But, unfortunately, it’s starting to look more and more like that’s not the case. I’m currently doing a side-by-side installation of XI R2 and 3.0, which is supposed to be supported, that is proving to be somewhat of a pain in the backside to say the least. Now I’m trying to install the so-called Web Intelligence Rich Client directly from the Preferences screen in InfoView and guess what?
F/%$&#ing morons. Strangely enough I installed both BOE XI 3.0 and Crystal Reports 2008 on a VMware session and there’s no problem, probably because I installed Enterprise first and then CR.
Edit: I found out why, read all about it here.
Pizza Intelligence
A bit of BI humour to end the day! 
Business Objects XI Release 2 Service Pack 3 is almost there
It looks like they’ve named it simply BO XI R2 SP3, judging from the documentation I found today. I thought code name Titan was much sexier. Then again, Titan might refer to a new branch of the software, i.e. R3.
XI R2 Service Packs and their corresponding versions
There are several ways to find out what version/Service Pack an XI R2 installation is on, the easiest one being to have a look at this list. It looks pretty complete and seems to be kept up to date, which is quite handy.
Having fun with dates and times on DB2
If you’re, like me, working with DB2 and you’re wondering what you can do with DB2 SQL and dates and times, have a look at this article.
Sun Java vulnerability
Security companies have announced a vulnerability of in Sun’s Java software. The leak could allow crackers to access and take over computers with Java installed.
There are loads of people who have got the software installed, because many sites use Java to be able to display content in a browser window (mainly games and the sorts).
The leak apparently is apparently present in all versions for all platforms, but the latest release solves the issue.
This, however, presents us Business Intelligence people with a dilemma, especially if you are working with Business Objects XI, because version 1.6.x is not a supported platform and from experience I can tell that Web Intelligence doesn’t work properly with this version. What to do now?
ODBC for AS/400
Recently I’ve been doing a lot of work for companies that use an AS/400 in combination with DB2 databases to store their data.
Since I didn’t have any previous experience with either I had some trouble trying to determine the best way to connect to the database from the Microsoft Server that runs the Business Objects XI suite. I installed the software and that all went fine, but when I then wanted to set up a connection to the AS/400 server I got kind of lost, because I didn’t know whether it would be best to pick native software or standard ODBC drivers. When I decided to go for the ODBC drivers supplied by IBM I then found myself seeing a library I didn’t want to see.
Let me share how Universe Designer determines what files to display as its default list when you log into the AS/400. When you want to add a table or data source to a Universe, you have to make a connection via the parameters screen, using a connection – setting it as an alias – in combination with your username and password. I typically connect to any datasourse via an ODBC connection, so I open the ODBC folder and see a list of all of the ODBC data sources configured on my machine. I pick an AS/400 data source (one that I have created using the ODBC Data Sources control panel applet in the Windows Control Panel), and Universe Designer opens the data source and queries the AS/400 for physical files. What Universe Designer is doing behind the scenes is calling to SQLTables, an ODBC function that returns a list of qualifiers, owners, and tables. Translated into AS/400-speak, this is a list of AS/400 system names, libraries, and physical files.
Now, what you get in this list will depend on a number of things, the first of which is how you set up your ODBC Data Source. With the Client Access Express ODBC driver, you are allowed to specify a list of libraries to search in the Server tab of the ODBC Set-up applet. If you put a list of libraries in this field, you will get a list of objects in those libraries in BO. However, if you leave the default library list field blank, Client Access will default the entry to QGPL and only objects in QGPL will be displayed. Something to remember when setting up the connection for the first time, since you may not have Administrator rights to the machine and it might prove difficult to change afterwards.
Bob, he’s my man
I am currently working on a few projects involving Business Objects, and man does their website suck. I can’t find anything useful on it. Luckily, a co-worker pointed me to Bob. What a relief to find out that I’m not the only one that thinks that BO‘s website sucks ass and, more importantly, what a relief to find out that there are so many knowledgeble people out there willing to share their knowledge.