The Original Ultimate Resource for SAP BusinessObjects BI

Better than Aspirin and it Gets You Home Faster

Robert Schmidt has been creating documents with SAP BusinessObjects BI since 1994. He has developed reports for many companies in many different industries. During these years he has developed great insight on how to use Web Intelligence to create powerful and effective documents. He has also trained thousands of people to use BusinessObjects to create reports, and has developed efficient ways to teach others. In this book he combines these skills to create the ultimate BusinessObjects reference.

Chapter 1: Working with Report Structures

We discuss Report Structures, such as Tables, Cross Tables, Charts and Freestanding Cells. We talk about how to create and format these structures. Included are discussions on Report Sections and Breaks in tables. Organizing the Layout of structures on a report is covered, along with how to deal with page breaks. Data Objects behavior in reports is explored. The roles of Dimensions, Attributes, and Measures is covered, and how to take advantage of these behaviors is also explained.

Chapter 2: Analysis

This chapter includes discussions on Sorts, Filters, Input Controls, Element Links, Ranks, Conditional Format, Data Tracking, Outline Views, Navigation Path Drills, and Document Links.

Chapter 3: Formulas

Includes a discussion on Data Sets and Data Contexts. Topics include Formula Syntax, Formula Creation, Variables, If-Then Statements, Aggregate Functions, Numeric Functions, Character Functions, Date Functions, Document Functions, and Miscellaneous Functions. Specific functions within each function group are also discussed, such as Percentile, Rank, Running Aggregates, ForceMerge, and Percentage. Context Operators, such as In, ForEach, Where, and ForAll are also included.

Chapter 4: Creating Queries

This chapter begins with another discussion on Object Behavior – Dimension, Attribute, and Measure. Other topics included are Universe Contexts, Business Layers, the Query Panel, Creating Queries, Changing Data Sources, Query Script, Dimension Only Queries, Multiple Queries, Excel Data Provider, and BEx Data Provider.

Chapter 5: Query Filters

Included topics are Predefined Query Filters, Custom Query Filters, Prompted Filters, Using Results from Another Query, Subqueries, and Combination Queries. Combination queries are also compared to subqueries. For example, the Intersect Combination Query versus a Subquery that provides the identical and flexible results.

Just a Few Comments from Past Customers

We have all learned quite a bit from this book...

Mr. Schmidt was very down-to-earth and helpful.

...very pleasant experience is the willingness of the author to help...