1 Introducing Web Intelligence Getting Started with InfoView Managing documents in InfoView Introduc tion When the number of documents saved in your Favorites or in your Inbox becomes too large to be easily manageable, documents can be assigned to folders and categories, to make them easier to find. The section below reviews how to create folders and categories to organize your documents. Additional information about managing the document lists within these folders and categories is also detailed below. After completing this unit you will be able to: Manage folders and categories. Manage documents in folders and categories. Add a hyperlink. Managing folders and categories Creating a new folder Folders are a way of classifying and organizing your documents. In the InfoView Navigation Panel, you can create new folders to organize your documents. Depending on the access rights granted you by the Business Objects Enterprise administrator, you may also be authorized to create new folders in Public Folders. To create new folders 1. In the Navigation Panel, click + to expand My Folders. 2. Click the Favorites folder. 3. Click the New button on the Navigation Bar.
Transcript
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Introducing Web Intelligence
Getting Started with InfoView
Managing documents in InfoView
Introduction When the number of documents saved in your Favorites or in your Inbox becomes too large to be easily manageable, documents can be assigned to folders and categories, to make them easier to find. The section below reviews how to create folders and categories to organize your documents. Additional information about managing the document lists within these folders and categories is also detailed below.
After completing this unit you will be able to: Manage folders and categories. Manage documents in folders and categories. Add a hyperlink.
Managing folders and categories
Creating a new folder Folders are a way of classifying and organizing your documents. In the InfoView Navigation Panel, you can create new folders to organize your documents. Depending on the access rights granted you by the Business Objects Enterprise administrator, you may also be authorized to create new folders in Public Folders.
To create new folders
1. In the Navigation Panel, click + to expand My Folders. 2. Click the Favorites folder. 3. Click the New button on the Navigation Bar. 4. Select Folder from the drop-down list. The Create a New Folder page opens in the Workspace Panel.
5. Type "Submitted Business" in the Folder Name field. 6. Type something in the Description field. 7. Type something in the Keywords field.
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8. Click OK.
The new folder appears in the Navigation Panel. You can now save documents or other objects to this new folder
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Note: You may need to click the Refresh button in order for the new folder to show.
Copying and moving documents and folders Using the Workspace Panel and Navigation Panel toolbars, you can copy and move documents and folders to new locations. You can copy a document into a different folder and also copy a sub folder into a different folder. When you move a document or folder, it is deleted from its original location.
To copy documents and folders
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1. In the Navigation Panel, click + to expand the Public Folders. 2. Select the Web Intelligence Samples folder. 3. Select the Web Intelligence Sample document in the document list by selecting the check box by the document name. 4. Click the Organize button from the Workspace Panel toolbar located above the document list. 5. Select Copy to a New Folder from the Organize drop-down menu. The Copy page opens in the Workspace Panel.
6. Select the Sales Figures sub folder within My Folders > Favorites as the copy location.
7. Click OK. 8. In the Navigation Panel, select the Submitted Business folder. 9. Click the Refresh button on the Navigation toolbar. The copied document displays in the folder's document list.
Tip: If a folder does not exist that you want to copy a document into, you can create a new folder from the Copy page by clicking the Add button.
10. Select the Submitted Business folder in the Navigation Panel. 11. Click the Copy button on the Navigation Panel toolbar. The Copy page displays in the Workspace Panel.
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12. Select Favorites as the location for a copy of this folder.
13. Click OK. A copy of the folder, including all of the objects within the folder, is now located within your Favorites folder.
To move documents
1. Select the check box before the copied Web Intelligence Sample document in Favorites > Copy of Sales Figures. 2. To move the document to a new folder, click the Organize button. 3. Select Move to New Folder from the Organize drop-down menu. The Move page opens in the Workspace Panel.
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4. Select your Favorites folder as the new location for the document. 5. Click OK. The document has been moved to the new folder and removed from the old folder.
Deleting documents and folders You can delete documents and folders by using the Delete button on the Navigation Panel toolbar for folders and on the Workspace Panel toolbar for documents.
To delete documents and folders
1. In the Navigation Panel, click + to expand your Favorites. 2. Select the Copy of Sales Figures sub folder within your Favorites folder. 3. Click the Delete button on the Navigation toolbar. A dialog box displays to confirm that the folder is to be deleted.
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4. Click OK. The Folder and all of the objects contained in the folder have been deleted.
Creating categories
Categories are a way of organizing documents. A category displays only the documents that have been assigned to it, rather than the entire list of documents that are available to you. This makes it easier to sort and find documents in document lists. By creating categories that are appropriate to your business, you create a filing system, in which each category contains documents related to a certain aspect of your business, such as marketing, or sales.
In this section, you will learn how to create a new personal category, as well as how to add a document to an existing category.
To create a personal document category
1. Select the Show Categories button from the Navigation Panel toolbar. The Navigation Panel view switches to display categories.
2. Select Personal Categories as the location for your new subcategory. 3. From the Navigation Bar, click New to view the drop-down menu. The list of available options displays.
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4. Select Category from the New menu. The Create A New Category page displays.
5. Type "My Sales Documents" as the name of the new category you want to create in the Category Name field. 6. In the Description field, type "eFashion sales documents". 7. Type "Sales" in the Keywords field.
8. Click OK.
The new subcategory displays in the Navigation Panel within Personal Categories.
Note: The same process should be followed to create Corporate Categories and subcategories. However, access to this functionality is determined by your Business Objects Enterprise administrator.
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Managing documents in folders and categories
Using InfoView, you can save documents to folders and categories. You can also use InfoView to:
search for specific documents. create a shortcut to a document. filter documents in a list
Saving documents to personal folders and categories
You have multiple options for storing objects in a category or folder. You can move and copy objects to a folder or category, as reviewed earlier in this lesson. Or you can open a Web Intelligence document and use the Save As feature to save the document to a new folder or category location. For example, you can open a Web Intelligence document from your Inbox folder, and save it to a designated Personal Category. This option is not available when viewing Crystal Reports in InfoView. However, they can be exported in different file formats using the document toolbar.
To save a Web Intelligence document in a personal category
1. Open the Sales Figures folder within the My Folders > Favorites folders. 2. Open the Web Intelligence Sample document from the list of objects. The document opens in the Workspace Panel.
3. Click the Document drop-down arrow on the document toolbar to view the menu. 4. Select Save as from the menu. The Save Options page opens
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5. Type "Web Intelligence Drill" in the Title field. 6. Type "Drillable orders report" in the Description field. 7. Select the checkbox Refresh on open. 8. Click + to expand the Categories list. 9. Select My Sales Documents from the list of Personal Categories as the location where you want to save the document. 10. Click OK. The document has been saved as an object in the My Sales Documents category.
Searching for documents The Search feature in InfoView enables you to search for documents within categories or folders by the object title, keywords, or all fields. There is also an advanced search feature that allows you to be more specific in your search criteria. To search for documents in InfoView
1. On the Navigation Bar, type "Sales" in the Search Title field.
2. Click the Execute search button.
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Any object with the word "Sales" in the title displays in the Workspace Panel.
To search using complex search criteria 1. Click the Search title drop-down arrow and select Advanced Search. The Advanced Search page opens.
2. Select the Public Folder checkbox to search by location. 3. Enter Web Intelligence in the Search by Title field. 4. Click Search. Any documents located in the public folders having the word Web Intelligence in the title are displayed.
Filtering documents in a list By default, all documents and objects that you have access to view are displayed in your folder and category views. If you want to temporarily limit the type of objects displayed to improve search capabilities, you can add a Filter. Applying a Filter to your object lists allows you to view only objects of a certain type. The various object types that can be filtered to include Web Intelligence documents, Desktop Intelligence documents, Crystal Reports, Excel, Power Point, program objects, object packages, and text files.
To filter documents in a list 1. Click the Feature Samples folder within the Public Folders. 2. Click the Filter drop-down button on the Workspace Panel toolbar to view the available filter types.
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3. Select Adobe Acrobat as the filter type from the menu. You have filtered the Business Objects Feature Samples folder to only display Adobe Acrobat documents.
4. To remove the filter, select All Types from the Filter drop-down menu.
Creating a shortcut to a document
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A Shortcut is an object that points to another document in a different folder. You can create shortcuts as opposed to copying and moving documents from one folder to another.
To create a shortcut
1. Click + to expand Public Folders. 2. Select the check box in front of the Web Intelligence Sample document located in the Web Intelligence Samples folder. 3. Click Organize on the Workspace Panel toolbar to access the drop-down menu.
4. Select Add Shortcuts to a new folder from the menu. The Shortcut page opens in the Workspace Panel.
5. Select the Favorites folder within My Folders as the location for the shortcut. 6. Click OK. A shortcut to the document is now located in the Favorites document list. Selecting the shortcut from the document list will open the document.
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Adding a hyperlink
You can add a hyperlink to InfoView to easily access websites. The hyperlink is stored as an object and saved in your folders or categories.
To add a hyperlink
1. Click the New drop-down button on the Navigation Bar to activate the menu.
2. Click Hyperlink from the list. The Create a New Hyperlink page displays.
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3. Enter "Business Objects Web Site" in the Title field. 4. Enter "Technical support and product information" in the Description field. 5. Enter "http://www.businessobjects.com" in the URL field. 6. Select your Favorites>Submitted Applications folder as the location for the hyperlink. 7. Click OK. The hyperlink has been saved to the folder and is listed as an object in the document list.
Viewing a Web Intelligence document in InfoView
Introduction In InfoView, you can view documents that were created with Web Intelligence, Desktop Intelligence, OLAP Intelligence and Crystal Reports if the system administrator has
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authorized you to view that format, as well as documents created with other non-Business Objects applications.
After completing this unit you will be able to: · Open and view a Web Intelligence document. · Refresh the data in a Web Intelligence document. · Print a Web Intelligence document when viewing it in PDF format. · Close a Web Intelligence document.
Viewing Web Intelligence documents
To open a Web Intelligence document 1. Open the Web Intelligence Samples folder within the Public Folders folder. 2. Open the Web Intelligence Sample document from the list of objects.
Note: To open the document, single-click on the document name. Clicking on the document name opens the most current version of the report.
The document opens in the Workspace Panel.
3. Click the Hide the Navigation Panel arrow to view the Web Intelligence document in the full InfoView window
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4. Click the Document drop-down arrow on the document toolbar to view the menu. This menu allows you to close and save the document. If you are authorized to create and edit Web Intelligence documents in one of the report panels, the Edit option appears on the Document menu as well.
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5. Click the View drop-down arrow on the document toolbar to view the menu. This menu allows you to view the document in different modes: Page mode, Draft mode and PDF mode. It also allows you to display the Left panel
6. If the Left panel option is not already selected, click Left panel on the View drop-down menu. The Left panel opens in the InfoView Workspace, next to the document you are currently viewing
The Left panel is composed of the:
Navigation Map pane
This pane lists the different reports that are included in the document, and the sections within each report.
User Prompt Input pane If you are viewing a document that prompts you to select the values you want to appear in the report, a list of the values you have selected appears in this pane.
Find pane
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This allows you to specify search criteria for navigating to specific data in the document.
By default, the Navigation Map pane appears automatically in the Left panel.
7. In the Navigation Map pane, click + next to the Orders by Country report. The report folder expands and displays all the sections organized in the Orders by Country report
8. Navigate the report by clicking on Italy in the Group Tree. The report repositions to show the details on Italy.
9. Click on USA in the table. The report navigates to show the USA section of data.
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Refreshing a Web Intelligence document
When you refresh a Web Intelligence document it retrieves the data from the database and returns the updated values to the report(s). You can update the data in a document while keeping the same presentation and formatting.
Note: You can modify the data displayed in a document if you are authorized to create and edit documents using one of the Web Intelligence report panels, and if you have a connection to the data source. Refreshing the document does not change the query definition used to create the document; it merely retrieves the most recent data from the database that corresponds to the underlying query.
You can refresh documents in the following ways: · Manually, whenever you choose · Every time you or another user open a document
To refresh a document manually
1 Continue viewing the Web Intelligence Sample document.
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2 Click Refresh Data from the toolbar in an open document.
The data is updated in the document.
To refresh a document every time it is opened
By default, this option is not selected so that users will always see the original data that was retrieved when the document was created or last refreshed, and which was stored in the document when it was saved. To see the most recent data available in the database, users can refresh the document manually when they open it. Or you can choose to select this option to ensure that the data is updated automatically each time the document is opened. 1. From the Document menu, click Save as. 2. Check the Refresh on open box when saving the document.
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Printing a Web Intelligence document
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To print Web Intelligence documents, you need to display the document in PDF format and print it from Acrobat Reader. To ensure quality printing, never print using the browser print button.
1. If you are viewing a Web Intelligence document in HTML or Interactive modes, click View > PDF to switch to the PDF format prior to printing. 2. Click Print from the PDF Toolbar (not the browser print button). Note: Each report within the Web Intelligence document will need to be printed individually.
3. Click Cancel to cancel the print process.
Closing a Web Intelligence document
To close the Web Intelligence document, you can either select the Close option on the Document menu, or click the X button in the upper right-hand corner of the Workspace Panel. Clicking any of the folders or categories in the Navigation Panel will immediately replace the open document with the list of documents contained in that folder or category, effectively closing the document.
Customizing InfoView
Setting InfoView Preferences
Introduction
InfoView provides you with the ability to determine your preferences for viewing and creating documents. From the Preferences page, you can alter InfoView general preferences, document viewing preferences for Web Intelligence, Desktop Intelligence and Crystal Reports documents, and change your password.
After completing this unit you will be able to: Set general InfoView preferences. Set Web Intelligence preferences. Change your InfoView password.
Setting general InfoView preferences
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To set general InfoView preferences
1. Click the Preferences button on the Navigation Bar. 2. Select the General tab to view the page.
The General preferences page displays.
From the General preferences page, you can modify the following options: · The initial view that displays after logging onto InfoView includes the Home page, My InfoView,
Favorites, your Inbox, or a specified folder/category. · The maximum number of objects displayed on each page. · For each document list, you can determine which document properties are displayed, including
the description, owner, date, instance count, and actions. You can change where documents are viewed: either in the InfoView window or in separate browser windows.
· Language and time zone settings are also determined on this page.
About document preferences in InfoView
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Web Intelligence, Desktop Intelligence, Crystal Reports and OLAP Intelligence documents all have different view options that can be set as default. The default will determine the view that is applied when a document is first opened. The view format can always be changed after the document has been opened.
In general, the different views are aimed at satisfying one of two things:
Quality in Viewing - These options are aimed at users that primarily view the reports over the web. These formats are not ideal for printing. Web Intelligence provides HTML and Interactive modes that are intended for users that usually look at reports online. The Desktop Intelligence and Crystal Report formats are all very similar in their view output.
Quality in Printing - These options are aimed at users that primarily print their reports. These reports will print exactly as they appear on the screen and provide much better print quality than HTML. Web Intelligence provides PDF for the users that will primarily print their documents. The Desktop Intelligence and Crystal Report document formats are all very similar in their output and will all print to a printer as they appear on screen.
Setting the specific Web Intelligence view options is covered in the next section.
Setting Web Intelligence preferences
The Web Intelligence Document page in InfoView preferences allows you to set a number of options that define:
· How you view Web Intelligence documents in InfoView. · Which interface you will use to create Web Intelligence documents. · How you will perform multi-dimensional analysis in Web Intelligence documents.
About Web Intelligence viewing settings InfoView provides a number of formats for viewing Web Intelligence documents. You can define one viewing format as the default option for your user account, by setting the appropriate option in the InfoView Preferences page. You can choose to view Web Intelligence documents in the following formats:
· HTML - useful if you want to navigate reports to view results, and refresh the report data to see the latest figures. Values displayed in report tables and charts are static.
· Interactive - useful if you want to filter, sort, add simple calculations or drill on the values displayed in the reports. This feature will be presented in detail later in this course.
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Note: The availability to use this feature depends on how InfoView was installed and what user rights you have. Ask your administrator if you have the rights to this feature.
· Portable Document Format (PDF) - useful if you want to print a document or save the document to share with someone who does not have access to InfoView or Web Intelligence. You can experiment with all of the formats described by changing the default view options in InfoView. The settings that are most appropriate for you depend on your organization's requirements as well as your own preferences.
To define your locale format settings
1 From the InfoView Home page, click Preferences to view the Preferences Pages. The General preferences page opens.
2 Click Web Intelligence Document to open the preferences tab for Web Intelligence.
3. Scroll to the bottom of the Web Intelligence Document preferences page so that you can see the remaining settings available to you:.
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4. Click the Select a format locale drop-down arrow to see the list of the different formats you can select to view Web Intelligence documents. The default setting, User interface locale indicates that the locale settings and language of the InfoView and Web Intelligence software will also determine the locale settings for viewing documents.
5. In the When viewing a document zone, select the option most appropriate for your situation:
· Select Use the document locale to format the data if you want to always view Web Intelligence documents in the language and locale settings that were used when the document was created.
· Select the Use my formatting locale to format the data if you want to always view Web Intelligence documents with the language and locale settings defined on your workstation settings.
About Web Intelligence reporting and drilling settings The remainder of the settings on the Web Intelligence Document preferences page allow you to set options for creating, drilling and saving to Excel Web Intelligence documents. We will cover these settings in details in later Lessons in this course. .
Changing your password
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Additional InfoView options can be tailored to your requirements in the Preferences pages. Changing your password on a regular basis ensures that no one else can access the system using your identification credentials. This next section describes how to change your InfoView password.
To change your password
1. From the InfoView Home page, click the Preferences icon on the Navigation Bar. 2. Click the Password tab at the top of the page to set new password options.
The Password page opens.
3. Type your current password in the Old Password text box. 4. Type the new password in the New Password and Confirm New Password text boxes. 5. Click Submit.
Your InfoView password has been changed. The next time you logon to InfoView, you will need to enter this new password.
Tip: Document your new password in a safe location so that you will remember it when logging in again.
Creating an InfoView dashboard with My InfoView
Introduction My InfoView is a page in InfoView that you can customize to fit your own needs. By default, the My InfoView page is blank. You can customize this page so that it displays the important information you would like to see on a regular basis in the form of dashboards. You can set My InfoView to be the page displayed as your initial view when logging onto InfoView in the Preferences screens.
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After completing this unit you will be able to: Customize the My InfoView page. Set the new My InfoView page as your default view when you log on to InfoView.
Customizing My InfoView
The My InfoView page allows you to display information from a variety of sources in a single web page by adding dashboards. Dashboards are different panes of information in your browser window and on the My InfoView page. They are useful to view information from different data sources at the same time. From InfoView, you can access the design screen which allows you to create dashboards for My InfoView. You can create one or more Dashboards for My InfoView to display such things as objects, websites, reports or documents.
To customize My InfoView
1. Click My InfoView on the Navigation Bar. The My InfoView page as it appears by default opens in your InfoView window.
2. Select a template from the available template icons. For this exercise, select the Three Rows template.
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A template that includes three horizontal dashboards displays. The templates include frames that determine the layout of the objects in your dashboard. Each box in the template frame can contain one object.
Each dashboard has a toolbar that can be used to open the object in the dashboard or to modify the dashboard properties. The toolbar buttons are defined in the table below.
Dashboard Toolbar Button
Definition
Reopen the dashboard object in a new window. Dashboard object refers to the document or content contained in the dashboard.
Split the dashboard vertically.
Split the dashboard horizontally.
Open the Dashboard Properties box.
Close the dashboard. This also deletes the dashboard from the page. To recover the dashboard, it would have to be recreated.
3. Click Define Content in the first row to create content for the first dashboard. The Dashboard Properties box opens for the first dashboard.
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4. Verify that the Web Address option is selected. 5. Enter the following URL into the text box,
http://www.businessobjects.com.
6. In the Header area, type "Business Objects Website" in the Caption text box. 7. In the Footer area, type "Technical Support Website" in the Caption text box. 8. Click OK.
The My InfoView page opens with the selected web site displaying in the first dashboard.
9. Click Define Content in the second row to create content for the second dashboard. The Dashboard Properties box opens for the second dashboard.
10. Click the Object option. 11. From the Public Folders > Web Intelligence Samples folder, select the Web Intelligence
Sample document. 12. Type "Web Intelligence Report" in the Header Caption text box. 13. Click OK.
The My InfoView page opens with the selected document object displaying in the second dashboard.
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Tip: When adding a document object to a dashboard, an additional toolbar displays which allows you to save, refresh and navigate the document.
14. Click Define Content in the third dashboard to add a list of documents. The Dashboard Properties box opens for the third dashboard.
15. Select the Object option. 16. Select Public Folders from the list of available objects. 17. Click OK.
The Public Folders tree displays in the third dashboard. A Navigation drop-down list allows you to navigate through the sub folders to locate and open documents.
18. Click the Save button in the upper-right corner of the My InfoView window. The default location for your saved My InfoView page is your Favorites folder.
Tip: If you do not save your customized My InfoView, you will lose all of your changes.
Once you have customized and saved your My InfoView page, you can set this page to open as your initial view after logging onto InfoView.
To set My InfoView as the initial view
1. In the toolbar in the InfoView window, click Preferences. 2. In the My initial view is area of the General Preferences page, select My InfoView to set
the dashboard as your initial view. 3. Click OK.
The customized My InfoView page now opens as the first page that appears when you log onto InfoView.
4. Click the Log off button on the Navigation Bar. 5. Complete the fields on the Log On page and log back onto InfoView.
The InfoView window opens and displays My InfoView as the initial view.
Creating Web Intelligence Documents with Queries
Getting new data with Web Intelligence
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Introduction In order to retrieve new data from your corporate data sources with Web Intelligence, you can either create a new Web Intelligence document, or edit the query associated with an existing document.
Creating a new document involves two steps: Choosing a Business Objects universe that the document will use as its data
source. Using the Web Intelligence Report Panel to create a query that will determine
which data is extracted from the universe and how that data is formatted.
After completing this unit you will be able to: Describe the query process. Describe the universe used in this course to retrieve data.
About the query process
Using one of the Web Intelligence report panels, you construct a business question that represents the information you need. This question is sent in the form of a query to the Business Objects Enterprise server, where the data is retrieved and stored on the server in a data provider. The contents of the data provider are then projected into a Web Intelligence report in the form of tables, crosstabs and charts so that you can analyze the data.
Universes and objects
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Web Intelligence makes it easy for you to access your corporate data by enabling you to work with familiar business terms rather than technical SQL (Structured Query Language) code. Web Intelligence uses universes to achieve this. A BusinessObjects universe is the semantic layer that maps everyday terms that describe your business environment to data stored in the database. Using a universe, you can retrieve the data that interests you simply by dragging and dropping the desired objects. In your company or organization, universes are created by a universe designer, using BusinessObjects Designer. The designer then makes the universes available to you and other users in your organization, so that you can select the appropriate business terms to create queries and retrieve data from the database. Within each universe, these business terms are listed as "objects", while similar types of business terms are grouped into "classes".
Objects represent a selection of data Objects are elements in a BusinessObjects universe that correspond to a selection of data in the database. Object names are often the same business terms that you use in your everyday activity, such as sales revenue, or customer name. You use these objects to build queries and retrieve the data you want to show in your report.
Universe used in this course
The universe used in this training course, eFashion, is an example of a data warehouse for a company that runs a chain of retail stores. Universes are made up of classes and objects.
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Objects are elements that map to a set of data in a relational database, but using business terms. For example, some of the objects in the eFashion Universe include State, City, and Store name. Classes are logical groupings of objects.
There are three different types of objects.
Dimension - Maps to character-type data or dates. Items that you would group data on are usually defined as dimensions.
Detail - Maps to information that you might want to see in a report, but does not form the grouping in the query. For example, the telephone numbers for stores.
Measure - Retrieves numerical data that is the result of calculations on data in the database and represents a dynamic aggregate. For example, Sales revenue is based upon Quantity Sold x Unit Price.
Universes can also include predefined query filters.
Query Filter- Restricts the information returned by objects, such as limiting data concerning revenue to a specific year. Filters can also prompt the person viewing the report to select a value, such as the query filter "Which product?"
Creating a new Web Intelligence document
Introduction Now that you know the differences between the report panels and how to select which Report Panel to use, you are ready to create a new document.
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After completing this unit, you will be able to: · Create a new Web Intelligence document. · Select the data source you want to use to retrieve data. · Build the query to retrieve the data that interests you, using the Java Report Panel. · Save the new Web Intelligence document.
Creating a new Web Intelligence document using the Java Report Panel
The Java Report Panel is composed of two separate panels: · the Edit Query view · the Edit Report view
You use these panels together to build queries and present the data returned by the query in a report. When you are ready to save, the following information is associated with the new Web Intelligence document:
· the query definition · the data returned by the query · one or more reports · one or more blocks of data (tables, charts) presented in the report(s), and the
formatting you have applied to the blocks To create a new document using the Java Report Panel
1. On the InfoView Navigation Bar, click the New drop-down menu.
2. Select Web Intelligence Document from the menu. The Data Selection page displays in the Objects area. From this page, select the universe required for your query.
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3. Click Submitted Business from the list of universes.
Note: The Java applet downloads if this is the first time you are creating a document using the Java Report Panel. A Java security prompt box may appear if you have logged in and out of Web Intelligence, click Yes to continue.
The Java Report Panel Edit Query view displays. The classes and objects that reference the selected data source are displayed in the Data tab of the Edit Query view.
To build the query, you simply move the objects you want in your report from the Data tab to the Result Objects pane.
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Predefined query filters allow you to restrict data returned by the query.
To build a query in the Java Report Panel: 1. In the Data tab, click + to expand the Submitted Application Information class to view
the objects in the class. 2. Click and drag the Application Policy Number, Application Policy Prefix and Plan
Name data objects into the Result Objects pane.
Note: You can also double-click on the object to move it into the Result Objects pane.
The selected objects display in the Result Objects pane as shown below.
3. Click + to expand the Amount Measurements for Application class. 4. Double-click the Face Amount, Annual Premium Amount object to add it to the Result
Objects pane.
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5. Click Run Query on the toolbar. The query is executed and the data returned is displayed in a new report in the Edit Report view. The values returned by the objects you selected are presented by default in a vertical table.
6. Keep this document open for the following exercises.
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Saving a new document
You can save a document that you have created with Web Intelligence as a corporate document in InfoView. You can save a corporate document to:
· Personal folders- exclusively for your own reference and saved in My Folders or Personal Categories.
· Public folders- for sharing with other users and saved in a Public Folder or Corporate Category. Documents that you save to your personal folders are saved in an area on the Business Objects server that is reserved for you. They are not saved on your workstation.
You can also save Web Intelligence documents to your own computer, in other formats for easier sharing with non-InfoView users:
· Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet - useful if you want to combine the data in a Web Intelligence document with data from an Excel spreadsheet.
· Adobe Acrobat PDF - ideal for printing and viewing. To save a new document to a personal folder
Use the report you just created for the following procedure. 1. In the Edit Report view, click the Save drop-down button on the Report Panel toolbar. 2. Select Save as... from the drop-down menu.
The Save Document dialog box opens.
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3. In the Title field, type "Sales Revenue Report" as the name of the document. 4. In the Description field, type "Quarterly eFashion sales revenue report for all years"
as the document description. 5. Leave the options below the Keywords text box un-selected.
By default, the Refresh on open option is not selected so that users will always see the original data that was retrieved when the document was created or last refreshed, and which was stored in the document when it was saved.
To see the most recent data available in the database, users can refresh the document manually when they open it. Or, you can choose to select this option to ensure that the data is updated automatically each time the document is opened.
If you select the Permanent regional formatting check box, it will override the user's default viewing options and always display the document's original regional setting for language and time stamping.
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6. In the Location box, click + to expand the My Folders folder, if the folder is not already expanded.
7. Click the Favorites link, to store this document in your Favorites folder. 8. Click + to expand the Categories. 9. Select the check box for My Sales Documents category under Personal Categories.
The completed Save Document box appears as shown below.
10 Click OK. The document has been saved to your Favorites folder and referenced in your My Sales Documents category. You can now move or copy this document to other folder locations in InfoView if required.
Note: Throughout the course you will be asked to save documents. Save these documents in your Favorites folder for the course exercises.
Modifying a document's query
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Introduction To change the query definition, you can edit the original query that you used to retrieve data and create the document. After completing this unit you will be able to:
· Add and remove objects from the query. · Project the data returned by an added object into the report block.
Projecting data from an added object
Once you have created a document, you can easily change the information that is displayed in the resulting report by adding or removing objects in the underlying query. Then, once you have run the query and returned to view the report in the Edit Report view, you can easily move the new objects from the Data tab of the Report Manager into a report block by clicking and dragging them onto the report. This process is called "projecting data".
To edit the query 1. Open the Sales Revenue document and select Edit from the Document drop-down menu
on the InfoView Navigation Bar. 2. Click Edit Query.
The Edit Query view is displayed.
You can change the data retrieved by this query by adding or removing objects, changing filters, and by changing the order of the objects as they appear in the Result Objects pane.
3 From the Data tab, click + to expand the Submitted Application Information class. 4 Drag the Product Name & Producer Contact Phone Number objects to the Result Objects
pane. The Result Objects panel displays as shown below.
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5 Click Run Query on the Report Panel toolbar. The query is refreshed and the new object is added to the data provider. You can see the new object displayed in the Report Manager Data tab.
Notice that although the Product Name & Producer Contact Phone Number objects has been added to the data provider, it is not showing in the actual report. Now that you have retrieved additional data from the database with your modified query, you need to project this new data into the block in your report. This process is called "projecting data" and is reviewed in the next section.
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To project data into a table Continue working with the report from the previous exercise.
1. Click the Data tab of the Report Manager to view the objects in your query's data provider. 2. Click and drag the Product Name & Producer Contact Phone Number objects onto the
document pane, towards the edge of the first column in the block. Note: When dragging and dropping objects onto a block, do not drop the objects onto a column header or footer. The results
will not display as expected. Objects should be dropped in the detail cells of the block.
3. Drop the object when the tooltip Drop here to insert a cell displays.
The Producer Name, Producer contact phone Number object's data has been added as the last two columns in the block.
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Note: If the tooltip "Drop here to replace a cell" displays, then you will replace the current column with the new object's data.
4. Save the document to your Favorites folder as Sales Revenue per Store.
Understanding how the data is aggregated In the original table, Sales revenue was broken down by Year and Quarter. This is an example of high-level aggregation. Now, Sales revenue is broken down even further to include store name. All the values have been re-aggregated to produce a figure that represents the sales revenue earned by each store this year. This is an example of low-level aggregation. This demonstrates the dynamic nature of measure objects - their values change depending on which dimension objects are used with them.
· A system administrator assigns rights for access to specific universes. · A maximum of 15 queries can be created per document.
Working with query properties
Introduction You have seen that the Java Report Panel is actually made up of two panels: the Edit Report view and the Edit Query view. In this unit, we explore the remaining features available in the Edit Query view that we have not yet seen in this lesson.
After completing this unit you will be able to:
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· Describe the Edit Query view toolbar buttons. · View and modify the query properties. · View, copy or edit the SQL statements that generate the query. · View and modify the user settings.
Working in the Edit Query view
The query that you used to create the Submitted Applications document is shown here:
As we have seen, the default display of the Edit Query view consists of three separate panes:
· the Query Manager Data tab · the Results Objects pane · the Query Filters pane
Other Edit Query view interface elements are described in the table below.
Button Description
New Document button - Allows you to create a new document and build a new query.
Edit Query button - Allows you to display the Java Report Panel's Edit Query view, which you use to select the objects and predefined filters you want to use to build queries.
Edit Report button - Allows you to display the Java Report Panel's Edit Report view, which you use to organize the data retrieved by the query, and format the blocks in the report.
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Run Query button - Allows you to run the query you built and retrieve the data from the database. The results of the query are displayed in a report in the Edit Report view.
Purge Data button - Allows you to remove the data retrieved by one or more queries from your document.
Show User settings button - Allows you to view and modify measurement and pixel settings.
Help button - Allows you to access contextual help on the task you are trying to achieve.
Configure View button - Allows you to show or hide the Query Manager.
Show/Hide Filter Pane button - Allows you to show or hide the Query Filters pane.
Show/Hide Scope of Analysis button - Allows you to show or hide the Scope of Analysis pane.
Add Query button - Allows you to add a new query to the document.
Add Quick Filter button - Allows you to apply a filter on an object that is selected in the Result Objects pane.
Add a subquery button - Allows you to run a subquery to restrict the data returned by the query.
Add a database ranking - Allows you to use the database ranking feature to retrieve only top or bottom values from the database.
Add a combined query - Allows you to combine the data retrieved from more than one query using the minus, union or intersection operator.
View SQL button - Allows you to view, copy and modify the SQL statements used to generate the query.
Many of these features will be explained in later lessons.
Viewing the query properties
In the Edit Query view, you can also view and modify the default query properties. The query properties can optimize the time taken for the query to run, or the amount of data returned, set security options, specify the order of prompts in the report, and control potential ambiguous query results.
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To view or modify the query properties: 1. In the Edit Query view, click the Properties tab.
The Properties tab displays in the Query Manager
The query properties options are grouped together in sections.
2. Click the Fold/Unfold arrows at the top right of each section of the options to expand or close the property groups.
3. Modify the query properties as required. The query properties sections are described in the table below.
Section Description
Name By default, each query in the document is named successively, Query 1, Query 2, and so on. You can type a name here that describes the query.
Limits Max rows retrieved Maximum number of rows of data that can be returned when a query is run. If you only need a certain amount of data, you can set this value to limit the number of rows of data that is returned to your document. This prevents a query from taking too much time or from returning unnecessary data to the document. Note: The Max rows retrieved setting can be overridden by the limits set by your administrator in your security profile. For example, if you set the Max rows
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retrieved setting here to 400 rows, but your security profile limits you to 200 rows, only 200 rows of data will be retrieved when you run the query.
Max retrieval time Maximum time that a query can run before the query is stopped. This can be useful when a query is taking too long due to an excess of data, or network problems. You can set a time limit so a query can stop within a reasonable time.
Data
Retrieve duplicate rows This option is selected by default. In a database, the same data may be repeated over many rows. You can choose to have these repeated rows returned in a query, or to have only unique rows returned.
Security
Allow other users to edit all queries This option is selected by default. In this case, other users who have the appropriate editing rights can edit the query and modify the data contained in the document. If you clear this option, only the report creator can modify the query(ies). Unlike the other query properties, which only apply to the selected query, this option applies to all of the data providers in the document.
Prompt Order
If you have applied multiple prompted query filters, you can define the order of priority that they will appear to a user refreshing this document. Prompted query filters are presented in detail in the next lesson.
Contexts If this document was refreshed previously and the user selected a context at that time, this option will allow you to rest the context and prompt the user to select the context again the next time it is refreshed.
Note: You can only restrict further the restrictions that are already defined for the universe used to create this document, the Web Intelligence server, and the database where the data was retrieved. You cannot override restrictions that may already be in place.
Viewing the query's SQL
When you build a query, Web Intelligence automatically generates the appropriate SQL to retrieve the data from the database that you are accessing. You can view and edit this SQL, and even copy and paste it to another application. To view a query's SQL statements
1. In the Edit Query view, click View SQL. The SQL Viewer dialog box displays the SQL behind the query.
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2. If you want to re-use the SQL in another application, click Copy to copy the SQL to the clipboard.
3. If you want to edit the SQL statements, click Use custom SQL. The SQL becomes editable.
4. Edit the SQL, and then click Validate to ensure that it is correct. 5. Click Save to save the new SQL.
Restricting Data Returned by a Query
Modifying a query with a predefined query filter
Introduction A predefined query filter is an element in the universe that allows you to restrict the information returned by specific dimension, detail or measure objects. Predefined query filters are created by the universe designer, and appear in the list of classes and objects in the Java Report Panel, identified by a yellow funnel icon.
After completing this unit you will be able to: Modify a query by applying a predefined query filter.
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Using a predefined query filter
In this section you learn to modify a query in the Edit Query view by adding a predefined filter to the query. Like custom query filters that you define yourself, a predefined query filter allows you to limit the data returned by the query to specific values.
To modify a query 1. In InfoView, open the Submitted Application Report from the Submitted Business
Personal Category. The document displays in the InfoView Workspace window.
2. Click the Hide the Navigation Panel arrow to collapse the InfoView Navigation Panel and view the document in your full browser window.
3. In the InfoView Workspace, click the drop-down arrow on the toolbar to view the Document menu.
4. Select Edit from the Document menu. The document opens in the Web Intelligence Java Report Panel. Note that the document appears in the Edit Report view.
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5. Click the Edit Query button on the toolbar to open the Edit Query view. The document opens in the Edit Query view.
6. Edit the query by dragging the Submitted Date filter to the Query Filters pane.
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7. Click Run Query on the Edit Query view toolbar.
Web Intelligence sends your query to the BusinessObjects server, which processes it and then sends it to the database to retrieve the information you requested in the query.
When the data is returned by the BusinessObjects server, the Edit Report view opens and displays the data in a block, by default a table block. The query has retrieved the data and displayed it in a new report in your document. The information appears in a table in the report window. You can see the objects you selected in the Data tab, in the left-hand side of the Edit Report window.
Notice that the report has data for Submitted Date greater than selected value only, as it is the current reporting year in our sample data.
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You can also see by the report tab at the bottom of the window that this new document contains a single report.
8. Select Save as... from the Save drop-down menu and save the document as Report Query.
9. Click + to expand the Categories in the Save dialog box. 10. Select the check box for Submitted Business category under Personal Categories. 11. Click OK.
Applying a single-value query filter
Introduction In a single-value query filter, you limit the data returned to one single value for that object. For example, you can find data for a certain store name by building a condition on the "Store name" dimension object, then selecting the name of the store you are interested in by selecting it from the dialog box that appears. After completing this unit you will be able to:
Create a single-value query filter. Edit a single-value query filter. Delete a query filter.
Creating a single-value query filter
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In this scenario, you want to produce a report that shows total Jewelry sales revenue for each state.
To create a single-value query filter using the filter editor 1. In the Java Report Panel, build a query using the eFashion universe, and select the
Application Policy Number, Application Policy Prefix, Plan Name, Face amount , Annual Premium Amount, Producer Name and Producer Contact Phone Number objects.
2. Drag the Plan Name object that you want to filter by into the Query Filters pane. The default filter definition appears in the Query Filters pane. You use this default definition to define the operator and the operand type
3. Click the arrow next to the InList operator. 4. In the drop-down list that appears, select In List. 5. Click the arrow next to the bulleted list button to the far right of the filter definition. This is
known as Operand Type drop-down arrow.
A drop-down menu appears that allows you to select the operand type
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You could type the Category value directly in the filter definition's text box, if you were sure that you knew the value and its precise spelling. Later in this lesson, you will select the Prompt operand type. In this example, you are going to use the Value(s) from list operand type, in order to select a specific value from the list of values returned by the Category object.
6. Click Value(s) from list. The list of values for the Category object is retrieved from the database and displayed in the List of Values dialog box.
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7. From the Plan Name list, double-click 10 Year Flex Series Y. Jewelry appears in the Value(s) Selected text box.
In the Search All Values text box, you can:
· Perform wildcard searches using (*) to replace one or several characters of the value searched for. For example, clicking in the Search All Values text box, typing 10*, then clicking the Binoculars button retrieves all Plan Names starting with 10 (10 Year Flex Series Y and 10 Year Flex Term Series IV).
· Or, use (?) to replace one character for the value searched for. For example, clicking in the Search All Values text box, typing 10*Series*, then clicking the Binoculars button retrieves the values 10 Year Flex Series Y and 10 Year Flex Term Series IV.
8. Click OK. The query filter you just created appears in the Query Filters panel showing the filter's object, operator and operand.
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9. Click Run Query. The report now displays data concerning Sales revenue for Jewelry, by State and City.
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10. Save the report in your Favorites as Simple Query Filter.
Editing a single-value filter
To edit a query filter 1. Continue working with the Simple Query Filter report. 2. Click Edit Query. 3. In the Query Filters pane, click the Operand Type drop-down arrow and select Value(s)
from list to open theList of Values dialog box. 4. From the Category list, double-click 10 Year Flex Term Series.
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5. Click OK. The query filter appears in the Query Filters panel showing the filter's object, operator and operand.
6. Click Run Query. The report now displays data concerning Plan Name for 10 Year Flex Term Series only, by Application Policy and Application Policy Prefix.
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Deleting a query filter
1. Continue working with the Simple Query Filter report. 2. Click Edit Query to ensure you are in Query view. 3. From the Query filters panel, click the Category Equal to: Evening wear filter that you
want to delete. 4. Press the Delete key on your keyboard.
Note: Two alternative methods of deleting a query filter is to either click and drag the filter to the left-hand object panel, or to right-click the query filter and select Remove from the drop-down menu.
Using prompts to restrict data
Introduction A prompt is a dialog box that appears whenever a document is refreshed. Prompts can be designed to allow users to manually enter data or select data from a list of values. After completing this unit you will be able to:
· Describe how prompted filters allow each user to view different data every time the document is refreshed.
· Create a prompted query filter. · Edit a prompted query filter.
Prompted filters
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The prompt dialog box asks you, or any user who refreshes the document, to choose which data is to be retrieved and displayed in the report and focus on a specific part of the information available. This is known as a prompted filter. Prompted filters allow multiple users viewing a single document to specify a different subset of the database information, and yet still display it in the same tables and charts in the report. You can use a prompted filter to define a question that is displayed whenever the data in the document is refreshed. Users can answer the prompt either by typing or by selecting values. Prompts can be defined on any dimension, measure or detail object listed in the Data tab in Query view.
Note: You cannot use the operators Is Null and Not Null when creating prompted filters.
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Creating a prompted query filter
In this scenario, you want to produce the same report showing sales revenue per state, but this time you want the report to prompt the user to select a product category, each time the report is refreshed. In this way, the report can display data not just about the Jewelry category, but about any product category that interests the user at that moment. To create a prompt in a report
1. In the Java Report Panel, click the New Document toolbar button to create a new document.
2. Create a new query by moving the State, City, Category and Sales revenue objects into the Result Objects panel.
3. Drag the Plan Name object into the Query Filters pane. The Filter Editor displays.
4. From the Operator drop-down menu, select the Equal to operator. 5. Under Operand Type, select Prompt as operand type.
The filter definition updates in the Query Filters pane.
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6. Click the Prompt button next to the Enter Category: text box, in the query filter definition. The Prompt dialog box appears.
The options for creating a prompt are displayed. Several of the prompt options are selected by default.
· Prompt text- you can type any text that you want to prompt the user to select a Category value. This text will appear each time the user refreshes this document.
· Prompt with List of Values - useful when you want the user to view all the values for the object and then select from those values.
· Select only from List - this option is useful in preventing users from typing a value that may not exist in the database.
· Keep last value(s) selected - the value that was selected the last time the report was refreshed is selected by default in the prompt list box.
· Set default value(s) - the value specified as default. If you select this option, the Prompt dialog box expands and displays all the values returned by the Submitted Date object. This allows you to specify a value that you would like to display by default when this document is first run or refreshed.
7. Type Select a Submitted Date in the Prompt text box. 8. Leave the defaults options as they appear and click OK.
The Edit Query view shows the filter you have defined in the Query Filters pane.
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9. Click Run Query. The Prompts dialog box appears, showing the list of values for Submitted Date, the object you used to create the prompted filter.
10. Under Submitted Date, Select 12/3/2009 12:00:00 AM from the list of values. 11. Click Run Query.
The report now displays data concerning Sumitted Date greater than for 12/3/2009 12:00:00 AM only, by all resulting dimension object.
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Note: The prompt displays each time the report is refreshed manually. Refresh the report on your own, selecting different values each time.
12. Save the document to your Favorites as Prompts.
Editing a prompted query filter
To edit a prompt filter Continue working with the Prompts report.
1. Click Edit Query. 2. In the Query Filters pane, click the Operator drop-down arrow to display the operators, and
select In List. 3. Click the Prompt button next to the prompt text box. 4. Edit the prompt text to read Select a Submitted Date from the list. 5. Check Set default value(s).
The Prompt dialog box expands and displays all the values returned by the Submitted Date object. This allows you to specify a value that you would like to be displayed by default when the query is first run.
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6. Double-click Submitted Date Values to specify that this value should be displayed when the query is first run.
7. Double-click Submitted Date Values to add another value to the Value(s) Selected box. 8. Click OK. 9. Click Run Query to display the new Prompts dialog box.
Notice that this time the values you specified, Evening wear and Day wear, are presented by default in the Prompt zone.
10. Click Run Query in the Prompts dialog box. Note: If you prefer, you can still type a different value in this Prompts dialog box, if you are sure of its exact spelling, or
click Refresh List to see the full list of values again.
11. Save the document. Now you can save this document to a public folder and the next time a user opens the document in InfoView, the report will display data concerning Evening wear. If the user then decides to refresh the data, the prompt dialog box will allow the user to select another value. Because the Keep last value(s) selected option was also selected, if the user saves the document, the value the user chose will appear initially for the next user that views the document.
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Using complex filters
Introduction To further refine information returned to a document you can apply more than one filter to a query. First you need to create the query filters and then determine how they should be applied together.
· To return values that are true for two filters, use the AND operator. · To return values that are true for either of two filters, use the OR operator.
After completing this unit you will be able to: Describe logical operators and how you use them in filters. Apply more than one filter using the AND operator. Apply more than one filter using the OR operator. Prioritize filters so that you are sure to retrieve the correct data.
Using logical operators for multiple conditions
To produce a report that focuses more precisely on certain data, you may need to apply more than one filter. When you specify more than one filter in a query, the relationship between the filters must use either the AND or OR operator. These are known as logical operators.
· The AND operator is used when both conditions defined in the two filters must be met for a row to be returned from the database when you run a query.
· The OR operator is used when either one or the other of the conditions defined in the filters must be met for a row to be returned from the database when you run a query. The result of combining two or more filters can be visually represented using a Venn diagram as illustrated below.
The two circles each represent the number of database rows that are returned based on the conditions defined by a particular filter. Note that the two overlap. This area represents the rows that meet the conditions defined by both filters.
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As shown in the diagram, using the AND logical operator results in only rows represented by Area C being included in a report. On the other hand, if you use the OR logical operator, all rows represented by Circles A and B will be returned. The following sections demonstrate these points.
Using the AND operator
By default, when you add a second filter to a query, Web Intelligence automatically places an AND operator between the two conditions. You saw this behavior when you added the predefined filter to your query in the last practice activity. In this scenario, you want to produce a report showing sales revenue per state. You want the report to show revenue data concerning only the years 2001 and 2002, and for all states except DC. To create a report using the AND operator
1. In the Java Report Panel, create a new document. Build a query by moving the Year, State and Sales revenue objects to the Result Objects panel.
2. Drag the Year object into the Query Filters panel. The default filter definition displays and shows that Year is the object you are applying a filter on.
3. Leave the default operator, In List, as the operator you use for this filter. You want to filter for two values, therefore you need to display the values in a list before you can select the ones you require.
4. Click the Operand Type drop-down arrow, and click Value(s) from list. The values available for the object are displayed in the List of Values box.
5. From the Year column, double-click 2001 and 2002. The values you selected now appear in the Values Selected zone.
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6. Click OK. The Filter Editor dialog box closes and the Edit Query view opens again, with the filter you just defined displayed in the Query Filters pane.
7. Create a second filter using the State object. 8. From the Operator drop-down list, select Not Equal to. 9. Under Operand Type, click Value(s) from list.
The values available for the object are displayed in the List of Values box.
10. Double-click DC. 11. Click OK.
Once you create the second filter Web Intelligence automatically applies the AND as the default operator.
12. Click Run Query.
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The report displays Sales revenue for all the States except DC for the years 2001 and 2002.
13. Save the document to your Favorites as Multiple Filters in the Favorites folder.
Using the OR operator
In this scenario, you want to continue working with the report above, however we are going to add additional filters to focus on states meeting a certain criteria. The states (except DC) we are focused on are those with sales in either 2001, 2002 or those that have had sales of more than $2,000,000. To create a report using the OR operator Continue working with the Multiple Filters report.
1. Click Edit Query to ensure you are working in Query View. 2. From the Data tab, click and drag Sales revenue into the Query Filters pane. 3. From the Operator drop-down list, select Greater Than. 4. Click in the Type a constant text box and enter 2000000 as the value.
Note: Be sure to exclude dollar signs and commas. The number must be a true numeric in order for the query to execute properly.
The query filter updates.
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Once again, the default condition of And is applied. However, in this example we want to retrieve data for the (all States except DC AND Years 2001, 2002) OR any state / year combination that had sales greater than $2,000,000. You need to apply the OR operator to get the result you desire.
5. Drag the Sales revenue filter in the Query Filters pane and drop it on top of the State filter. Web Intelligence automatically groups the two filters together.
The And operator displays as the default. However, the And condition will not retrieve the data we are interested in. We want to retrieve data where (Year InList: 2001; 2002) And (State <> DC) Or (Sales Revenue > 2,000,000). We need to continue adjusting the condition.
6. Drag the State filter in the Query Filters pane and drop it on top of the Year filter to group the State and Year filters together.
The query filters are now grouped properly. However, the And / And combination is incorrect. As a final step, you will need to change one of the And operators to an Or operator.
7. Double-click on the And between (State / Year) and Sales revenue. The Query Filter pane should now look like:
8. Click Run Query. The report displays All States except DC for the years 2001 and 2002 AND any states that have Sales revenue greater than $2,000,000 regardless of their state and year.
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Notice the last three rows in the table: data appears for California, New York and Texas for 2003 even though we selected only the Years 2001 and 2002. This is because of the OR condition that specifies to ALSO bring back any rows that had sales greater than $2,000,000 regardless of year or state.
9. Save the document to your Favorites folder as Multiple Filters 2.
Prioritizing operators
You are applying a complex filter when you combine several filters in a single query. In order to ensure that the filters retrieve exactly the data you want, you need to prioritize the operators.
To define the priority between complex filters In this scenario, you want to create a new document that shows Sales revenue by Store name for stores in Florida for Bermuda Shorts, Or Sales revenue by Store name for Stores in Colorado for Hats, gloves, and scarves.
1. Using the eFashion universe, create a new query and filters as shown below.
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This query will not work as it is presented as the system does not know which filter to run or which filter order to apply. To prioritize you will create a structure in the Query Filters pane.
2. In the Query Filters pane, drag and drop the filters in the order you want them to display in your report. When finished, your query panel should look like the one below.
The filters are grouped together and connected with an Or operator and the query is complete with the priority of the conditions defined.
3. Click Run Query. The report displays Sales revenue by Store name for stores in Florida for Bermuda Shorts Or Sales revenue by Store name for Stores in Colorado for Hats, gloves, and scarves.
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4. Save the document to your Favorites folder as Prioritizing Operators.
Report Design in the Java Report Panel
Working in the Java Report Panel
Introduction This unit introduces you to the Edit Report view. This is the Java Report Panel interface element that allows you to edit and structure the information that is returned by the queries built previously in the Panel's Edit Query view. After completing this unit you will be able to:
· Describe the components of a Web Intelligence document. · Describe the different toolbars available for reporting, formatting and navigating
through pages. · Customize your Java Report Panel user settings. · Describe the different tabs in the Java Report Panel's Report Manager. · Display the Document Properties pane and describe the options. · Insert, delete, duplicate and move reports within a Web Intelligence documents.
Components of a Web Intelligence document
A Web Intelligence document consists of: · one or more reports
One document may contain several reports, organized as tabs along the bottom of the window. Reports contain blocks of formatted data as well as text and graphics. You specify the layout when you create a report, and you can also change the layout of existing reports.
· one or more blocks A block is a table, crosstab, or chart that displays information in the report.
· the microcube of data returned by the query, also known as the data provider The microcube or data provider contains the actual data that was retrieved from your
corporate database. The data provider is the structure in which the retrieved data is stored in the document. It contains all the data that you can display in the report(s) inside the document.
Viewing reports in a document
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Each report in a document can show different views of the same information, or it can show completely different information concerning the same subject.
About the Edit Report view
The Edit Report view in the Java Report Panel allows you to interact with and organize the data returned by queries in two ways:
· using toolbars · using the Report Manager tabs
The Report Manager will be presented in detail in the next unit. This section describes the different toolbars you can use as you work on organizing and presenting data in your report.
The Edit Report view toolbars
As you are creating and editing reports in the Edit Report view, there are four toolbars available to you.
· the Standard toolbar
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· the Reporting toolbar · the Formatting toolbar · the Page Navigation toolbar
To display the Edit Report view toolbars:
1. Create a new Web Intelligence document by building a query using the eFashion universe, or open an existing document in the Java Report Panel. · In Edit Report view, click the Configure Views button on the Standard toolbar, to the left of the Edit Query button.
2. From the Configure Views drop-down menu, click Toolbars. 3. Verify that all the available toolbars are selected.
The tables below give you a brief description of each of the toolbar buttons.
Standard toolbar buttons
Button Description New Document Creates a new document on the currently selected Universe. Save Allows you to save documents to Personal and Public folders or to save documents on your own computer. Export to PDF for Printing Enables you to generate a copy of individual reports or specific pages to a PDF file for printing. Configure Views Allows you to show and hide the different Report Manager tabs, as well as show and hide each of the three toolbars. Edit Query Allows you to define data content of the document. Toggles your view of the report from Edit Report to Edit Query view.
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Edit Report Allows you to edit reports in a document. Toggles your view of the report from Edit Query to Edit Report view. Refresh Query button - Allows you to regenerate the query and retrieve the most recent data from the database.
Purge Data button - Allows you to remove the data retrieved by one or more queries from your document.
Show User settings button - Allows you to view and modify measurement and pixel settings. Help button - Allows you to access contextual help on the task you are trying to achieve.
Reporting toolbar button
Button Description
Show/Hide Filter Pane Allows you to drag objects into the filter pane to restrict the amount of data displayed in the report. Show/Hide Formula Toolbar Allows you to create custom formulas using a graphical editor and save them as variables for reuse in the document. Variable Editor Allows you to create a new variable by building a formula and defining it with a name in the Variable Editor. Merge dimensions Allows you to merge dimensions from multiple queries into a single dimension. You can then use that merged dimension to project data in a block. Show/Hide Drill Toolbar When you switch to drill mode, you can use this button to either display or hide the drill toolbar that displays drill filters as you analyze data in different levels of detail. Undo Allows you to cancel the previous action. Alerters Allows you to create, edit or delete alerters. Alerters allow you to highlight results that meet or fail specific targets. Apply/Remove Ranking Allows you to show only the extreme ranges of data, by ranking the top or bottom values of a given dimension on the basis of a given measure. Add Quick Filter Activated when you select an object in the Result Objects pane and allows you to select a value to filter data on. Insert/Remove Break Insert or remove a break on a table column or row. Apply/Remove Sort Apply to or remove a sort from a column of data. Clicking the down arrow displays the descending sort option as well.
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Insert Sum Insert sum or display the list of calculations you can apply to a column of data. Clicking the down arrow displays the additional calculations. Insert Row Above Insert a new table or row above the selected row. Clicking the down arrow displays additional insert options.
View Page Layout Toggles between page layout and normal view of a current document.
View Structure Toggles between viewing the structure of the report and the results. Drill Starts and ends drill mode. Allows you to analyze report values by drilling down or across the dimensions displayed in the tables and charts. Take Snapshot of Drilled Report Allows you to make duplicate of drilled report so that you can keep a copy of the drilled values in the same documents.
Formatting toolbar buttons
Button Description
Font name Allows you to change the font used to display text in the selected report element. Font size Allows you to change the font size used to display text in the selected report element.
Bold Allows you to change the text style in the selected report element to bold.
Italic Allows you to change the text style in the selected report element to italic. Underline Allows you to change the text style in the selected report element to underlined. Left Allows you to align the text in the selected report element to the left.
Center Allows you to align the text in the selected report element in the center.
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Right Allows you to align the text in the selected report element to the right.
Merge cells Allows you to merge multiple cells or columns into a single cell or column.
Background color Allows you to change the background color of the selected report element.
Text color Allows you to change the text color of the selected report element.
Page Navigation toolbar buttons
Button Description
Page navigation Allows you to quickly navigate to specific pages in the
document.
Customizing the user settingsYou can personalize the following display settings of the Web Intelligence Java Report Panel to help you position report elements on report pages:
· define the unit for measurement · display a grid to help align page elements · use snap to grid to reposition page elements accurately · define grid spacing
Set your Java Report Panel user settings 1. Open an existing document or create a new document and run a query. 2. In either the Edit Report view or the Edit Query view, click the Show User Settings button
in the Standard toolbar. The User Settings dialog box appears.
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3. Specify measurement settings for the document properties and define grid settings here. 4. Click OK.
Web Intelligence saves your new settings. The new settings are applied the next time you launch the Java Report Panel.
Working with the Report Manager in the Java Report Panel
The Report Manager is displayed on the left-hand side of the Web Intelligence Edit Report view. Using this panel, you can manage all the objects and variables in the document, change the type of blocks in the report, format the properties of the report and its contents, and navigate through the document.
The Report Manager is made up of four tabs: · Data tab - Allows you to view at a glance the data available in a document. Data is organized
in a list of Query and Variable classes. · Templates tab - Allows you to change the type of blocks in a report by dragging and dropping
different templates onto a report block. · Properties tab - Allows you to format the report and blocks within the document. · Map tab - Allows you to view and navigate through the reports and sections in a document.
To view and navigate with the Report Manager 1. Open the Sales Revenue Report document from your Favorites folder.
The document opens in the InfoView window.
2. Select Edit from the Document drop-down menu on the Navigation Bar. The Java Report Panel opens, with the document displayed in the Edit Report view.
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By default, the Data tab is displayed on the left-hand side of the Report Manager pane. This tab displays the title of the document, plus all the objects available in this document
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If you had multiple queries and variables in the document they would be displayed in this tab also.
Next, you will open the Templates tab to look at the table and chart templates available to you for displaying this data.
3. Click the Templates tab of the Report Manager. The Report Manager Template tab opens. The Report Elements folder displays the templates available for use.
In the image below, you can see all the table template styles available to you
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. In later lessons, you will explore how to use these tabs and the Map and Properties tabs as well.
Configuring views of the Edit Report view
In the Java Report Panel, it's very simple to configure how you want the Report Manager to be displayed in the Edit Report view.
To configure Report Manager views
1. In the same Sales Revenue Report document, click the Configure Views drop-down menu. This menu allows you to select different options for showing or hiding the different tabs on the Report Manager
You can choose to display:
· The Data tab displayed in front of the other tabs, as the standard default view. · The Properties tab positioned below the Data tab, so that you can view both at the same time
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· The Data tab displayed to the left and Properties tab displayed to the far right of Document zone.
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· Or, the Report Manager collapsed as a vertical toolbar. In this configuration, the tabs are now presented as buttons that you can click whenever you want to view any of the tabs.
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2. Select the Collapsed Data Properties option from the Configure View menu. 3. Click the Templates icon on the vertical toolbar, and see that the Templates tab appears as
usual in the Report Manager space.
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4. From the Configure Views drop-down menu, select the Data option to return to the standard view of the Edit Report panel.
Displaying the document properties
In the Edit Report view, you can display and modify properties that are assigned by default to the document.
To view document properties 1. Continue working with the Sales Revenue Report document. 2. From the Reporting Toolbar, click the View Page Layout button.
The report is displayed in Page Layout mode and you can now view the reports in the document as they will appear when printed.
3. To view the overall properties assigned to this document, right-click the Report 1 tab at the bottom of the document pane. A shortcut menu displays.
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4. From the menu, select Document Properties. Alternatively, you can also right-click anywhere above the report zone or the header zone in the document, then select Document Properties from the drop-down menu.
Note: Make sure you click as close to the top of the document as you can, otherwise you may select a report element instead of the document zone, and the drop-down menu that appears will not be the correct one.
The Document Properties pane appears on the right side of the Edit Report view window.
Note: To view all the properties displayed in this pane, you can either use the vertical scroll bar, or you can click one of properties headers in order to collapse that section. Collapsing one section will allow the other sections to appear in the pane so that you don't have to scroll down to view them.
5. Click the Document Information header in the Document Properties pane to collapse that section. The Document Information properties zone collapses, and the pane now appears like this:
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The document properties options are described in the following table:
Document Properties
section Description
Document Information
Displays details about the document, such who created the document, when the document was created, and last modified, keywords that were defined to identify the document, and a description. Locale Displays the document's international formatting locale. The locale affects the behavior of, for example, date display, number display and sort order. For example, if the document formatting locale is French (France), decimal numbers appear according to French formatting rules with a comma as the decimal separator (3,51;20,05).
Document Options
Refresh on open This option tells Web Intelligence to refresh a document automatically each time a user opens it. By default, this option is not selected so that users will always see the original data that was retrieved when the document was last refreshed, and which was stored in the document when it was saved. To see the most recent data available in the database, users can refresh the document manually when they open it. Or you can choose to select this option to ensure that the data is updated automatically each time the document is opened.
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Enhanced viewing This option is selected by default. It optimizes the document appearance for on-screen viewing. Use query drill Tells Web Intelligence to drill in query drill mode, instead of in the standard drill mode. This drill mode is presented in detail in Lesson 11.
Data Synchronization Options
Auto-merge dimensions Tells Web Intelligence to synchronize data providers by merging dimensions automatically under certain conditions. This option is presented in detail in Lesson 10. Extend merged dimension values Tells Web Intelligence to extend dimension values in reports with synchronized data providers.
Report Order Sets the order of the report tabs in the document.
Note: The Help link at the bottom of the pane provides help on each of these options.
6. Close the Document Properties pane clicking the X in upper right-hand corner of the pane.
Managing reports
In Edit Report view, you can add new reports to a document, and duplicate or delete reports as you like.
To add a report to a document 1. Continue working with the Sales Revenue Report document. 2. Right-click the Report 1 tab at the bottom of the document pane.
A shortcut menu displays.
3. From the menu, select Insert Report. A new empty report tab, called Report 2 is inserted into the document and displays at the bottom of the document pane.
4. Right-click the Report 2 tab and select Rename Report. The Report Manager Properties tab opens.
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5. In the Name field, type "My New Report" and press the Enter key. The report tab displays the new name for the report.
Tip: You MUST press enter in order for the new report name to be retained.
You learn in later lessons how to bring data available in the document into this new report, and how to format tables or charts to display the information in the most appropriate manner.
Displaying data in tables and charts
Introduction The simplest style for displaying data is tables. Web Intelligence provides four different types of tables: vertical, horizontal or financial tables, crosstab and form.
After completing this unit you will be able to: · Describe the table types available in Web Intelligence.
About tables
Vertical tables The vertical presentation style is the default style for presenting data. Vertical tables display header cells at the top of the table and the corresponding data in columns. By default, the header cells display the names of the dimensions, details, and measures included in the table. The body cells display the corresponding values.
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Horizontal tables or financial tables A horizontal or financial table is similar to a vertical table except that the data runs horizontally rather than vertically. By default, the row headers display the names of the dimensions, details, and measures included in the table. The body cells display the corresponding values. This table format is useful for reports with several measures, such as financial reports and balance sheets.
Crosstabs A crosstab looks similar to a spreadsheet and displays data in a matrix with row and column headings describing the content of each cell. Crosstabs display values for dimensions across the top axis and on the left axis. The body displays the values of a measure that correspond to the cross-section of the dimensions.
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Forms Forms are useful in a report if you want to display detailed information per customer, product, or partner. For example, a form is a useful way of displaying individual customer records with information such as the customer account, name, and address. Forms are also useful for formatting address labels for envelopes.
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Presenting data in free-standing cells
Introduction Free-standing cells are single cells that stand alone in a report. You can use free-standing cells to display information that adds meaning to your report, such as:
· Text comments: Type messages or questions, or add titles. · Images: Display logos, icons, or photographs. · Formulas or calculations: Add custom formulas or calculations. · Last refresh date: Display the date when the document results were refreshed with
the most recent data from the database. · DrillFilter function: Display the names of the objects by which the data on a drilled
report is filtered. · Page numbers: Display the page number of each report page.
After completing this unit you will be able to: Insert a blank cell in a report. Display the date that the document was last refreshed. Display text in a blank cell. Format and align the new cells in the report.
Inserting the refresh date in a free-standing cell
In this scenario, you open a document that has the following objects available: State, City, Store name, Year, and Sales revenue. You will insert two free-standing cells in this report. In the first cell, you will display text showing the last date and time the document was refreshed. In the second cell, you will display text that will identify the last refresh data. Then you will format the new cells.
To insert the last refresh date in a free-standing cell
1. Open the Tables document in the Java Report Panel and check that the Report 1 tab is selected.
2. In the Report Manager, click the Templates tab. 3. If necessary, click + to expand the Free-Standing Cells template folder. 4. Click + to expand the Formula and Text Cells template folder
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5. In the Document zone, click the Report Title cell to select the cell, then using drag and drop, move the cell over to the right in the window.
6. In the Templates tab, in the Report Manager, drag the Last Refresh Data cell template and drop it in the Document zone, just to the left of the report title cell. An empty cell is inserted in the document zone, and the date when the document was last refreshed appears automatically in this cell.
To change the default date/time format
1. Click the Properties tab of the Report Manager.
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The Properties tab displays, showing the default properties of the new cell that is selected in the Document zone
In the General properties zone, note that the formula "=LastExecutionDate()" appears in the Text box. This is a predefined formula provided in the Templates tab to make it simple for you to display this type of data in a report.
2. At the bottom of the Text Format zone, position your cursor over the Date/Time number format. An Expand button appears to the right of Data/Time, which allows you to change the formatting of the text in the cell
3. Click the Expand button that appears to the far right of the Number format zone. The Number Format dialog box is displayed
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4. Click November 7, 2004 in the Properties zone, to select this date format. 5. Click OK.
The date format is updated in the report
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Continue working with this document.
To insert text to label the new cell 1. In Edit Report view, click the Templates tab of the Report Manager. 2. If necessary, click + to expand the Formula and Text Cells template folder
3. Drag the Blank Cell template into the Document zone, just to the left of the new Last Refresh Date cell. A second empty cell is inserted in the document zone:
4. Click this new cell to select it in the Document zone, as shown above.
5. Click the Properties tab of the Report Manager. The Properties tab displays, showing the default properties of the new cell that is selected in the Document zone
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6. In the General zone, click the Text text box. 7. Type Last refresh: in the Text text box and press the Return key.
The text appears in the second cell you just created.
The text that appears in both new cell is too big and will not fit in the space available. Next you are going to change the text style of this new cells at the same time. Continue working with this document.
To modify the default text style in both cells at the same time
1. Click the Configure Views drop-down arrow on the Standard toolbar. 2. Select Toolbars. 3. Click Formatting to display the Formatting toolbar. 4. In the Document zone, verify that the second cell you inserted is still selected. 5. Press the CTRL key and click the first cell that displays the date.
Note: You can also select multiple cells by using the "lasso" technique. Press the mouse button down anywhere in the white space in the Document zone and drag the cursor to encircle the cells you want to highlight.
Both cells are now selected and highlighted, and the Properties tab now shows the default text style for inserted cells.
6. On the Formatting toolbar, click the Font Size drop-down arrow and select 10. The text in both cells now appears in size 10 font.
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However, you now need to expand horizontally the Date cell so that you can see the entire date.
7. Click in the Document zone to deselect both cells. 8. Click the Date cell to select it, then position your cursor over the right border of this cell,
until the cursor turns into a double arrow. Press and hold down the mouse button. A bar appears where your cursor is positioned, which allows you to expand the cell size.
9. Move the cursor to the right, so that you position the right border of this cell next to the Report Title cell.
10. Click in the Document zone to deselect the cell. The text is now displayed in the appropriate size.
11. Save the document.
Enhancing the Presentation of Reports
Using breaks, calculations and sorts
Introduction In this lesson you learn to organize data in a table by applying breaks, calculations, sorts, report filters and alerters. Some of these tasks you have already used in Lesson 3 of this course, while viewing a Web Intelligence document in Interactive view mode. This unit describes these tasks in more detail, because as report designers who create complex reports for yourselves and others, you will most likely work in the Java Report Panel. The Java Report Panel offers the most extensive reporting features, and because you can toggle very easily between the Edit Query view and the Edit Report view in a single interface, it makes it easy for you to change the query definition as you finalize your report, if you desire.
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After completing this unit you will be able to: Apply breaks to break up long tables of data. Apply calculations, such as sums and counts. Apply sorts to display data in order of the most important information.
About breaks
Breaks allow you to break up data in tables into groups according to the data and values you select. When you apply a break, Web Intelligence separates all the data for each unique value of the selected variable. It inserts a blank row or column after each value, which allows you to easily insert subtotals for the group of data. As you can see in the image below, a long table that is tedious to read and understand is converted in to a block of data that is much clearer and simpler to read. Break has been applied, on Plan Name. Each group in the table displays Face Amount for a unique plan name.
In the extra row that is inserted into the table after each group, you can easily insert sum totals for revenue over the face amount.
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Using breaks has two main advantages: · You can more efficiently organize how your data is represented. · You can display subtotals.
When you insert a break on a dimension, the values for the dimension are automatically sorted in ascending order. If the values are numeric, the lowest value appears in the first row of the table, the highest in the last row. If the values are alphabetical characters, then the values are sorted in alphabetical order from top to bottom.
To organize a report with breaks
1. In the Java Report Panel, create a new document using the eFashion universe, and build a query by selecting the State, Year, Quarter and Sales revenue objects.
2. Click Run Query. The top of the table should look similar to the one below:
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3. Right-click the Report 1 tab and select Duplicate Report from the drop-down menu. 4. In Report 1 (1), click on a detail row in the Year column.
The column is highlighted.
5. From the Report Toolbar, click the Insert/Remove Break button. The table is reorganized into groups of data. Each value of the object is separated into a separate group of data.
You can insert multiple breaks by repeating the same process on another row or column.
6. Create an additional break on Quarter. The report should look similar to the one below.
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7. Create an additional break on State. 8. Keep the document open.
To delete breaks
1. Click a cell in the column or row where you want to remove a break. Click on State. 2. From the Report toolbar, click the Insert/Remove Break button.
The break is removed from the report. The report should look similar to the one below.
3. Save the document to your Favorites as Multiple Breaks.
About calculations
Web Intelligence provides standard calculation functions to help you make quick calculations on the data in your reports. These calculations are available from the drop-down list of calculations on the Edit Report view toolbar.
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You can calculate sums, averages and percentages. You can also calculate the total count, and the minimum and maximum values for a variable.
To organize a report with calculations
1. In the Report 1 (1) report of the Multiple Breaks document, click a detail row in the Sales revenue data column.
2. From the Report Toolbar, click the Insert Sum button. A total sum is inserted in the bottom row of each group in the table.
Note: You can insert different calculations by clicking on the drop-down arrow beside the Insert Sum button.
To insert multiple calculations
Continue using the Report 1 (1) report. 1. Click on a detail row in the Sales revenue column. 2. From the Report Toolbar, click the arrow beside the Insert Sum button. 3. Select Count as the calculation that you want to apply to the data in the column.
The report should look similar to the one below.
4. From the Report Toolbar, click the arrow beside the Insert Sum button. 5. Select Percentage as the calculation that you want to apply to the data in the column.
The report should look similar to the one below.
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6. Save the document to your Favorites as Multiple Calculations. 7. Keep the document open.
To delete a calculation
1. Right-click the table row that contains the Count calculation. 2. From the drop down menu, select Remove Row.
Note: If you were working with a crosstab or percentages, you would select Remove Column.
3. Close the document without saving the changes.
About sorts
The Sort feature allows you to format data in ascending or descending order. In the example below, the table above has the default sorts. The table below has been resorted to show the data sorted by Producer Name from high to low. The two tables present the data in very different ways.
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To create a report with sorts
In this scenario, you want to sort the data so that the state with the highest sales revenue in any given year is displayed in the group first. To do this, you apply a sort on the Sales revenue column of data.
1. In the Multiple Calculations document, insert a new report. 2. Click the Year object, then while holding down the Ctrl key, click the State and Sales
revenue objects.
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3. Using drag and drop, move the three objects to the Document zone to project the data in a vertical table.
4. Click on a detail row in the Sales revenue column. 5. Click the drop-down arrow beside the Apply/Remove Sort button. 6. Select Descending as the sort order.
The column is sorted in the order you specified. Your document should look similar to the one below:
Note: Clicking on the Apply/Remove Sort button applies a Default sort to the column or row selected. By default the results are sorted in Ascending order. To sort in Descending order, you need to click the arrow next to the sort icon.
7. Save the document to your Favorites as Sorted Data. 8. Keep the document open.
Using report filters
Introduction In the next section, you learn how to limit the data displayed in a report by applying report filters.
After completing this unit you will be able to: Explain the difference between using query filters and using report filters. Create a report filter.
About report filters
You have already used query filters in a previous lesson. Web Intelligence gives you two methods for restricting the data displayed in a document:
· Query filters allow you to limit the amount of data that is retrieved from the data source and returned by the query to your Web Intelligence documents. You can only apply query filters when you are creating or editing the query in the Edit Query view.
· Report filters, on the other hand, allow you to restrict the data shown in the report simply by hiding the data you are not interested in. The data is still contained in the document; it is just hidden from the report display.
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You apply report filters when you are editing a document in the Edit Report view, using the Filter button on the Report toolbar. Tables or other blocks in your reports can sometimes be very large, and not very easy to read at a glance. To make the report easier to read, you apply a report filter on a specific object, so that it displays just the information that interests you.
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You can apply report filters in two ways: A global filter is applied to the whole report - thus affecting all data blocks in the report. A block filter is applied to a section, table or chart within a report - thus affecting only the
data in the block. You can define filters on dimensions, measures, details and variables listed on the Data tab of the document.
To create a report filter In this scenario you will filter an existing table to show only data for the Year 2003. Continue working with the Sorted Data document.
1. In the Report 3 tab, click the Year column to select it. Note: You create a block filter by clicking in the block; or, create a global filter by clicking on the document zone outside the
block.
2. In the Edit Report view, click the Show/Hide Filter Pane button. The Report Filters pane appears.
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3. From the data tab, drag the Year object into the Report Filters pane. The Filter Editor dialog box appears.
4. From the Operator drop-down menu, verify that Equal to is selected. 5. Under Operand Type, click Values(s) from list. 6. Double-click 2003. 7. Click OK.
The report displays showing only the data for 2003.
To delete a report filter
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1. If the Filter Pane is not already showing, click the Show/Hide Filter Pane button. 2. Click the Year Equal to: 2003 report filter to highlight it. 3. Press the Delete key. 4. Click the Show/Hide Filter Pane button again to close the pane. 5. Continue working in the same document.
Using alerters to highlight information
Introduction
In the next section, you learn how to highlight data that meets specific requirements by creating and applying alerters.
After completing this unit you will be able to: Explain how you can use alerters to highlight important information. Create a basic alerter. Activate an alerter in a report. Create complex alerters using conditions and sub-alerters.
About alerters
Alerters enable you to highlight results that meet or fail specific business targets. You can create a simple alerter to highlight particularly high or low results with a specific color or advanced alerters that display a text comment, such as "High Performer". For example, you can create an alerter to highlight margin results that exceed $1,100,000. The margin result that is greater than $1,100,000 is highlighted every time the report data is refreshed. An alerter contains five elements:
a name an object or cell contents an operator an operand value(s) or another object the conditional formatting
The object or cell contents, the operator and the operand make up the condition that determines whether the formatting will be applied to each cell where the alerter is applied. When you apply the new alerter to a table column, row or cell on a report, Web Intelligence applies the condition to the cell values and displays any values that meet the condition in the alerter with the formatting specified. Additional rules to remember when creating alerters are:
• You can apply alerters to tables, forms, section cells, and free-standing cells. • Alerters cannot be applied to charts. • You can include up to 30 alerters in a document. You can apply those alerters to a
maximum of 20 table columns or rows, free-standing cells or section cells on the
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reports. A maximum of 10 alerters can be applied to a single-table column or row, free-standing cell or section cell.
Web Intelligence applies a default format to display the alerter. You can make changes to this default format. You can insert multiple conditions within an alerter. You can also create an advanced alerter by inserting a formula.
Creating and activating an alerter
To create a basic alerter In this scenario you are going to build a report that shows States below structure. You want to highlight record combinations that had Face Amount over million i.e $1,000,000.
1. Open the Sorted Data report and click the Desired Report tab. 2. Click Edit Query. 3. Add the Face Amount object to the query. 4. Click Run Query.
Margin should be available in the Data tab of the Report Manager. However, it should not show in the report.
5. In Edit Report view, click any detail row in the Face Amount column. 6. From the Reporting toolbar, click Alerters.
The Alerters dialog box displays.
7. Click New. The Alerter Editor displays.
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8. Under Alerter name, type Greater Than Million. You can also include an optional description of the alert.
9. In the Sub-Alerter section, under Filtered object or cell, click the Browse button. 10. Select the Select an Object or Variable from the drop-down menu. 11. In the list of available objects and variables, click Face Amount.
12. Click OK.
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13. Under Operator, select Greater than or equal to. 14. Under Operand, enter 1000000.
Note: Do not include commas or decimals when specifying number values.
Web Intelligence applies the default format to the results specified in the alerter as displayed in Cell contents. You can retain the defaults or modify the format properties by clicking the Format button.
15. Click Format. Note: The Alerter Display dialog box appears:
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16. In the Font style drop-down list, change the font definition to Bold Italic. 17. Click OK. 18. In the Alerter Editor, click OK.
The new alerter is added to the list of alerters in the Alerters dialog box as shown below.
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19. Verify that the check box beside the new alerter is selected. 20. Click OK.
The alerter is applied to the report results.
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Notice that although Margin is not in the table itself, it can still be referenced when creating the alerters. To activate alerters
In this scenario, you will apply the alerter that was created in the previous step to other columns so that they display in red when Face Amount is over $1,000,000.
1. Click a detail row in the Application Policy Number column. 2. From the report toolbar, click Alerters.
The Alerters dialog box displays a list of available alerters.
3. From the Alerters dialog box, check the box next to Greater Than Million4. Click OK.
The report is updated to show Application Policy Number with Face Amount over $1,000,000 in red.
Note: To deactivate an alerter, click the column, row, section cell or free-standing cell, click Alerters and deselect the check box beside the alerter.
5. Save the document to your Favorites as Alerts. 6. Close the document.
Creating complex alerters
You can apply multiple conditions in a single alerter.
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For example, you can highlight sales revenue when results reach over $300K and when those results occur in stores in any US state except California. To do this, you create an alerter with the following two conditions:
The formatting generated by the alerter is the same for each condition. To create different conditions that each implement different formatting, you need to define multiple sub-alerters in the alerter.
Note: The maximum number of alerters that can be created in a document is 30.
To create a complex alerter In this scenario, we are going to build an alerter that will highlight sales revenue less than $3,000,000, and we want the alerter to apply to all US states except Florida.
1. In the Java Report Panel, build a query using the eFashion universe, and select the State, Sales revenue and Quantity sold objects.
2. Click Run Query. 3. Click on a detail row in the Sales revenue column.
The column is highlighted.
4. From the Reporting toolbar, click Alerters. The Alerters dialog box displays.
5. Click New. The Alerter Editor displays.
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6. Under Alerter name, type Low revenue US states. You can also include an optional description of the alert.
7. Verify that Sales revenue appears in the Filtered object or zone field. This is the object that the alerter will use to filter data.
8. Under Operator, select Less than. You are interested in highlighting states that earned less than $3,000,000.
9. Under Operand, enter 3000000. Note: Do not include commas or decimals when specifying number values.
Now you want to add a condition to exclude Florida from this alerter.
10. Click + to the far right of the Operands field. Note: The Alerter Editor expands, so that you can combine another condition in the alerter defintion.
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11. Click the Browse button next to the second Sales revenue condition. This will allow you to base the alerter on an object or cell other than Sales revenue.
12. Click Select an object or variable. The Objects and Variables dialog box appears.
13. Click State. 14. Click OK to close the Objects and Variables dialog box. 15. In the second condition's Operator field, select Not equal to . 16. In the Type a value field, type Florida.
Alternatively, you can click the Browse button next to the Type a value field, click Select Values from the drop-down menu, and select Florida from the List of Values dialog box.
The Alerter Editor should now appear like this:
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You have defined the alerter with two conditions:
o The first condition will highlight sales revenue figures that are less than $3,000,000.
o The second condition will exclude the state of Florida from the alerter. 17. Change the formatting of the alerter to Bold Italic font style, as in the previous exercise. 18. Click OK.
The new alerter is added to the list of alerters in the Alerters dialog box as shown below.
19. Verify that the check box beside the new alerter is selected. 20. Click OK.
The report is updated so that sales revenue below $3,000,000 is highlighted in red. However, you can see that the sales revenue earned by Florida has not been highlighted by the alerter, even though the state earned less than $3,000,000.
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21. Save the document to your Favorites as Alerters. 22. Keep the document open.
Organizing a report into sections
Introduction In the previous section of this lesson, you saw that you could group data in a block using the break function. In this section, you learn how to:
Break a report into sections. Insert a sum and position it using drag and drop. Insert a chart in each section.
About sections
You can group data in a block using the break function as illustrated below.
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You can also use sectioning to group data. The difference is that the grouped value appears as a header outside the block instead of remaining within the block.
However, there is a more important difference. A break only groups within a block, whereas sectioning groups the entire report. Notice the section lines in the illustration below run across the width of the report. This has a number of advantages:
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• You can have multiple blocks projected from the same microcube within a single report, all sub-grouped to the sectioned level. • You can insert subtotal cells, repeated in each section, which are created by the simple process of drag and drop.
In the example below, the subtotal appears to the right of the section header.
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To create a section
In this scenario you will create a report that is sectioned by State. Within the section you will display a table, chart and aggregate totals.
1. In the Java Report Panel, build a query using the eFashion universe, and select the Year, Quarter, State and Sales revenue objects.
2. Click Run Query. 3. Right-click on a detail row in the Plan Name column.
A drop-down menu displays.
4. From the drop-down menu, select Set as Section.
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The column you selected defines which object is used to split up the table into sections. Each value of this object is displayed as a section header, and the table below each section header displays the data concerning that value.
In this example, the object used to create a section is State, and we see here that the first value returned by the Plan Name, 10 YEAR FLEX TERM SERIES VI, is displayed as the first section header. Data concerning 10 YEAR FLEX TERM SERIES VI is displayed in a table just below the new header:
5. Save the document to your Favorites folder as Sectioned Data. 6. Keep the document open.
To display an aggregate Continue working with the Sectioned Data report.
1. Click a detail row in the Face Amount column. 2. From the Report Toolbar, click Insert Sum.
The data is calculated and inserted in a new row at the bottom of the table in each section.
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Note: When you apply a sum in a sectioned report, the overall total is not calculated and displayed at the bottom of the report, like it is when use a break and then apply a sum.
3. Click any value in the Face Amount column, press the Ctrl key, and drag the cell with your mouse until it is level with the section heading, as shown below.
4. While holding the Ctrl key, release the mouse button to insert a cell. The section sum total, that is the 10 YEAR RECAP SERIES VI overall Face Amount, appears next to the section header.
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Note: Using the Report Manager's Properties tab, you can edit the formatting of these cells by removing the default borders, changing the default font size, color and so on. You will learn about formatting tables and charts in later lessons.
To insert a block in each section Continue using the report from the previous exercise.
1. Click the Templates tab in the Report Manager. 2. Click on the + to expand the Bar group.
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3. Click and drag Vertical Grouped to the report area dropping it to the right of the data table. The panel automatically changes to View Structure mode displaying the structure of the report.
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4. Click the Data tab in the Report Manager. 5. Drag the Sales revenue object and drop it on the y-axis of the chart. 6. Drag the Year object and drop it on the x-axis of the chart.
The measure and dimension objects are positioned within the template.
7. From the Reporting toolbar, click View Results. The Document zone appears in View Results mode, and the block is inserted into each section showing the values specified.
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Navigating from section to section
To navigate from section to section
Continue using the report from the previous exercise. 1. In the Report Manager, click Map.
The Map tab displays all the reports and sections contained in this document. In the example, there is only a single report.
2. Click on the + to expand the Report 1 structure. 3. Click on Colorado to navigate to this section.
The Document zone scrolls down to display the section selected within the report.
Note: You can use the Map tab in the Report Manager to jump from one report to another, as well as navigating from section to section. This feature is useful when you have a large document with multiple reports and many sections to navigate through.
To delete a section It is recommended that you use the View Structure mode to display the report structure when deleting a section.
1. In Edit Report view, click View Structure. The section dividers show the beginning and end of the section.
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2. Click the start or end divider line of the section you want to remove. 3. Press the Delete key. 4. Click the section cell and press the Delete key. 5. Click View Results to view the document with a single table and chart. 6. Save the document and leave it open.
Copying data to other applications
Introduction
In Web Intelligence, you can easily copy data from a report into other applications, such as Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Power Point. This makes it easier to present and share your analysis in different formats. In this section, you learn how to:
· Copy and paste a block of data into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. · Copy and paste a block of data into a Microsoft Power Point slide.
Copying a block of data using Microsoft Clipboard
To copy data to an Excel spreadsheet
1. Continue using the report from the previous exercise. 2. Select the table block. 3. Press the Ctrl + C keys to copy the table block to the Microsoft Clipboard. 4. Launch Microsoft Excel. 5. Click the Edit menu and select Paste.
The table appears as an image file in the Excel spreadsheet.
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To copy data to a Power Point slide
1. 1 Continue using the report from the previous exercise. 2. 2 Select the chart block. 3. 3 Press the Ctrl + C keys to copy the table block to the Microsoft Clipboard. 4. 4 Launch Microsoft Power Point and open a file that contains slides into which you want
to paste data from Web Intelligence. 5. 5 Click the Edit menu and select Paste. The table appears as an image file in the Power Point slide.
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Formatting Reports
Document formatting
Introduction When you edit a report in the Java Report Panel, the Report Manager's Properties tab allows you to format all the elements in a document.
After completing this unit you will be able to: Describe the report elements that you can format using the Report Manager
You can format your documents at various levels within the body of the report. Using the Report Manager, you can choose to modify the default property settings for all levels within the body of the document: the reports contained within the document, the charts and tables in the reports, and even the cells and chart elements in the tables and charts. You choose which level you want to format in a document by clicking on the appropriate part of a report, and then changing the default settings in the Properties tab of the Report Manager. The example below shows where you point your cursor and click in a Web Intelligence document, in order to select and format each different document element.
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To view the Report Properties:
1. Open the Web Intelligence Samples folder within the Public Folders folder. 2. Click the Modify link below the Web Intelligence Sample document from the list of
objects. The document opens in the Java Report Panel.
3. From the Reporting toolbar, click the View Page Layout button. The document is displayed in Page Layout mode and you can now view the reports in the document as they will appear when printed.
4. Scroll down the page until you can see the white space below the table and chart displayed in this report.
5. Click in the white space well below both blocks, so that you select the report zone itself. A large frame appears, highlighting the margins of the report.
6. Click the Properties tab of the Report Manager. The Properties tab opens and displays the default properties set for the report you are currently viewing.
In the General section, the title of the report you are currently viewing appears in the Name zone.
The Appearance section allows you to change the color of the report background, as well as links that have been both visited and unvisited, if you have links to other web pages in this report.
7. Click the + plus sign next to the Page layout properties header to expand that section so that you can see the options available.
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The Page Layout section allows you to modify default margin settings, page size and header and footer properties for the report you are viewing.
To apply any changes in the Properties tab, you need to either press the Enter key or click in the Document zone.
Changing the display of the Properties tab
The Report Manager's Properties tab is organized into different sections. Each section provides various properties settings that you can modify, depending on the document element you have selected. Regardless of the report element you are formatting, you can choose to display the Properties sections using one of following Properties tab navigation buttons.
Properties tab button
Description
Displays the properties in a catalog view.
Displays the properties in alphabetical ascending order.
Shows or hides text at the bottom of the Report Manager Properties tab, which describes the property you have selected.
Automatically expands all sections in the Properties tab.
Automatically collapses all sections in the Properties tab.
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Modifying the default report properties
As we have seen, when you highlight a report in a Web Intelligence document, the Report Manager Properties tab provides options that you can use to change the default formatting of the report. In this exercise, you will practice using a few of the options available to you for formatting reports. Continue using the Web Intelligence Sample report from the previous exercise.
To modify the report background: 1. Verify that the Web Intelligence Sample document is still displayed in Page Layout view.
Note: Make sure that you have selected the report as shown previously, so that the report margins are highlighted.
2. Click the Properties tab in the Report Manager. 3. In the Appearance section, click the Background color zone, then select Yellow from the
Color drop-down list to change the color of the report background. 4. Click + next to the Page layout properties section to expand the section. 5. In the Page layout section, and in the Margins zones, change the Top, Bottom, Left, and
Right Margins to 52 px. 6. In the Page size zone, select Letter from the Size drop-down list. 7. In the Page orientation zone, select Landscape from the Orientation drop-down list. 8. In the Show page header and Show page footer zones, verify that the boxes are
selected and set the header and footer height to 32 px. The Report Properties tab should appear like this:
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The changes made to the report properties display in the document as shown below.
Modifying the default table properties
When you highlight a table in a Web Intelligence report, the Report Manager Properties tab provides options that allow you to change the default formatting of the selected table. In this exercise, you will practice using a few of the options available to you for formatting tables. Continue using the Web Intelligence Sample report from the previous exercise.
To change table properties 1. Select the table in the report by positioning your cursor just outside the table until a gray
border appears, and then clicking the border. 2. Select the Properties tab of the Report Manager.
The Report Manager displays the Table Properties tab.
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3. In the General properties section, and in the Name zone, change the name of the block to Order Table.
4. Click + next to Display to expand the Display section. 5. Change the Cell spacing to 10 px. 6. In the Appearance section, click the Background image zone and click the Browse
button to the far right of this zone, to select an image.
The Background Image dialog box displays.
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7. Click Skin. 8. From the Skin drop-down menu, select Curve. 9. Click OK to close the Background Image box.
The background of the table appears with a marble effect:
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To change the format of the header cells
1. Click + next to the Header cells zone, to expand the Header cells properties. 2. Click + next to the Text Format zone, to expand the Header cells text formatting
properties. 3. In the Horizontal text alignment zone, select Center from the drop-down menu.
To change the position of the table on the page Continue using the report from the previous exercise.
1. Scroll down the Table Properties tab and click + next to Page Layout to expand the Page Layout section.
2. Click + next to Position to open the Position properties section. 3. In the Position zone, change the Left Edge value to 32 px and the Top Edge value to
52 px. 4. The Properties tab should appear like this:
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The table is re-positioned on the page.
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Modifying the default cell properties
When you highlight a cell in a Web Intelligence document, the Report Manager Properties tab provides options that allow you to change the default formatting of the selected cell. Continue using the report from the previous exercise.
To change the cell properties
1. Click any detail row in the Order Amount data column. All the cells in the column are highlighted in gray, to show that the column of data is highlighted.
2. Click the Properties tab of the Report Manager. The Report Manager displays the Cell Properties tab.
3. In the Display section, and in the Width and Height zones, adjust the width to 102 px and the height to 32 px. The width and height of the cells in the column selected are updated to the sizes you specified.
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The change in width is applied to the column specified only. The change of height has been applied to all cells in the table, so that the table is visually balanced. You can also adjust the cell width and height manually, by clicking and dragging the cell borders.
Note: The default text for header cells is the variable or object name. The header cell names can be modified using the Formula toolbar which is accessed from the Report toolbar.
To modify multiple cell properties simultaneously
1. Click the Customer Name cell header and while holding down the Ctrl key, click the Order Amount and Unit Price cell headers as well, so that all three cells are highlighted.
2. Click the Properties tab on the Report Manager. 3. Scroll down to the Appearance section, and click + next to the Text Format zone to
expand the Text Format properties.
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4. In the Text color zone, select Yellow from the selection of colors. 5. In the Horizontal text alignment zone, select Center from the drop-down list. 6. In the Background color zone, select Black in the Color drop-down list. 7. Click any detail row in the Order Amount data column.
All the cells in the column are highlighted in gray, to show that the column of data is highlighted.
8. In the Text Format zone, change the text to Font Size 10, Bold, and Blue. The text in the selected cells is formatted with the options selected.
9. Holding down the Ctrl key again, select all three cells in the bottom row of the table. 10. In the Text Format zone, change the text color to Blue.
The text in the selected cells is formatted with the options selected.
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To insert a free-standing cell
In this exercise, you will use a free-standing cell to insert page numbers in the document. Continue using the report from the previous exercise.
1. Click the View Page Layout button on the Reporting toolbar to view the document in page layout mode.
2. Click the Templates tab of the Report Manager. 3. Click + to expand the Free-Standing Cells folder. 4. Click + to expand the Page Number Cells folder.
The Page Number Cell templates are displayed in the Templates tab.
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5. Scroll to the bottom of the document to display the area of the report where you want to position the page number.
6. Click in the white area beneath the page margins in yellow. The footer zone is highlighted.
7. Drag the Page Number template to the bottom of the page and drop it in the page footer.
The page numbers appear in the footer of your document
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Modifying the default section properties
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When you highlight a section in a Web Intelligence document, the Report Manager Properties tab provides options that allow you to change the default formatting of the selected section. In this exercise, you will practice using a few of the options available to you for formatting sections. Continue using the report from the previous exercise.
To change the section format 1. Click just below the table to select the section.
A dotted gray line appears above the section header and frames the entire section, to indicate that the section is highlighted.
2. Click the Properties tab of the Report Manager. The Section Properties tab appears.
3. In the Background image zone, click the Browse button and select Skin in the Background Image dialog box.
4. From the Skin drop-down menu, select Dots as the skin pattern. 5. Click OK.
The selected skin pattern displays in the section background.
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6. Close the document without saving.
Formatting charts
Introduction Like reports, tables and cells, charts are composed of a number of elements that can be formatted separately. Web Intelligence XI provides all the chart formatting features that you are familiar with when creating professional reports. In this section of the lesson, we will explore a few of the chart formatting features that are available.
After completing this unit you will be able to: Change the default properties for a bar chart. Change the default properties for a pie chart.
Looking at the chart properties
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To look at the chart properties
1 Open the Tables document in the Java Report Panel. 2 Insert a new report into the document. 3 Drag and drop the Vertical Grouped Bar chart template in the new report.
The Document zone switches to View Structure mode.
4 Using drag and drop, move the Sales revenue object to the measures place holder in the chart structure.
5 Move the State object to the dimension object placeholder and the Year object to the optional dimension object placeholder.
6 Click View Results. The new chart displays as shown below.
7 Click in the bar chart to select the chart. A gray border appears around the chart to indicate that it is highlighted.
8 Click the Properties tab of the Report Manager. The Properties tab opens and displays the default properties set for the chart you have selected.
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The Chart Properties tab allows you to change the default formatting of the chart.
Formatting a bar chart
In the previous exercise, you highlighted the bar chart and opened the Chart Properties tab in the Report Manager. In this exercise, you will practice using some of the options available to you for formatting charts. To make this chart more attractive and easier to read, you will:
• Reduce the font size of the Sales revenue values so that they are more in line with the rest of the chart.
• Modify the size of the chart.
To change the font size of a chart element Continue using the report from the previous exercise.
1 Click + next to Display in the Chart Properties tab. 2 Adjust the chart Height and Width so that it is visually more appealing. Set the width to 700
px and the Height to 300 px. 3 Click + in the X Axis zone to expand the X Axis properties. 4 Click + in the Values zone. 5 In the Text Format zone, click the Browse button to display the Text formatting dialog
box. 6 Adjust the default font size to 6 points. 7 Click OK.
The values selected are updated to reflect the changes.
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To display the value for each bar Continue working with the report from the previous exercise.
1 In the Appearance zone, click + next to Data, then click + next to Values to expand the Data Values properties.
2 In the Show data values, click the Yes option. The data values appear above each bar in the chart.
3 Keep the document open.
Formatting a pie chart
In the next section, you will format a pie chart to make it more attractive and easier to read.
To display the axis legend Continue using the report from the previous exercise.
1 Insert a new report into the document. 2 Drag the Pie chart template onto the report. 3 Add the State and Sales revenue objects to the template placeholders.
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4 Click View Results. The pie chart displays in the report as shown below.
5 Click in the pie chart to select the chart. A gray border appears around the chart to indicate that it is highlighted.
6 Click the Properties tab of the Report Manager. The Properties tab opens and displays the default properties set for the chart you have selected.
7 In the Display zone, adjust the Height and Width of the pie chart. Set the height to 400 px and the width to 300 px.
8 In the Appearance zone, click Yes next to the Show floor option. 9 Change the show floor Wall color to light yellow.
To display the data values Continue using the report from the previous exercise.
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1 Click + next to the Data zone to expand the Data values properties. 2 In the Values zone, click Yes next to the Show data opt ion.
The data values appear as labels as shown below:
3 In the Values zone, click Yes next to the Show as percentages option. The percentages appear as labels for the pie sections as shown below:
Experiment with the different features available in Web Intelligence for formatting charts.
4 Close the document without saving.
Creating Formulas and Variables
Using formulas and variables in the Java Report Panel
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Introduction There are many different reasons why you may choose to create variables and define formulas that calculate and display data in your report that you cannot retrieve using the objects in the universe. In this section, you learn three methods for creating new variables and their associated formulas: Creating a variable that captures the user's response to a prompt when he or she
refreshes the report, and then displaying that value in a cell or other element in the report.
Creating a variable that calculates data, and then projecting the calculation in a new column.
Using document functions to create a variable that displays information about your document, such as the author and document name in a report.
Note: When you create a formula, you always begin with the equal (=) sign and report objects always appear inside square brackets.
After completing this unit you will be able to: Create a variable that captures the user's response to a prompt. Create a variable to calculate sales tax. Modify a variable. Delete a variable. Create a variable from document functions.
Creating a variable as a response to a prompt
In the following exercises, you will build a report that shows quarterly sales revenue with a prompt that requires you to select the state each time the report is refreshed. You will also create a formula that will display the name of the state in the report title, regardless of which state is selected each time. This formula will mean that the title is modified automatically, depending on which state the user specifies.
To create a prompted filter in a report 1 In the Java Report Panel, build a query using the eFashion universe, and select the Year,
Quarter and Sales revenue objects.
2 Add a condition that prompts the user for State.
3 Click Run Query. The Prompts box opens, displaying the list of values returned for the selected object.
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4 Double-click on California. 5 Click Run Query.
The report displays data concerning California, and automatically inserts a cell called Report Title.
To create a formula to capture the response to the prompt You will now create a formula that will display in the report title the value of the object selected in the prompt. Continue using the report from the previous exercise.
1 Click the Report Title cell. A gray border appears around the cell to show that is selected.
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2 On the Reporting toolbar, click Show/Hide Formula Toolbar. The formula toolbar appears above the document zone.
3 On the Formula toolbar, click Formula Editor. The Formula toolbar expands to display the Formula Editor.
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In the Formula Editor, you define the characteristics of a formula by selecting data objects, functions and operators from the lists in the tabs. The formula appears in the Formula text zone as you type it.
4 Press the Backspace key to delete Report Title. 5 Type = (equal sign) to start the formula definition. 6 Type (including the quotes) "Quarterly Revenues for ". 7 Click the Operators tab, then double-click + (plus sign). 8 Click the Functions tab, then click - to collapse the All folder. 9 Click + to expand the Data Provider folder. 10 Double-click UserResponse.
The mouse pointer is automatically positioned between the parentheses that appear after User Response function.
11 Within the parenthesis, type the prompt text (including the quotes and colon): "Enter State:".
The text must match the prompt text exactly and is case-sensitive.
12 Click Validate to check the syntax of the formula. 13 Click OK.
The Report Title cell in the document zone displays the title you created as a formula and also displays the value of the object you last selected in your prompt.
If the words "for" and "California" do not appear in the title with a space between them, position your cursor just after the word "for" in the Formula Toolbar, and type a space directly in the formula.
Be sure to validate the formula by clicking the Validate button in the Formula Toolbar in order to save your edits.
14 Refresh the report selecting a different state. Notice that the title updates automatically. 15 Save the report to your Favorites as Formulas.
To define the formula as a variable in the document
You are now going to turn this formula into a variable, so that it appears in the Data tab of the Report Manager and is always available in the document. Continue working with the Formulas document.
1 Make sure the Report Title cell is still selected. 2 From the Formula toolbar, click Create Variable.
The Create Variable box opens.
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3 In the Name field, type Commision Rate. 4 Under Qualification, click Dimension as the type of formula. 5 Verify that the formula shown in the Formula box is the one you created in the previous
exercise. 6 Click OK.
The formula is given a Variable name.
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7 Click Refresh Data selecting New York as the state. The title changes to reflect the name of the new value selected.
As we discussed earlier, after a variable has been created it is available for use within the document.
8 In the Report Manager, click the Data tab. The new variable, Commision Rate, appears in the list of variables in the Data tab and can be used in the same manner as universe-based objects.
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9 Drag and drop Commision Rate variable onto the report.
10 Save the document to your Favorites as Formulas & Variables.
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Creating a variable to calculate sales tax
In this scenario, you want to display the tax calculated on sales revenue. This is not an object in the eFashion universe, so you cannot display the calculation in your report without creating a formula to perform the calculation yourself. You want to create the formula, but you also want to define it as a variable so that you can use it whenever you open the document to refresh the data, or insert new reports or blocks.
To insert a column for the new variable Continue working with the Formulas & Variables document.
1 Click in the data portion of the Sales Revenue column. The column is highlighted in gray to indicate that you have selected the column.
2 Click the arrow next to Insert Row Above. A drop-down menu appears that allows you to insert columns before and after or rows above and below the cell you selected.
3 Select Insert column after. A column is inserted just to the right of the Sales revenue column.
4 Click in the data portion of the new column. The new column is highlighted.
To define the formula and project the calculated data in the new column
1 Verify that the new column is still highlighted in your table. 2 On the Formula toolbar, click Formula Editor to define the formula for the data you want
to display in this new column.
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3 In the Data tab, double-click Sales Revenue. The equal sign (=) is automatically inserted in the Formula text box to begin the formula, and the object you selected appears in brackets.
4 Click the Operators tab, then double-click * (asterisk). 5 Type 0.175 to define the tax rate.
Your formula should look similar to the one below.
6 Click the Validate button to validate that the formula is correct. 7 In the Formula Editor, click OK.
The Formula Editor closes and the report is displayed again in the document zone. The new column displays data that reflects the values calculated by the formula.
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To define the formula as a variable Continue working with the Formulas & Variables document.
1 Click the data portion of the new column. 2 On the Formula toolbar, click Create Variable.
The Create Variable box displays.
Note: Because you had highlighted the column that displays the calculated data, the formula you just created appears automatically in the Formula text box.
3 In the Name field, type Sales Tax as the name of the variable. 4 Under Qualification, select Measure. 5 Under Formula, verify that the formula is the one you just created.
The Create Variable window should look similar to the one below.
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6 Click OK. The Variable Editor closes and the updated table appears in the document zone.
7 Verify that the Data tab is selected in the Report Manager. The new measure object, Sales Tax, that you just created appears in the Formulas & Variables folder along with the other objects and variables
To complete the exercise, you will now rename the header cell in the column of data that displays the sales tax values.
To rename the column header 1 Click the cell that corresponds to the header of the new column. 2 Click the Properties tab in the Report Manager.
The Properties tab displays default properties for cells, because the column header you selected is a cell.
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3 In the General section, next to the Text zone, type Sales Tax. 4 Click anywhere outside the Cell Format box to accept the new text.
The new name displays in the new column header. This will also be the name of the new variable you are creating.
5 Save the document to your Favorites folder as Quarterly Revenue.
Modifying and deleting a variable
To modify or delete a variable, start by selecting the variable in the Data tab in the Report Manager. To modify a variable Continue with the Quarterly Revenue document.
1 Verify that the Data tab in the Report Manager is displayed. 2 Right-click the variable Sales Tax. 3 Select Edit Variable.
The Variable Editor opens and allows you to change any aspect of the variable you choose:
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4 Change the sales tax from 0.175 to 0.06. 5 Click to Validate the formula. 6 Click OK.
A window opens asking you to confirm the modification to this variable.
7 Click Yes. The Variable Editor closes and the report appears in the document zone with the updated sales tax.
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To delete a variable
1 Right-click the variable Sales Tax. 2 Select Delete Variable.
A message box warns that this variable is used in reports in this document.
3 Click Yes to delete. Notice that the Sales Tax values are removed from the report.
Creating a variable from document functions
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You can use document functions to create a variable that displays information about your document, such as the author and document name in a report. In this scenario, you will use the same document you have been working with in the previous exercises to display the document name and its author in the report.
To display the author's name as a variable in the report Continue with the Quarterly Revenue report.
1 Click the Templates tab in the Report Manager. 2 Click + to expand the Free-Standing Cells folder. 3 Click + to expand Formula and Text Cells.
4 From the Formula and Text Cells options, drag Blank Cell onto the document zone where you want information on your document displayed.
5 Click the blank cell and expand it to make it larger. 6 Verify that the Show/Hide Formula Toolbar is displayed.
The Formula Toolbar appears above the document zone.
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7 From the Formula Toolbar, click Formula Editor. The Formula Editor opens.
8 Click the Functions tab, click - to collapse the All folder, then click + to expand the Document folder.
9 Double-click DocumentAuthor to insert this function in the Formula text box. The function selected appears in the Formula text box.
10 Click Validate to check the syntax of the formula. 11 Click OK.
The Formula Editor closes and the new cell in the document zone displays the document's author.
To display the document name as a variable in the report Another way to insert document information into a report is to use the document information cells from the template tab. Continue with the Quarterly Revenue report.
1 Click the Templates tab in the Report Manager. 2 Click + to expand the Free-Standing Cells folder. 3 Click + to expand Formula and Text Cells. 4 From the Formula and Text Cells options, drag Document name onto the document zone
where you want information on your document displayed.
Synchronizing Data
Creating multiple queries in a document
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Introduction
In this unit, you will learn to project data from several queries into multiple data blocks in a Web Intelligence document.
After completing this unit you will be able to: Project data from a single query in different report blocks. Project data from more than one query using a single universe. Set options to automatically merge dimensions with the same name. Project data from queries using multiple universes.
Projecting data from a single query in different blocks
In this example, you will create a document to analyze the Sales revenue figures for the last three years and display the Sales revenue per store:
Block 1 will show the sales revenue of the stores in the eFashion database for different years. Block 2 will show only a subset of this information from the same query.
To project data from a single query in multiple blocks
1 In the Java Report Panel, create a new document using the eFashion universe using the Store name, Year and Sales revenue objects.
2 Click Run Query.
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The Edit Report view appears and a new vertical table has been created, showing sales revenue calculated for each store and per year.
3 In the Report Manager Data tab, click the Store name object, hold down the Ctrl key and click Sales revenue.
4 Drag both objects together and drop them in the space next to the first block of data. The new report now displays two blocks of data:
· Block 1: Shows sales revenue calculated for each store and per year. · Block 2: Shows the overall sales revenue calculated per store, all years combined.
Both blocks were built using data from a single query.
5 Save the document to Favorites as Multi Block 1.
Projecting data from multiple queries using a single universe
Now you are going to add a third block of data to the report. This time you will add a new query to retrieve new data from the eFashion universe.
Continue working with the same document. To project data from two queries in multiple blocks
1 Click Edit Query to begin adding the second query. 2 While in Edit Query view, click the Add Query button on the toolbar.
The Universe dialog box displays.
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3 Select eFashion as the data source for the second query. 4 Click OK.
A second Edit Query view appears. Note that at the bottom of the panel, there are two tabs now: Query 1 and Query 2. You can use these tabs to toggle back and forth between the two query defintions.
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5 In the Query 2 tab, move the Store name and Margin objects into the Result Objects pane.
6 Click the Properties tab. The Query Properties panel for Query 2 displays.
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7 In the Name field, type Margin query and press the Return key to replace the default name of this query.
8 Click the Query 1 tab. The Edit Query view switches to the query definition for Query 1.
9 Right-click the Query 1 tab. 10 Select Rename Query from the drop-down menu. 11 In the Name field, type Revenue query and press the Return key to replace the default
name of the first query as well. Click the drop-down arrow next to the Run Queries button.
The drop-down menu allows you to decide if you want to run only one of the queries in the document, or all of them at once.
12 Select Margin query from the Run Queries drop-down menu. The New Query dialog box displays. The options to include the data from the new query in the report are listed.
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13 In the New Query dialog box, select the Insert a table in the current report option and click OK. Web Intelligence executes both queries and projects the new data in a new table in the report.
Note: The new table may be positioned anywhere in the report, even on top of the existing tables. Scroll in the report to find where the new table has been projected, then drag and drop it to the appropriate blank space in the report.
The objects you selected in the Margin query appear in the Edit Report Data tab.
14 Click + next to the Store name object in the Data tab. The folder expands.
Expanded, the folder displays two Store name objects. This indicates that the same object has been used in two different queries, once in the Margin query and once in the Revenue query. The top-level Store name object is identified by a double-cubed, blue dimension icon, indicating that the two have been automatically merged to create a single- dimension object.
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Now you are ready to project the data from both queries into a single block in the report.
Continue working with the same document.
To project data from a merged dimension into a single block
1 Insert a new report in the document. 2 In the Data tab, click the Store name merged object, hold down the Ctrl key and click the
Sales Revenue and Margin objects. 3 Drag all objects and drop them into the new report.
The aggregate data to calculate sales revenue per store and margin per store has been retrieved by two different queries, but you are still able to combine both in a single block of data.
4 Save the document to Favorites as Multi Block 2.
About automatically merged dimensions In the exercise above, you used the same object in two different queries (Store name). When you ran the queries, Web Intelligence automatically merged the two instances of the same object and created a combined object, identified by the double-cubed dimension icon, as shown here.
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Web Intelligence automatically merges dimensions only when the same object is used in more than one query in a document. Ideally, a well-designed universe does not have two different objects of the same name, or of different data types, but if this does occur and you use them in more than one query in a document, Web Intelligence will automatically merge them. If you do not want Web Intelligence to automatically merge multiple instances of the same object in a single document, you can de-select the Auto-merge dimensions option at the document level, as described below.
To change the automatic merge dimension setting 1 In the Java Report Panel Edit Report view, right-click anywhere outside of the report blocks in
the document. 2 From the drop-down menu, select Document Properties.
The Document Properties pane opens to the right of the Edit Report view.
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The Auto-merge dimensions option tells Web Intelligence whether it should automatically merge a dimension when the same object is used in more than one query in a single document. For the purposes of this exercise, leave the option selected. If you de-select this option, your change will not be taken into account until the next time you create a document with two queries that reference the same object.
Projecting data from queries using multiple universes
Your first report now shows sales revenue and margin for each of the stores in two blocks of data. Your second report shows data from both queries in a single block, because you have been able to project the automatically merged dimension into a column in the table. So far, you have used data only from the eFashion universe to produce the blocks in both reports. These blocks are views of data providers with data retrieved using the eFashion universe. Now you are going to add a second block to Report 2 using data retrieved from a different universe. This block will show the number of employees that work at each store. This can help you analyze how a store's staffing level affects the sales revenue.
In this next step, you add a query to the document using the eStaff universe.
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Continue working with the document from the previous exercise. To display data from two data sources in multiple blocks
1 Make sure the Multi Block 2 document is still open in the Java Report Panel. 2 Click Edit Query to begin adding the second query. 3 While in the Edit Query view, click the Add Query button on the toolbar.
The Universe dialog box displays.
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4 Select eStaff as the data source for the third query. 5 Click OK.
A third Edit Query view appears. Note that at the bottom of the panel, there are three tabs now: Revenue query, Margin query and Query 3. You can use these tabs to toggle back and forth between the three query defintions.
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6 In the Query 3 tab, move the Store and Number of Employees objects into the Result Objects pane.
7 Click the Properties tab. 8 In the Name field, type Employee query and press the Return key to replace the default
name of the first query as well. 9 Click the drop-down arrow next to the Run Queries button. 10 Select Employee query. 11 In the New Query dialog box, this time select the Include the results objects without
generating a table option and click OK. The Store and Number of Employees objects in the "Employee query", from the eStaff universe, now appear in the Data tab.
12 In Report 2, click the Store object, hold down the Ctrl key, click the Number of Employees object, then drag them from the Data tab until they are positioned next to the existing table in the document zone.
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A new table is inserted next to the existing table and the table from the Employee query is projected into the new table:
13 Save the document to Favorites as Multi Block 3. You have now displayed data from two different data sources in two tables side-by-side in the report. These tables allow you to compare each store's margin with the number of employees per store. However, it is clear that both data sources, eFashion and eStaff, contain data concerning the same stores. In the next exercise, you are going to learn how to show the same data but this time in a single block of data, or a single table. To do this, you will manually merge two dimension objects, so that you can project the store names in a single column in the table. This is known as synchronizing data.
Synchronizing data with merged dimensions
Introduction
In the previous exercise, we have seen how to project data from multiple queries in a document, from both single and multiple universes. So far, we have not tried to merge data from different data sources into a single block (table or chart). In order to do this, you need to synchronize the data by merging dimensions. Because the data comes from two different data providers, if you do not synchronize the dimensions with similar data, Web Intelligence cannot know in what way the data is related and your report will not show relevant results.
After completing this unit you will be able to: Explain why it is important to merge dimensions that retrieve related data. Synchronize data by manually merging dimensions. List rules that are important to be aware of when merging dimensions.
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What happens when dimensions are not synchronized
In the previous exercise, you retrieved data concerning stores, but you used two dimension objects that had different names, even though they retrieved similar data: the Store name object in the "Revenue query" and the "Margin query", from the
eFashion universe. the Store object in the "Employee query", from the eStaff universe.
Because the dimension objects do not have the exact same name, Web Intelligence cannot automatically merge the dimensions. If you try to combine data from the two objects in a single block, Web Intelligence will not automatically be able to interpret the relationship between them. In this scenario, you will project data from both the eFashion queries and the eStaff query into a single block, but because you have not defined the relationship between two objects concerning store names, the data will not be meaningful. Continue working with the same document.
1 Insert a new report in the document. 2 From the Report Manager Data tab, click the merged Store name object, hold down the
Ctrl key then click Sales revenue and Number of Employees objects. The merged Store name object and the Sales revenue object are from the same universe and data source (eFashion). The Number of Employees object is from a different universe and data source (eStaff).
3 Drag the objects and drop them into the blank report space. 4 The data retrieved by these objects is projected automatically into a vertical table. Notice
that every store appears to have 143 employees, yet this is in fact the total number of employees from all stores:
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The block is projecting data from un-synchronized queries. Although the names of the eFashion stores are in fact the same, Web Intelligence does not make any assumptions, and it does not know how to properly interpret the data. Because Store name and Sales revenue come from the same universe and data source, the sales revenue data is aggregated correctly. but not the number of employees data.
5 Save the document to Favorites as Multi Block 4.
Synchronizing queries by manually merging dimensions
You can define the relationship between objects from different universes by manually merging the dimensions in order to synchronize the data they retrieve. Merging dimensions manually allows you to identify the objects that retrieve common data in both queries. Once the merged dimension is in place, you can compare information between the queries more accurately. Continue working with the same document. To manually merge dimensions with different names
1 In the Java Report Panel Edit Report view, ensure that the Reporting toolbar is displayed. 2 In the Data tab, click the Store object.
The Store object, which was an object you used in the Employee query, is highlighted:
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Note that all the dimension objects listed in the Data tab are suddenly displayed in italics. These objects are highlighted in italics because they are all the same type of object as the Store object: that is, they are all dimension objects. Web Intelligence indicates that you could choose to merge the selected object with any of the other dimension objects in the document's queries.
In this case, you want to merge the Store object with the Store name objects used in the queries you built using the eFashion universe. The names of these objects are slightly different, but they obviously retrieve the same type of data.
3 Click the Merge dimensions button on the Reporting toolbar. The Merge Dimensions dialog box displays.
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The dimensions that are available to be merged appear in the top zone of this dialog box, categorized by the query that they belong to.
Below and to the left is a list of the merged dimensions that already exist in the document: in this example, we see Store name, which is a dimension that was automatically merged when we used Store name from eFashion in two different queries.
4 In the Employee query list, click the Store dimension. 5 Click Store name in the Merged dimension list. 6 Click the Values button to view all the values returned by these dimensions.
The Merge dimensions dialog box expands to display all the values returned by these dimensions. In this example, the values are exactly the same. Depending on the dimension objects you are merging, the values may not be identical, but they should be of a similar type.
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7 Click the Merge button. The Store dimension has been positioned as one of the objects included in the merged Store name object.
8 Click OK to close the dialog box.
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Now, you see in the Data tab that the merged Store name dimension includes the Store object from the eStaff universe.
This is known as synchronizing data using merged dimensions.
When you project data into a block using this merged Store name dimension, it retrieves data from the "Employee query" as well, using the eStaff universe and data source.
When you merge dimensions, Web Intelligence creates a new dimension that retrieves all the values from all the original dimensions that make up the merged dimension.
The report should appear like this:
9 Save the document to Favorites as Multi Block 5.
Some rules about synchronizing with merged dimensions
Merging dimensions is the process of creating a link between two queries based on an object with common values so that in effect the objects become one.
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There are a number of rules to remember when merging dimensions from multiple queries: You can only link on dimension objects, for example, Store name and Store. The dimension objects do not have to have the same names. The dimension objects must have a common data format. For example, if one object is
character-based and the other numeric you cannot link the objects. Although the actual values do not have to be the same, all data held in a data provider is
case-sensitive, and therefore any common values must be in the same case. The format of the values must be the same. For example, FY04 and 2004 would be seen
as two separate values. Extra spaces in some values can also mean that the objects cannot be merged.
Any number of queries can be linked by common dimension objects. Any number of dimension objects can be merged between two queries. A measure object can be synchronized successfully only to the lowest level of detail that
is common between the two different data sources. For example, a query with Year can be linked with another query with Year and Month. However, the synchronized block is only able to display data at the Year level.
Analyzing Data
Analyzing the data cube
Introduction Drill mode is a feature that allows you to view data from different levels of detail and zoom in on different trends. If a Web Intelligence document has been enabled for drill analysis, users viewing the document either in InfoView or in the Java Report Panel can drill down to get more details on one of the data objects used in a table or chart.
After completing this unit, you will be able to: Describe how data retrieved by a query is stored in the document data cube. Explain scope of analysis.
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About the Web Intelligence data cube
The data that is returned by a query is stored in the document's data provider. It is convenient to visualize the returned data as being organized as a cube. In your document, the data is displayed as a table. The table is a flat two-dimensional view of the data cube.
Each of the columns in a table represents an axis in the cube. You can edit the document by swapping and manipulating the data within the cube on any axis. When you swap or change data between different axes, the new result is again projected as a flat table in the resulting document. The data stored in the cube allows you to create a report that corresponds to your business needs without having to send another query to the database. If you want to add information to the document that is not in the data provider, then you must add the object to the query and run the query again to get the new information.
What is scope of analysis?
The scope of analysis for a query is extra data that you can retrieve from the database to give more details about the data returned by each of the objects in the query. This extra data does not appear in the initial document results, but it remains available in the data provider, so that at any time, you can pull this data into the report to allow you to access more detail. This process of refining the data to lower levels of detail is called drilling down on an object.
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In a BusinessObjects universe, the scope of analysis corresponds to the hierarchical levels below the object selected for a query. For example, a scope of analysis of one level down for the object Year, would include the Quarter object, which appears immediately under Year.
You can set the scope of analysis level when you build a query. It allows objects lower down the hierarchy to be included in the query, without them actually appearing in the Results Objects pane. The hierarchies built in a universe allow you to choose your scope of analysis, and correspondingly the level of drill available. You can also create a custom scope of analysis by selecting specific dimensions in the Scope of Analysis pane.
Drilling in the Java Report Panel
Introduction The term drill mode in Web Intelligence refers to two related activities: · setting up a Web Intelligence document so that you and other users can analyze the
reports in drill mode · viewing the document in drill mode, either in the Web Intelligence Report Panel or in
InfoView, and analyzing the data at different levels of detail
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In this unit, you will learn how to create documents so that they are drillable, by yourself or by other users.
After completing this unit, you will be able to: Build a drillable document in the Java Report Panel. Drill down in a data hierarchy while viewing a document in the Java Report Panel. Take a snapshot of the drill report. Drill in charts.
Building a drillable document
You can only build drillable documents if your administrator has authorized your user account to create documents using drill mode.
To build a drillable document 1 Create a new document with the Year, State, and Sales revenue objects. 2 In Edit Query view, click the Show/Hide Scope of Analysis Pane button.
The Scope of Analysis zone opens just below the Query Filters zone in the Edit Query view.
3 Resize the Query Filters pane and the Scope of Analysis pane by clicking and dragging the borders so that you can view the objects displayed there. By default, the level of the scope of analysis for this query is set to None. The Scope of Analysis pane displays the hierarchical dimension objects from the Result Objects pane.
Note: The objects included in the Scope of Analysis pane are the dimension objects in your Results Objects pane that are part of a hierarchy in the universe.
4 Click the Hierarchies option located below the Data tab pane. The Hierarchies view shows all the predefined hierarchies that have been defined in the eFashion universe.
For example, all the dimension objects that have been linked in the Time period hierarchy appear under Time period.
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5 Expand the other hierarchy folders to see how the universe objects are organized in hierarchies.
6 In the Scope of Analysis pane, click the drop-down arrow to display the menu options. A list of levels appears in the drop-down list.
7 Select Three levels from the Scope of Analysis drop-down list. All the objects that are three levels down in the Time period hierarchy and in the Store hierarchy automatically appear in the Scope of Analysis pane.
When you run the query, only the values for Year, State and Sales revenue will appear in the table that is generated. The remaining objects will appear in the Data tab, but they will not be projected into the report automatically.
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This means that the document will contain more data than shown in the report. The query will retrieve values for all the objects in the Scope of Analysis pane. That data will be available for your analysis, though it is not displayed immediately in the table.
8 Click Run Query. The Edit Report view opens and displays the values retrieved in a vertical table.
Note: The objects listed in the document's Data tab include all objects referenced by the level chosen for the scope of analysis. The values returned by those objects are not yet projected in the report but are available in the document for drill down.
Tip: In most circumstances, it's more effective to use a crosstab table to display information for drilling.
9 Click outside the table to highlight it, right-click the highlighted gray border around the table and select Turn To from the shortcut menu.
10 Select Crosstab from the Tables tab of the Turn To box. 11 Click OK.
The block has been changed to a Crosstab table.
12 Save the document to your Favorites as Drill Report.
Drilling down the data in a hierarchy
To activate drill mode Continue from the previous exercise.
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1 Click the Drill button on the Report toolbar. All the values in the cells appear underlined with hypertext links. These hypertext links allow you to drill down the hierarchies to see data at a more detailed level.
2 Position your mouse pointer over the California cell in the row headers. A tooltip appears below the East hypertext link displaying the next level of detail in this hierarchy of data.
3 Click the cell to drill down to the next level of data. The table is refreshed to display rows of data applicable only to the cell selected and at the next level of the hierarchy, City.
Note: An arrow displays next to the drilled-down data. To drill back up, simply click on the arrows beside each cell.
As you are drilling, a new toolbar appears at the top of the document, called the Drill Toolbar. This toolbar displays the values you have selected to drill down into more detail. In the example below, the Drill toolbar reminds that you have drilled down on California, so the data you are viewing refers to the eFashion stores in California.
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You are now going to use the Drill Toolbar to drill across at the same level of detail, that is, to other regions in the Store hierarchy.
To drill across data in a hierarchy Continue from the previous exercise.
1 Click the drop-down arrow in the drill toolbar beside California to view the other values you can drill across to.
2 From the drop-down list, select Texas as the value that you would like to drill across to. The crosstab displays data concerning the cities in the state of Texas.
To drill down two hierarchies at once Continue from the previous exercise.
1 Position your cursor over the Sales revenue amount for Dallas in 2001. A tooltip, Drill down to Store name/Quarter, appears to indicate that by clicking in the body of the table, you drill down to both the Store name level and the Quarter level in both hierarchies at once.
2 Click the Dallas 2001 Sales Revenue cell in the body of the crosstab to drill down both the Store and Time period hierarchies contained in the report. The Sales revenue for the eFashion Dallas store is displayed at the Quarter level.
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To edit the Scope of Analysis
When you are drilling on a hierarchy, you may discover that you need to drill to a lower level than you had previously allowed for when setting the scope of analysis.
· Edit the scope of analysis by returning to the Edit Query view and changing the level of detail that you defined in the Scope of Analysis pane.
Taking a snapshot of the drill report
You can save a version of your drilled results by taking a snapshot of the report. This is useful if you want to isolate certain drilled results, but continue working in drill mode. When you take a snapshot, Web Intelligence inserts a new report after your last report in the document. You can continue working in your current report, but can switch to the snapshot by clicking the new report tab. To take a snapshot of your analysis Continue from the previous exercise.
1 Click the Take Snapshot of Drilled Report button on the Report toolbar. A copy of the report is inserted in the document.
Note: An additional report tab displays at the bottom of the report.
2 Click the new Report 1 (1) report tab to view the copied report. A copy of the table is inserted in the snapshot report but without the drillable hyperlinks.
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3 Save the document within your Favorites as Drill down.
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Drilling in charts
You can drill in charts as well as in tables and crosstabs. In this section, you are going to work with drill mode in a pie chart that shows Quantities sold for the Store hierarchy. To drill in charts
1 Create a new query with the State and Quantity sold objects . 2 Click the Show/Hide Scope of Analysis Pane button on the toolbar. 3 In the Scope of Analysis pane, click the drop-down arrow to display the menu options.
A list of levels appears in the drop-down list.
4 Select Two levels from the drop-down list. Note: Resize the Query Filters and Scope of Analysis pane as needed to display all objects in these panes.
5 Click Run Query. 6 Click the gray border around the table to select it. 7 Right-click the highlighted table. 8 Select Turn to from the shortcut menu.
The Turn To box displays.
9 Select a Pie chart and click OK. The table displays as a Pie chart block.
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Note: The data displayed in the pie chart concerns quantities sold per State, but you can see from the Report Manager Data tab that two additional levels of objects in the Store hierarchy are available in the document.
10 From the Properties tab of the Report Manager, click + to expand the Data section. 11 Click + to expand the Values section. 12 In the Show data zone, select the Yes check box.
The data values are displayed and identify each section in the pie chart. Now you are going to drill down on the Store hierarchy, from State to City, to Store name.
13 Click Drill on the Reporting toolbar. The Drill Toolbar is displayed just above the document zone. As we saw in the previous exercise, the filters drop-down list appear in this area as you drill, so that you can drill across to other values at the same level of detail.
14 Position your mouse pointer over the sections of the pie chart. A tooltip appears indicating that you can drill down to the next level of detail.
15 Click the Texas section in the pie chart to drill down to the City level. The chart is refreshed and displays the drilled-down data.
A filter drop-down list appears above the chart, which allows you to drill across to see other data.
16 Click the arrow next to this drop-down list and select California from the list.
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The chart is refreshed and now breaks down the pie sections to display the new values selected.
Tip: Drilling down, across and up can also be accomplished from a shortcut menu that displays when right-clicking on drillable data.
17 Save the document within your Favorites as Chart Drill down.
Setting Web Intelligence drill options
Introduction
Before you begin a drill session, you specify how reports will change each time you drill by setting your drill options in InfoView or at the document level. This unit tells you: • about the drill options available to you
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• how to select the drill options appropriate for your analysis When you modify your drill options, the modifications are implemented the next time you start drill mode.
After completing this unit you will be able to: Set general drill options in InfoView preferences. Define query drill mode. Set a Web Intelligence document to query drill mode in the Java Report Panel.
Setting general drill options in InfoView
InfoView Preferences provide a number of settings that allow you to determine how drill mode is activated when you view Web Intelligence documents. These settings are available from the Web Intelligence Document page in InfoView Preferences.
To set general drill options in InfoView Preferences 1 From the InfoView Home page, click Preferences to view the InfoView Preferences pages.
The General Preferences page opens.
2 Click Web Intelligence Document to open the Preferences tab for Web Intelligence. 3 The Web Intelligence Document preferences page appears:
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4 Set drill preferences using the following table as guidelines:
Option Description
Start drill on a duplicate report
Select this option if you want InfoView to create a duplicate of the current report when you launch drill mode. You drill on the duplicate report. When you end drill mode, both the original report and the drilled report remain in the document.
Start drill on the existing report
Select this option if you want the current report to become drillable when you launch drill mode. When you end drill mode, the report displays the drilled values.
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Prompt if drill requires additional data
When you drill in a Web Intelligence report, you may want to drill to higher- or lower-level information that is not included in the query's scope of analysis. Select this option if you want Web Intelligence to prompt you with a message every time a new query is necessary. The prompt message asks you to decide whether you want to run the additional query or not. In addition, the prompt allows you to apply filters to the extra dimensions you include in the new query. This means you can restrict the size of the query to just the data necessary for your analysis.
Synchronize drill on report blocks
Select this option if you want Web Intelligence to synchronize drilling across all the blocks in a report. The next dimension in the drill path replaces the previous dimension in all blocks of the report, not just the block you have selected. If you do not select this option when drilling in a report, the drill operation is applied only in the selected block of the report.
Hide drill bar
Select this option if you do not want to display the Drill toolbar as you drill. By default, the Drill toolbar appears at the top of the drilled report. It displays the value on which you drilled, and allows you to select other values in order to filter the results differently. For example, if you drill down on the year 2003, the value 2003 will appear in the Drill toolbar and the values displayed in the report block will be Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 for 2003.
5 Click OK to accept the new settings. 6 Return to the InfoView Home page.
The next time you create a Web Intelligence document and define the scope of analysis for drilling, the settings you defined in the InfoView Preferences page will apply, regardless of the Web Intelligence report panel you have chosen to use for creating documents.
Using query drill
When you create, edit or view a Web Intelligence document, you can set Web Intelligence to drill in "query drill" mode, which behaves differently from the standard drill mode described so far in this lesson. When you activate query drill, Web Intelligence drills by modifying the underlying query (adding and removing dimensions and query filters) in addition to applying drill filters.
When can you use query drill?
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You use query drill when your report contains aggregate measures calculated at the database level. It is designed in particular to provide a drill mode adapted to databases which contain aggregate functions that Web Intelligence either does not support, or cannot calculate accurately at the report level during a drill session. The kinds of aggregate functions that are candidates for drilling in query drill mode are: percentages, distinct counts, ranks, standard deviations and variances, running aggregates, lead and lag functions. Because query drill modifies the query at each drill operation, it ensures that these aggregates are recalculated by the server each time you drill. Query drill is also useful for reducing the amount of data that Web Intelligence must store locally during a drill session. Because query drill reduces the scope of analysis when you drill up, Web Intelligence is able to purge unnecessary data.
To set query drill in the Java Report Panel
1 Create a new document or edit an existing document in the Java Report Panel. 2 Right-click the report tab at the bottom of the Edit Report view and select Document
Properties from the drop-down menu. The Document Properties pane appears on the right side of the Edit Report view.
3 In the Document Options zone, select the Use query drill option. 4 Save the document as Query drill.
The next time you or another users switches to drill mode in this document, query drill will be activated.
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Sharing Web Intelligence Documents
Sharing documents
Introduction
If you are sharing documents with InfoView users, you can send your documents directly to their InfoView Inbox folder, or you can choose to save them as public documents in the corporate repository, if your BusinessObjects Enterprise administrator as authorized you to do so.
Business Objects Enterprise stores sent and public documents allowing others to retrieve them.
If your colleagues are not InfoView users, you can save your reports in Microsoft Excel or Adobe PDF so that they can easily view and print them using Excel or Adobe Acrobat Reader.
After completing this unit, you will be able to:
Send documents to other InfoView users.
Save a document as a public document.
Save a document in PDF or Excel spreadsheet format.
Add discussions to a document.
Add a document from your computer.
Sharing documents with InfoView users
To share documents with other InfoView users, you can either send a document to a user's Inbox, or you can save it as a public document, if you are authorized to do so.
Sending a document to users
Sending documents is the ideal method for communicating information to individual users and groups of users. The documents are sent through the corporate repository, and users can then retrieve the document from their InfoView Inbox.
Note: You can only send documents to users that have been set up in the system by the administrator.
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Saving a public document
When you save a document to a public folder or category, you are making it available to a wide audience of users. When given the appropriate access rights, your colleagues can then refresh or modify the document and save it again, making it easy to collaborate with one another.
Public documents remain in the repository until removed by the BusinessObjects Enterprise administrator. This is an ideal method for communicating information across an organization or enterprise.
Note: You can only save documents to public folders if you have been authorized to do so by the administrator.
To send a document to another InfoView user
1 From the Navigation Panel, click + to expand Public Folders.
2 Click the Report Samples > General Business folder.
The available objects display in the Workspace.
3 Select the check box before World Sales Report.
4 Click the Send drop-down button on the Navigation Bar to activate the menu.
The available send options display on the menu. You can send documents to another user's InfoView Inbox, a user's email, and to an FTP or File location.
5 Select To BusinessObjects Inbox from the drop-down menu.
Note: Sending a document to a user's BusinessObjects Inbox will send the document to that user's Inbox folder, located under My Folders in InfoView. To send documents to another user's email address, select To Email.
6 From the Destination drop-down list, verify that Inbox is selected.
7 Clear the Use the Job Server's defaults check box to view the full page and to select specific users or groups whom you want to receive the document.
The full Send Document to Destination page displays.
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8 From the Choose drop-down list, select Users.
If there are many users to choose from, you can search for the user or group name.
9 For this exercise, you will send the document to the Administrator user name. Type "A" in the Look For field.
10 Click Search.
The Available Recipients list is populated with any user names that begin with the letter A, in this case the Administrator.
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11 Select Administrator from the list and click the > button to add the user name to the Selected Recipients list.
12 Select the Automatically generated option as the Target Name.
The file name of the document is automatically generated, unless you specify otherwise.
Note: The Specific name option allows you to specify a different name for the object that you are sending. When you specify a target name for the document, you must also add the File Extension placeholder at the end otherwise the file name will have no extension and will not be sent successfully.
13 Select Copy from the Send As options.
The file can be sent as either a copy or as a shortcut.
14 Click Submit.
The document has been sent to the designated user's Inbox. To verify the procedure, you will log off and then log back onto InfoView, and then check your Inbox.
15 Click the Log off button on the Navigation Bar.
The Log On page displays.
16 Enter your user name (Administrator) and password (leave blank) to log back onto InfoView.
17 From the InfoView Navigation Panel, open your Inbox folder.
The copy of the World Sales Report document that was sent to the Administrator user name is located in the Inbox.
Note: You may need to click the Refresh button to see the new document.
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18 Click on the document name from your Inbox to open any documents sent to you by another user.
To send a document to email
1 Select the check box before the World Sales Report located in the Public Folders > Report Samples > General Business folder.
2 Click the Send drop-down button to activate the menu.
3 Click To Email... from the list.
4 Clear the Use the Job Server's defaults check box to view the full page.
The Send page displays.
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Note: You can select the Destination as default if your system administrator has set a default email recipient for you to send your documents. Otherwise you can send the document to a specific email address.
7 Click the Add placeholder... drop-down button to activate the menu.
8 Click Title from the list.
Note: A placeholder is used to add information specific to the report. In this example, when Bob receives the email, the title of the document appears in the subject line.
9 Type "Here's the report you requested" in the Message field.
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10 Select the Add attachment check box.
Note: If you just wanted to send an email about this document and not include the document as an attachment, you would deselect this box.
11 Click the Submit button to send the email.
Note: Unless the email server portion has been configured by the administrator the email will not be successfully sent.
Saving documents for sharing with others
When you save your document as a public document, you are making it available to a wide audience of users. Your colleagues can then refresh or modify the document and save it again, making it easy to collaborate with one another. Public documents are saved to either a public or private folder and can also be added to a category.
Note: You can only save documents to public folders if you have been authorized to do so by the administrator.
Public documents remain in the repository until the BusinessObjects Enterprise administrator removes them. This is an ideal method for communicating information across an organization or enterprise.
Public documents are accessible to groups of users across your organization.
To save as a public document
1 Click + to expand Public Folders.
2 Open the Web Intelligence Sample document from the Web Intelligence Samples folder.
3 Click Save as from the Document menu.
The Save Document window opens.
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4 Enter My Public Document as the title.
5 Click on the + to expand Public Folders.
6 Select the Report Samples public folder as the publish location.
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7 Click OK.
To view a public document
1 Click on the + to expand Public Folders.
2 Click on Report Samples.
The documents saved to Report Samples display including My Public Document.
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Sharing beyond Web Intelligence
To share with colleagues who are not Web Intelligence, Desktop Intelligence, or Crystal Reports users, you can save your reports in Adobe PDF or Microsoft Excel format. That way, you and your colleagues can easily view and print them using Adobe Acrobat Reader or Excel.
When you save a document in PDF format, the page layout and formatting of the Web Intelligence document is retained in the PDF file.
To save a document in other formats from InfoView
1 Click + to expand Public Folders.
2 Open Web Intelligence Sample from the Web Intelligence Samples folder.
3 Click Save to my computer as > PDF from the Document menu.
The File Download window opens:
4 Click Save.
The Save As window appears:
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5 Specify the file location and click Save.
The document is saved to your local computer. You can now browse and open the PDF document.
Adding discussions to a document
The Discussions feature enables you to create messages on reports, hyperlinks, programs, and other objects in a folder.
You must have the appropriate rights for the object to be able to view and create messages. If you are not sure that you have the appropriate rights, contact your Enterprise administrator.
Using the Discussions Panel in a document, you can:
Create new messages
Reply to group or individual messages
Edit messages
Tag messages with high or low priority
Delete messages
To add a discussion to a document
1 Click + to expand Public Folders.
2 Open the Web Intelligence Sample document in the Web Intelligence Samples folder.
The latest instance of the document opens.
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3 Click the Show Discussions Panel arrow in the Discussions Panel at the bottom of the window to make it visible.
The Discussions Panel opens to display the document's discussion messages and threads. You can now view, add or delete discussion threads.
The discussion window allows users to share communication about a particular report. Once the discussion window is open, there are a variety of options. The common options are listed below.
Button Description
Post a new message to the discussion.
Reply to all users regarding an existing posting.
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Reply only to the user that posted the thread.
Delete a thread from the discussion.
Mark thread as High Importance.
Mark thread as Low Importance.
4 Click New Message on the Discussion Panel toolbar.
5 Type "Tom needs access to this document" in the Message field.
6 Click High Importance to mark this message as urgent.
7 Click Post.
8 Click Hide the Discussions Panel to close the Discussions Panel.
9 Click Expand to re-open the Discussions Panel.
The message that you posted displays beneath the document name. The message is bold because it has not been read yet.
10 Click the Note by Administrator message from the list.
The message displays in the Discussions Panel.
11 Click Reply to Sender on the Discussions Panel toolbar.
12 Type "Tom has been given access to the document." in the Message field.
13 Click Post.
Your reply is posted to the discussion thread.
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14 Select the reply message in the thread and click the Delete button on the Discussions Panel toolbar.
A deletion confirmation box displays.
15 Click OK.
Note: You can only edit and delete messages that you have created. You cannot delete a message if other notes are below it in the discussion thread.
Adding a document from your computer
You can add a document from your computer to InfoView and store it in a category or folder.
To add a document from your computer
1 Click the New drop-down button to activate the menu.
2 Select Document from local computer from the list.
3 Click Adobe Acrobat as the type of document to add.
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The Add a document from your local computer page displays.
4 Type "Web Intelligence Sample PDF" in the Title field.
5 Type "Sales report" in the Description field.
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6 Type "Sales" in the Keywords field.
7 Click the Browse button to locate the filename of the document on your local computer.
8 Select Web Intelligence Sample from the location you previously saved the PDF.
9 Click Open.
10 From the Location list of folders, select Sales Figures as the location to store the document in InfoView.
11 Click OK.
The document has been added to InfoView and stored in the Sales Reports folder.
Scheduling a Web Intelligence document
Introduction
You can use InfoView to schedule a document so that it is refreshed automatically at specified times.
After completing this unit, you will be able to:
View a document's history in InfoView.
Schedule a document.
Viewing the document history
BusinessObjects Enterprise saves a history of document instances. This history list is arranged chronologically and contains information such as:
instance time
run by
parameters
format
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status
To view the history of a document
1 Navigate to the Web Intelligence Sample document located in your Public Folders.
2 Click the History link for the object located below the document name.
The History page appears, showing the number of times this document has been scheduled and allowing you to modify the scheduling that has been applied, by deleting, pausing, resuming specific instances or all instances at once.
3 Click the Show instances owned by me check box to change the default setting and see all instances of this document.
The History page is refreshed and now shows instances of this document, regardless of who scheduled them.
Scheduling documents in InfoView
Scheduling a document lets you run it automatically at specified times. When a scheduled document runs successfully, an instance is created. An instance is a version of the object containing the data available at the time it was run. Therefore, instances created later contain more recent data.
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You can see a list of instances by looking at a document's history, and you can click the link to any historical instance. If you have the rights to view objects on demand, you can view and refresh any instance to retrieve the latest data from the database.
By scheduling and viewing instances, you can ensure you have the latest information available for viewing, printing, and distributing. For example, you can schedule a report object (document) to run every night so it's available for you first thing in the morning.
Note: Before scheduling objects, check your time zone setting on the Preferences page in BusinessObjects Enterprise. The default time zone is local to the web server that is running BusinessObjects Enterprise.
To schedule a document
1 Navigate to the Web Intelligence Sample document located in your Public Folders.
2 Click the Schedule link for the object located below the document name.
The Schedule page appears. Click + next to each group of options in this page, to view the page as shown below.
3 Select Now from the When: Run Object: drop-down list.
4 Leave the remaining options at their default values.
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Note: Based on your user access rights, you can specify the Destination, Format, Server Group, and Caching options when scheduling a document.
5 Click Schedule.
The Schedule page for the document displays.
6 Click Refresh.
The document has been scheduled and run; a new instance has been added to the document history.
Working in Interactive View
Modifying a document interactively
Introduction
When you select Interactive as the viewing option for Web Intelligence documents, you can perform a number of actions on documents in InfoView without having to actually edit the document in the Web Intelligence report panel itself.
Note: The availability to use this feature depends on how InfoView was installed and what user rights you have. Ask your administrator if you have the rights to this feature.
This unit describes the features that are available in Interactive View mode for organizing and formatting data displayed in a Web Intelligence document.
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After completing this unit you will be able to:
Describe the reporting features you can use in Interactive View mode.
Display the Interactive View mode toolbars.
Describe each of the Interactive View Left Panel panes.
Change how data is displayed using Interactive View mode.
What can you do in Interactive view mode?
When you view a Web Intelligence document in Interactive View mode, you can use many reporting features to analyze the information displayed in the document. You also have access to many tools that allow you to modify how the data is displayed in the document. This includes the ability to:
Add and remove the objects that are used in the report.
Filter data to limit the data shown in the report.
Apply alerters to highlight important information
Sort values to change the order of the information shown in the report.
Create your own custom sorts to reorder the values in a specific manner.
Organize blocks of data into sections.
Insert column and rows of data in tables.
Add predefined calculations on data, such as adding up sums, counting totals, and calculating averages and percentages.
Create complex calculations using a Formula Editor, and save your formulas as variables in the document
Analyze data in deeper levels of detail if the document has been set up for drill analysis.
Format a document to your specific requirements.
These reporting activities and others were presented in detail in earlier lessons of the course, as you learned to create new Web Intelligence documents using the Java Report Panel. In the remainder of this lesson, you will have a brief introduction to the same reporting features, which you can use as you view a document in InfoView, with Interactive View mode.
Setting view preferences to Interactive
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If your administrator has authorized you to use this option, you can view Web Intelligence documents in Interactive HTML mode.
Interactive View mode allows you to perform a number of actions on documents in InfoView without having to actually edit the document in the Web Intelligence report panel itself.
To change the view preference to Interactive
1 From the InfoView Home page, click Preferences to view the Preferences Pages.
The General Preferences Page opens.
2 Click Web Intelligence Document Preferences to open the Preferences tab for Web Intelligence.
3 Select Interactive as the view format.
Note: Report panel and drill options will be reviewed later in the course.
4 Click Apply.
The settings you selected are saved.
In the remainder of this lesson, we will explore the reporting features that are available in Interactive View mode.
Using the Interactive Viewing menus, toolbars and Left panes
In Interactive View mode, the menus, toolbars and panes available in the Workspace Panel where you view the Web Intelligence document are greatly expanded. In this exercise, we will explore the tools available to you for analyzing and modifying the information you see in the document.
To display the Interactive View menus and toolbars
1 Select the Web Intelligence Sample document from Public Folders > Web Intelligence Samples.
The document opens in Interactive format in the InfoView window:
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2 Click the Document drop-down arrow on the document toolbar to view the menu.
A new option appears on the menu.
3 Click Properties on the drop-down menu.
The Document Properties dialog box appears.
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This dialog box displays information about the document, such as the name of the author, when the document was last refreshed, and the document's regional locale. It also allows you to change certain document settings, which we will review in a later lesson.
4 Click OK to close the Document Properties dialog box.
5 Click the View drop-down arrow on the document toolbar.
The View menu has two new options: Toolbars and Preferences.
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The Toolbars option opens a submenu that allows you to display or hide any of the three toolbars available in Interactive View mode:
· Formatting
· Report
· Formula
6 Select all three toolbars so that they are displayed below the Document menu.
As you will see later in the lesson, the buttons available to you on these three toolbars provide many features for organizing and analyzing the information in a Web Intelligence document, as well as for enhancing the presentation of the reports in the document.
7 Click the View menu and select the Left panel option.
The Left panel opens in the InfoView Workspace.
8 Click the Left panel drop-down arrow to view the new panels available to you in Interactive View mode.
In Interactive View mode, the Left panel still includes the:
· Navigation Map pane
· User Prompt Input pane
· Find pane
However, you now have access to four other panes as well:
· Document Summary pane
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· Data Summary pane
· Chart and Table Types pane
· Document Structure and Filters pane
These panes are described in the next steps.
9 In the Left pane drop-down list, click Document Summary.
The Document Summary pane displays.
The Document Summary pane lists information concerning the document, such as the author name, when the document was created, when it was last refreshed.
10 In the Left pane drop-down list, click Data Summary.
The Data Summary pane displays.
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The Data Summary pane lists information concerning the query that was used to retrieve the data in the document. It shows the name of the universe and the objects that make up the query definition, as well as the number of rows that were returned by the query.
11 In the Left pane drop-down list, click Chart and Table Types.
The Chart and Table Types pane displays.
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The Chart and Table Types pane allows you to view all the templates available to you in Interactive View mode, for modifying the way the data in the document is currently presented. All the templates available for designing reports in the Java Report Panel are also available to you in Interactive View mode.
Using either drag and drop, or by clicking the Insert and Turn To buttons available in the Chart and Table Types pane, you can very quickly and easily transform a table or chart in the document to another format, or insert a new block.
12 In the Left pane drop-down list, click Available Objects.
The Available Objects pane displays.
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The Available Objects pane lists all the objects that have been used in the document's query to retrieve the data available in the document. You can use drag and drop to move objects in and out of the blocks of data, or even to create new blocks of data.
13 In the Left pane drop-down list, click Document Structure and Filters.
The Document Structure and Filters pane displays.
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The Document Structure and Filters pane allows you to view at a glance all the elements that make up this document, such as the sections, report blocks, headers and footers, and so on. In this pane, you can click a document element and move it to another position in the document, just by moving it up or down in the pane.
Modifying the document with Interactive View
In the following exercise you will view, navigate and modify a Web Intelligence report using the Interactive menus, toolbars and Left panes.
To modify data using Interactive View mode
1 In the Web Intelligence Sample document, select the Analysis Workspace report from the report map.
The document displays the Analysis Workspace report.
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2 Right-click on the Customer Name column in the report.
The Interactive Reporting menu appears which allows you to perform a number of actions.
3 From the shortcut menu, click Insert > New Column > Right to add a blank column to the report.
4 Position your cursor over the right border of the new column until the cursor turns to a crosshair, then press the mouse button and drag to expand the width of the new column.
5 Click on the down arrow next to Navigation Map and select Available Objects.
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6 Click and drag the City object to the newly inserted column.
The report is updated with a new column of data, showing the City for each of the Customers.
7 Right-click on the City column in the report.
8 From the shortcut menu, click Quick Filter.
The Quick Filter window appears.
9 Double-click on London and Paris.
10 Click OK to save the filter.
The report is now filtered to show data for only London and Paris.
11 Right-click on the Order Amount column.
12 From the shortcut menu click Calculation > Sum.
A total row is inserted showing the Sum of Order Amount. Your report should look similar to the partial report below.
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13 Right-click on the City column and select Remove > Column from the shortcut menu.
The City column is removed from the table.
To turn the table into a chart
Continue working with the Web Intelligence Sample document in Interactive view format.
1 Click on the down arrow next to Available Objects in the Document Navigation pane.
2 Select Chart and Table Types from the drop-down list.
Note: If the Left Pane is not visible click on the arrow to show the pane.
3 Click + to expand Bar Charts.
4 Click and drag Vertical Grouped to the table in the document pane.
The table is converted into a vertical grouped bar chart.
Note: Right-clicking in a cell or column and selecting Format from the shortcut menu displays a formatting box. From this box you can format the properties of the cell, column, report, or chart; including the layout, alignment, fonts and borders.
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5 Close the report by clicking the X in the top-right corner. Do not save the changes.
Using formulas and variables in InfoView with Interactive view
Introduction
You can add custom calculations to Web Intelligence documents when you are viewing them in InfoView, using Interactive view mode. In the remainder of this lesson, you will learn to create typical formulas as you view a document in InfoView, and then save the formula as a variable.
After completing this unit you will be able to: Create a formula in InfoView using Interactive view mode. Save the formula as a variable in Interactive view mode.
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Creating a formula in InfoView with Interactive view
In this scenario, you have created a report that shows sales revenue and quantity sold per state. You want to add the average revenue per sale to the report. We will create a formula to divide the revenue by the number of items sold in order to show the revenue per number sold.
1 In the Java Report Panel, create a new document using the eFashion universe. 2 Select the State, Sales revenue and Quantity sold objects and run the query. 3 Save the document in your Favorites folder and name it Formulas in InfoView. 4 Go to your Favorites folder and open this document in InfoView. 5 From InfoView, click the View>Toolbars menu, and display both the Report and Formula
toolbars. 6 Click any data cell in the Quantity sold column to highlight it. 7 On the Report toolbar, click Insert > New column > Right to insert a new column in the
table. A new column is inserted to the right of the table you just created.
8 Click the empty column header to select it. 9 Type ="Revenue per sale" in the Formula toolbar (including the quotes). 10 Click Validate formula to validate the syntax.
The column header displays the text you just typed.
11 Click in any data column in the new column to highlight it.
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12 On the Formula toolbar, click the Formula Editor button. 13 Using the objects, functions and operators available in the Formula Editor, create the
following formula: =[Sales revenue]/[Quantity sold]
as shown below:
14 Click Validate. A message appears indicating the formula syntax is correct.
15 Click OK to close the message box. 16 Click OK to close the Formula Editor.
The column is updated with the calculated data concerning revenue per sale.
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17 Save the document to your Favorites folder as Revenue per sale.
Saving the formula as a variable in InfoView
Now we will save this formula as a variable in the document. Continue working in InfoView with the Revenue per sale document.
1 On the Formula toolbar, click the Create a variable button. The Create New Variable dialog box appears.
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2 In the Name field, type Revenue per Sale. 3 Define the qualification as a Measure. 4 Verify that the formula is the one you just created. 5 Click OK. 6 In the Left pane drop-down list, select the Available Objects tab. 7 Click + to expand the Variables folder.
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The new variable, Revenue per sale, now appears in the list of available variables and you can use it in any new block that you create in the document
Analyzing in Drill mode in InfoView
Introduction
In this section, you will see how you can analyze data in Web Intelligence documents using drill mode in InfoView, as long as the document you are viewing has been built as a drillable document.
It is important to know that there are probably many users in your organization who are authorized to use only InfoView. They access documents that you, as a report builder, have published to the corporate repository. If you publish a drillable document as a Corporate Document, these users can use the same drill feature to analyze the data in many levels of detail, and gain greater insight into the information you are trying to share.
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Note: Drill mode can be activated while viewing a Web Intelligence document in InfoView, in either standard HTML or Interactive View mode.
After completing this unit you will be able to:
Drill in a data hierarchy in InfoView.
Define query drill mode.
Set a Web Intelligence document to query drill mode in the Java Report Panel.
Drilling in a data hierarchy
Drilling is possible because of the hierarchical relationship of the data in a universe. Hierarchies are created in a universe by the universe designer. In the eFashion universe, for example, the Store class is a hierarchy of objects that allow you to break down the Store data from the highest level, State, to the lowest level, Store name.
Because this hierarchical relationship has been set up, you can drill down the report for more detail, or drill across the report to compare detail.
To view a drillable document in InfoView
1 Open the Web Intelligence Sample document from your Public Folders.
The document opens in the InfoView window.
2 Click on the Start drill mode button on the far right side of the Standard toolbar to put the document in drill mode.
A drill toolbar appears and drillable data items display as hyperlinks in the block. You can use these hypertext links in the cells to drill down, up and across.
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Note: Additional buttons appear in the window that allow you to take a snapshot of the report or add a filter to view the level of detail available in each hierarchy.
3 Position your cursor over Down Under Bikes in the Customer Name column.
A tooltip displays "Drill down to City".
4 Click Down Under Bikes.
Data for the cities that have Down Under Bikes display in the document. You have drilled down to a lower level of detail in the hierarchy.
5 Click Sydney to drill down to Region.
The Region data for Sydney displays in the document.
6 Using the Analysis context toolbar, click the drop-down arrow by Down Under Bikes to drill across to Canberra Bikes.
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The data changes to display the Region data for Canberra Bikes.
7 Click the Snapshot icon on the document toolbar to take a picture of your analysis.
A copy of your analysis is inserted into a new report tab.
Note: Right-clicking data will display a shortcut menu from which you can also drill down, up, or across the data. The arrows that display in column headings allow you to drill back up the data levels.
8 Close the report by clicking the X in the top right corner. Do not save the changes.
Using query drill
When you create, edit or view a Web Intelligence document, you can set Web Intelligence to drill in "query drill" mode, which behaves differently from the standard drill mode described so far in this lesson.
When you activate query drill, Web Intelligence drills by modifying the underlying query (adding and removing dimensions and query filters) in addition to applying drill filters.
When can you use query drill?
You use query drill when your report contains aggregate measures calculated at the database level. It is designed in particular to provide a drill mode adapted to databases which contain aggregate functions that Web Intelligence either does not support, or cannot calculate accurately at the report level during a drill session.
The kinds of aggregate functions that are candidates for drilling in query drill mode are: percentages, distinct counts, ranks, standard deviations and variances, running aggregates, lead and lag functions. Because query drill modifies the query at each drill operation, it ensures that these aggregates are recalculated by the server each time you drill.
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Query drill is also useful for reducing the amount of data that Web Intelligence must store locally during a drill session. Because query drill reduces the scope of analysis when you drill up, Web Intelligence is able to purge unnecessary data.
To set query dill in InfoView
1 Open a Web Intelligence document in InfoView.
2 Click the Document menu and select Properties.
The Document Properties pane displays
3 Click the Use query drill option.
4 Click OK and close the document.
The next time you or another user open this document in InfoView and switch to drill mode, the query drill option is activated.
