RE: OT: Business Objects

Hi  

I useed to work for a supplier of an ERP type system that started using BO for its primary reporting tool. BO has a concept called Universes which for teh Cognos folk I believe are like the cubes. The universe is metadata of all or subsets of tables and views in your databases. A BO report writer will construct the report around the Universe. these are then provided to the user for them to run and the user is requested for parameters and then the suer gets the populated report back. There is also the ability to do adhoc reporting but once again using Universe metadata to construct it. Generally if the developers of the universe have taken the advice wisely from BO then on the majority you will get good sql in the reports. Bad choices in Universe design driven by bad database design will make BO an unhappy camper. I woulld highly recommend if you are supporting databases where BO is in use to go and sit with your key developer to learn a bit about universes and how your people have access to addhoc reporting. Work with them and life can be relatively smooth.  

Cheers
Peter

From: Dennis Williams [mailto:oracledba.williams_at_gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, 1 May 2007 06:29 AM
To: sacrophyte_at_gmail.com
Cc: oracle-l
Subject: Re: OT: Business Objects

Charles,  

    My impression is that B.O. usually generates good SQL, and when it doesn't, it has features which allows report developers to improve the SQL. This is based on the fact that I have had to deal with relatively few problems.

    My impression is that B.O. is a sophisticated tool that usually generates good SQL, and has advanced options when difficulties are encountered.

    As far as other products creating better SQL, that might be difficult to get a trustworthy blanket statement. These are complex products generating complex SQL in (your case) complex situations. Not sure how that could even be tested.

    Your last statement makes it sound like this is a difficult situation. One thought would be whether you as the DBA can take the SQL statements that are generated by B.O., rewrite them for your developers and then have your developers try to figure out how to get B.O. to generate similar SQL, asking B.O. support as needed.  

Dennis Williams

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