Product Description

This book is a must read for anyone deploying BusinessObjects. It covers everything from planning your upgrade to the latest release, to best practices in universe design, and powerful report creation that maximizes business insight. This book covers the most frequently used features for the full BI suite, in one comprehensive book. There's in depth coverage of Designer, security via the Central Management Console, InfoView, Web Intelligence, and Desktop Intelligence. It goes beyond step-by-step instructions to cover how and why in a business context. Transition notes are interspersed for version 5 and 6 customers to understand the biggest changes in XI Release 2. If you drive BI requirements in your company or are a data warehouse program manager, Business Objects administrator, report author or consumer, this book is for you.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #69542 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 650 pages

From the Back Cover
Gain the Competitive Edge with the Ultimate Resource on BusinessObjects XI Release 2

Publish actionable business reports across your enterprise using BusinessObjects XI and the detailed information contained in this one-stop resource. BusinessObjects XI: The Complete Reference explains, step-by-step, how to design and build powerful universes, integrate security, execute efficient queries, and distribute the results.

You'll learn how to create an implementation strategy that fits your business goals, define and manage users, and integrate your reports into Web and Windows applications. All of the new and updated features of BusinessObjects XI Release 2 are covered in full detail, including the new architecture, Designer, security through the Central Management Console, InfoView, Web Intelligence, Desktop Intelligence, report scheduling, and auditing usage.

• Develop a visionary BusinessObjects XI deployment strategy
• Migrate existing deployments to BusinessObjects XI Release 2
• Use Designer to create robust universes aligned with the business goals that empower users to answer their own questions
• Design and implement security policies that fit your company's needs
• Monitor system usage and develop deployment practices for mission-critical BI
• Translate complex business questions into simple, efficient Web Intelligence queries
• Design reports that facilitate insight with richly formatted tables, charts, alerters, and report formulas
• Reach more users with the power of interactive reports to dynamically sort, filter, rank, and drill through to detail at a simple mouse-click

About the Author
Cindi Howson is the President of ASK, a BI consultancy. She has worked with Business Objects since 1994, helping customers around the world implement and optimize their deployments. As an industry analyst, she authors the BIScorecard(tm) product reviews, teaches for TDWI, and writes for Intelligence Enterprise. You can contact her at cindihowson@askcindi.com.

Customer Reviews

Cindi did it again? Did she, really?
I recently purchased the "Complete Reference Business Objects XI (R2)" by Cindi Howson.

She has worked closely with Business Objects (foreword by B. Liautaud, founder of Business Objects) and technical editors who are Business Objects employees, which has its advantages (inside knowledge).

On the universe/Designer side the book does cover the SQL parameters of universes such as SQL ANSI92 syntax, aggregate awareness, index awareness, universes built directly against OLAP cubes, fan/chasm traps, loops, contexts and aliases, etc. The problematic involving semi-additive measures is mentionend as well. The OLAP technology with advantages/disadvantages is well explained.

Cindi prefers putting most of the Intelligence in the universe

WebIntelligence with its formulas is covered in depth.

What is missing:
Cindi clearly states in her introduction that her book does not cover Crystal Reports, Performance Management, DataIntegrator, or Live Office.

Further the challenge on how to setup a Business Objects system in detail nor the many options in the CMS (setting up complex security, best practices, etc.) did not find its way into the book. The "rights fidelity" and "merge" options in the import/export wizard are only briefly mentioned. Although cascading prompts are covered, the many shortcomings of cascading prompts in Business Objects are not (cascading prompts in Crystal Reports work better).

What is clearly missing is a cd with the book in electronic format acompanying the printed edition.

This book is the only reference book for XI (covering universe design as well as reports) as far as I am aware.

A Compendium of BO Wisdom
As a consultant, I've watched my clients routinely underestimate the power of Business Objects software. In this book, Cindi Howson lays it all out, distilling insights from what is obviously a deep and hands-on experience base with BO. I was surprised at the book's breadth, and impressed with the arwork, charts, and visual aids that supplemented the text. A great resource for BO development.

The Completely Useless as a Reference That is Really a Primer
I can see that a lot of work went into this book and it does a pretty good job of explaining Business Objects at a high level. This is a good book for you if you are tentative about working with computers and don't expect to do intermediate or advanced work with Business Objects.

The notion that this book is a 'reference' or can replace a manual is completely off base. This book is a 'primer' not a reference. Any topic that is easily addressable through discussing the GUI is handled, but only for obvious cases. The function reference is incomplete and poorly documented. Insightful examples that make you think, "Oh, that's how you do X (where X is anything nontrivial)" are not found in this book. The kind of situations you will likely encounter if you want to create reports for a real business, are not handled. In these cases you are left to your own devices.