BusinessObjects Administration – Custom Access Levels

Hi BOOglers,

Another interesting feature in business objects, Custom access level is going to be the topic of discussion for this blog. Please note the custom access levels are introduced only from Business Objects 3.0 onwards.

As you all know Access levels are groups of rights that users frequently need. They allow administrators to set common security levels quickly and uniformly rather than individual rights to be set one by one. Business Objects comes with several predefined access levels. Beginning with View and ending with Full Control, each access level builds upon the rights granted by the previous level. We can also create and customize your own access levels. This will greatly reduce administrative and maintenance costs associated with security.

Predefined Access Levels

Below four are list of predefined access levels and associated list of right(s).

Access level	Description	Rights involved
View	If set on the folder level, a principal can view the folder, objects within the folder, and each object’s generated instances.		View objects View document instances
Schedule	A principal can generate instances by scheduling an object to run against a specified data source once or on a recurring basis. The principal can view, delete, and pause the scheduling of instances that they own.		View access level rights, plus: Schedule the document to run Print the report’s data Edit objects that the user owns
View On Demand	A principal can refresh data on demand against a data source.		Schedule access level rights, plus: Refresh the report’s data
Full Control	A principal has full administrative Control of the object.		All available rights

* Principle refer to User group or User

Access levels in CMC

Advanced rights

Icon	Rights option	Description
	Granted	The right is granted to a principal.
	Denied	The right is denied to a principal.
	Not Specified	The right is unspecified for a principal. By default, rights set to Not Specified are denied.
	Apply to Object	The right applies to the object. This option becomes available when you click Granted or Denied.
	Apply to Sub Object	The right applies to sub-objects. This option becomes available when you click Granted or Denied.

Custom Access Levels

Consider a situation in which an administrator must manage two groups, Marketing managers and Marketing employees. Both groups need to access ten reports in the Business Objects Enterprise system, but Marketing managers require more rights than marketing employees. The predefined access levels do not meet the needs of either group. Instead of adding groups to each report as principals and modifying their rights in ten different places, the administrator can create two new access levels, Marketing Managers and Marketing Employees. The administrator then adds both groups as principals to the reports and assigns the groups their respective access levels. When rights need to be modified, the administrator can modify the access levels. Because the access levels apply to both groups across all ten reports, the rights those groups have to the reports are automatically updated.

We can create a new custom access level either start from the scratch or copy the existing access levels. We can also add/remove set of rights from existing custom access level from the existing custom access level.

Right Click on the Custom Access level and Select Included Rights.

And you will get the screen like below. Select the appropriate rights as per the requirement,

Then click OK to complete.

Finally you can assign the Custom Access level against each User group/User on a particular folder.

Administrator will get the best benefits out of this because they will get-rid of the traditional rights assignment using Advanced rights option. Also It is easy to manage the rights when they are grouped together.

Feel free to leave your comments. Thanks for reading! 

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Business Objects Administration – Backup and Recovery

Hello BOOglers,

Backup and Recovery in Business Objects is going be the topic of discussion today.

A backup and recovery plan consists of making copies of data which may be used to restore the original content in the event of data loss. The plan aims to minimize the disaster effects on the daily operations so that the environment can resume critical business functions quickly.

As part of a BOE disaster recovery plan, an implementation of redundant servers in a backup system, which mirrors the primary system, can also be included. If the primary system goes down, still the disaster recovery system is available.

Backup process in Business Objects

We can always go with either Cold backup or hot backup based on the scenario.

Cold backup	Hot backup
Needs downtime as CMS, FRS will be stopped	No downtime of the system
assures accurate system snapshot, since no transactions can occur during the backup	Can’t be assured as accurate because users may still accessing the system.
Suitable for complete system backup	Suitable for partial backup

What to backup?

It is always recommended to back up BusinessObjects system on a daily basis for all the below components unless otherwise they are modified.

• CMS tables and Audit tables
• File Repository Server
• Database Connections
• Custom applications (java/.Net code)

What to consider?

• How often the backup needs to be taken on BO content?
• How much time is taking to complete the backup process?
• How long the downtime of the system if it is the cold backup?

Things to be ready before backup process

• Ensure that there are no scheduled reports/Federation jobs running during the backup process time window.
• Users must be communicated regarding the backup process so that they can plan their report schedules, etc.
• For hot backup it is always suggested to run the Repository Diagnostic Tool to make sure the CMS and FRS are in sync.

Recovery process in Business Objects

Regardless of whether a cold or hot backup, recovery process should be simple and clear-cut. The high level sequence of steps to be followed for recovery process as specified below.

• Stop all Business Objects services.
• Restore the backup of the CMS and Audit database.
• Configure the all the ODBC sources to point to the restored database and report source.
• Restore the Input and Output File Repositories (FRS)
• Start all Business Objects services.

If you are planning for a partial recovery you need to import the content to be restored from a BIAR file using Import wizard.

Thanks for reading!  Read More about  Business Objects Administration

Business Objects Administration – Cache Management

Cache management in Business Objects is going to be our topic today. We can manage the cache in Server as well as client side. Let us see how this is being done.

1. Managing Cache in Server side

Changing the Business Objects Registry Parameter: MaximumObjectsToKeepInMemory

Memory usage is controlled by the number of objects stored in the object cache. This is controlled by the Windows registry key called “MaximumObjectsToKeepInMemory” and specifies the maximum number of objects that the CMS stores in its memory cache. Increasing the number of objects reduces the number of database calls required and greatly improves CMS performance. However, placing too many objects in memory may result in the CMS having too little memory remaining to process queries. The upper limit is 100,000 and the default setting is 40,000.

The other place to enable this parameter is in the CMS server’s command line. The parameter is called “-maxobjectsincache”. This is invoked by adding it in CMC to the command line.

2. Managing Cache in Client side

In client side we can clear the cache in Web browser and Java control panel.

Clearing cache in web browser

To clear the cache in Internet Explorer (IE7) follow these instructions:
Tools > Internet Options > General > Browsing history > Delete…

Clearing cache in Java Control Panel

To clear the cache in Java Control Panel follow these instructions:
Control Panel > Java > General > Delete Files…

Hope you will be much comfortable dealing with Cache henceforth after reading this blog. Keep reading!

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Let’s talk EPM – Part 2 on Metrics Profiling

In my earlier post on Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), I had enumerated the six steps of a practical EPM strategy in an organization. They were:

1. Business Process Maps – Understand the business process
2. Metrics Identification – Get hold of the metrics
3. Metrics Profiling – Understand the metrics in depth
4. Metrics Maps – Understand the cause and effect relationships between metrics
5. Metrics Visualization – Implementation of Metric Maps on BI Tools
6. Watch and Improve – Monitor Metrics and Improve business process as required

It is important to realize that building a data warehouse (enterprise wide) or data mart (functional area wise) or simply an integrated, subject-oriented data repository (without getting lost in semantics!) is implicit in the set of steps outlined above.

Steps 1 and 2 (Business Process and Metrics identification) are self-explanatory. Though getting hold of the right metrics is easier said than done, it is fairly well understood that the measures/metrics selected for analysis should align itself with the organization’s mission, business model and value creation aspects.

Step 3 – Metrics Profiling, in my opinion, is the step often missed out in EPM implementations and arguably is a major cause of failures in such programs. Metrics Profiling stated simply is a way of understanding your metrics in depth. Given below is a sample template for profiling your metrics and can be customized for each organization.

Profiling Parameters:

1. Metric Name – Name of the metric

2.Metric Definition – Brief definition of the metric

3.Metric Type – Is it a ratio, absolute number, trended value, etc.

4.Sources of data – Identify the source of data for the metric and the owners

5.Application – Brief description of how the metric helps in managing the business better

6.Potentially Affected Metrics – Identify the other metrics that are impacted (positive or negative) by this metric.

7.Example – Provide an example of metrics usage. (For example: ABC Computers released three new product lines during the last 12 months, generating $15 million in new revenue out of total annual revenue of $125 million. New Products Index = 15 ÷ 125 = 12%)

Metrics Profiling is a very important step in the implementation of enterprise wide performance

management system. I will discuss the other aspects of EPM in my subsequent posts.

Thanks for reading .