SAP BusinessObjects - Content/Repository/InfoObjects metadata analysis

[Ashish_Farkya]

Hi SAP BOBJ Experts!

Just thought of sharing information in a consolidated manner so that all of the SAP BOBJ developers / administrators who are dealing with questions like :

- How do we know, about # of reports in any SAP BOBJ environment

- How those reports are linked to Universes or Connections

- Which User Group has what type access level defined in the system

- How many report are scheduled and which are those reports? how much time those reports take to refresh on BOBJ scheduler etc..

As many other blogs suggest that there are ways to find this info from BOBJ CMS Database/InfoStore however since there are many options available, I thought of sharing consolidated list of options; so that it serves as a good repository of info about commonly used options and allows stakeholders to make an informed choice (of which option to go for).

Broadly speaking there are more than 5 ways (barring SDKs) to extract metadata from BOBJ repository, some of the most common ones are listed here : 

1. Query Builder
2. CMS System Database Universe & Reports
3. SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform Support Tool (SAP BI PST)
4. Audit Database & Universe
5. Central Management Console (CMC)

Let's look at these options one by one in a bit more details : 

Query Builder :

One of the out-of-the box option available is to use an SAP provided web/HTML based free-of-cost (available with BOBJ user licenses) tool called “Query Builder” Tool to extract the information. This tool can be access via URL http://ServerName:Port/AdminTools . It allows a user to directly query CMS system database.

This option works well with SAP BO XI R2 version or higher.

Although this tool comes handy in extracting information from BOBJ repository (and it can give you all sorts of info like Reports/Universe/User Groups/Access Levels etc..) however queries could be a bit complex for new developers and the results that Query Builder generates are not very easy to slice and dice if you have a long list of InfoObjects in the result set.

I think following KBA provides much more details on this option : 3441809 - BI Query Builder ***Guide KBA*** | SAP Knowledge Base Article

CMS System Database Universe & Reports :

This approach requires BOBJ Administrator to create a “Connection” using CMS system Database access driver to CMS repository. Once the connection is established BOBJ Universe designers can create a universe on the CMS system database tables.

Once the universe is ready, one can create their own custom WebI reports (or Crystal reports) to meet the data extraction requirements.

This entire process to define a connection, Universe and Reports does take sometime however there are sample Universe and Reports package made available by SAP (and other third-party vendors) which can be downloaded for free and configured by BOBJ Administrators to achieve quicker turnaround.

Please note that you can use this approach only if you are on SAP BOBJ BIP 4.2 SP03 or higher.

2399962 - CMS database with new data access driver from BI 4.2 SP03 | SAP Knowledge Base Article covers the subject in much granular details.

SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform Support Tool (SAP BI PST) :

Surprisingly not so widely known yet very powerful tool : SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform Support Tool is a Java based utility; (a client tool provided by SAP that can be downloaded from link: https://softwaredownloads.sap.com/file/0030000000399242022  on any client system) .

This tool is available free of cost and the installation steps are quite simple. The best part is : There are a set of pre-built reports available inside the tool which comes very handy for the repository analysis.

Please note that multiple newer versions (or updates) have been released by SAP from the time SAP BI PST Tool was first released in year 2014. This tool works well with SAP BOBJ BI Platform version 4.0 and higher however please check PAM document for lower BOBJ BIP versions for compatibility.

2407767 - SAP BI Platform Support Tool *** Master KBA *** | SAP Knowledge Base Article covers the BOBJ PST tool in details and has references to multiple resourceful documents.

Audit Database & Universe :

Auditing can be defined as: The process of recording actions performed within the system based on user activity. Auditing allows system administrators to know: who is using the system, how they are using it, when they use it and what they do.

Some of the very commonly audited activities are:
     - User Logon/Logoff
     - Report/Document access
     - Report/Document Scheduling
     - Custom Access Level creation, modification, or deletion
     - Lifecycle Manager events (includes rollback and version management actio ns

Some of the commonly used Audit database platforms are:
     - MySQL
     - Oracle
     - MS SQL Server

If your BOBJ system has provision for auditing, then you can create a universe on top of Audit Database and generate reports based off the Audit database to extract repository information.

A package containing sample Auditing Universe and Auditing Reports is available for download from SAP Support Portal however the Audit Reports/Universes are not supported by SAP for any issues/bug-fixes.

2456458 - Auditing in SAP BI Platform 4.x *** GUIDE KBA *** | SAP Knowledge Base Article explains Auditing in a lot more details.

Please note that you can use this approach with SAP BO XI R2 version or higher.

Central Management Console (CMC) : 

Set of metadata that you may need can also be queried/found from Central Management Console (CMC: Admin Console for SAP BO BI Platform), however one needs to all around to collect this info and may a times information is not available at a granular level.

Some of the info that can be easily seen from CMC is:
         - User Groups & Users
         - Folders and reports inside them.
        - Security queries: allows you to check Access Levels
        - Relationship queries: allows you to check dependencies between Report/Universe/Connection
       - Instance Manager: allows you to check Scheduled Reports

Summary :

Based on above mentioned details, SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform Support (SAP BI PST) tool looks to be the best choice if you are looking for a way to reliably extract the information from SAP BOBJ repository.

Additional favorable factors include : it’s a tool that’s delivered by SAP (a trusted source), available free of cost and doesn’t require complex configuration steps. However, if your requirements are beyond what’s already available through SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform Support tool (or you are using a BOBJ version lower than supported by BI Platform Support Tool) then you may consider other options to fulfill your needs.

Disclaimer : All information presented in this blog ( and references shared) is based on my personal experience while working on SAP BOBJ upgrade/migration and Development / Production Support project across multiple projects/clients.

If there is a feedback/question, please do share in "comments"  so that the content can be refined further ( if there is a need). The whole intent here is to consolidate the information that is available in fragmented format and allow BOBJ developers/ administrators to get a quick understanding of most commonly used options ; if they are heading for BOBJ content analysis.

Happy Learning!

Cheers!

~ Ashish