SAP BusinessObjects - Data Definitions

[#1]

Our goal is to capture the usage patterns [frequency of report executions, report popularity, and most recent report executions] for SAP BO reports that are retrieved from CMS DB. According to the definitions provided for BO, we understand that Run and Refresh are actions that generate new reports. However, when we look at audit log, we find a lot of View and Retrieve events that are difficult to interpret.

1) Could you provide a more in-depth/user-friendly definition of these actions (Run, Refresh, View, Retrieve) so that we can truly understand report usage within our organization?

2) In order to calculate the usage pattern, do you believe that these are events that we need to look at?

Thank you very much!

[Former Member]

Thank you very much for your response. This explanation seems to make a lot of sense, but when we look deeper into our data, there are cases that we still cannot comprehend given these definitions.

Here is a sample, followed by some questions we have:

1. Report 1 above is viewed several times per day throughout the year, while the data shows that months go by without Runs or Retrieves. This use case requires close to real-time data, so how could this be explained? Also, how can it be viewed without being retrieved first?

2. Additionally, with Report 2, how can it be possible to have more Retrieves than Views? Does this necessarily mean that Reports are frequently retrieved and then nothing is done with them?

Looking from a User perspective we still see cases where Retrieves are greater than Views and vic versa.

3. What does the Modify action mean? How can you Modify without viewing (User 2 has Modify Count > View Count)?

4. What does it mean when we get many instances of the same action just several seconds apart (Retrieve, 3 secs later another Retrieve, 3 secs later another Retrieve…)?

Thanks again for your much needed help!