I’ve installed BusinessObjects about a hundred times and there is very little that’s changed about the installation wizard from a user interface perspective since Crystal Enterprise 10.  BusinessObjects has always included “in the box” all the components necessary to successfully install BusinessObjects for a single server configuration.

That said, there is ONE change I make every time I do an installation.

History of the Embedded Database

On Windows, it’s gone from SQL Server Embedded (CE10) to MySQL (for support of Unix and Linux) and back to SQL Server.  Now that SAP has acquired it’s own database technology, don’t be too surprised if it comes bundled with Sybase in the future.

Personally I’ve never liked uses the embedded database and I wouldn’t recommend you use it either.  In fact, I recently has a situation with a client who due to any overly restrictive server/firewall configuration was unable to get the embedded database working and we wasted hours trying to troubleshoot the problem.

Installation Best Practice

I always choose “Custom Install” so that I can:

• Modify the installation location
• Uncheck the default embedded database (for the CMS)

I really don’t like to include the embedded database because I want to give BusinessObjects as much on-server resources as possible – especially with v4.0.

Always create space in an existing database environment to support BusinessObjects.  There are many supported CMS databases including:  SQL Server, MySQL, IBM DB2, Oracle, MaxDB and Sybase.

NOTE:  Always test connectivity to the database from the server on
which you will be installing BusinessObjects to make sure the connectivity
is working.

During the installation you will want to NOT include the embedded database.  That means doing a CUSTOM install and deselecting Integrated Database.

De-Select the Integrated Database

What I love about the installer is that it will check the database connectivity before the installation begins.  If there is an issue with the database client configuration, permissions, etc., the installation will warn me of the situation and not continue.  This gives me the confidence to know that assuming I have enough hard drive space, when I select “Begin Installation”,  it will complete successfully.

«Good BI»

A very common question when it comes to SAP BusinessObjects is:  How should I manage my SAP BusinessObjects security authorizations?

Although that is an extremely broad topic, today I want to discuss the issue of leveraging an external corporate directory to manage user authorizations.

NOTE:  It's important to remember that only the
user/group membership gets delegated out.
The group/object rights assignments must still be
performed by the BI administrator.

In most large organizations, there is a security team which manages users ids and user groups.  These users and groups are typically stored in a Corporate Directory such as LDAP, Windows Active Directory, etc.

The userid and password from the Corporate Directory is the method through which users are able to authenticate themselves (via secLDAP, secWinAD, secSAP, etc.)  So the question naturally arises:  Should I manage all my authorizations through groups managed via external security solutions?

The answer for your organization will depend on the answers to the following questions:

1. How much cooperation is there between the BI Administrator and the Corporate Directory Team?
2. How quickly can new groups be added to the Corporate Directory?
3. How many groups would you need to add to the Corporate Directory to manage all the BI security scenarios?
4. Do I want to delegate the bulk of my BI security management to the Corporate Directory Team?

There are pros and cons to any software implementation and the right solution must be made according to the culture and policies that fit your organization.

Leveraging External Security Exclusively

In certain cases the Corporate Directory team may be able to create and manage all the groups BI Administrators will need for security within the Corporate Directory and they are able to assign the correct security when a user is provisioned.

The advantages include:

• Single location for user/group membership
• Delegated Model – less for the BI administrator to manage

The disadvantages include:

• Delegating group creation and user group membership

This model has been successfully implemented at a large insurance company with 500+ BusinessObjects-related groups mapped to an external Active Directory server.

Leveraging A Mixed Model

At a high-level the mixed model leverages:

1. External security management for course grain security
2. Internal secEnterprise groups for fine grain security

I recommend course grain security to manage which users should have access to the BI environment (e.g. NY Users, Georgia Users, Reporting Users, etc.)  Once the user has been imported into the system, we can fine tune their access via fine grain security.

NOTE:  We refer to these as Data Access Roles because
the users in the Georgia Users group only get to see Georgia reports
and the corresponding Georgia data.

Administrators can use internal secEnterprise groups for managing fine grain security.  You can create roles such as:  WebI Viewer, WebI Developer, InfoView user, which can control the product specific rights allowed to the users of that role.

NOTE:  We refer to these as Entitlement Roles because
the users in the WebI Viewer group are allowed limited
application functionality.

The advantages include:

• A clean delineation between the Corporate Directory and the BI Security
• Balance between corporate control and system flexibility

The disadvantages include:

• Security being managed in two places
• The need for the BI Administrator to be notified of fine grain role changes so users can be remapped

It’s hard to say for sure whether the Mixed Model tends to work better in most organizations than the delegated model.  You need to determine which model will work best for your organization.  What I can say is that  both models allow for extremely flexible deployments amongst the multitude of different scenarios that I have come across.

Don’t Forget

Regardless of which model you use there is something you should know…

One organization which had communication problems with their LDAP server and as a result of a synchronization problem, most of their users were deleted from their BusinessObjects environment.  Users – Inboxes – Personal Folders.   Gone.

There is one extremely important rule when leveraging an external Corporate Directory.  Make sure that every external user in your BusinessObjects environment is mapped to at least one secEnterprise group.  This will guarantee the the mapped users id will never accidently be deleted from the system.  For Java SDK samples around user management, go here.

«Good BI»

Do you understand BusinessObjects security?

Granted Yes?
Denied No?
Not Specified Not Sure?

Well now is your chance to prove it.  Show us how good you really are.

My son always loves to test me with hypotheticals.

Dad can I have permission to see that R-rated movie?… No.

What if I take the dog for a walk?…  No.

… What if I mow the grass all summer?…  No.

… What if I get A’s for the rest of my life?…  No.

Fortunately getting granted access to InfoObjects within SAP BusinessObjects is a little more straight forward.

Quiz Show

To access the sample 24 scenario quiz click on the picture below:

Click here to start the Quiz

Results

So how did you do?  Get them all right?  Yes?  Then it’s time to get certified!

I’ll admit that regardless of how many times I go through this quiz there are always one or two that trip me up.

You can also download an offline copy of the quiz here:
http://trustedbi.com/files/user_rights.zip

Have a great week!

«Good BI»

To View or View Latest Instance, that is the question.

An Instance

… is also known simply as a Scheduled Instance or Report Instance.

If you are new to BusinessObjects, an instance is what we call a report which contains both a report template and data in a single file.  In the case of a scheduled report, once the report has been run, both the report template and the report layout are combined together and saved back the Repository.  This is called an instance or more specifically a report instance.

On Demand Reports

When a developer publishes a Crystal Report, typically only the report template is saved to the repository.  When the end user clicks on the report, the BusinessObjects platform will connect to the underlying data source and apply the report template to the data coming from the data source and produce a report layout which is then rendered in your browser.

Scheduled Reports

Scheduled Instances are extremely important because they are able to be rendered to the user in a few seconds as opposed to a live retrieval of the data which might take up to a minute (or more depending on your environment).  Users today do not want to wait.  As much as possible, I recommend organizations use report instances to improve the user experience and maximize scalability.

BEST PRACTICE:  Reports which take longer than 45 seconds to retrieve data
from the database should be scheduled.  Many long running "view on demand"
reports can cause an excess consumption of system resources.

View Latest Instance

In XIR2, the user was able to either click on the links, View or View Latest Instance, depending on what actions where available.  In XI 3.1  this was simplified.

In XI 3.1, the user may either click on the report and choose an Action from the menu or they may double-click and open the report.

When the user double-clicks on the report, a default action is taken.  The default action when clicking on reports is to View the report on demand.  This action will run the report retrieving the most current data for this report.

In many cases it is preferable to have the system run the Latest Instance of the report instead of running the report on demand.

This option can be changed globally for your SAP BusinessObjects environment via the CMC.

To change this option in XI 3.1, go into the CMC and Select Applications

From the CMC, InfoView Application Settings

Next Right-Click on InfoView and choose Properties.

Set the Default Viewing Option

When you scroll to the bottom you will see the option: Default Viewing Action on Listing Page.  Here you may choose either:

• View the object (default behavior)
• View the latest successful instance of the object

BI Launchpad v4.0

In BusinessObjects v4.0, this option is no longer available.

The default behavior is: View the latest successful instance of the object.  This is the opposite of the default behavior in XI 3.0.

Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again.

«Good BI»

Have you had a sneak peak into the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence 4.0 Platform?  No?

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence v4.0 Architecture

I just came across this link today and had to share it.  If you want to get a peek into the new Architecture components, then this is the place to look.

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence v4.0

You can click on the image above or click here:
http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/elearn?rid=/library/uuid/20bb3d3d-ccc3-2d10-96b4-edbfebb94c8d&overridelayout=true

It’s a very nice representation of what’s happening in the infrastructure.  All the new naming conventions are there and as you click on the boxes, it gives you additional details.  It cleverly tells you a components “former name”, whether it’s a web based or desktop based solution, etc.

Check it out!

More To Come

I’m hoping over the coming weeks to begin sharing more and more information about the imminent release of the v4.0 platform.  I’ve spent quite a bit of time working with it this week and I must say, I really like what I see.  The interface is beautiful and much of the redesign work focused around ease-of-use and user interface design is really nice.  I didn’t really like the XI 3.1 InfoView when it first came out, but I really, really like the new and improved InfoView, renamed BI Launch Pad… but more on that later.

Have a great weekend!

«Good BI»

For end of life days about SAP BusinessObjects products go here:

https://service.sap.com/bosap-lifecycle

On the left had side you should see a tree menu with a link for “Product End of Life Dates”.  This will bring you to the page which displays the original GA (general availability) dates, patch support end-of-life dates and tech support end-of-life dates.

As of July 26th, 2010 here are the dates:

^a For the Russian and Polish language editions of BusinessObjects Enterprise XI R2 SP1 the GA date is 4-Oct-2006.
^b For selected customers extended maintenance is available for calendar years 2012 and 2013. The extended maintenance is offered for an additional 5.0% for each year.
¹ 30-Jun-10 – Original EOL date before extended support. For more information about extended support click here.
² 31-Aug-07 – Original EOL date before extended support. For more information about extended support click here.
³ 31-Mar-08 – Original EOL date before extended support. For more information about extended support click here.
⁴ 30-Sep-08 – Original EOL date before extended support. For more information about extended support click here.
⁵ 30-Nov-09 – Original EOL date before extended support. For more information about extended support click here.
⁶ 06-Dec-06 – Original EOL date before extended support. For more information about extended support click here.
⁷ 05-Dec-06 – Original EOL date before extended support. For more information about extended support click here.
⁸ 09-Dec-06 – Original EOL date before extended support. For more information about extended support click here.
⁹ 01-Dec-06 – Original EOL date before extended support. For more information about extended support click here.
¹⁰ 23-Apr-11 – Original EOL date before extended support. For more information about extended support click here.
¹¹ 01-Jun-10 – Original EOL date before extended support. For more information about extended support click here.

«Good BI»

My mom always told me — A place for everything and everything in it’s place.

Well, organization has never been my strong suit, but I thought it might be useful to provide a one stop shop for the most useful links for finding information on the SAP Support Portal.  Below I’ve compiled a relatively comprehensive list of some of the more helpful links that I’ve discovered.  It’s my hope that these links that will get you to the information you need more quickly.

Are You New?

If you are a relatively new to SAP BusinessObjects and the SAP Support Portal, then you might benefit from reviewing the basic materials below.
PDF format:  https://websmp203.sap-ag.de/~sapidp/011000358700000678642008E.pdf

High-level Overview Video.  It may take up to 5 minutes to download the SWF video to your desktop so be patient.
Video:  https://websmp203.sap-ag.de/%7Esapidp/011000358700001048782008E.swf

You may also wish to download the two helpful documents from the BusinessObjects Tips Blog.

Tips & Tricks for Navigating the Portal:
http://www.businessobjectstips.com/downloads/bosap_support_tips_and_tricks.pdf

Creating a Customer Support Message
http://www.businessobjectstips.com/downloads/creating_an_sap_customer_message.pdf

Finding and Downloading Software

There is one alternative site outside of service marketplace.  From this site, no s-ID is required.  You can access the latest releases and hotfixes to Crystal Reports, Crystal Reports Server and Xcelsius 2008 from here.
Alternative Download Site:  https://websmp130.sap-ag.de/sap(bD1lbiZjPTAwMQ==)/bc/bsp/spn/bobj_download/main.htm

Free Downloads: Trial Software is available for the core SAP BusinessObjects Offering.  Check my Free Downloads page here.

If you have an S-ID for Service Marketplace, then additional downloads are available here:

SAP BusinessObjects Software Downloads: http://service.sap.com/bosap-downloads
SAP BusinessObjects Documentation: http://help.sap.com/businessobject/product_guides/

I blogged about these sites back in August of 2009 here.

All SAP BusinessObjects licensed software requires a license key of some kind.  Sometimes, in a pinch, you need access to a temporary license key.  If you need to access the license key for software you have purchased or a temporary license key, you can access it here:
License Keys: http://service.sap.com/licensekeys

Finally, one of the most important links, which I blogged about recently.  The PAM Product Availability Matrix contains the list of our supported product combinations.  That means this combination of those product versions together with BusinessObjects have been tested to work together prior to the release.
Product Availability Matrix: http://service.sap.com/pam

Useful Links

Getting Started

Service Marketplace: http://service.sap.com
Getting Started Service Marketplace: http://service.sap.com/getthedetails
Business Objects Support: http://service.sap.com/bosap-support
Learning Maps: http://service.sap.com/smp-learningmaps
SAP Trust Center (SAP Passport): http://service.sap.com/tcs
SAP Contracts: http://service.sap.com/supportcenters >Contracts

SAP BusinessObjects Links

SAP® BusinessObjects Community:  http://sdn.sap.com/irj/boc
SAP® BusinessObjects Notes:  https://sdn.sap.com/irj/boc/notes
SAP® BusinessObjects Articles:  https://sdn.sap.com/irj/boc/articles
SAP® BusinessObjects Forums:  https://sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/forums

General

SAP Notes Search: http://service.sap.com/notes
Create Customer Message: http://service.sap.com/message
Enterprise Support: http://service.sap.com/enterprisesupport
Support Offering: http://service.sap.com/supportofferings
Support Centers: http://service.sap.com/supportcenters
SAP Support Portal: http://service.sap.com/support
S-User Admin: http://service.sap.com/user-admin
Connect to SAP: http://service.sap.com/access-support
Data Administration: http://service.sap.com/system-data
SAP Solution Manager: http://service.sap.com/solutionmanager

SAP Developer Network: http://sdn.sap.com
SAP Partner Portal: http://partner.sap.com
SAP Business One: http://service.sap.com/smb/sbocustomer

«Good BI»

I recently received an urgent email from a customer who was days from going live with their new SAP BusinessObjects environment.  After checking the supported platforms guide, they suddenly realized that their combination of products wasn’t listed in the document.  They said:

According to the BO website Product 5.x will not be certified
until BusinessObjects XI 3.1 SP3.  We need Product 5.x to be
certified on BusinessObjects XI 3.1 SP2 ASAP.

How Do I Know If I Am Supported?

You need a copy of the Supported Platforms Guide for your product.  This guide contains the list of our supported product combinations.  That means this combination of those product versions together with BusinessObjects have been tested to work together prior to the release.  Should problems arise with your configuration, our product team will escalate the issue in an attempt to resolve the issue.

Where is the Supported Platforms Guide?

The first thing I discovered after doing some research is that it has been moved.  The guides are still accessible from SDN but they may not be the most up to date.  Unfortunately you’d never know it.  I downloaded the latest guide from SDN for Windows dated March 2, 2010 and it looked good.  It was only after talking to a colleague that I discovered a more recent version (with an updated SAP layout).  This is where you can find the latest information:

https://service.sap.com/pam

Historically these guides have been called a number of things:  Supported Platforms Guide, BusinessObjects PAR (Product Availability Report).   Now I introduce you to PAM -  The Product Availability Matrix.

Navigating the Product Availability Matrix (PAM)

You will need to navigate the PAM to find your supported platforms guide.  I suggest the following step-by-step navigation.

1.  From within the search box, search for: XI 3.1

2.  Next scroll down the list until you see SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1

3.  Next, click on the product you are looking for.  In this case SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1.

Notice you can see all the supported platform guides for all the releases and Service Paks.  This is where you will always find the LATEST supported platform guides which outline what versions of what supplementary products we support with SAP products.

So What If My Product Version isn’t Listed?

Just because your combination of product isn’t listed doesn’t mean it won’t work.  Unfortunately, there isn’t time or resources to test every possible combination of products, so we choose a few to test prior to each release.

Vendors are constantly fixing bugs and providing incremental enhancements to their software solutions, which means hte target is always changing.

So what about incremental releases?  Our general policy around “Incremental Release Support” is mentioned under the sections for Application Servers and Portal Servers.  Here is the text:

Application Server Incremental Release Support Policy

Specified application servers versions have been successfully tested by
Business Objects. Incremental releases of the specified versions defined
by the last number in the application server name will be supported as they
are made available, but may not have been tested by Business Objects.
Exceptions in support will be documented.

In general, this policy is also true for device drivers and other integration points.  The first thing to do is to check the vendor’s website and see what statements they make about compatibility.

• Here is a sample page from Netezza talking about ODBC driver compatibility.  http://www.netezza.com/data-warehouse-appliance-products/compatibility.aspx

The main question for the vendor is whether the new product release just a cumulative set of bug fixes and performance enhancements, or if new functionality was introduced which might affect backward compatibility.

• For example,  if the BusinessObjects product guide refers to Netezza ODBC v4.0 and Netezza ODBC is currently v4.6, and v4.6 comes from the within the v4.0 product umbrella with cumulative bug fixes, etc, then SAP BusinessObjects will support you.

In the past BusinessObjects has recommended that customers with legacy databases get supported by upgrading their database drivers.  For example, after Oracle 9 went out of support within the BusinessObjects Platform Guide, customers were able to access their Oracle 9 data through their “supported” Oracle 10g database drivers.  This was supported because ORACLE provided 100% compatibility of Oracle 10g drivers against Oracle 9 databases… and BusinessObjects Platform Guide supported Oracle 10g drivers.

• Using the Netezza example again, since Netezza says their v4.6 driver is compatible with v5.0 and THEY guarantee compatibility, then you can infer that BusinessObjects can also run the v4.6 driver against the Netezza v5.0.x Appliance Software.

Just Checking

In the case of SAP BusinessObjects, if the technical support team suspects that another vendors software might be causing an issue and the version of the software is not on our recommended product list, then the SAP team may ask you to move the software onto a “certified” release.

• Let’s say I decided to roll out Netezza ODBC v5.0 and I called technical support with an issue.  If we troubleshoot the issue and determine that the issue could be driver related, you may be asked to install Netezza ODBC v4.5.  If after doing this, if the test still fails, the issue can be escalated.  If the test is successful and it points to the vendor’s software, you may be asked to move to a supported version, e.g. Netezza ODBC v4.5.

When Things Don’t Work Out

Although it is rare, occasionally an incremental release by a database vendor introduces new bugs or functionality that renders the software incompatible with BusinessObjects.  One case in recent memory was Oracle v9.0.21.  The release was so buggy that customer EITHER had to downgrade to an earlier supported Oracle release or wait for the next Oracle release.  After tech support looked into the issues, it was clear that the problem was related to this release of Oracle.  In such cases, BusinessObjects would not escalate the issue to product team.  Additional support would have to come from the database vendor.  In such cases we provide a “best effort” to support the configuration.

Another example was the release of Sun’s JVM 1.6 client-side with BusinessObjects XIr2.  BusinessObjects only supported 1.5.2+ and this was an issue for many customers– compounded namely by the fact that may customers had their Java Client software using default settings which automatically installed updates.  This was fine until the first release of 1.6 came out.  We recommended firstly that customers return to Sun JVM 1.5.2+.  However, due to the pervasive nature of the problem, the issue was escalated to product support anyway and BusinessObjects did provide additional fixes to address the issue .

UPDATE!  Typical Support Workflows

After some additional questions about the process I thought it would be good to include the following two workflows.

This first workflow is a typical one.  We have a customer who is on an “unsupported” platform but technical support is still able to reproduce the problem.  At the end of the workflow we are still able to escalate the issue to our product team.

This second workflow is the situation whereby the problem becomes more difficult to reproduce and there is some difficulty in determining what is causing the problem.  In this case, are ability to escalate the issue is determined by our ability to reproduce the problem on the support, “reference” software version.

Hopefully that will bring additional clarity to any questions you might have.

Conclusion

SAP BusinessObjects is committed to the  success of your BI deployment.  They also provides guidance to help ensure that best possible change for success.  Because they cannot test and support every possible combination of every vendor’s product release, SAP BusinessObjects provides the supported platforms document for guidance.

You should make every effort to say within the same product release “umbrella” as what you find in the platforms guide.  Make sure that if you use an incremental release, that it is not a new code base and includes only bug fixes and performance enhancements.  Know Your Software = No Problems.  You can’t just look at the version number to see if there were significant changes.  You need to check the release notes:

• Tomcat 4.1 vs. 5.5 – Significant
• Netezza v4.0 to v4.6 – Insignificant
• Windows Server SP2 to SP3 – Significant (Yes, even SP’s can be significant)
• Teradata V2R5 to V2R6 – Significant
• Hyperion Essbase Client 9.2.1 to 9.2.5 – Insignificant

In all cases, you should rigorously test your BusinessObjects environment before going live on a new release.

«Good BI»

SAP BusinessObjects delivers great Business Intelligence solutions so that organizations can report off their existing data sources.  But what is the point of reporting of data that isn’t accurate anyway?  Although it is true that accurate data is pretty useless if you can get access to it, the converse is also true.  What is the point of a great end-user enabled system that includes inaccurate data?

My Top 5 Customers – Really?

Take a look at the report below.  (If you want to download this Xcelsius Model it is available below.)

Who are my top 5 customers?

Top 10 Customers

Did you say:  General Electric, Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Home Depot and Walmart?

Well, Sorry.  I’m afraid, that would be incorrect.

You see, what often happens in real-world situations is that organizations think they have more customers than they actually do.  That’s because within their CRM system, employees are able to add the same customer multiple times with multiple spellings.  This has happened in our case as well.  Let’s apply BusinessObjects Data Quality to this real-world situation.  With SAP BusinessObjects, you can take company names, customer names, addresses, etc. and standardize them, e.g. UPS = United Parcel Service = UPS Inc., WalMart = Wal*Mart = Wal-Mart, First Commerce Bank = 1st Commerce Bank.

My Top 5 Customers – Really!

Let’s have a look at this same report with Data Quality applied:

Top 10 Customers with Data Quality

Do you see the changes?

Walmart has jumped up into second place and United Parcel Service is now in fifth place.  We can also see the our profitability at Walmart is higher than we thought (26.8% instead of 18.7%) and United Parcel Service is actually lower that we thought (28.6% instead of 26.3%).  When you are making business decisions off your corporate data, it’s imperative that it is accurate and complete.

Here is the source data behind this chart and you can see how the lack of standardization has led to the incorrect results.  I have highlighted the offending records for you:

Raw Customer Data Behind the Top 10 Customers Report

Once we apply data quality and standardize the names, the order changes and I have a new top 5!  Often times our biggest customers, vendors, partners and products don’t get the credit they deserve for contributing to our success.  Once you’ve got data quality, you can know that you know that you know, the true numbers.

I’ve introduced this topic under the name of Data Quality, but Data Quality really falls under the broader topic of Data Stewardship or Data Governance.

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

The bottom line around data quality is that you don’t know what you don’t know.  If you manage a data warehouse which accepts feeds from dozens of systems, then it’s highly likely that you have a data quality problem and don’t even know it.  It’s a critical aspect of data warehousing.  Operational systems are notorious for bad data.  Last year, I read an excellent, practical guide to data quality called, Data Quality Assessment.  The book itself does not endorse a specific software vendor but all the principles found in the book would apply to any organization looking to improve their corporate data quality.

Downloads – See It Live

If you’d like to see an Xcelsius model of this chart live, I’ve made it available for download.  The source code for the .xlf is also available:
http://trustedbi.com/files/Importance of Data Quality.zip

Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction

Sometimes in life you run across situations that are hard to believe.  Here is an example where truth is stranger than fiction.  When you want to get someone’s attention when it comes to data quality, just tell them this example.  This data quality situation really happened and the results were disastrous.  This video is from Timo Elliott. When you click on it, it will take you to his website:

Timo's Data Quality Presentation (2min)

Do you have any good stories to share?  I’d love to hear them.

«Good BI»

When installing any SAP BusinessObjects software, I find that it’s always best to have WinRAR nearby.  Just as a spoonful of sugar, it helps the medicine go down, WinRAR give you the control you need when disk resources are tight.  I was reminded of this again when I downloaded the new version of Xcelsius 2008 SP3.  I couldn’t wait to see all the new features that everyone is talking about.  But first things first.  The best way to do this is to start with WinRAR.

Why WinRAR?

WinRAR is an archiving tool.  It is a great way to get around the annoying habit that that SAP BusinessObjects has of unzipping all the files into a temporary directory somewhere and then launching the setup.exe file.  I hate that.  I want to tell the installer what to do every step of the way.  Let’s take the new Xcelsius 2008 SP3 for example.  When you execute the archive exe file, it unpacks all the installation files.  Where does it put them?  Does it look at your TEMP or TMP environment variables? No, not necessarily.  It puts them in your C:DOCUME~1AdministratorLOCALS~1Temp directory.

Maybe it’s me, or maybe it’s Murphy’s Law.  I don’t know.  What I do know is that the BusinessObjects Installation exe files that you download from the Service Portal can be unzipped directly using WinRAR.  This means I don’t have to rely on the self-extraction exe.

WinRAR is easy to find.   If you want to use the latest version you can download it from the WinRAR website and you will receive a temporary license.  If you like it, you can buy it.  Alternatively if you like it but don’t need all the new features, you can get a free license here.

I am running WinRAR 3.61, but WinRAR 3.5 is fine too.

Extracting the BusinessObjects Software

Once WinRAR is installed, it will create convenient right-click menus.  In this case let me extract all the files from the new xcelsius2008sp3.exe file I downloaded from the SAP portal.  If I right-click on the install file, I can choose to Extract the files.   50% of the time I use Extract Here, the other 50% of the time I use the item I have selected below: Extract to {directory}, in this case Extract to xcelsius2008sp3.

Right-click Menu, Extract To

I like this option the best because it will extract files to a convenient location where I can access this easily.  When the extract begins, it will create the subdirectory if one does not already exist.

After the files are extracted, I can manually start the setup.exe myself.  Do remember that it does take a few minutes before you see the first installation splash screen so be patient.  In you are unsure, always check your task manager processes before starting it again.

Now it’s time to enjoy all those new features available from the SAP Download site.

«Good BI»