Hello
We have recently moved to BO Designer XI R3 and have intermediate experience in our team. I am looking to pull together a list of available online learning resources (free) that we can tap into when we have issues or want to refresh our memory on a particular topic (i.e. no expensive training courses!). Also, the names of any useful books that we could purchase would be great.
Any recommendations would be appreciated.
Thanks
Kirsty
khall92 (BOB member since 2010-07-29)
Hi Kirsty.
I don’t think you can look past this site as the top point of reference.
The other place will be the SAP Community Network Forums - SAP Community Home
As for books, the publications by Robert Schmidt and Cindi Howson tend to be regarded as the best two.
you will get excellent books from this site
http://help.sap.com/businessobject/product_guides/
and you can download them
surya_sudheer 
(BOB member since 2006-11-01)
If you have not received official training then this is an investment which will pay off rapidly. Add to that an experienced universe designer as a consultant for your first project and you and your tream are on the right path IMHO.
I am at a customer and they have made typical mistakes when building universes if one is not experienced.
Again, people take driving lessons to operate a car, but companies are unwilling to invest in real training for complex business software… Makes me wonder…
Regarding new stuff in XI 3.x, please look at: [XI 3.0] New features in XI R3.0 (Titan)
Andreas 
(BOB member since 2002-06-20)
Thank you very much for the input guys 
By the way, not a surprise but BOB is my top resource…
khall92 (BOB member since 2010-07-29)