BusinessObjects Board

Dashboard scheduling, sharing, viewing offline, saving

I have created my 1st webi dashboard in BO XI 3.1 and would like to clarify the following:

  1. Can we schedule a webi dashboard ? If so how to do this ?
  2. Can we save the webi dashboard in PDF format?
  3. Can we view a webi dashboard offline without logging into Infoview?
  4. what is the best way to share the dashboards with executives as they want to have a single click view and doesn’t want to login any where?
  5. My understanding is that we do not have an option to use custom sql to build a dashboard. please confirm.

Thanks,
Maddy


maddyforums (BOB member since 2006-02-23)

I kindly suggest reading through the manuals available at help.SAP.com, all the things you asked are basic features of WebIntelligence, and look at the official SAP BI Product Tutorials here, some of that stuff also applies to the old/outdated XI 3.x product line as well.


Andreas :de: (BOB member since 2002-06-20)

  1. Can we schedule a webi dashboard ? If so how to do this ?

Schedule a WebI dashboard?
If by this, you mean a Dashboards/Xcelcius content which automatically updates given source data from WebI scheduled reports… the answer is Yes.
I think you know how to schedule WebI reports probably already else perhaps search the forum for many answers to this…

  1. Can we save the webi dashboard in PDF format?
    The default dashboard output format will be a Flash (denoted with the .swf file extension) - This by its very nature is interactive so why would you wish to save such to a static .pdf format?
    However, should you really still wish to do so, for example to snapshot output then a number of options to capture a screen print or much nicer to ‘print to pdf’ subject to your browser allowing using a suitable third party applicaton - Various freeware is available which will print to .pdf format

  2. Can we view a webi dashboard offline without logging into Infoview?
    Yes, no need to log into Infoview if accessing the flash .swf file for example simply double-click to launch the dashboard using your default browser - however, there is a need to be connected to the same network to receive auto-updated content for example weekly data over the course of a year.

  3. what is the best way to share the dashboards with executives as they want to have a single click view and doesn’t want (ofterto login any where?
    One way is to simply distribute the flash .swf file across the network in a shared folder. Alternatively if on a different network then in the past I have allowed access across a downloadable Citrix application on which is granted access to your networks default browser with a link to the flash .swf file
    Don’t forget dashboard figures for senior management financial or operational reporting is a typical use of dashboards so for security reasons often such figures should typically NOT be made available offline… as this could then leak data external to the organisation so usually much better to encourage management to come to the data on the same network rather then send such data to management especially once aware of such potential risk.

  4. My understanding is that we do not have an option to use custom sql to build a dashboard. please confirm.
    Custom SQL is used for reporting queried data only - if your version of WebI / permissions has access to create custom SQL WebI reports then that data can be accessed by a dashboard to display results for example using web Services to publish the query results to the WebI server which in turn is pulled upon by the dashboard using the relevant WSDL.

Hope this helps some. :crazy_face:


ezab :uk: (BOB member since 2003-08-13)