Is "Data Entry" by BO user possible?

general discussion
1

Is it possible for a user of XIr2 to input data (text notes) into a database :?: from within XIr2 :!:

Any assistance on where to locate more information on this would be appreciated.

Dr.Disc :fr: (BOB member since 2002-08-29)

2

Business Objects is a reporting system and it is not intended for data entry. However, you can easily create a web form to accomplish the data entry task.

But the real issue will be
how are you going to validate and certify the information that were keyed in? Do you really want uncertified information in your BI system?

substring :us: (BOB member since 2004-01-16)

3

The data to be entered is text data consisting of Notes and Issues in stand alone tables. Not too many concerns about data quality in this instance.

I know BO is a reporting tool. However, the client states that the capability to add data to a database table was ‘demo-ed’ by BO. Always an opportunity for someone like me to get very nervous.

Thanks for your help.

Dr.Disc :fr: (BOB member since 2002-08-29)

4

Dr. Disc, don’t be nervous. Dektop Intelligence, Crystal Reports, Web Intelligence and OLAP Intelligence are Read-Only products and will not write to a database. These tools cannot be used for data entry. Business Objects has only one tool that will allow users to manually enter data, and that won’t do what you want. That tool is Dashboard Manager. It allows manually entered data to be used in Analytics.

The only other tool that will add data to a database is Data Integrator, and that does not allow manual entry. It’s an ETL tool.

MichaelWelter :vatican_city: (BOB member since 2002-08-08)

5

Thanks Michael,

I ‘thought’ I knew that about BO tools. I’ve been burned by client’s memories of BO Sales Demos more than once.

I suspect the demo was of the web page for data entry. Time will tell.

Dr.Disc :fr: (BOB member since 2002-08-29)

6

dr disc, in addition to what Michael has said, don’t completely believe everything you saw on a demo session. Always take it with a large grain of salt. A very simple dashboard in demo might take you 6 months to develop in your own environment.

For notes and issues, XI has something called Discussion that you can explore. The downside is that I don’t think a whole lot of people are actually using it in production though.

If the notes and issues are related to development, you should always have an issue log which is outside of the Business Objects development tool.

substring :us: (BOB member since 2004-01-16)

7

Thanks, but the desire is to have the Notes and Issues displayed in a Viewer Analytic

and

to have the product owner write up the notes and issues.

I look forward to learning just what the demo was from the BO rep who did the demo.

I’ll try to remember to post that here.

Dr.Disc :fr: (BOB member since 2002-08-29)

8

Although it is a misuse of Desktop intelligence, it is possible to insert or update data in a database using Desktop intelligence. This can be done by creating a report based on a stored procedure with prompts which can insert or update or by using free hand sql queries with or without prompts.

I have used this concept in the past to create log tables for reports run in BO.

mlaan (BOB member since 2006-02-24)

9

Discussions and Encyclopedia are two options for associating metadata with reports. Encyclopedia enables you to give some information about the report, whereas Discussions allow users to post notes to other BusinessObjects users


HTH -

DJ

DJ06482 :us: (BOB member since 2002-11-22)

10

Hi,

On a similar theme, is it possible for a user to just alter the report created in WebI, rather than make a database change?

I have a requirement for users to run reports, and then periodically update certain fields in the report manually. Is this possible, once the report has been run and saved?

Thanks in advance

abcdef

abcdef (BOB member since 2008-06-19)

11

You can create “dummy prompts” in a document that can be used to capture user input during refresh. Those values can then be used to update the data on the report(s) within that document.

MichaelWelter :vatican_city: (BOB member since 2002-08-08)

12

The report technically doesn’t save the data in the report.
It saves a set of data and the report page is the logical interpretation of the query data as per the variables, breaks, totalling, etc included in that report page

13

BO Labs – or whatever it’s called these days – did have an add-on to InfoView that let you put comments and annotations on a page. They also had an add-on for “write back” capability to a database. Both features are so un-baked that a sales rep shouldn’t have shown it in a demo, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn if one did.

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/boc/innovation-center

Check out the “Comment It”, “BI Annotator”, and “Take Action” prototypes. None of these are actually in the product yet.

dnewton :us: (BOB member since 2004-01-30)

14

Hi,

You need to be a bit more specific on which tool in BOXI you need to do this in, as youll have probably noticed on the forum, I iterate quite a lot that BOXI isnt a reporting tool, Business Objects isn`t a reporting tool anymore either, BOXI is a BI platform, nothing more.

In answer to the specific question, the above is possible in Crystal in 2 ways. Either using the DHTML webelements components, or using an on demand subreport that uses and insert statement. The second one is more of a hack though


ABILtd :uk: (BOB member since 2006-02-08)

15

Hello,

Just to let you know that I had the same concern 5 month ago. Customer like to provide some extra information to already datawarehouse information , which doesn’t exist in the source system. And for sure, to ask people to add some column in a legacy or big system, It can be difficult.

So, my final solution was to develop an external web dot.net application, including page entry, database, etl, blablbabla, not me, but to the web developper team. I king of middle project.

This doesn’t help you but it’s my story. Oh, we hjabe Db2 and we try to use db2web, an unsupported application that let you to connect to a db2 databse and enter some data. But guest about the data quality
 I think , oracle have the same kind of small web app. to connect and enter information, and free.

patrickfx (BOB member since 2007-10-17)

16

Is write back is possible in other OLAP tools?

Rakesh_K :india: (BOB member since 2007-12-11)

17

I’m pretty sure it’s a feature of Hyperion, isn’t it?

dnewton :us: (BOB member since 2004-01-30)

18

In my project is also same requirement, i.e. is it possible to insert the data into data base using BO tools. In new version BO 4.1

panthangi (BOB member since 2016-05-17)

19

There`s only ever been ‘hacky’ solutions to writing data back with BO and most have been around doing it with Crystal Reports. If you want a BI tool with a properly designed writeback capability, then look to LogiAnalytics.

ABILtd :uk: (BOB member since 2006-02-08)

20

Technically it’s possible but I don’t like the idea of it.

Not sure why you’d want to do it that way though, rather than through a proper UI.

You could either write a stored procedure universe that could sit over a report and consume input from another report via OpenDocument functionality.

Andy, could BODS in theory consume a Webi report instance as a data source?