We had developed a fairly substantial universe during the development of a project (Business Objects XI R2). Before we could make a backup the database containing both the BO repository and our reporting data crashed. The application server on which the binary reports are stored was unaffected. I also have copies of the universes on my local machine.
We have recreated both the reporting data (reloaded from load files) and the repository (recreated the necessary schemas - naming them identically, etc.).
I’m trying to do 2 things:
Publish the universes that are on my local machine to the newly recreated repository (the databases and schemas were recreated using the same names, etc.) however, I cannot export. I get a “You are not authorized to use this document. (FRM 00008) Details: The universe belongs to a different CMS. You cannot open it unless you are connected to the same CMS from which it was imported” error when I try to open the universe in the Designer.
Obviously once I surmount issue 1, I’ll need to find a way to import the Webi reports I had created.
I spent several (3+) fruitless hours on a support call with BO, but they need to ‘research the problem’. Has anyone else had a similar experience from which they managed to recover?
Thanks for the reply, but I don’t think I was clear. My apologies for the confusion.
The issue is we don’t have a backup of the repository schema, so I need to ‘recreate’ what was in there. I figured that most of this work would be importing the universes and the reports we’d created. (I realize at least the reports are stored in the Filestore, however, we need to point the repository at them)
We still have the old filestore on the application server which was unaffected by the database crash.
I am fairly new to Business Objects, so my apologies if I use the wrong terms or demonstrate a gross misunderstanding of how things work.
Sorry,if you dont have the back-up of the repository its difficult to retreive them. Because,even if you have the physical files of universe and reports, the logical pointers are available in the repository. If you lose the repository, your physical files doesnt work.
If you use a General Supervisor ID, you’ll be able to recover your universes and reports by finding the files on the server. Don’t worry about user’s reports since they will still be there. Your biggest concern should be for Corporate Docs. You will have to go through the 100 directories in the Docs folder (part of the Storage area) to recover reports from there.
Thanks for your response… I asked BO about this but they said the General Supervisor ID concept no longer exists in XI R2.
venira,
BO is telling me something similar to what you had indicated… see below.
So an update…
Business Objects is telling me that since the Universes and Reports were created with Security settings on (thank you BO XI R2) that there is no way I can export/import them into another repository (my recreated one that is essentially the same as before only empty). This is due to the security model.
Apparently, if I had imported the universes to my local machine using a shared connection I would be able to put them back into the newly recreated repository database. This is essentially saving them without security.
They are seeing if there is a way to ‘hack’ it back into the repo (update the tables in the repo so the universe id is ‘registered’) - but are wary of causing instabilities.
Does anything in this sound familiar to anyone else?
All I can say… Be creative. Load 6.5 somewhere. Build and MSAccess repository. Use a General Supervisor to load these into your 6.5 repository. Then migrate them from there to XI.
I’m pretty sure universes should work just fine. If not, then you’re screwed.
Sooo… I managed to get my universes back by following this totally unsanctioned method. (Thanks to an anonymous engineer at BO!!)
WARNING: This is the last measure of a desperate man… do yourself a favour and back up both your FileStores and Repo databases regularly!!! Business Objects does not guarantee this method or offer this as an ‘official’ solution.
Follow these steps after you have recreated the repository database and established connectivity to it. This assumes that all your old universe files (*.unv) still exist on in your Filestore.
Create a new dummy universe in Designer. Save this universe and export it to the repository using the Secure Connection.
Find the locations of both the new universe you just created and the original universe you wish to restore.
Copy the old universe to the same directory as the new universe. Copy the name of the new universe, delete the new universe file, and rename the old universe file with the new universe file name.
Open Designer and import the ‘new’ universe to your desktop - this should now be you old universe.
Rename the imported universe to the same name as it was before and export the universe to the repository. When prompted, choose the make a copy (not the update option). This should leave you in a state with your original universe name, etc.
Log into the CMC and delete the dummy universe you had created.
You now have your old universe back!!
Thanks to all for your help. Now I’m off to do basically the same thing with my old reports.
Anyone know how to change the universe a report is pointing at??
You can only change the universe for a Desktop Intelligence query. Start in the data viewer. Under the definition tab, you can see the universe name. Click the “…” and select the new universe. The problem is that the old one has to exist before you can choose a new one.
I don’t know of any way to do this with WebI reports.
Yes, we can change the connection for Webi reports but once the connection between the Webi reports to Universe is broken for any reason, you cannot change as the report properties gets grayed out.
It appears Kalyan is correct. I could open and view the reports (thank goodness) but could not redirect them. I ended up recreating them based on seeing what was in the report.
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