BusinessObjects Board

Setting up measures to be used in a chart

building reports webintelligence
#1

I am posting in the WebIntelligence forum because my issue concerns report creation, but universe design is also a factor. I need a report which shows information about a help-desk type application. The table contains just two columns, a category and a count showing how many tickets belong to that category. I need the ability to turn this into a chart also. Seems simple, but for the life of me I can’t get it to work.

I defined my universe with a measure object on the ticket ID, with projection function of Count. My first attempt worked fine for the table, but WebI would not allow me to turn it into a chart. After some experimenting, I found that if the measure object is defined in the universe with the projection function of Count, the measure cannot be used to create a chart. WebI will not allow it to be dragged into the chart template in the place that asks for a measure, and the Turn To command simply disables all the chart options. I tried changing the projection function to None, and then Sum - either of these allows the measure to be used to create a chart; but then the information doesn’t display correctly. The table which used to work correctly (using a measure with Count projection) just shows #DATATYPE where the numbers should be; and the chart doesn’t display at all.

Obviously the problem is that I don’t understand the complexities of measure objects as they are used in BusinessObjects. But this is frustrating because my report needs are very simple and it seems like it shouldn’t be this complicated. I would be grateful to anyone who can point me in the right direction.

In case it matters, the database backend is SQL Server.

lkapell (BOB member since 2010-06-02)

#2

Although your measure is a COUNT, your projection should be SUM. For example, say you are counting records on each day - you have 3 records for yesterday and 4 for today. You want a total of 3+4 (SUM) overall.

So you’d have count(distinct ticket_id) for the measure, with a projection of sum. If your data is wrong, then the error is somewhere else.

Debbie

Debbie :uk: (BOB member since 2005-03-01)

#3

OK, I see what my problem is… I was relying on the projection function to do my COUNTing for me, the count function should be included in the measure definition itself.

I knew it must be a simple answer, but I have learned BusinessObjects mostly through trial and error, so I must have gone down the wrong path when figuring out how to set up measures.

Thank you so much!

Lewis

lkapell (BOB member since 2010-06-02)

#4

Hi Lewis,

Everyone has to start somewhere :).
The rule of thumb is that you, nearly, always define a measure with a SQL aggregate function.

good post from Andreas, for your reference:-
https://bobj-board.org/t/71712

Mak 1 :uk: (BOB member since 2005-01-06)

#5

@Lewis - I’m the same. Trial & error, guesswork, google and this place. I’ve just been doing it longer… :slight_smile:

Debbie

Debbie :uk: (BOB member since 2005-03-01)