The hi4em Dummies Guide To Business Objects InfoView

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1 The hi4em Dummies Guide To Business Objects InfoView Updated on 21 st September 2007 Who to Blame: Dan Parkes Introduction Welcome to the hi4em dummies guide to Business Objects InfoView. This guide is intended to be a walkthrough of how to use the system so that you can view and edit existing reports and create your own reports based on the available data. Hopefully you will find it useful and helpful but if there is anything missing, or if you spot spelling nistakes, then let us know so that we can keep the document updated. The guide is written so that the most useful and often used features are discussed first. Features that probably won t be used will be discussed at the end. Hopefully this will make it easier for you to start using the system as you won t have to read through all the boring stuff you probably won t use. Also, please read the document carefully to make sure that you understand it before contacting us for help. We may be down the pub and will be unable to take your phone call! What Is Business Objects InfoView? Business Objects InfoView is a web based tool for creating and maintaining database reports. For simplicity we ll just call it InfoView. This means that you don t need to have any knowledge of databases and you don t need to be a teccie, as the system does pretty much everything for you (apart from creating the reports themselves). In some ways it is similar to Excel (other spreadsheets are available) but at the same time it is much more advanced! You create the report and tell the system what data to be display and how to display it and then InfoView takes this, asks the database the questions you ve set and displays the results just as you ve asked it to. OK, that really sounds great and will make life so much easier, but how do I use it? Well, read on for a tour Things To Do Before You Start InfoView is made by Business Objects (a French company) and is web based and so needs to run inside a web browser. It was designed to use Internet Explorer but if you are a Mozilla Firefox junkie then you need to get hold of the IE Tab plug-in. You can get this from the Mozilla website ( or from the link below: 1

2 As far as I am aware InfoView will work in Opera (as Opera is an Internet Explorer clone) but this has not yet been tested. You will also need to have log in details to get access to InfoView. These will have been provided by hi4em. InfoView also needs to have Java in order to run, however, it must either be version 1.4 or version 1.5. InfoView will not work properly with newer versions of Java. You can get version of the Java Runtime Environment from the link below: Tip: If you have another version of Java installed you must uninstall this before you attempt to install version You may need to get your IT department to do this for you and the computer may need to be restarted. Logging In First of all you need to log into InfoView. This allows the system to know who you are so that you have access to the correct tools and also to make sure that unauthorised people cannot get access to the reports. There are two ways of accessing the InfoView log-in console. One is to select the Login option from the main hi4em webpage and the other is to type in the URL directly into the browser. Both methods are covered below. For option one, select the Login option from the menu on the left-hand side of the main hi4em webpage. This will display the login page as shown below. In the Address field type in your login address and in the Password field type in the password that was ed to you. Tip: The login address will not necessarily be your own address but may be that of a colleague. 2

3 Select the Submit button and you will be logged into the website. The following screen will be displayed. You will now have a list of the components that you are authorised to access. Select the Hi4em system Business Objects users login here to continue. The InfoView login screen will then be displayed as shown below. The second method of accessing the InfoView login screen is to type the following URL into the address section of your web browser: desktoplaunch/infoview The InfoView login screen will then be displayed as shown above. Tip: When the page has opened and you see the login screen (above) save it as a favourite or bookmark. To do this in Internet Explorer go to the Favourites menu and select Add To Favourites... To do this in Firefox go to the Bookmarks menu and select Bookmark This Page... In the InfoView login screen you can type in the details that you have been sent. Click on the Log On button to, er, log on! 3

4 It may take a few seconds for the system to login but when it does you will see the front page of the InfoView portal. Warning: InfoView will automatically kick you out if you have not used it for some time. Make sure that you save your work you have been warned. The Portal To Another World The main interface of the InfoView system is called a portal. You may be familiar with other portals you use for your work. Basically it is a webpage that supports a specific function and has a consistent look and feel to it. When you log into InfoView you will see the following page. Let s look at the two options on the welcome page. The first option is Personalize InfoView Now. Apologies for the spelling! As the name implies this allows you to customise some functions of the system. The second option is Go To InfoView Inbox. Again, as the name implies, this opens the inbox where any reports that are waiting for you will be located. The InfoView Portal The InfoView portal interface is pretty intuitive to use but it does help to have something to refer to if you ever get stuck so here goes. The main components are show below. 4

5 My Folders, Favourites, The Inbox & Public Folders Well, these aren t really mine but yours. This is the area within InfoView that allows you to store your own reports and InfoView documents. Remember that you are using a shared log-in so others in your local authority who use InfoView will also have access to this area. Within this area you can create your own folders, for example you might have a folder for DWP reports and a folder for DFG reports. The favourite s folder is similar to the favourites in Internet Explorer and bookmarks in Firefox and allows you to store reports that you use most for the time. This saves you having to search for them in other folders. Do you remember the second option on the welcome page? Well, it was go to InfoView inbox. This inbox has nothing to do with s and is used for sharing reports and documents within InfoView. For example, another user could create or modify a report and then send it to you so that you can run it. When they send you the report it will be sent to your inbox. Public folders are pretty much the same as my folders in that they are locations for storing reports and associated documents. As the name suggests any InfoView user has access to them. This is the location where the majority of reports are stored, hopefully in appropriately named subfolders. To access any of the folders just click on it and the contents will be displayed in the right hand side of the portal. If there are too many reports or InfoView documents to fit onto the one page then they will be spread over a number of pages. To navigate to these additional pages there will be a series of page numbers in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. Just click on the one of the numbers to go to that page. Running Reports So, now we ve got this far we want to actually see some results. To do this we need to run the report. This is simply a case of clicking on the report title. Depending on the complexity of the report it may take a few minutes to run and the results to display. The results will more than likely be displayed as a table with a series of columns and rows, rather similar to a spreadsheet, though (hopefully) a lot easier to understand. Prompts Some of the reports that have already been created contain something called prompts. Rather than just clicking on a report and running it to give you all of the results a prompt will (surprisingly) prompt you to enter some specific details. These might include prompts for the local authority, a start date and end date or values above or below a certain limit. This way you can get exactly the information you require without getting vast amounts of information that you don t want. An example of the prompt screen is below. 5

6 In this example the first prompt Enter value(s) for local authority is highlighted. In the box below is a list of the possible values that can be selected. Either double click on the one you want to move it over to the right hand pane or single click on the value and use the >> button to move it over. If you ve selected the wrong value double click it to move it back or single click on the value and click on the << button to move it back. You can also use the shift and control keys to select multiple values. When you ve selected the values for the first item select the next item in the prompt list at the top of the screen. This is shown below. 6

7 You will notice that when you enter values for the prompts it will display a green tick next to the prompt and will list the value/s that you have entered. In this example the prompt is asking for a number value to be entered. This can be typed into the field in the centre of the screen. When all of the fields have been completed (you ll know this when all of the prompts have a green tick next to them) you can click on the Run Query button. This will run the report though you may need to wait a few minutes while it works out exactly what information you ve asked it to report on. Altering The Results While you cannot change the actual values of the results, (as that would be pretty crazy and give you some dodgy results), you can change the way in which they are displayed. For example, the report may show you a table by default and you may want to view the results as a colourful chart. The image below shows the different options that are available to displaying the results. For some options there are sub-options. For example each of the chart elements has further options. Click on the expand tree button to see what the options are. 7

8 To use one of the table or chart elements, simple click and drag the required element over onto the table in the main window and un-click. The table will change to the chart type you have selected. Be careful though to not drag the element onto any of the white space. It must be onto the existing table or chart. Depending on how the report was originally created you may find that changing the style makes it look even worse. Don t worry though, you can click on the undo button to go back a step. Warning: You can only undo the last action so if you have made a mistake you will need to use the undo function immediately. You will also find that certain table and chart options are not available. For example, you may like to use a pie chart, but when you drag it onto the table it doesn t change. Again don t worry, the system is not broken, it just means that the data is unsuitable for presenting in this way. You may find that not all of the values that you want have been included in the default report or that the report has too many values, as you are only interested in one or specific ones. The Available Objects list shows the all of the types of data that is available for the report. The common types are summarised below. The blue boxes represent dimension objects and in our case will be objects such as census output areas, wards and local authorities. The pink spheres are measure objects and these represent values that are held against dimensions. 8

9 The green pyramids are detail objects are contain extra information and data that is not essential for the report and they are always held against dimension objects. The yellow funnel is a pre-defined condition or filter. Prompts are an example of this. To add objects to the report, click and drag the one that want onto the report. The image below shows an example from one of the reports the types of data that is available for you to use. You need to be careful that you don t just place the object anywhere on the report (unlike the chart and table options) otherwise the report may drastically change. As you move the object over the table you will notice that parts of the cell or the whole cell will be highlighted. This indicates where the object will be placed. The available places to position a new object are the top, bottom, left and right sides of the cell or the whole cell. The edges of the cell indicate that you will be inserting the object between the current cell and the one next to it but this is not always clear due to the subtle differences in the placement options. You therefore need to be careful when placing the new object but again don t worry too much as you can always undo the last step by clicking on the undo button. Save Me Now that you ve got your report sorted with the correct data and a suitable style (i.e. table or chart), you can save it. There are a number of save options and you can save the report either to your own folder (i.e. My Folder) or you can export it as a PDF, a CSV file or even as an Excel spreadsheet. Let s look at saving it to InfoView first. Click on the Document button near the top of the InfoView portal. It will list the different save options. Click on Save As. A new page will displayed as shown below. 9

10 Here you can enter the details of the report such as a name, description and any keywords (these are used for the search function). You can also choose where to save the file and any other relevant options, though you can only save into My Folders as you do not have access to the Public Folders for saving reports. When you ve entered the information, click on OK to save the report. If you find that you don t need to save the report or if you ve got to this page by accident, just click on the Cancel button. To export the report, again click on the Document button and this time select Save to my computer as. This will list the three different file types you can save the report as. Click on one of the file types (Excel, PDF or CSV) and a file download dialog box will be displayed. Select the Open option and the report will open in the appropriate software (i.e. Excel for Excel and CSV files and Adobe Reader for PDF files). Warning: Depending on how your Internet browser is set up you may find that it blocks the downloading of files. If this happens you will need to change the settings to allow these files to download and then re-run the report. Once you have exported the report you are free to save it onto your own computer or network. You can then it to colleagues, include it with your own documentation or whatever else you need it for. 10

11 Send Now that you ve sorted your reports out you can share them with other InfoView users. The principle is very similar to ing documents in the normal way, where you select the item you want to send and who you want to send it to. Select the folder that contains the report you want to send so that it lists all of the reports on the right hand section. Click on the box to the left of the report name so that it is ticked (selected) and then click on the send button near the top of the InfoView portal and select the To Business Objects Inbox option. A new page will open with the send dialogue. Un-tick (deselect) the Use The Job Server s Defaults option to get the screen that is shown below. This will contain the report title, description and other details and will also show a list of the users you can send the report to. You can select either users or groups to send your report to and this will change the list of available recipients. You can also search for a specific user or group. 11

12 Select the users that you require and use the > button to add them to the selected recipients section. You can also use the >> button to move all of the users over. Don t forget that you can use the < and << buttons to move a single user or all users back to the available recipients section. Unless otherwise specified the target name of the report will be automatically generated. This is the name of the report that the recipient will see in their inbox. You can also choose whether to send the report as a shortcut (i.e. a link to the report that is stored in another folder) or as a copy. When you have selected the appropriate options click on the Submit button to send the report to your chosen recipient/s. If you realise that you don t need to send the report or if you ve don t actually need this page, then click on the Cancel button. Universes What In The World Can They Be? Don t worry, they re not too out of this world! This has been left until last as you probably won t need to know about universes as you will not be creating reports from scratch, just editing existing ones, but it s been included as a potentially useful reference. Put simply the Universe interprets the complexity of the database into something that that is easy to understand. This way you don t need to worry about all of the technical aspects of and can focus on creating and using your reports. Think of it this way. A universe (in the traditional sense of the word) is a collection of stars, planets and other space features. It s a pretty complex thing. All of the complex relationships between the features and information about the features themselves (including names, properties etc) are stored in the universe. In InfoView this makes things much easier as all you need to know is what is in the Universe and you can forget about how all of the information relates to each other as this is done for you, effectively behind the scenes. This means that you don t need to be a database guru to use it. Customised & Exercised So you want to customise InfoView do you? With using a group login it may be best to discuss this with your colleagues before you launch into making any changes. An overview is given below with each heading representing each tab in the preferences view. General My Initial View Is The default view is the home page (the page you saw before this one). You can change the startup view to another location including a folder you perhaps use all of the time. 12

13 My Default Navigation View Is The default is folder and we suggest you leave this as it is as non of the data currently uses categories. On My Desktop The default number is 10 items per page. If you have a bigger screen resolution you may wish to increase this. For Each Document Show Me The default is all items are selected. When you view the list of reports (which we ll discuss in a bit) the information that is ticked will be displayed as a summary. If you have a small screen resolution or aren t interested in certain items (i.e. the number of times a report has been run) then you can turn this information off. View My Documents The default is for documents to open in the current section of the portal. You may wish to change this so that when you run or edit a report it opens in a new window. Again this may be beneficial if you have a small screen resolution or you prefer to have the portal as an explorer type interface. When I Close My Browser Window The default is set to ask you to confirm whether or not you wish to log out of the portal. You can change this to suit your own working style. My Interface Locale Is The default country is not set to a specific country and the default language is set to English. Changing this will set the portal to us a different language. My Current Time-Zone Is The default is set to the local web server. We suggest that you leave this as it is so that the time is always picked up from the server running the InfoView portal. If you have made any changes to the above options you will need to apply these changes. Three buttons are available in the bottom right hand corner of the page, these being OK, Cancel and Apply. OK will apply the changes and return you to the home page. Cancel will change all of the option back to their default values. Apply will apply the changes but will not return you to the home page. 13

14 Desktop Intelligence Select A View Format The default is set to HTML and we suggest that you keep it as this. Remember to apply any changes using the OK, Cancel and Apply buttons in the bottom right hand corner of the page. Web Intelligence Document Select A View Format The default is set to Interactive. Again, we suggest that you keep this as it is. Select A Report Panel The default (and only option) is Query HTML. For Each New Drill Session The default is start drill on the existing report. Again to keep things simple keep this as it is. We probably won t be using the drill functionality anyway. General Drill Options There is no default set. Again, we probably won t be using the drill functionality anyway. Select MS Excel Format The default is set to prioritise easy data processing in the Excel document. As the data is more important that how the report is formatted we suggest you keep this as it is. Select A Format Locale The default country is not set to a specific country and the default language is set to English. Changing this will set the portal to us a different language. When Viewing A Document The default is set to use my formatting locale to format the document. If the locales in the 14

15 Select Default Universe The default is not set to a specific universe. By clicking on the browse button you can select a specific universe to use by default. Remember to select OK to apply your selection. Remember to apply any changes using the OK, Cancel and Apply buttons in the bottom right hand corner of the page. OLAP Intelligence View My Reports Using The The default is set to DHML viewer. Again, we recommend that you do not change this. Crystal Report There are four options in the Crystal Report tab. As we are not going be using Crystal Reports there is no need to make any changes to this section. Password Whatever you do DO NOT change the password. There is only 1 licence per local authority so you are using a shared login. DO NOT CHANGE IT. About This is just the copyright statement for Business Objects, InfoView, Crystal Reports and other trademarks, and is not really that interesting. Glossary A useful collection (hopefully) of the meanings of words and acronyms used for reports and databases. Bookmark Business Intelligence CSV DHTML A way of cataloguing websites for easy retrieval at a later date. The same as Favourites. An analytical tool to discover information from data about a specific business issue. Comma Separated Value A file format that uses commas (or other punctuation marks or tabs) to divide the values in the file so that it can be easily opened in a database or spreadsheet. Dynamic Hyper Text Mark-up Language A variation of HTML that makes web pages more 15

16 interactive by using dynamic functions. Favourite HTML Hyperlink PDF Portal Universe URL Web Browser XLS XML A way of cataloguing websites for easy retrieval at a later date. The same as Bookmarks. Hyper Text Mark-up Language This is the language that web pages are written in. In the CMS you do not see any of this. A link or cross-reference to another document or webpage. Portable Document Format A type of file format created by Adobe to allow documents to be transferred easily and read on multiple computer types. Free software is available to read these documents. A webpage that acts as a gateway to specific functions and resources. Semantic layer between the database and the user providing a translation from the technical to the nontechnical. Universal Resource Locator This is the address used to identify a webpage and is typed in the address bar/field of a web browser. This is software for specifically viewing webpages. Typical web browsers are Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Opera. The proprietary file format used by Microsoft Excel to store spreadsheet files. Extended Mark-up Language This is an extension of HTML and is also used for creating websites. Final Points I was only joking about being down the pub, unless of course it s Friday lunchtime, in which case if you re around come and join us! If you need to get in touch then please refer to the Contact Details section. 16

17 Remember that the reports will only give you the results based on how the report is set up. It is up to you to make any changes and create reports to get the information that you require. Contact Details Project Manager David George Project Officer Daniel Parkes Adddress HI4EM First Floor Bio House Derwent Street Derby DE1 2ED 17