September 911, 2013

Anaheim, California

Using OpenDocument to Enhance Your Dashboards

Brian Reed, Claraview

Who Am I?

Brian Reed: Senior Consultant I

Company: Claraview, a division of Teradata
Joined Claraview in January 2011
Currently residing in Richmond, VA
Been using Crystal Reports and Business Objects since 2000
BOCP Crystal Reports 2008

Learning Points
Understand what OpenDocument is
Learn what options are available to you to use in your
OpenDocument calls
See how to leverage OpenDocument in your SAP Dashboards to
provide your users with a better dashboard experience

What is OpenDocument?

Deployed web application within BusinessObjects Enterprise (BOE)

Processes URL requests for content within the CMS
Content can be documents or other viewable content
Returns the request within the appropriate viewer
Direct link to BOE content
Can open content without having to navigate a folder hierarchy

Why Would I Use OpenDocument?

Dashboards ideally are showing KPIs and Metrics small numbers
of records
Dashboards (formerly known as Xcelsius) has had record
limitations in the past
Bringing in detail records that make up KPIs and Metrics will cause
your number of records to increase greatly
An overloaded dashboard will perform slow, which is not ideal
OpenDocument allows the developer to display detail data in a
WebI document or Crystal Report, and not directly in the
dashboard
Detail reports are called when needed via the OpenDocument call

What Can I Use OpenDocument for?

Provide a link to BOE managed content from outside the system

Link from one BOE document to another
Jump from one Dashboard to another
Connect from a Dashboard to a WebI or Crystal Report

OpenDocument

Syntax and
Parameters
7

OpenDocument Syntax - Introduction

The basic syntax:
http://<servername>:<port>/BOE/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDoc
ument.jsp?<parameter1>&<parameter2>&...&<parameterN>
Variable items are denoted inside of angle brackets
Your systems server name and port # needed to used instead of
<servername>:<port>
Parameters1 through ParameterN are place holders for additional
parameters that can be used to control how and what is returned

OpenDocument Syntax Considerations

No spaces in your URL!
Use a plus sign (+) in place of spaces if there is a space in one of
your parameter values (ie. sDocName=Charting+Samples)
Ignore trailing spaces
Use an & between each parameter=value set
Connect parameter names and values with an equal sign (=)
Capitalization is VERY important
sdocname is not valid
sDocName is valid
Use the HTML target parameter if you want the document to open
in a new window (ie. target=_blank)

OpenDocument Document Identifier Params

You must use either iDocID or sDocName to reference which
document is to be opened
iDocID is the preferred parameter to use since IDs are unique
within BOE
sDocName works as well but document names are not always
unique
*I recommend using iDocID to avoid potential problems down the
road as your system gets bigger

10

OpenDocument - Document Identifier Params

There are two valid values for iDocID
InfoObject ID
CUID
http://<servername>:<port>/BOE/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDo
cument.jsp?iDocID=4767
If you use the CUID, you must all also use the sIDType parameter
http://<servername>:<port>/BOE/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDo
cument.jsp?iDocID=AW4AVT1AUhVAogA6P7OQv9c&sIDType=CUI
D

11

OpenDocument - Document Identifier Params

In InfoView/BI Launchpad, look at the Properties of the report

that you want to link to.
ID is 4770
CUID is AW4AVT1AUhVAogA6P7OQv9c

12

OpenDocument - Document Identifier Params

sInstance
Optional parameter
Allows for call to an Instance of a Document
Values
User Last instance for current user
Last Latest instance
Param Latest instance with matching WebI or Crystal Reports
parameters passed.
http://<servername>:<port>/BOE/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDo
cument.jsp?iDocID=4767&sInstance=Last

13

OpenDocument Input Parameters

lsS[NAME]
Optional parameter but required if document needs it
Specifies a value for a single prompt
Substitute [NAME] with Parameter/Prompt name
Values
A single prompt value
no_value for an optional prompt
http://<servername>:<port>/BOE/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDo
cument.jsp?iDocID=4767&lsSCountry=USA

14

OpenDocument Input Parameters

lsM[NAME]
Optional parameter but required if document needs it
Specifies multi value parameter
Substitute [NAME] with Parameter/Prompt name
Values
Multiple values separated by commas
no_value for an optional prompt
http://<servername>:<port>/BOE/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDo
cument.jsp?iDocID=4767&lsMCountry=USA,Mexico,Canada

15

OpenDocument Input Parameters

lsR[NAME]
Optional parameter but required if document needs it
Specifies range value parameter
Substitute [NAME] with Parameter/Prompt name
Values
Range values separated by double period (..)
no_value for an optional prompt
Crystal requires [], Webi does not
http://<servername>:<port>/BOE/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDo
cument.jsp?iDocID=4767&lsRDateRange=[Date(2013,1,1)..Date(201
3,6,30)]

16

OpenDocument Input Parameters

sRefresh
Optional parameter
Forces document refresh
WebI Refresh on Open parameter will supersede this parameter
Values Y or N

http://<servername>:<port>/BOE/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDo
cument.jsp?iDocID=4767&sRefresh=Y

17

OpenDocument Input Parameters

sReportName
Optional parameter
Specifies which tab to show on open in a WebI report
Handy to use when you want a particular tab to show when there
are more than one tab in the document

http://<servername>:<port>/BOE/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDo
cument.jsp?iDocID=4767&sReportName=Report+2&sRefresh=Y

18

OpenDocument

Integrating
Into Your
Dashboard
19

Dashboard Integration - Considerations

Determine how the user is going to access the WebI or Crystal
Report. Is there a requirement?
Options Could Be:
URL Button to be clicked on manually
Clicking on a slice on a Pie Chart or a bar in Column Chart

Does the document require parameters to be passed?

Should the report/document open in a new window or the
existing one?

20

Dashboard Integration URL Button

URL Button can be set up to be clicked directly or invoked by the
change of a cell value
URL value should be built dynamically in Excel model
Button can be visible or hidden
Useful for document that has 0 parameters

21

Dashboard Integration Pie Chart/Column Chart

Nice way to allow the user to interact with the Chart
User can click on a slice or column to launch the report
Chart actually is configured to insert the selected row value into
another cell
A URL button is added and hidden
URL button is configured to fire off click event on the change of
the cell that the selected chart row was placed in
Selected chart value can be passed to the report as a parameter
to tailor the report data to be specific to that value

22

Dashboard Integration Other Options

23

Filter Objects
Combo Boxes
Gauge with URL button layered on top
Use your imagination!

Dashboard Integration Building the URL

Break the URL out into different cells in Excel

Reuse pieces if you have more than one OpenDocument call
Create some logic to toggle between a direct URL and relative one
Use relative URL in Production
Important in a load balanced environment
Saves modifications when migrating to a new version

Use the Excel Concatenate function to create the full URL for each
OpenDocument call that you need

24

OpenDocument

DEMO

25

Return on Investment
Avoiding data crammed into your Dashboards will make them run
more efficiently and make your users happier
Using WebI and/or Crystal Reports for detail data makes for a
better presentation of large amounts of data
Dashboard development time is reduced by limiting your
dashboard to just KPIs and Metrics

26

Best Practices
Use iDocID when specifying which document you want
Leverage relative URLs in your Excel model to avoid problems
when migrating between Dev/Test/Prod or when upgrading
Keep the volume of records to the minimum in your Dashboard
Use WebI and/or Crystal Reports to display detail data when
needed
Build parameters into your reports and pass values to them to
tailor the report output

27

Key Learnings
OpenDocument is great tool to provide ways to provide detail
behind KPIs in your dashboard
Dashboards work more efficiently with less data in them and
linking out to detail reports works well with this model
WebI and Crystal Reports handle large amounts of data better
than Dashboards

28

and Finally

Questions?
Contact Info:
Brian Reed
brian.reed@claraview.com

29

Thank you for participating.

Please provide feedback on this session by
completing a short survey via the event
mobile application.
SESSION CODE: 0115

Learn more year-round at www.asug.com