4. Report Building Tips and Tricks MIS v8.0
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Chapter 9
Tip: Adding Your Logo To a Report..................................................... 47
Chapter 10
Tip: Creating a Report on Statement Payments (Payments at Dossier
Level) ...................................................................................................... 49
Chapter 11
Tip: Handling Locale-Specific Formatting of 'Undefined' Measures 51
Chapter 12
Tip: Web Intelligence versus Desktop Intelligence ............................ 55
What Are the Major Benefits of Web Intelligence Rich Client?............ 55
Enhanced Features in the User Inferface of Web Intelligence Rich
Client Compared to Desktop Intelligence ............................................ 56
Layout Differences Between Desktop Intelligence and Web Intelligence
Reports................................................................................................ 62
Index ....................................................................................................... 65
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Figure: Defining data provider 1
2. Run the query.
Business Objects displays the information in a table on the Report 1 tab.
Figure: Result data provider 1
3. Select the New Data provider item from the Data menu.
The New Data Wizard opens.
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Figure: Data provider 2 result
7. Drag the Seg Nr item from the explorer into the table that was created after
the first query.
Figure: Dragging the Segment number object into the product line table
8. Drag in the other segment information as well.
9. Drag and drop the Product Dossier Numbers and Product line numbers to a
position above the table.
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Figure: Defining data provider 1 (Fee amount tip)
2. Click the Run button to create data provider 1.
The displayed result contains product and sales information for the non-fee
products within the Dossier.
Figure: Data provider 1
3. Select the New Data provider item from the Data menu to create Data
provider 2.
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- Link the Fee line number to the Product Dossier Number by clicking the
Link To button, and selecting the Prod Dos Nr entity on the Define link
Between dimensions box.
Figure: Linking the fee line number
Figure: Linking the fee line number to the product line number
- Click the OK buttons to close the Define link between dimensions box
and Data Manager screen.
7. Right-click one of the items in the object explorer to create a new sales
amount variable.
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Figure: Defining the sum of two sales amounts
10. Click the OK button to return to the main Business Objects screen.
The new variable has been added to the object explorer, below the Common
folder.
11. Drag the new sales amount variable into the existing table.
The new column displays the sum of the product sales amount and the
amount of related fees without displaying a fee line.
Figure: New sales amount variable added to the report
12. Remove the Fee Line Nr and Total sales columns to obtain your final result.
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Figure: Language objects in MIS Universe - Example Dossier Languages
The following example scenario explains the steps you must take to translate the
company's country of a particular Dossier into a second and a third language
beside the local language. The resulting report will display the total sales
amounts per product line.
In the MIS environment of our example below the local language is English. The
other language codes correspond to the following languages:
• L1 = Spanish
• L2 = French
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Figure: Two other languages added to the report
You can now go ahead and delete the column with the country names in the
original language, should you wish to do so.
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The available date objects can be found in the Date Objects class in the MIS
Universe:
Figure: Date Objects in the MIS Universe
Example Scenario
In the following scenario we will generate a report that lists all customers that
were invoiced for trip bookings to Madrid since the beginning of last year up to
today. We will use two date objects in order to state a condition that extracts data
for the previous year and this year.
1. Drag and drop the query objects that you require into the Result Objects
panel.
2. Drag and drop the proper date-related object into the Conditions panel, then
double-click the proper operator in the Operators panel.
In our scenario we use the Inv Creation Date object and the Between
operator in order to define the time period.
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Figure: Defining the period condition
5. Double-click the proper date object to define the start of the period.
In our scenario we use the First Day Year - Previous Year date object as
start date.
Figure: Defining the period condition
6. Now select the second <Select an operand type> item in the Conditions
panel, and again double-click the Select an object operand in the Operands
panel.
7. Double-click the proper date object to define the end of the period.
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The report will display solely the Agency Manager data of the customers that
were invoiced for flights to Madrid since the start of last year up to the current
day.
Figure: Report Example
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Figure: Conditional Objects in the MIS Universe
2. Drag and drop the required objects into the Result Objects panel.
3. Drag and drop the required predefined conditions into the Conditions panel.
In our example we use the Aviation/Fares products and the Invoiced
products conditional objects. Like this you indicate that you only want to
have information on flight and fare products that have been invoiced in your
report.
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Therefore, think about how to handle these future changes, before creating a
report like this. For example:
- Create the report for all nine levels, even though you do not need all of
them at this point. This will ensure that future changes to the hierarchy
will always be included in the reports. When you change the hierarchy in
Agency Manager, no change is needed at report level.
- Create the report for the amount of levels you have right now and change
your report at the time you change the structure in Agency Manager.
Apart from adding the required levels to the data provider, you can include the
data you would want to see for each level: Dossier number, product line number,
total sales amount including VAT, and so on.
Prod Dos Nr
Prodline Nr
Prod Cust Name
Total Sales Incl VAT (A)
We will also include these objects in this example and use eight levels. When you
run the query, you will see the following objects are available to create the report:
How to Build Dummy/Indicator Objects
As this is a rather complex report, we will need to create an extra object that will
help us correctly structure our report in a transparent way.
We will need to create an object that will indicate at which level inside the
hierarchy a booking was made.
We create the new object based on the following formula:
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Use the same principle to create the remaining sections (levels) inside your
report. In this case, creating sections for eight levels will give you the following
result:
The report will be divided into different sections. Depending on the number of
levels, you will see a lot of empty cells and sections. We will need to hide those
by adding conditions in the section properties.
Step 1: hide the empty cells. To hide the empty cells:
5. Right-click each cell per level and select Format Cell.
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2. - Set the following parameters on the General tab:
- Select Hide Section Header
- Insert the following code in the Hide section header formula bar:
=IsNull (<Prodline Hierarchy Level 1 Code>)
Note: The formula you need to use depends on the level section you are
hiding.
For example: level 7 =IsNull (<Prodline Hierarchy
Level 7 Code>)
- Select Hide Section Footer
This option will not be available for the lowest level on the report.
Repeat this step for all sections. The result will be that all sections will follow
nicely one after the other.
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2. Drag and drop these objects in the correct section.
Note: Make sure that the right section is highlighted when you drop the
objects. You can select the sections by hovering over them while
dropping the objects.
Note: You can also use the Insert > Table option from the menu bar to
insert the table.
As a result you will see all the data in your section, but your indicator will
indicate which data belongs to this level.
3. Simply filter out the rows you want by adding a filter to the indicator object.
Define this filter to see only the data where the indicator has the same value
as the level at which the table is being displayed.
For example: For level one, we would only show the rows with value 1.
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3. On the Appearance tab, set the following properties:
- Select Hide Block
- Insert the formula =IsNull(<Prodline Hierarchy Level 1
Code>).
Note: The formula you need to use depends on the level section you are
hiding.
For example: level 7 =IsNull (<Prodline Hierarchy
Level 7 Code>)
The result will be that the data for level 1 is shown on level 1 without any of the
other data.
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For example, you can add totals at each level by using the following formula:
“=Sum(<Total Sales Incl VAT (A)>)”
Depending on where it is used, Business Objects will automatically aggregate the
correct amount. Therefore, make sure it is added to the correct section or table.
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The inserted logo will now be embedded in your report. You can drag and drop it
to an appropriate spot in the report.
Restrictions:
• The image you insert must have the .bmp file format.
• The maximum file size of the report including the image file is limited to 2 MB.
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2. Click on the Options... button in the left below corner of the Query Panel.
The Query Options dialog box opens.
Figure: Preventing Duplicate Rows in the Report
3. Select the No Duplicate Rows option button to prevent the appearance of
duplicate payments in your reports.
4. Click on the OK button.
As a result, no redundant (duplicate) payment records will be displayed in the
MIS reports generated.
Figure: Report Sample
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Figure: Selecting a Locale - Example Scenario
Suppose that to process report fields for which NO data can be found (field is
empty), you defined a locale-specific formatting in the Undefined field on the
Number Format dialog box, which can be accessed for a specific report field by
right-clicking on the field and selecting the Format number... option.
Figure: Defining Formatting for 'Undefined' Measure Values - Example Scenario
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Enhanced Features in the User Inferface of Web
Intelligence Rich Client Compared to Desktop
Intelligence
The Web Intelligence Rich Client's user interface offers various changed and new
features compared to Desktop Intelligence. Here you find a summary of the
principal enhancements.
Presentation of Classes, Query Objects and Filters
Classes, objects and predefined conditions appear in a single tab on the Create
Query window.
Figure: Conditional Object in MIS Universe - Example
Drag-and-Drop Query Objects
In Web Intelligence Rich Client, the drag-and-drop feature has been improved in
that you can move multiple query objects at once into the Result Objects panel
and move objects from the Result Objects panel into the Query Filters panel to
build conditions.
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Figure: Extra Information on Query Objects in MIS Universe Panel - Example
Figure: Extra Information on Query Objects in Result Objects Panel - Example
Scope of Analysis
To define a customized scope of analysis for drill, an extra Scope of Analysis
panel is integrated in the Create Query window.
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Figure: Query Filter with a Subquery - Example
Report Filters
In Web Intelligence Rich Client, you can use the Filter icon on the Report toolbar
to build a filter on a report block, allowing you to select values from a pop-up
window with a list of values. You can also create more complex filters, with
formulas for instance.
Figure: Defining a Report Filter - Example
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Ranking Report Data
When defining Custom Sorts, you can add values that do not occur in the
current query result, but values that might exist in the future. This feature in Web
Intelligence provides more flexibility as values evolve from period to period in a
predicable way.
Figure: Customized Sorting of Report Data - Example
Layout Differences Between Desktop Intelligence
and Web Intelligence Reports
Hiding Empty Sections
While you can use conditional formulas in Desktop Intelligence to determine that
empty sections should be hidden in reports, this is not possible to hide empty
sections in Web Intelligence reports.
Hiding Empty Data Blocks
• While in Desktop Intelligence reports, empty data blocks are automatically
hidden, in Web Intelligence reports, empty columns and rows and blank
charts resulting from report queries that returned no data or value zero will by
default remain visible.
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automatically resized to fit the page, for instance when the report is printed in .xls
or PDF format.
However, automatic resizing is NOT possible in the Web Intelligence Rich Client:
you need to verify that the width and height of your reports do not exceed the
page margins.