Additional Blogs by Members
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
Former Member
0 Kudos

I am currently working on an installation guide for the Web Intelligence Rich Client for XI3. I hope to publish the guide to SAP Marketplace soon but in the meantime I thought I would share a few things I learned while installing and documenting deployment procedures.  

For those of you unfamiliar with the Web Intelligence Rich Client (WRC), allow me to offer a brief description. 

Description of Web Intelligence Rich Client 

The WRC is a Web Intelligence client that can be installed locally to a Windows machine. It's based on the Web Intelligence Java Report Panel and provides equivalent document creation, editing, formatting, printing and saving capabilities.

Why would you want to use the WRC rather than a web based client? A number of reasons: 

  • You can work with secured and unsecured Web Intelligence documents while unconnected the server - while traveling, for example.
  • Perhaps your company has a policy that you should be able to continue working and/or providing services when there is a server side interruption.
  • Maybe you want to improve calculation performance. Web Intelligence Rich Client performs calculations locally, rather than on the server, and local calculations may complete more quickly than server calculations.
  • You want to create and work with Web Intelligence documents without installing a CMS or application server.

So, what did I learn?

Perhaps some of it you know already but maybe there's something new for you here.

1. There are three different options for installing the Web Intelligence Rich Client.

  • Installing from the Product Media: The WRC can be installed from both the BuisnessObjects Enterprise server CD or from the BusinessObjects Enterprise Client Tools CD. The Client Tools CD is the smaller of the two installation media, in case you are distributing this software to clients. Another advantage is that the Client Tools CD does not require a Product Key Code.
  • Installing from InfoView: With access to InfoView and "Web Intelligence Rich Client:Install Now" rights, a user can download a WRC installation package directly from InfoView and install it locally.
  • Installing using the WRC "Web Package": The Web Package uses the same setup program (Websetup.exe) that you download from InfoView. If you're looking to perform a "push" installation to multiple clients, the Web Package might be the way to go. I'll talk about this installation option in more detail in the next point.

2. You might prefer the "Web Package" if you are pushing an installation across your network. The footprint of this package is smaller since it does not contain features included on the BusinessObjects Enterprise or BusinessObjects Enterprise Client Tools installation media.

The WRC Web Package is can be found on your BuisnessObjects server in the following directory: 

\Business Objects\BusinessOobjects Enterprise\12.0\warfiles\WebApps\AnalyticalReporting\download\win32

And the "package" includes three files:

  • Websetup.exe
  • websetup.properties
  • jre-windows-i586.exe


3. If you install WRC from InfoView or the Web Package, help files are not available to be installed locally. This keeps the size of the installation package small. But what do you do if you need help? You can access help through the WRC in "Connected mode" (i.e. when you are connected to the server) if the help files are installed at the server.

 

4. If you want to use the WRC with local data sources, you can install the Data Access feature or subset of the Data Access feature for the type of data source you want to work with locally. The Data Access feature is available with all WRC installation methods.

 

5. Before deploying the Web Intelligence Rich client, the BusinessObjects Adminstrator should make sure that the appropriate application rights are set. A couple of key application rights include:

  • "Web Intelligence Rich Client:Install from InfoView". Without this right, a user cannot download and install from InfoView.
  • "Web Intelligence Rich Client:Enable a client to use it". Without this right, a client cannot use the WRC.

There are a number of other WRC application right that can be set through the CMC. These include:

  • "Web Intelligence Rich Client:Create a document"
  • "Web Intelligence Rich Client:Export a document"
  • "Web Intelligence Rich Client:Import a document"
  • "Web Intelligence Rich Client:Print a document"
  • "Web Intelligence Rich Client:Remove document security"
  • "Web Intelligence Rich Client:Save a document for all users"
  • "Web Intelligence Rich Client:Save a document locally on the file system"
  • "Web Intelligence Rich Client:Send by mail"
  • "Web Intelligence Rich Client: Allow local data providers"

 

6. Before installing the Web Intelligence Rich Client, you have to uninstall previous versions first. And when you uninstall the Web Intelligence Rich Client, the program name in Add and Remove Programs depends on the installation method you used.

  • If you installed from the BusinessObjects Enterprise Client Tools media,
    the program name is "BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 Client Tools".
  • If you installed from the BusinessObjects Enterprise media, the name
    of the program is "BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1".
  • If you installed from InfoView, the name of the program is "Business
    Objects Web Intelligence Client".

 

7. The installation log file for the WRC can be found here: \BusinessObjects Enterprise 12.0\Logging.

5 Comments