Snap Judgment - November St. Louis BusinessObjects User Group Meeting

[Former Member]

Very excited about the BOUG (BusinessObjects User Group) meeting today (afternoon meetings=not just orange juice and coffee at the networking session) because it'll be a good opportunity to see the classic-BOBJ's response to an intimate SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence 4.0 (BI4 from here on out). As this meeting is taking place in Missouri, look forward to me dropping "SHOW ME"'s throughout the blog.

Overview of BO Enterprise 4.0 - Cary Bourgeois, SAP BusinessObjects

First up, a much more robust portal. It's sad just how far Infoview came from XIr2 to 3.1, but I'm totally ready to chuck that new version in favor of the new workspace concept. Upgraded alerting capabilities, revamped shortcuts and greatly improved interface really fill me with desire. Apparently the integrated search is much more powerful than it used to be. I'll need to see that working before I believe it. SHOW ME! Tabbed browsing is probably the least exciting change, and even IT is a huge leap forward.

Next we take a peek into Web Intelligence (Webi). My favorite part? Even after the public outcry the Webi demo still says Interactive Analysis at the top. Beauty. More data connections (mostly for SAP ERP customers, but still), WAY better charting (including drilling through charts), and tabs all over the place really set this Webi apart.

Dashboard Design (formerly Xcelsius) has an integrated query builder. That's mostly what is new. Doesn't seem like that big of a deal, unless you've built dashboards before without one.

Semantic layer. Semantic Layer. Layer, layer, layer, layer. I'm in love. Can't wait to play with it. Individual object integrity checks, multiple sources, layered... um, layers, supported team development (checking pieces in and out), and calculated columns all make the Universe developer inside giggle like a... um, giggler.

We really could have spent 3 days just going over all of this stuff.

Tips for Converting from Deski to Webi - Guy Conklin, Centene

What a moustache. No disrespect. Really. Guy has a moustache that definitely represents everything that a guy named Guy should represent. But I digress.

This was actually a fantastic, thorough presentation, but I don't have to do this, so I don't care. Go download the presentation from the BOUG website (should be there soon) or email Guy for a copy.

Exploring Auditor Data - Eric Vallo, EV Technologies

This was also presented at the SAP BusinessObjects User Conference (SBOUC), and I totally skipped it knowing I'd catch it here. And it was awesome. I highly recommend going to grab his sample universe from his website (it'll probably be under the blog area) and actually try to get some useful info out of the Activity universe to audit system performance. Plus Explorer is cool. Bonus points for giving free value that he could be trying to sell you (since his product has it already).

2010 BO User Conference Recap - Sheila Ryan, RAD Innovation Partners & Bret Martin, Sense Corp

Compromising pictures, stories of debauchery, costumes and skits: all missing from this year's SBOUC recap. Terrible. There were some Mouse Ears, though. Actually it was a great recap, but at this point they were just standing between people and the bar. You'll never succeed in that time slot. 🙂