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Publishing BusinessObjects reports to SharePoint

February 12, 2013 | 14,426 Views |
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One of the most common requirements for BusinessObjects End-users is to utilize the capabilities of the Microsoft SharePoint by publishing the BusinessObjects reports to SharePoint document library. People tend to ask for Export the Business Objects report to SharePoint Document library so that it will be searchable in SharePoint.

Below are quick steps to configure the reports to publish them in SharePoint. Please note this not the Integration of BusinessObjects with SharePoint.

1. Identify the SharePoint document library where your BusinessObjects reports to be published.  Go to document library and open it in the windows explorer view. Copy the UNC path for the explorer view which will be something like  //<sharepoint_server>/<site>/<Document_library>/

2. Make sure you can browse to the SharePoint location using UNC path. If your URL is http://Servername/SiteDirectory/Title then the equivalent UNC path would be like the below \\Servername\SiteDirectory\Title. We need the Webclient Service running on the box to access this UNC path (step 4).

3. If the URL is accessible you should be able to schedule the report to \\Servername\SiteDirectory\Title\SharedDocuments provided if you use “Document Workspace” as a template. The folder structure will wary as per the template you select.

4. Go to your BusinessObjects server and start the web client service.This service is needed to access and modify internet based files (SharePoint doc library). Enable and start the service Webclient.          /wp-content/uploads/2013/02/1_184055.jpg

                  If you are using Windows Server 2008, Please note Webclient Service is not enabled by default. You need to follow the below steps.

 

                              a. Open Server Manager and click the Features node.
                              b. If “Desktop Experience” in not already listed under Features,

                                   click “Add Features”.
                              c. Select the “Desktop Experience” item and then click next followed by Install.
                              d. Reboot the PC as instructed.

 

               5. In the BusinessObjects, schedule the report to be exported to a file location. Provide the UNC location which you copied earlier.

/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/2_184056.jpg

 

               6. You should be able to see your report in SharePoint now.

 

/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/3_184057.jpg

 

          Advantages from publication of reports in SharePoint

      • SharePoint search facility will be an added advantage as you are allowed to search the reports in SharePoint itself.
      • Utilize SharePoint versioning – SharePoint actually stores a new file with same name as a new version of the document provided versioning is turned on in SharePoint setting for the document library.
      • Utilize SharePoint Security – You can utilize the security applied at SharePoint document library along with your BusinessObjects Security.

Points to consider

      • If you create a schedule with default name it will contain ‘~’ in the file name which is not allowed on the SharePoint by default. So make sure you configure the instance to you any valid name by adding the place holder in the schedule e.g. %SI_NAME%
      • We need to schedule the report only in Agonistic file formats such as .xls,.pdf and .txt etc. If you try to schedule the report with its default format (WebI) the above steps are not applicable as it needs actual SharePoint integration.
      • If you try publishing most of your reports to SharePoint, It may reduce the BusinessObjects usability as most of the report viewers tend to use the SharePoint document library instead of Infoview or BI Launchpad. This is what happened when we implemented BusinessObjects report s SharePoint publication:).

 

Hope you find this Interesting. Looking forward all your valuable feedbacks. Keep reading!

 

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56 Comments

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  4. Former Member

    Hi Mani,

     

    I have a parallel approach of creating publication in sharepoint without sharepoint integration. I have implemented in in our environment. I would like to write a blog entry on it. Can I place your blog’s link also in my blog so that forum users can have both the approaches at their disposal ?

     

    Cheers

    Arijit

    (0) 
    2. Former Member

      Hello Arjit,

      Please add your link, if done already.

       

      Normally publications if used for their real purpose  or full extent will require BI Platform Sizing, else they can be used for many other simple tasks that normal scheduling can not do, for example scheduling 10 reports at he same time to a shared drive,to a particular folder. Please note the folder is created by BOXI dynamically, based on scheduling time stamp.

       

      The above is what we explored using publication, which is it’s simple functionality, now that you said we can use sending reports to sharepoint, I would really like to see how it works.

      (0) 
  6. Former Member

    Hi Manikandan,

    We recently upgraded to Sharepoint 2013 and I was told by my tech team that SAP BOE does not support integration with this version, nor do they have any current plans to upgrade the integration. 

     

    Needless to say I was very disappointed to hear this.  Can you shed any light on this – Is it true? Why? What are the work arounds?  For companies that are heavy Sharepoint users, it puts us in a bind.

     

    Thanks.

    (0) 
    1. Manikandan Elumalai Post author

      By referring to the below PAM (Page 10 & 11) Sharepoint 2013 is yet to be supported.

       

      http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/f0134dbb-8f10-3010-5084-cf90dbb35284?QuickLink=index&overridelayout=true&58600533884757

       

      You can still publish your reports in sharepoint by following the steps above in the blog. But this is not merely the integration as you cannot launch Infoview, report from your sharepoint portal instead you can just open the reports scheduled in agonistic formats such as .xls,.pdf etc.

      (0) 
  7. Former Member

    Mani, Is the same configuration possible when BO is on LINUX? If not, Could you please shed some light on achieving same in a LINUX environment?

     

    Thanks

    (0) 
  8. Former Member

    Hi,

     

    Very interesting and much needed for me now. Has anybody tried sending dashboard files (xlf and swf) file to sharepoint library site?

    I hope BI 4.0 works with Sharepoint 2013. BI 4.0 is on Linux server.

     

    Thanks,

    Arun

    (0) 
  9. Former Member

    Hi Mani – What kind of effect does it have on the server?

    It by default selects Windows defender which is not a good thing in my opinion. Ofcourse we can disable it.

    Can we confidently add this feature on a production system..? What if it crashes the system?

     

    Did you check the following forum?

     

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/2e0b2192-3a9f-4b35-8cf6-0ff5cb7c1452/unable-to-reinstall-desktop-experience-on-server-2008-sp2-catastrophic-failure?forum=winservergen

     

    Is this article based on your personal system or an enterprise production system? Please advise

    (0) 
      1. Former Member

        Than Mani.

        We are planning to activate Desktop Experience in Production System, but we can not test them in lower environments due to some restrictions. The article, however is very informative.

        (0) 
  12. Paul Sitch

    My UNC path for my sharepoint includes @ssl at the end of the servername, followed by \DavWWWRoot\. Could this be causing issues? When I try to schedule to it it fails with a Source Error message.

    (0) 
    1. Former Member

      Hi Paul,

       

      Have you tried removing the @SSL and seeing what happens?

      Were you able to resolve the issue? If yes, could you please share.

       

      Thanks in advance!

      (0) 
          1. Former Member

            No problem! It’s been a while but if I remember correctly an email account was set up such that reports were scheduled or sent it to it. Content of the email got downloaded in the SharePoint shared location.

             

            There was also a case where our customer ran a script (automator tool) to move the files over from a shared network drive to the SharePoint location.

             

            I hope that helps.

             

            Best,

             

            Amid

            (0) 
    1. Suhas Chowdary

      Hi,

      Good afternoon  My requirement is scheduling BO reports to Office 365. Do u have any idea about this and if you know , please reply to me?

      Cheers

       

      (0) 
  15. Beat Honegger

    Hello 

     

    Thanks for your post

     

    I tried to save this to SharePoint with your steps. (BO4.1 – Sharepoint 2013, Winerver2012)

     

     

    In my path there is also a .. @SSL…

     

    I asked the Developer of the SharePoint if there is a UNC Path to the SharePoint.

    He told me that the files are stored in the SharePoint database and there is no direkt UNC Path to there SharePoint.

     

    Can you provide me more Information how I get this right path.

    What I have to ask the SharePoint developer?

     

    Thanks for your Feedback

     

    Beat

    (0) 
    1. Former Member

      Beat, I have a very similar issue as yours. When I click on the Open in explorer link for my sharepoint web link, the result is not a UNC such as \\servername\…\….

      Instead I get it with HTTP. http://Servername/…./….

       

      I do have the Web Client installed through desktop experience and running as automatic.

       

      Anyone know how I can get the UNC of a sharepoint link? I am using 32 bit IE and IE 10 on a Windows 2008 server.

       

      Thanks for any help.

      (0) 
      1. Suhas Chowdary

        Hi,

        Good afternoon  My requirement is scheduling BO reports to Office 365. Do u have any idea about this and if you know , please reply to me?

        Cheers

         

        (0) 
  16. Former Member

    Hi,

     

    We are try to implement the same solution.  However, I was getting the error:

    source file error. [Invalid argument]: [CrystalEnterprise.DiskUnmanaged]

     

    Would you know what could be causing this?

     

    Kind Regards,

    Mark

    (0) 
      1. Former Member

        Hi Manikandan,

         

        Thanks for the response!  In the Schedule, I used my credentials in our network as the username and password.

         

        Kind Regards,

        Mark

        (0) 
      2. Chris Florek

        Hi Manikandan,

         

        I have done everything what you have described in your article, but I am still getting the “source file error”.

        I double checked that the “Web Client” service is running and the “System Account” that runs the SIA process has access to the SharePoint location. I was even able to login to the SharePoint site using a “System Account” – but when I schedule a report (as a xls or pdf) still getting this error.

         

        Any thoughts? Suggestions? How to troubleshoot this?

        Thanks,

        Chris.

        (0) 
        1. Suhas Chowdary

          Hi,

          Good afternoon  My requirement is scheduling BO reports to Office 365. Do u have any idea about this and if you know , please reply to me?

          Cheers

           

          (0) 
  17. Beat Honegger

    Hello

     

    I could schedule the publication to Sharepint Folder and BO tells me “Sucessful”, but there are no Documents in the SharePoint.

     

    (My Workaround – Save it to Drive and use a Batch to copy the file to SharePoint)

     

    Somebody experience the same?

     

    Any ideas?

     

    Thanks

     

    Beat

    (0) 
  18. Former Member

    Dear Beat,

    I experience the same problem.

     

    Status of my scheduled report says “Success”

    I have done everything you have mentioned in this post.

     

    But no documents in SharePoint.

     

    Can anyone please help?

     

    *I can save the file in the local folder…

    (0) 
    1. Suhas Chowdary

      Hi,

      Good afternoon  My requirement is scheduling BO reports to Office 365. Do u have any idea about this and if you know , please reply to me?

      Cheers

       

      (0) 
  19. Former Member

    Hi H T

     

    I ran into the same issue. I can browse the share with \\team.server.com\sharefolder. The web client service is running on the BOBJ server and I am using the SIA service account to schedule the report. I validated that SIA service account has access to the sharepoint document library.

     

    1. When scheduling the report to the this folder fails with error “source file error. [Invalid argument]: [CrystalEnterprise.DiskUnmanaged].”

    2. When scheduleing the report to http://team.server.com/sharefolder the job is successful but the document does not show up on teh share point document library.

     

    What I do not understand from Manikandan’s blog is, how you use “Document Workspace” as a template states in step 3. May be this is what could be causing the issue.

     

    “3. If the URL is accessible you should be able to schedule the report to \\Servername\SiteDirectory\Title\SharedDocuments provided if you use “Document Workspace” as a template.”

     

    Any help would be appreciated.

     

    Regards,

    Kuljit

    (0) 
    1. Beat Honegger

      Hello Kuljit

       

      Solution (Work around):

       

      1) I schedue with BO my reports (pdf) to a the local drive.

      2) Have a schedule in BO with runs every 10 minutes that run a batch which copies my files to the sharepoint

       

      Beat

      (0) 
      1. Suhas Chowdary

        Hi,

        Good afternoon  My requirement is scheduling BO reports to Office 365. Do u have any idea about this and if you know , please reply to me?

        Cheers

         

        (0) 
  21. Former Member

    Hello All,

    I have the scheduling to SharePoint functionality working where I run a schedule and it delivers the output to the required location. However, when it runs I can see the output is checked out by the user that ran the schedule. Is there any way for this report to be delivered to SharePoint but not be checked out? This is preventing all users from seeing the output other than the user that created the schedule.

    Many Thanks

    (0) 
  23. FTS Basis S ISIT

    Hi Manikandan,

    Thanks for sharing the detailed steps on the sharepoint scheduling.

    Any idea if these steps hold good for the new Office 365 sharepoint ,which is cloud based.

    Thanks
    Sumith

    (0) 
    1. Suhas Chowdary

      Hi,

      Good afternoon  My requirement is scheduling BO reports to Office 365. Do u have any idea about this and if you know , please reply to me?

      Cheers

       

      (0) 
  24. Ralf Berhorst

    Hi,

    because i solve the Problem to connect to SharePoint 2016 from my BOBI 4.2SP3update 3 installation. I will share this Information .

    In the SharePoint 2013 we where able to use the following URL in the Directory field:

    \\servername.subdomain.customer.net\sites\….

    But with SharePoint 2016 it will not work. The solution is you must add the  @SSL\davWWWRoot as a string at the end of the Server namen before the \sites…. Information start.

    \\servername.subdomain.customer.net@SSL\DavWWWRoot\sites\….

    In addition to that, the KB “1373496 – How to schedule reports to Sharepoint’s Directory using UNC path?” explain to add a regkey with the Server names you have. It work with Wildcards too.

    In our case, we have a Sub Domain for the SharePoint Server (srv1.com.company.tld). The user are located in a Country Domain – like user.de.Company.tld.

    Best regards
    Ralf

    (0) 
      1. Suhas Chowdary

        Hi,

         

        Good afternoon and nice post that is. My requirement is scheduling BO reports to Office 365. Do u have any idea about this and if you know , please reply to me?

         

        Cheers

         

        (0) 
    1. Suhas Chowdary

       

      Hi,

      Good afternoon  My requirement is scheduling BO reports to Office 365. Do u have any idea about this and if you know , please reply to me?

      Cheers

      (0) 

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