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Author's profile photo Manikandan Elumalai

BusinessObjects Auditing – What is changed in BO 4.0?

Dear All,

Continuing with my previous blogs on BusinessObjects Auditor here is another one to compare the Auditing capabilities between BO 3.x and BO 4.0. Below table could help you to understand the differences.

Parameter BusinessObjects 4.0 BusinessObjects 3.x
Audit universe and reports

Sample audit universe and reports are no longer provided.

You need to use the As-Is sample provided here

http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/index?rid=/library/uuid/40711187-04e8-2d10-d190-851e20c7665a

Out of box Audit universe and associated predefined audit reports
Auditor Configuration

Auditing Configuration is centralized.

All the Audit configurations are defined in a single place (CMC -> Auditing)

Auditing has been enabled in every individual component.

  – Enable Audit in CCM

         Audit Database Configuration

  – Enable Audit in CMC

         CMS

         Applications

         Individual BusinessObjects server

Events

Events are Standardized and grouped according to their category. Below are the categories

  – Common Events

  – Platform Events

  – Analysis Events

  – Lifecycle management Events

  – Web Intelligence Events

Not available
Audit data retention

Provision to purge the Audit database records based on their age.

(CMC -> Auditing -> [Delete Events Older than (days)]

Not available
Audit database schema

Enhanced database schema to categorize and develop Adhoc audit reports. Below are the Audit tables

ADS_EVENT
ADS_AUDITEE
ADS_SERVER_NAME_STR
ADS_SERVICE_TYPE_STR
ADS_APPLICATION_TYPE_STR
ADS_SUPPORTED_EVENTS
ADS_CLUSTER
ADS_CLUSTER_STR
ADS_EVENT_TYPE
ADS_EVENT_TYPE_STR
ADS_EVENT_CATEGORY_STR
ADS_EVENT_DETAIL_TYPE_STR
ADS_OBJECT_TYPE_STR
ADS_STATUS_STR
ADS_EVENT_DELETES

Below are the Audit tables

APPLICATION_TYPE

EVENT_TYPE

DETAIL_TYPE

AUDIT_EVENT

AUDIT_DETAIL

SERVER_PROCESS

Client Auditing

No pre-configuration required.

Client applications support auditing by default:

• Central Management Console (CMC)

• BI launch pad

• Open Document

• Analysis

• Live Office Web Services Provider

• Web Intelligence desktop

• Mobile

• Dashboard & Presentation Design

• Dashboard Manager

Pre-requisites

• You will need at least one Adaptive Processing Server with Client Auditing Proxy Service and auditing enabled on this server.
• For clients connecting through CORBA, you must open a port in the firewall between the client and the Adaptive Processing Server machines.
• For client connection through HTTP (Desktop Intelligence ZABO client, Web Intelligence Rich Client, InfoView, etc.), you must open a port in the firewall between the Web Application Server and the Adaptive Processing Server machines.
• Auditing must be enabled on the Cache and Job servers for Desktop Intelligence or Web Intelligence (or both).

Some of the useful references for BusinessObjects Auditor are provided below.

References

BO 3.x Auditing Configuration
https://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1363783 – Manual Auditing configuration

BO 3.x Audit data purging
https://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1480761 – How to purge or cleanup old data from the BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 Audit Database

How to enable auditing events for client applications in Business Objects XI3.1?

http://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1736503

BO 4.0 Auditor deployment

SAP BusinessObjects 4.0 Auditor Configuration & Deployment End to End

BO 4.0 Auditor Configuration

BusinessObjects Auditing – Considerations & Enabling

Hope the blog is interesting. Looking forward comments on this entry to enhance this further.

Thanks for reading.

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      18 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Sohel Ahmed Syed
      Sohel Ahmed Syed

      Informative, thanks for sharing Mani.If you could add the client auditing as well.

       

      Thanks,

      Sohel

      Author's profile photo Manikandan Elumalai
      Manikandan Elumalai
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks Sohel. Have added the client auditing part as well now.

      Author's profile photo Sohel Ahmed Syed
      Sohel Ahmed Syed

      Thanks Mani, In BI 4.1 it seems that the count for client auditing is decreased as per the admin guide. http://help.sap.com/businessobject/product_guides/sbo41/en/sbo41sp1_bip_admin_en.pdf

       

      • Central Management Console (CMC)

      • BI launch pad

      • Open Document

      • Analysis

      • Live Office Web Services Provider

      • Web Intelligence Rich Client

      Author's profile photo Manikandan Elumalai
      Manikandan Elumalai
      Blog Post Author

      I think I need to add another column for BO 4.1 as well as I was referring the BO 4.0 FP3 Admin Guide.  Thanks again for the notification Sohel. Much appreciated.

       

      Regards,

      Mani

      Author's profile photo Sohel Ahmed Syed
      Sohel Ahmed Syed

      Yes it would be a complete comparison if you could add one more column for BI 4.1.

       

      Thanks,

      Sohel

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hey Manikandan,

       

      I have several questions to ask before I download SAP BusinessObjects BI, Edge Edition Free Trial. Was hoping you could answer some of my questions. Please contact me back if you can!

       

      Best Regards,

      Daniel

      Author's profile photo Manikandan Elumalai
      Manikandan Elumalai
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Dan,

       

      You can always post all your questions here BI Platform and the queries will get more attention from our SCN experts. I would be actively participating in SCN from next week as I am struck with my project related activities.

       

      Regards

      Mani

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hey Mani,

       

      Hope you are doing well and thank you for replying. I am conducting an independent study with SAP, more specifically ERP system so I will definitely take advantage of the SCN experts!

       

      Best Regards,

      Dan

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Thanks alot.Very useful

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Thanks your share,can you provide about Audit universe and reports for BI 4.0,or package file .

      Author's profile photo Manikandan Elumalai
      Manikandan Elumalai
      Blog Post Author
      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      HI Manikandan:

         how can tell me to get real-time data in sample  Audit univers and reports ?Thanks

      Author's profile photo Manikandan Elumalai
      Manikandan Elumalai
      Blog Post Author

      Auditing meant for historical data in which you cannot get realtime snapshot. You need to Query CMS repository

      Author's profile photo Andreas J A Schneider
      Andreas J A Schneider

      Sadly the properties file seems to be incorrect

      Instead of

      ...

      importLocation=<biar_folder_path>\SQLAnywhereAuditing.lcmbiarLCM_CMS=<hostname>:<port>
      ,,

       

      it should read:

      ...

      importLocation=<biar_folder_path>\SQLAnywhereAuditing.lcmbiar

      LCM_CMS=<hostname>:<port>
      ...

       

       

      The instructions for UNIX and the LCM shell are missing..


      I am also wondering why I cannot use the CMC/Web based LCM to import this biar file? Should I not be able to?!

      Well, to answer myself, yes I am able to, and is IMHO definately easier to use the Web based LCM (CMC) instead of CLI to get the Audit unx and CRE reports imported into your landscape.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi,

      on a BI4 platform do you know how does the audit automatic purge works.

      I'm talking about the data retention parameter (in days) you can find in the CMC audit Menu.

      Mine is not deleting any rows in the audit database.

      I think it's a problem regarding the temporary tablespace or the rollback segment of me database but i don't have any clue.

      Is there a program scheduled somewhere in the CMC?

      Author's profile photo FASI UR RAHMAN MOHAMMED
      FASI UR RAHMAN MOHAMMED

      Hi

       

      My client is using other universes in UDT.

      In information design we don't have any universes.Now I am going to configure Auditing database provided by you.But for deployment I can see the deployment universe folder has UNX format.

       

      If I deploy universe in Information design tool. During reporting will it capture the details of Auditing information of UDT as welll.

       

      Please share your views!

       

      Thanks in advance

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Always look forward to your blogs!!

      A lot of loopholes in the basic auditing information seems to be covered here and in the links towards the end!

       

      Thanks Mani

      Author's profile photo Manikandan Elumalai
      Manikandan Elumalai
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks Sid. I have tried to enhance the Audit reports for few requirements and my approaches has been shared here. BusinessObjects Administration - Extending capabilities of BI 4.x Audit reporting