BusinessObjects Administration - Content Management Plan

[former_member182521]

Continuing with my earlier blog on System management planning (http://scn.sap.com/community/bi-platform/blog/2013/06/05/businessobjects-system-management) this blog is going to be about BusinessObjects Content Management planning. I have already written a blog on content management here (http://blogs.hexaware.com/business-objects-boogle/business-objects-content-management-planning) but in this blog I have provided detailed analysis on Content plan along with it's implications.

Managing BI content in BusinessObjects is one of the interesting and challenging tasks for every BusinessObjects Architect/Administrator. Proper content management will help Administrator and Application support team to manage their environment effectively as it has direct implication with Content promotion, Instance management and Security model across different environments.

In general Content management plan would be handy in following scenarios

     -     In a brand new BusinessObjects implementation project

     -     In a migration project where the content is poorly managed or virtually no content management strategy

     -     In a maintenance project where there is frequent addition of BI content without proper folder setup

          In easier terms content management is a process of organizing BusinessObjects Folders, reports, connections and universes so as to manage the BusinessObjects environment without any complication. Let us see how it helps each targeted user group

     Benefits for BusinessObjects Administrators

     -     Helps to understand the Folder hierarchy and how security is being implemented at various levels.

     -     Increases manageability to cope up with new BI content addition as well as existing access amendment.

     Benefits for BusinessObjects End-users

     -     Increased the pervasiveness of the BusinessObjects to the user community

     -     Helps users to identify their intended BI content without any assistance from Expert users/Administrators

Major Steps to be considered for proper content management plan

     -     Organizing BI contents by folders

     -     Organize User groups/Users as per the organizational hierarchy or organizational preference

     -     Identify required access levels for each user category

     -     Allowing access through categories if not the Folder based authorization is not sufficient

     -     Creating profile based report subscription if end users need personalized reports

Key findings from Content Management plan

     -     Different type of objects that needs to be managed by the system and their volume will be identified.

     -     The number of consumers (users) of the system will be identified.

     -     Which user group requires access to which object and their level of access will also be validated

     -     Naming conventions and standards to be used for managing the uniformity of the content.

     -     Proper User group hierarchy and folder hierarchy

     -     List of rights (Access level) needed for each user group based on their functionality.

Hope this blog gives you an idea about how to manage BusinessObjects contents in high level. In my upcoming blogs I am planning to write more in detail about Content management plan, Custom access levels, Security model design and implementation.

Looking for your comments/Inputs/Suggestions. Stay tuned!