BO 4.0 - New Features in Information Design Tool

You have upgraded to BO 4.0; now what…

Here is a compilation of new features available in Information Design Tool. I would be using the ‘Island Resort Marketing’ universe that has already been converted to the BO 4.0 version.

DATA FOUNDATION

Right Click – New Derived Tables

Now you can create a derived table just with a right click. This helps when you want to create derived tables on large tables. Simply create the table with a right click and apply selections, filters etc.

Right Click – Replace By

A great feature to quickly disconnect your database tables from the structure and replace with an alias or to even to correct your or the DBAs mistakeJ. You can now very easily replace a table with new ‘database table’.

The new table maintains the joins if the same keys/columns are available. In this case only the ‘region_id’ field got mapped when we tried to replace ‘Region’ table with the ‘Region_SLine’.

Tables Merge

This would be my most used feature. In many cases, there is always an urge/need to combine 2 or more tables to reduce clutter or to apply business logic that is achieved by joining the multiple tables. This feature makes life easier by creating a derived table maintaining the proper joins, filters, etc. that can then be modifies as required. Let’s see this in action.

Select 2 or more tables by pressing the ‘Ctrl’ key while selecting. Right-click on one of the selected table and click ‘Merge’.

After you provide a name and decide if you want to keep the original tables, you would have a new derived table that is automatically created based on the joins defined earlier.

A word of caution, the objects defined on the old tables will have to be touched up and re-verified.

Change Table Behavior

There are a couple of options to change the behavior of a table. Right click menu provides options to ‘Edit’ table names, field types and even length. This option also lets you hide/unhide fields.

You can even change the database connection and owners by selecting ‘Change Qualifier/Owner’ option. This can be applied to multiple tables at once.

Select Related Tables

I like this feature, because it highlights the tables linked/related to the subject table. With multiple selections you would be able to see all the relations in complex universes.

First pass of related tables for City

Second pass of related table for City (observe the highlighted tables)

Insert Calculated Columns

This is a very simple way to create calculated fields directly in the ‘data foundation’ which can be reference as a generic field in the ‘business view layer’. To create one simple right click on the table and select ‘Insert Calculated Column…’.In our example, we will create a ‘price increase’ field in the Service table with a 5% price increase.

A quick view at the ‘table values’ will show seamless integration of the resultant field.

Search

One of the long awaited search feature is now available. You can now search by criteria, by typing, and would be amazed to see how the tool highlights the search results.

BUSINESS VIEW

Object Properties

A lot of new and exciting addition to the object properties is now available. One of the best is the object qualification to make it ‘Deprecated’

Check Integrity Panel

Check Integrity Panel is a huge development over the older version. The panel lets you selectively run integrity checks.

The ‘Check Integrity Problems’ option under ‘Windows’ provides a quick way to check on the issues in the universe. You can decide to clear up the issue log as well.

You can also set-up the severity level of the various checks that you would like to perform in the environment. This is accessible under preferences.

Security Editor

Security Editor is a several leap forward. It provides a nice interface to apply security both at the Data Foundation and the Business View layers.

Data Security Profile allows to apply security at:

·         Connection – ability to define replacement connection

·         Controls – execution time, rows returns etc.

·         SQL – use of sub queries, multiple queries etc.

·         Rows – classic row level security using ‘where’ clause

·         Table – ability to define replacement table

Business Security Profile allows to apply security at:

·         Create Query  – ability to grant or restrict access to ‘views’ defined in the business view layer and ability to restrict objects in the business view layer

·         Display Data – ability to grant or restrict access to data from different objects defined in the business view

·         Filters – ability to create filters on the objects and selectively apply them to the profile

Others

Define Optional Prompt in the universe itself.

Define Static LOVs in the universe.

Multi-select from Hierarchy Prompt

One of the other greatest features that are now available is the ability to select prompt values from multiple levels of a hierarchy. We will do this one step by step using the ‘Island Resort Marketing’ universe.

1.       A Navigation Path for Region and City is already available in the ‘Customer Hierarchy’

2.       In Business View, create a LOV based on ‘List of values based on Business Layer Objects’

3.       Select ‘List of values based on a custom hierarchy’

4.       Add dimension Region and City

5.       The preview would show something like this

6.       Once the LOV is created, select City object and change the LOV to ‘Region_City’

7.       Now open WebI and create a query using the City object as a prompt with ‘In List’ operand

8.       And voila, you would be able to select region or city for this prompt

9.       Select multiple values from each level and see the magic…

Table without filters                                        Table with above selection

That’s all folks… Hope you enjoyed the trip…