( Geek2Live.net )

It feels like every time I write a blog post, I have to apologise for how long it’s been.  Once again, I’m sorry for not blogging for so long (this time it’s only been 6 months!).

So I wanted to give you all an update on what’s been happening in the last few months, as well as try and kick start my blogging career yet again.

One recent event was that I finally completed the certification exams for BOCP-BODI, that is, Data Integrator.  You may remember I posted about how difficult the first exam was – well the second was a lot harder, and I guess I was a little lucky with some of the questions.  I’ve found the certification exams are really a good measure for how well you know the software; if you’ve only been using it for a short time, don’t expect to be able to pass exams easily.  You only need to look at ‘the certification thread‘ on the BOB Forum to get an idea of how many people think they need help with certifications.

So I was very proud to be able to get the certification, and it means that I now have all four certifications that SAP BusinessObjects offer.  Hopefully they’ll release more in the near future.  I’d love to see a certification around Universe Design, as I feel that is much more important that the end reporting tool, like Web Intelligence.  Do you think there is a need for any other certifications?  Maybe Xcelsius? =)

Next up, I attended the 2009 Mastering Business Objects conference recently, held in Sydney Australia.  It was a two day conference, held at the Manly Hotel, on the beach.  Key highlights for me were meeting three great people, Timo Elliott, Dave Rathbun, and Jamie Oswald.  It was also great that most of the people I met were on either XI R2, or XI 3.x.  I did Twitter through most of the conference, so skip back a few pages and check out some of the live tweets at http://twitter.com/joshyf.

Myself with Dave Rathbun

Lastly for this post, I’d like to expand a little on a recent Proof of Concept that I undertook for a utility in Western Australia.  The scope was reasonably large given the time frame.  It was a three week engagement, with reporting required off SAP BW cubes and Oracle 10g databases, using the SAP BusinessObjects XI 3.1 full stack.  This included Web Intelligence, Crystal Reports, Xcelsius, Polestar (soon to be called Explorer), Live Office, BI Widgets and more.  The POC was a great success, with a lot of value add being provided because of the quick development time with BusinessObjects.

The client especially loved how they could leverage the investment in the Universes with Polestar.  You have a universe, just index it and voila.  They also really appreciated the drill-through ability – we demonstrated drill through from Xcelsius into both Polestar and Web Intelligence.

That about wraps it up for this post.  If you like the content I put up, I’d love to hear any suggestions about how I could improve my blog posts.  Would you like more technical content, more walkthroughs?

- Josh

I sat the Web Intelligence XI 3.x Level Two exam last week and passed, which means I’m now a BusinessObjects Certified Professional in Web Intelligence XI 3.x.  This is a new certification from BusinessObjects and covers the new Web Intelligence features, as well as the old, and also some universe features.  I’ve noticed that recently BusinessObjects have stepped up the complexity of the exams and I’ve find both the Webi and Data Integrator exams to be more difficult than the older Crystal Reports and Admin exams.

However, I also noticed, especially during the Level 2 exam, several mistakes about the questions, including errors in Webi formulas.

I also recently got hold of a pre-release copy of Polestar XI 3.1.  I have to say, without having spent much time with it, I’m impressed with the improvements they’ve made to Polestar.  It feels more stable, and has some nice new features.

A word of warning however, during the install (I performed it on two different servers runnning XI 3.1), major problems occurred with the deployment of the new WAR files into Tomcat.  The Polestar install replaces, or creates, the following WAR files for:

• InfoViewApp
• InfoViewAppActions
• CmcApp
• CmcAppActions
• PlatformServices
• polestar
• polestar_help
• polestar_tutorial
• PolestarAppActions

However, Tomcat doesn’t successfully deploy these WAR files, and the above Tomcat directories, when viewed, are empty, so to the end-user, both InfoView and the CMC stop responding, and you can’t access them.  This can be resolved by undeploying, then redeploying, the affected WAR files.  I used the Lambda Probe (http://www.lambdaprobe.org/d/index.htm) to do this, but it can also be done by deleting the affected directories within the ‘webapps’ folder, and copying the above WAR files into the ‘webapps’ directory.  Tomcat should then deploy the WAR files automatically.

Apart from the issue described above (a major one BusinessObjects are now trying to work into a hot fix), Polestar seems stable and has some great new features.  When I get to play and experiment with it more, I will post a more detailed description.

EDIT:  I also forgot to mention that SAP BusinessObjects also released an online demo version of Polestar that anyone can play with.  Find it here (http://polestar.ondemand.com/polestar/).

- Josh

It has been far too long since I blogged. Sorry for that. Time just keeps slipping, as Professor Farnsworth once said (avid Futurama fan here). Work and life are keeping me really busy, and work especially is taking me in new directions.

Recently I have been involved in Enterprise Data Warehouse strategy reviews, and complete end-to-end install and designs for Edge Professional, including building data marts from core systems. Really interesting stuff, and I have got to practice my DI (now Data Services) skills. Even more interesting has been the chance to use Data Services to design and implement data marts with SCD Type 2 (Slowly Changing Dimensions), and using Changed Data Capture.

It’s amazing to look back to when I joined this employer (only two years ago), and my role at the time was Crystal Reports, and that was it. My experience was limited to Crystal Reports XI, with Crystal Reports Server, albeit limited experience with CR Server.

However, I really enjoy my job, and I think that is what has helped me, within two years, to gain my certification in both Business Objects Enterprise XI 3.0 and Crystal Reports 2008, as well as becoming a certified Migration Specialist. I was promoted to a Senior Consultant and now am doing things that I only would have dreamed of two years ago. In short, a huge shift in role and responsibility.

I put it down to, mainly, loving BI. I love the potential of BI, the way you can help small and large organisations grow their business and make better business decisions. And it’s just so cool, you can’t forget that. Even when you are just a Crystal cowboy, slapping together reports for a client in the minimum amount of time (not really best practice of course), you are still making a big difference, and getting job satisfaction. Hearing the words ‘we’ve never been able to look at it that way before’ – I’m sure all BI people have heard that – is great.

Taking it a step further though, and using best practices, designing and documenting, keeping to standards, encouraging the use of bigger and better tools, and growing the BI culture within an organisation is what I really enjoy.

I love my job. I think I’m very lucky. What about you?

(PS – Under three months and I’m going to be a dad. Wow.)