Need BI 4.0 WebIs from .NET Apps?

If you're investigating migration to BI 4.0, you probably already know that BI 4.0 doesn't include a plug-in to let you schedule Web Intelligence reports from .NET applications. If that's all that was keeping you from migrating, then we have good news: the APOS WebI .NET plug-in lets you schedule WebIs and manage defaults from .NET applications.
We created this plug-in to allow our own well managed BI solutions to work with BI 4.0, and now we're offering to the SAP BusinessObjects developer community. The APOS WebI .NET plug-in lets the developer handle format, prompt information, and other flags while scheduling Web Intelligence reports from .NET apps or saving report defaults.

Another issue that our plug-in solves is prompt reconstruction. When you create a new Web Intelligence report, or update an existing one, the prompt information on the report object becomes unavailable to the developer through the SDK. The APOS WebI .NET plug-in uses prompt reconstruction functionality to let the developer access the prompt information. You can schedule the report with the reconstructed prompts or save the report object for later use. You do not have to update the source report in order to schedule an instance.

You will notice that we are not using the GetPluginInterface method to initialize our plug-in. On a Web Intelligence object that method simply fails regardless of what you try to do with the returned object. We actually support using the plug-in interface to initialize our plug-in but this will not work with a Web Intelligence object. We tested it with other InfoObjects with no issues.

Example:

Using sm As CrystalDecisions.Enterprise.SessionMgr = New CrystalDecisions.Enterprise.SessionMgr

    Using es As CrystalDecisions.Enterprise.EnterpriseSession = sm.Logon("My Account", "My Password", "My CMS", "secEnterprise")

        Using iStore As CrystalDecisions.Enterprise.InfoStore = es.GetService("InfoStore")

            Using objs As CrystalDecisions.Enterprise.InfoObjects = iStore.Query("SELECT TOP 1 * FROM CI_INFOOBJECTS WHERE SI_NAME = 'My Report'")

                Using obj As CrystalDecisions.Enterprise.InfoObject = objs(1)

                    Using plg As APOSWebiPlugIn.webi = New APOSWebiPlugIn.webi(obj)

                        plg.WebiAPOSLicenseKey = "<your key here>"

                        'Choose to schedule to XLS format

                        plg.WebiFormat = APOSWebiPlugIn.CeWebiFormat.ceWebiFormatExcel

                        'Get the list of prompt names

                        Dim prompts As List(Of String) = plg.WebiGetPromptList()

                        'GEt the lsit of values for the first prompt

                        Dim vals As List(Of APOSWebiPlugIn.WebiPromptValue) = plg.WebiGetPromptValues(prompts(0))

                        'Clear the list of values

                        vals.Clear()

                        'Add Texas as the only value for the prompt

                        vals.Add(New APOSWebiPlugIn.WebiPromptValue("Texas"))

                        'Save the list of values back to the report

                        plg.WebiSetPromptValues(prompts(0), vals)

                        'Schedule the report

                        iStore.Schedule(objs)

                    End Using

                End Using

            End Using

        End Using

    es.Logoff()

    End Using

End Using

You are welcome to try it and let me know what you think. Just email webiplugin@apos.com to ask for the library or send in any comments.

The Big Data Challenge

 

Why are companies such as HP, IBM and Oracle spending big money to acquire big data capabilities? Michael Vizard's Slashdot article, "The Multi-Billion-Dollar Data Management Challenge,"shows how serious the quest for Big Data supremacy has become. (Thanks to Jim Harris (@ocdqblog) for passing this along via Twitter.)

As of 2012, the world creates approximately 2.5 quintillion (2.5 x 10¹⁸) bytes of data daily (Wikipedia). The mathematical notation in parentheses is not not redundant, because the definition of "quintillion" varies according to which side of the Atlantic you are standing on. In the US and Canada, a quintillion has 18 zeroes; in the UK, France and Germany, a quintillion has 30 zeroes. That's just a simple example of the difficulty involved in dealing with Big Data.

Volume, variety, velocity and veracity are the four "Vs" of Big Data, but there's one "M" we should mention as well: metadata. Metadata is the key to managing and indexing the massive inflow of data, making accurate operational and competitive intelligence available in a timely manner to your decision makers.

For SAP BusinessObjects platform managers, now is the time to get your own metadata house in order. APOS Insight's enhanced audit and metadata management capabilities can help.

RIP Stephen R. Covey

In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey told us to begin with the end in mind ("Habit 2"). The end of his life today reminds us of the formative effect he had on so many of us.

In "Habit 2", he told us to use our whole brain, and especially to find ways to tap into our right brain -- the hemisphere of passionate creativity and visualization.
Location intelligence may not have been what he had in mind as he was writing in 1989, but I'd like to think his whole-brain call to arms was prescient with regard to today's geospatial visualization trend.

Stephen R. Covey dead as a result of a bicycling accident.

Going Post-Digital - Deloitte Tech Trends 2012

The Deloitte Tech Trends 2012 report's theme is "elevating IT" in a post-digital business environment, so its focus is on how IT can make an impact, and how the described trends present "an opportunity for IT to truly help elevate business performance" (Preface).

Will these technological trends be disruptors or enablers? Essentially, the way each trend affects your organization is up to IT leadership. The degree to which each technology trend will be disruptive or enabling within your organization depends on how proactive/progressive you are in implementing it.

BYOD and BYOT are two trends not mentioned in the report, but which are related to the status of IT within organizations in a so-called "post-digital" age. (The "post" prefix is somewhat ironic in that it denotes not a lessening of digital technology's impact, but an amplification of its effect within an organization ‑ to the point where it manifests as a paradigm shift.)

The post-digital organization is one in which the role of IT is lessened, because more technology is embedded, more devices are personal, and more networks are outsourced. The technology trends delineated in the Deloitte report present an opportunity for IT to re-assert itself as a progressive voice within the enterprise, but to do so, IT leaders must understand how these trends work individually and together to transform the enterprise.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Source: Forbes
Where does HANA fit in?

Crowdsourcing Artificial Intelligence

Via Bonnie Hohhof (@hohhof)

This story brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "gaming the system."

DARPA, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is using online gamers as part of its strategy to develop the behavioral intelligence needed by unmanned submarine hunting vessels, according to a post by Stewart Baines on the Connecting Technology blog.

DARPA has released a gaming combat simulator called Dangerous Waters. With the permission of the gamers, the simulator returns information back to DARPA for analysis and application to their unmanned vessel control algorithms. They are, in essence, assimilating the wisdom of crowds.

Deloitte Tech Trends 2012

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Deloitte Tech Trends 2012 report is out. Watch the three-minute overview video: