Posts Tagged ‘business objects’

Installing Business Objects XI R3.1 on Windows Server 2008 R2

Recently I migrated a Business Objects XI Release 2 deployment to XI Release 3.1, a relatively straight-forward process but as always there are a few gremlins to avoid.  Unfortunately the final playbook I used had too many sensitive details in it but during my trial-run I did make a few notes that served me well as a rough workflow and I thought it might be worth sharing.

It’s a mix of steps to take with a few hints thrown in, for the trial run I built a one-box solution (DB+BO on the same server) which isn’t necesarily good practice but works well as development box.  Please bear in mind that this is by no means exhaustive and there’s no substitute for reading the Business Objects documentation…

• Create a domain user under which you Business Objects services will run.
• Install SQL Server 2008 R2 Express (you could use MySQL I but I prefer MSSQL).
• Ensure that SQL Server runs under the domain account (can be done during setup or afterwards).
• Create databases for the CMS + Audit DBs, create a user that you will use to authenticate with.
• Install any necessary ODBC drivers.
• Open Windows Firewall and allow inbound traffic on port 8080 (for Tomcat).
• Setup CMS + Audit ODBC Sources using c:\windows\sysWOW64\odbcad32.exe
  (see: 32-Bit ODBC Drivers in Windows Server 2008 R2)
• Configure IIS to Enable 32-bit Applications + .NET Application Pool = Classic
• Install Business Objects (everything but MySQL).
• Open CCM, stop services and set SIA + Apache to run under domain account.
• Grant permissions on C:\Program Files (x86)\Business Objects to domain account.
• Restart services.
• Click “Update Objects” button in CCM (this solved an issue where some Authentication options were unavailable in the CMC).
• Log in CMC, configure AD Authentication - it’s best to follow the Windows AD SSO NTLM instructions in Business Objects Documentation.
• Run Import Wizard (I may post some tips later on but it’s quite straight-forward).
• On Windows 7 PCs go to Control Panel  >> Java >> Advanced >> Security and tick “Enable Mixed Mode (run with protection)” – this solved an issue for WebI users.
• Set user input locale correctly (I’m in the UK and I had to do this on the client for each user).

I hope that helped, if you have any questions please leave a comment and I’ll see if I can expand on the above.

MySQL 32-bit ODBC Invalid Attribute String 64-bit Windows 7

Having just migrated my development PC to Windows 7 I’m slowly encountering perculiar issues as I setup all of the software and connections I used to have in Windows XP.  This morning I was trying to write a Business Objects report against a MySQL database and because Desktop Intelligence is a 32-bit application if I want it to talk to MySQL I have to use the 32-bit driver. 

I obtained the latest driver (5.1.7) from MySQL’s standard ODBC Connector page, installed it and added a System DSN without a hitch, the odd part came when Business Objects was returning only one row from a query that should return a couple of hundred.  Having run the same query on XP (I’m parallel running now) I suspected that the problem must be with the ODBC configuration so I attempted to delete the DSN only to receive the “Invalid attribute string” error…

A little Googling later led me to MySQL Bug #56233, in the discussion Fred Zappert frames the simplest solution suggested which is to uninstall version 5.1.7 and install version 5.1.6 instead.  Oddly MySQL don’t make it especially clear how to get hold of previous minor versions of the ODBC drivers but you can get it from here: mysql-connector-odbc-5.1.6-win32.msi 

Alternatively you could always visit bisql.net’s Tools, Utilities and ODBC Drivers page where I have a link for 5.1.6 which I’ll keep in place until the next Windows 7 compatible driver is released.

BusObj + MySQL – SQLBindParameter State 07001

I recently encountered a strange problem in Business Objects whilst trying to create a derived table against a MySQL database and whilst the query was a complex one it executed without fault in the MySQL Query Browser so I knew that wasn’t the probem.  The error message I encountered was “SQLBindParameter not used for all parameters”…

I tried the same query as a Freehand SQL query in DeskI and received the same error, after banging my head against the problem for about 15 minutes I decided to take my favourite solution – I went for lunch!  On return the solution seemed blindingly obvious, at the very top of my query I’d included a comment but in the comment I’d included a question mark – as soon as I removed the “?” the query ran without a hitch.  I’m not quite sure of the reason behind this but I suspect that one of the Business Objects, ODBC or MySQL layers treats the “?” as a reserved character to indicate a parameterised query – if anyone has the answer i’d be interested to know.

Business Objects DeskI: DA0005 “No column or data to fetch”

This is just a quick tip to help people fix an odd error I encountered whilst runing a Freehand SQL query against a MySQL 5 database, I’d used prompted queries against MySQL previously so that wasn’t an issue  – I’m speculating a little but in my case the data provider used subqueries and both the inner and outer query were prompted which is a little unusual. 

The error I received was DA0005 “No column or data to fetch”…

The solution came from the brilliant BOB Forums (original post here), the solution was to edit the odbc.sbo file which on my default installation found in:  

C:\Program Files\Business Objects\BusinessObjects Enterprise 11.5\win32_x86\dataAccess\connectionServer\odbc

You’ll need to add the following in the relevant section, in my case I added it under Generic, Generic ODBC and MySQL 5. 

<Parameter Name="ForceSQLExecute">Always</Parameter>

After closing and restarting DeskI everything was fine, please bear in mind that if you’re running a client/server installation and your Inforview users need to run the report you’ll need to change the settings on the server too.

Quick Fix: DeskI Query Panel Appears Invisible / Off Screen

For the last couple of weeks I’ve had an extremely unusual problem in Business Objects Desktop Intelligence (DeskI), whenever I went to edit a Data Provider nothing would happen.  Initially it looked like DeskI had hung but hitting escape returned me back into the report, I figured that because the Query Panel is modal it must be launching but for some reason I couldn’t see it. 

After a little bit of searching I managed to find the solution on the excellent BOB Forum (original post here) and I just had to reproduce it since I found it quite tough to find but hats off to Marek Chladny who came up with the solution – if you’re ever in the UK let me know and I’ll buy you a beer! 

1. Go to Edit Data Provider. 
2. Press Alt + Space
3. Press M
4. Use the arrows to move the Query Panel back onto the screen. 

Marek mentions that this only works if the Query Panel isn’t maximised, also I assume that since this uses standard Windows keyboard shortcuts it might work for any other application where you have a similar issue.  As for how it came about, I have no idea – it may be something to do with occasionally using a single-screen PC to remote-desktop into my dual-screen desktop.

Set Instance Limits in Business Objects XI R2

In a previous post I mentioned previously How to Manage Instances in Business Objects XI R2, well – that’s only half of the story – rather than having to go and delete old instances yourself it’s far easier to have Business Objects tidy up after itself.  This is one of the few scheduler-related features that can be found in the CMC under “Settings” and “Limits” allows you to specify…

• The maximum number of instances to be maintained (anything above will be deleted). 
• How many instances should be kept for each user/group (I choose Everyone). 
• How many days these instance should be kept for each user/group (again, I choose Everyone). 

Please note that the excess instances do not get deleted immediately after the change, in my case it seemed to happen by the next day so do be patient!  This will really help to cut down the size of your FRS and may disaster recovery much easier.