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Former Member

Before there was SCN for BusinessObjects products, the only reliable resource for BusinessObjects problems was BOB.

Jason Everly asked us to write a blog post to help publicise BOB on here so that report authors, universe designers and BO administrators are aware of the most successful long-standing independent resource for BO developers. He has joined BOB to publicise the SAP Webi Bulletin - The Webi Bulletin - New Webi Information Source

So, what is and what isn't BOB?

BOB is not affiliated to SAP in any way. It started years ago as a ListServ project and was migrated to become a forum in 2002 to become a home for BusinessObjects enthusiasts to help each other and seek help as well as share knowledge.

There are no fees involved - it's free to join and participate. The flip side of that is that all contributors are volunteers. As such, please don't flag something as urgent as they tend to get ignored. The contributor's work appraisal is not based on how quickly they have resolved your BOB issue!

There is a great search facility; many common issues have been discussed down the years, from contexts, to aliases to calendar tables.

BOB is not a job board, nor will it help you with interview questions. The purpose of BOB is to provide support for genuine BO problems that you are facing. The more details that you can give, the better the answers will be.

BOB does not offer support for other SAP products such as BW and Bex - you're much better off staying here for that. Below is a list of what it does offer, in addition to the standard forum areas like FAQs, Forum Support and General Discussion

If you follow the link above, it will take you to a post on the BOB Board within the Webi section. However, there's more to BOB than that!

There are dedicated sections for most of BO's core products (and in some cases versions). These include:

  • Building Reports - this has subsections for Webi, Deski, Crystal and older versions of each so that you can seek help whether you've just got stuck on a new version or if you've inherited a dinosaur in your new role!
  • Semantic Layer / Universe Designer - most of the questions in here focus on database-driven universes rather than BW-based IDT designs but this is mainly because of the historical nature of the product, with some of us having used the tool since the days of Windows 3.11
  • Security and User Administration - this has information about the legacy tool (Supervisor) and CMC information including security concepts, user management and general questions.
  • Server Administration, Installation and Updates - this is for the systems administrators out there who are tasked with looking after the SIA and other server-based parts of the BO deployment
  • Enterprise Scheduling and Distribution - this section includes legacy support for Broadcast Agent but is more focused on the current scheduling including dynamic recipients and task-based distributions.
  • Data Integrator - Most, if not all, aspects of BO's ETL tool are discussed in this area with its relevant sub-forums.
  • SDK (VBA/ASP/JSP) - one for the web developers who are looking to integrate BO reports into their website's front end rather than using the standard BO interfaces
  • Other Products - an area that covers the non-standard BO products, such as LiveOffice, Lumira, Xcelsius and Auditor

There are also sections on User Groups and Conferences as well as a Downloads section that has some useful utilities to help make life easier for BO developers and administrators.

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