Universe documentation/Impact assessments

[111378]

Hi,

Is there way (or tool) for extracting the dimension details from a universe? I realize that the BLX/DFX can be saved as PDF and CSV but the resulting files are not very useful. Ideally the output would be in a tabular format that could be imported into a database table and/or used as a source file for a WebI. We have 2 dozen universes and when there a database model change it's difficult to assess the impact it will have on the various universes and WebI reports.

[jasonnash]

Hi Michael,

I would suggest using one of the tools on offer here for unv or unx >>> www.biclever.com

Very good for documenting each component of a unv or unx and they are free to use. Good for change release checks as you can compare two universes for differences also.

Regards,

Jason

[111378]

Thanks. I'm looking into this. I wasn't sure if the company is still actively building and maintaining their products.. I'd emailed them a couple of questions and have never heard back and the most recent updates on their site are from March 2019.

[DellSC]

There are some third-party tools available for this. Or you can write code in Java using the Semantic Layer SDK to get information about the universe. Then you would use the RESTful Web Service SDK to determine which universe objects are used in reports. I have done this in the past and did a presentation about it at a BOBJ conference several years ago.

-Dell

[111378]

Have you done any development with Python?

[DellSC]

Not for this. There are only two SDKs that dig into all of the universe details:

- One for .NET that doesn't have the capability to get information from .unx universes but will connect to the Universe Designer COM components to get details for .unv universes.

- One for Java that can parse .unx universes.

You can get some, but not all, universe details through the RESTful Web Service SDK, which would be accessible with Python. However, this SDK is getting better over time.

-Dell

[ayman_salem]

You can use the RESTful API to get this information.

see "SAP BusinessObjects RESTful Web Service SDK User Guide for Web Intelligence and the BI Semantic Layer"

https://help.sap.com/viewer/58f583a7643e48cf944cf554eb961f5b/4.2/en-US/ec5595696fdb101497906a7cb0e91...

...

see also JAVA examples under .../SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0/SL_SDK directory

[111378]

I would love to learn however, right now, I don't even know where/how to begin to utilizing the SDK. Is there a good reference to start with learning?

[ayman_salem]

https://help.sap.com/viewer/0ef63ba725cd41a8ab4a69c226ec6b07/4.2.9/en-US/ec548bb66fdb101497906a7cb0e...

https://blogs.sap.com/2017/12/15/bi-platform-rest-sdk-rws-in-boe-4.2/

[111378]

Thanks. Might be a stupid question but what application are you using to submit that script/request?

[ayman_salem]

You can use Postman, SoapUI, or other RESTful clients