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Desktop Intelligence is an integrated query, reporting and analysis solution for business
professionals that allows you to access the data in your corporate databases directly
from your desktop and present and analyze this information in a Desktop Intelligence
document.
When you run the query, Desktop Intelligence connects to the database and retrieves
the data mapped to the objects you selected. A query is a type of data provider. The
data provider contains the data you have chosen to retrieve from the data source. Using
this data set, you can build interactive reports. Desktop Intelligence lets you access data
from a wide range of sources: from relational and multidimensional databases, from
packaged applications, from personal data documents, and, using Microsoft Visual Basic
for Applications procedures, from virtually any source.
Folders: Folders are the physical place where documents are stored. Only one document
with a given name may be placed in a folder or category. It is possible to place
documents in several categories. If necessary change the name of the document or give
it a number to place it in the same folder or category. It is possible to create or delete
sub-folders.
There are 2 types of folders:
• My Folders with 2 sub-folders
• Favorites (Generally reserved for often used documents)
• Inbox (Generally reserved for documents received from other users
• Public Folders (For shared documents.)
Categories: Categories are used for classifying information regardless of its storage
location.
There are two types of Categories:
• Corporate Categories
• Personal Categories
5) Can all Desktop Intelligence users build queries using all data providers?
Your Desktop Intelligence supervisor can restrict access to certain types of data
providers, or even certain objects within a universe. As a result, you might be able to
build queries on universes but no other type of data provider, and then be able to use
only certain objects in the universe. The way the supervisor sets up access to data
providers and other Desktop Intelligence features depends entirely upon the query and
reporting needs of your organization.
6) Who sets up connection to data providers in desktop intelligence?
Universe: The Universe designer sets up connection to the database.
Stored Procedures: The supervisor creates the connection to access a stored procedure.
Free- hand SQL: In free-hand SQL, you can create your own connection to the database.
Once you have created the connection, you can make it available to other users.
Personal data files and XML files: When you access data in a personal data file or XML
file, you select the file and in doing so, you “connect” to it. This is not a technical task,
it’s just a question of selecting the right file.
VBA procedures: A VBA procedure runs a VBA macro that retrieves data for your Desktop
Intelligence report. The person who creates the macro defines the connection to the data
source in the macro code.
The scope of analysis you can define depends on hierarchies in the universe. A
hierarchy, which the designer sets up when creating the universe, consists of dimension
objects ranked from “less detailed” to “more detailed”. The objects that belong to
hierarchies are the ones you can use to define scope of analysis.
11) How do you limit the query using conditions and what are they?
A condition is a way of limiting the data that a query returns. In Desktop Intelligence, you
can set three types of conditions on a query:
Predefined conditions: When universe designers build universes, they can create
predefined conditions for you to use.
Simple conditions: Enable you to limit data returned by a result object. For example, you
can find out about certain customers by applying a simple condition on the Customer
object, then selecting the customer names that appear in a dialog box.
Complex conditions: Enable you to limit the query results by any object in the universe.
12) What are options that can be setup before running a query?
Before running a query, you can set options that enable you to:
• Specify the number of rows of data that you want the query to return. The Default
Value option corresponds to the maximum number of rows that the universe designer
specified for queries on the current universe.
• Eliminate duplicate rows of data.
• Retrieve no data when you run the query. In this case, Desktop Intelligence generates
the query SQL but does not connect to the database. The names of the objects included
in the query appear as column headings in the report. This option is useful if you want to
save the query you have built, but refresh it at an off-peak time.
The types of SQL script that you are allowed to run as free-hand SQL are determined by
your Desktop Intelligence administrator. If you attempt to run a script for which you do
not have permission, you will receive an error message. Typically, you are able to run
scripts that contain only one SELECT statement.
Note: BusinessObjects does not execute COMPUTE and ORDER BY clauses in free-hand
SQL statements.
Once the data cube is populated, you can generate a report based on this data in
Desktop Intelligence.
22) What are different ways in which data can be analyzed using desktop intelligence?
• Desktop Intelligence on-report analysis allows you to work directly on your data in your
report using drag and drop and or with simple mouse clicks.
• Desktop Intelligence enables you to carry out multidimensional analysis in Drill mode.
• Desktop Intelligence Slice and Dice mode allows you to organize data for analysis in
the slice and dice panel.
27) What is the difference between drill-up, drill-down, drill across and drill through?
Drilling down: When you drill down, you display the next level of detail in a hierarchy
Drilling up: Drilling up is the opposite of drilling down. When you drill up, you go back up
through the hierarchy to display data on less detailed levels.
Drilling across: When you drill down and up, you move through the levels of the same
hierarchy. However, if you cannot find the answer to a question by analyzing data in its
current hierarchy, you can move to another hierarchy to analyze other data.
Drilling through to the database to bring in new data If the lowest level of detail you
need is not currently available in the report, you can drill through to the database
directly from drill mode and get the data you need. You do not have to edit the query in
the Query Panel.
You access slice-and-dice mode through the Slice and Dice Panel, a pop-up window that
provides a graphical representation of the report you are working on. You carry out slice-
and-dice tasks by dragging and dropping icons that represent your data.
In the first table, the sum includes New York and Washington revenues only.
The formula to calculate this sum is: =Sum()
In the second table, formula for calculating the sum includes the NoFilter function. As a
result, the sum includes revenues for all cities. The formula is as follows:
=NoFilter (Sum())
33) How is ranking performed if they are breaks inserted inside the data?
In a table or crosstab in which breaks have been inserted, data is ranked separately for
each break level.
Note: If you have created a local variable using values from different data providers, you
will not be able to rank data based on this variable. The variable will not be displayed in
the list in the Ranking dialog box.
39) How can the user objects be shared among the end users?
If you want to share user objects with other users, you should ask the universe designer
to include these user objects in the related universe in order to make them available to
all Desktop Intelligence end-users.
Wildcards are special characters that can denote any single character, or any number of
characters. Desktop Intelligence supports the standard wildcard characters, which are:
% : Replaces several characters, or in the response to a prompt. For example, N%
returns all values beginning with an N (New York, Nevada)
- : Replaces a single character in a constant. For example, GR_VE returns Grave, Grove,
Greve.
42) Explain the difference between Different from and except operator?
Different from, Not in list and Except are all operators that exclude certain data from
your query results. Does this mean that you could use this condition to obtain a list of
customers who have not stayed at Bahamas Beach?
Resort Different from ‘Bahamas Beach’
The result of this query includes those customers who have stayed at Bahamas Beach
and elsewhere. Why? Because reservations exist for these customers for resorts other
than Bahamas Beach. These reservations alone are enough to satisfy the condition
‘Resort differs from Bahamas Beach’. Furthermore, this condition excludes customers
who have made no reservations. Desktop Intelligence checks these customers’ records
against reservations and determines that no reservations satisfy the condition ‘Resort
differs from Bahamas Beach’ - because there are no reservations! Nevertheless, it is
clear that a report showing customers who have not stayed at Bahamas Beach should
include customers who have not stayed anywhere.
You solve this problem by using the Except operator instead of Different from. When you
use Except, Desktop Intelligence builds two queries:
• All customers.
• Customers who have reservations for Bahamas Beach.
Desktop Intelligence then subtracts the customers given by the second query from those
given by the first. This returns the result you want.
The syntax is
=RunningAggregateFunction(;)
giving, for example =Sum(;;)
54) Concatenation:
=Concatenation(,)
The syntax to achieve the same result as shown above using the & operator is:
=&" "&
The Concatenation() function and & operator allow you to combine charactertype data
only. If you want to combine text or character-type data with numbers you must first
convert the number into a character string. Otherwise, Desktop Intelligence displays the
error message 'Incompatible data type'. You can convert a number to a character string
using the FormatNumber() function.
In the same way, if you want to combine text with dates using the & operator or the
Concatenation() function, you must first convert the date into a character string.
Otherwise, Desktop Intelligence displays the error message 'Incompatible data type'. You
can convert a date into a character string using the FormatDate() function.