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Banner Handout:
BUSINESS OBJECTS ENTERPRISE (InfoView)
Document: boxi31sp3-infoview.docx
Created: 5/11/2011 1:24 PM by Chris Berry; Last Modified: 8/31/2011 1:53 PM
Purpose: .........................................................................................................................................................................2
Introduction: ..................................................................................................................................................................2
Business Objects Enterprise User Accounts: .................................................................................................................2
Setup:.............................................................................................................................................................................2
Logging On to Business Objects Enterprise InfoView: ...................................................................................................3
The Business Objects InfoView home page: ..................................................................................................................3
The Document List window: ..........................................................................................................................................4
Header Panel .................................................................................................................................................................4
Workspace Panel ...........................................................................................................................................................5
Tree Panel ......................................................................................................................................................................5
Detail Panel ....................................................................................................................................................................5
Business Objects Enterprise Folders: .............................................................................................................................6
Changing Preferences: ...................................................................................................................................................6
Selecting a Report to View or Schedule:........................................................................................................................7
Viewing a report ............................................................................................................................................................8
Printing a Report:......................................................................................................................................................... 10
Scheduling a Report: .................................................................................................................................................... 10
Send to an alternate destination: ................................................................................................................................ 14
Send to Specific email recipients: ................................................................................................................................ 14
Send to FTP: ................................................................................................................................................................. 15
Send to File System:..................................................................................................................................................... 16
Export to alternate format .......................................................................................................................................... 17
File Management: ........................................................................................................................................................ 18
Copy Report(s) to Favorites: ........................................................................................................................................ 18
Move Report(s) to New Folder: ................................................................................................................................... 19
Create Shortcut of Report(s) to My Favorites: ............................................................................................................ 21
Rename Report/Shortcut: ........................................................................................................................................... 22
Delete Report(s) or Report Instances: ......................................................................................................................... 23
Create a new folder: .................................................................................................................................................... 23
Searching for a Report: ................................................................................................................................................ 24
Changing your Password: (Not used when logged in to Active Directory) .................................................................. 25
Logging off InfoView: ................................................................................................................................................... 25
Page 1
Purpose:
This document is intended as a quick guide to using the Hamline University Business Objects Enterprise
Server (InfoView) to schedule existing Crystal reports or view output from reports already run. It may be
used as a training aid as well as reference document.
Introduction:
Crystal Reports is a powerful reporting tool that is used at Hamline to create visually appealing reports,
letters, charts, and labels. Although these reports can be created by ITS Programmers as well as
administrative staff, a certain level of expertise is required to master the skill of creating these Crystal
reports.
The Business Objects Enterprise Server is a completely web-based application that publishes these
Crystal reports for novice users to be able to view or schedule. Very little training is required to be able
to use this system. Hopefully, after going through this document, any Hamline staff or faculty person
should be able to use this system to obtain administrative information.
Administrative information at Hamline resides in the Banner database. Banner forms written by SCT and
Hamline staff may be used to enter and query information, typically one entity (student, constituent,
class, etc.) at a time. Banner reports may be used to do complex or high volume reporting. Crystal
Reports (a separate product sold by Business Objects) is designed to be used by novice computer users
to create documents on an ad-hoc basis.
Crystal may be used to produce lists, cross-tabs, charts and graphs, labels, and form letters. Reports can
be designed, run, and printed directly from a PC without needing to make a request from the
Information Systems staff. Where complex reports are needed, the ITS staff can assist with the initial
creation process. Once reports are designed (by office staff or ITS staff), they may be made accessible to
any other user, or kept for private or departmental use only.
Reports may be scheduled to run immediately or scheduled for a later time. In either event, all
processing takes place on the Enterprise Server, keeping the local PC free to do other computer work
without causing any performance degradation.
Setup:
Since little or no training is required in order to use Crystal Enterprise, the only setup required is to have
a user account created on the server. You may contact the ITS Helpdesk (x2220) to request a Crystal
Enterprise user account. The only software needed is a supported web browser (Internet Explorer 7 &
8).
Page 2
To log on to InfoView, open a web browser and go to the Banner login page located at
https://banner.hamline.edu/banner.html and select the appropriate link.
You will be connected to the server, and the folders that you have access to will become available to
you. (If this is your first time logging on to the InfoView application, the Home page will be displayed.
You will be able to change this under preferences.)
Page 3
The Document List window provides access to InfoView objects available to the user. This includes
folders, reports, report instances and shortcuts. Under this view, four different panels are used to
provide access to these objects. They are:
- Header Panel
- Workspace Panel
- Tree Panel
- Details Panel
Header Panel
Workspace Panel
Details Panel
Tree Panel
Header Panel The header panel displays the logo and the username of the account that is logged onto
InfoView. It also contains the InfoView toolbar which can be used to perform the following actions:
Icon
Option
Description
Home
Document List
Open
Send To
Dashboards
Help
Preferences
Log Out
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Workspace Panel
The workspace panel is displayed when viewing the Document List. It allows you to perform actions
on objects, categories or folders in the Document List. These menus or icons are context specific and
will only become active if the object selected can be utilized by them. The workspace toolbar contains
Icon
Option
Description
Switch to Folders
Switch to Categories
Add
Organize
Actions
Search title
Tree Panel
The tree panel is visible when you view the Document List. It displays the folders in Business Objects
Enterprise in a hierarchical structure, allowing you to navigate through them. When you select a folder
in the Tree panel, its contents are displayed in the Details panel.
Detail Panel
The detail panel is visible when you view the Document List. It displays the contents of folders in
Business Objects Enterprise. You can filter and sort the objects displayed in the Details panel as well
as choose to modify, view, organize, or schedule objects if you have the necessary rights.
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Changing Preferences:
InfoView allows each user to specify their preferences
through saved settings. To change these settings, click
the Preferences icon
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In the General settings tab, you may wish to set the following:
InfoView Start Page:
Document Navigation View:
Set the number of objects (max.) per
page:
Document List Display:
Document Viewing:
Product Locale:
Current Time Zone:
Preferred Viewing Locale:
In the Crystal Report settings tab, you may wish to set the following:
Select a default view format:
Select printing control (for Web):
Select a rendering resolution (for Web):
Select a default measuring unit:
Web (default)
Active X (default)
96 DPI
Inches
Page 7
1. To view the most recent results from the last time this report was run (ie. CLA Standard Talley
commented), select Actions View Latest Instance
2. To print an instance of the report, select the
printer icon on the upper left hand side of the
report output
3. To schedule the report, select Actions Schedule
4. To view a list of recent occurrences of this report, select History
5. To view creation, modification, and last run date for this report, select Action Properties
6. To delete, select Organize Delete (if it is allowed by security settings)
7. To move this report, select Organize Cut; Navigate to a new folder and select Organize
Paste. (object does not actually move until Paste has occurred)
8. To copy this report, select Organize Copy; Navigate to a new location and select Organize
Paste.
9. To add a shortcut (a link to this report) in a different folder, select Organize Copy Shortcut;
Navigate to a new location and select Organize Paste Shortcut
Viewing a report
To view the latest instance of the report, double-click the report title link from the list below the report
name. No database login is required - since you are viewing the report results that are already created,
no access to the Banner database is required.
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This instance of the report will display in the report frames. The same options are available as above
(export, print, search, zoom, etc).
NOTE: For reports that have a status of Failed, Recurring, or Pending in the History window, you
may click on the status description to obtain additional information about this instance. It is also
possible to either delete a report or pause a recurring job while in the History window.
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Printing a Report:
Scheduling a Report:
To schedule a report to run, select the report you want (see Selecting a Report), select Action
Schedule from the workspace panel. The schedule page will appear.
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Recurrence:
Now
Once
Hourly
Daily
Weekly
Monthly
Nth Day of the Month
1st Monday of Month
Last Day of Month
X Day of Nth Week of
Month
Calendar
Page 11
To schedule the report to run on a recurring basis, use the Run Report pull-down list to select Hourly,
Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Nth Day of Month, 1st Monday of Month, or Last Day of Month.
To specify your Database Logon:
Select the Database Logon option from the Customize your
schedule options pull-down.
Enter your Banner username and password (different from the
Crystal Enterprise username and password), and click the Update
button.
Page 12
When you are finished entering the run time, database logon, and parameters (if they exists), click the
Schedule button to submit the job to run. Please note that this is the most basic
requirement necessary to schedule a report to run. There are however, more advanced options
including specifying an alternate Destination (FTP, Email, or Printer) or an alternate Format other than
Crystal Reports (Adobe, Excel, etc.)
The History window will display a history of the instances of this report, including the one that was just
scheduled.
Note that once scheduled, the status is listed as Pending. Click the
Refresh button, to refresh this
window to see the status change to Running, and then to Success.
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Destination
Default Enterprise
Location
Business Objects Inbox
Description
Report instance will be created stored locally in the
enterprise repository
Default inbox specified by the administrator
FTP server
File System
Comments
Selected by default
NOT USED AT THIS
TIME
Page 14
Steps:
1. Select Email from the destination dropdown box
2. Un- check Use default settings in over to specify specific email recipients
3. Enter a valid email address in the From section (required)
4. Enter a valid email address in the To section (required)
5. If additional email addresses need to be added, they must be entered in the CC section (optional).
If more than one e-mail address is needed in either the to or cc fields, they must be separated by a
semicolon (;).
6. Enter subject (optional)
7. Enter message (optional)
8. Enter the name of the file. By default, an attachment will be generated. In order to generate a file,
you must select either With automatically generated name or Specific name. To create a
specific file name for the email attachment, select the radio button labeled Use Specified Name
and enter the name of the file. There is a drop down list of codes which will take access specific
information from the actual file/schedule request in order to create the correct file name. For
example, in the example above, UG_201111. was entered as well as %EXT% which was added
by the File Extension option in the drop down list. A description of these options will be listed
below.
Title
ID
Owner
DateTime
Email Address
User Full Name
Viewer Hyperlink
File Extension
9. Select
Send to FTP:
Once the FTP option has been selected, the current window will be refreshed with additional options
related to sending an FTP will be displayed.
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Steps:
1. Select FTP Server from the destination dropdown box
2. Un- check Use default settings in over to specify specific ftp server settings
3. Enter a valid FTP site in the Host section (required)
4. Enter a valid port (21 is default) (required)
5. Enter a valid username and password for FTP site
6. Enter an additional directory path if needed. (ie. /htdocs/crystal_data/sas)
7. Enter the name of the file. The default option will create a randomly generated file made of a
string of numbers. Remember that it is possible to create a custom file name. Refer to step #7 in
Sent to Specific email recipients for detailed instructions.
8. Select
Page 16
Steps:
1. Select File System from the destination dropdown box
2. Un- check Use default settings in over to specify specific file system settings
3. Enter a valid Directory site in the Directory item box (required)
I drive
\\NAS-STP1B\user\<<username>>
S drive
\\NAS-STP1B\file\SECURE\<<path of folder>> (ie. ITS)
4. Enter the name of the file. The default option will create a randomly generated file made of a
string of numbers. Remember that it is possible to create a custom file name. Refer to step #7 in
Sent to Specific email recipients for detailed instructions.
5. Enter a valid username and password for network file server (HU domain username/password)
6. Select
Page 17
File Management:
A user of the infoView system also has the ability to organize the objects in the system. As long as the
correct access is granted, a user has the ability to copy, move, create shortcuts, rename, delete an
object or folder and create new folders within the enterprise system.
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Page 19
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Once the report(s) is/are selected/highlighted, select Organize Copy Shortcut from the workspace
pane. Go to the folder you would like the object to be copied to (ie. My Favorites). Select Organize
Paste Shortcut.
Page 21
Rename Report/Shortcut:
Once the report(s) is/are selected/highlighted, select Actions Properties from the workspace pane.
You will be directed to a new window which will allow you to either change the name or description of
the report. Once the change is made, you may use the
Page 22
Once the report(s) is/are selected/highlighted, select Organize Delete from the workspace pane.
You will be directed to a dialog box to verify the delete request. You may use the
OK button or the
Please keep in mind which folder you have selected prior to creating a new folder. If you are in your
Favorites, you will always be able to create new folders, but if you are in a Department Folder (ie.
Registrar), you may not be able to create new folders.
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When many reports are in various folders of the InfoView system, it may become cumbersome to locate
a particular report. The search facility makes finding a report very easy. To search for a report by title,
description, folder title, or all fields (title, desc, folder title), select the location of the search (ie. Public
Folders or My Favorites) enter the search criteria in the main toolbar header, and select which item to
search in, and then click the
search button.
From the search results, you should be able to schedule, view, modify, or manage reports depending
upon your security access.
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Enter your old password and the new password twice. Click the OK button when ready.
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