Our recent upgrade of BusinessObjects to version 4.3 was a key component of the ongoing evolution of our warehouse and reporting landscape. The next step in this evolution is to convert user reports to use a new universe format called .UNX. Moving to this format will enable the ability to connect to our new cloud-based Snowflake Data Warehouse.
We’ve been working on the project internally, with broad representation from schools and centers, over the past few months, and are now ready to engage with users to convert your reports. Note that this a report format conversion only to enable ongoing Data Warehouse connectivity and should not affect the report logic or results. Our goal is to have all reports converted by the end of this calendar year (2024).
Further details about the conversion process and important information about next steps for you, the members of our user community are found below.
- Do we have to convert our reports?
- Yes, we do. SAP Business Objects’ strategic direction is to eliminate the legacy universe format, and they do not support emerging data sources such Snowflake on the legacy format.
- Which reports will be converted?
- You identify the reports to be converted.
- This means only those reports that you intend to actively continue to refresh and revise.
- To help you determine which reports you need, we have created a report you can run which lists all the reports in your personal folders as well as those you run most frequently.
- Note: reports that haven't been used since 7/1/2020 and reports in your BusinessObjects inbox will not be converted. If you feel that you do need to retain Inbox items, be sure to save them into your personal folder.
- You identify the reports to be converted.
- What about reports in the Public Folders? Will these be converted?
- Yes, ISC Enterprise Information & Analytics (EI&A) has been converting all the Corporate Documents in our public folders, and that work continues. If you frequently use Webi reports that are just copies or simple variations of the Corporate Documents in the public folders, you should replace these with shortcuts to the public folder versions. This will reduce the amount of report conversion that needs to be done.
- How does the conversion process work?
- The migration process is as follows:
- EI&A copies the reports you have identified to one or more working directories in your personal folders.
- EI&A converts the report copies to the new universe format and notifies you that the converted reports are ready for review.
- You review the converted reports to confirm they work as expected.
- EI&A replaces the original versions with the converted versions once you are satisfied with the converted reports.
- We realize that for those with many reports this may be a time-consuming effort, and we intend to work with individual users, offices and workgroups to make this transition as smooth as possible.
- The migration process is as follows:
- Is there any training required because of this change?
- No, all your reports, shortcuts, folders and other content will remain the same.
- For users that merely refresh reports, the change will be totally transparent as the converted reports will look the same as they did pre-conversion.
- For users that edit reports, the only difference you will notice is universe names in the query editor will contain the suffix "[unx]". This is how you can tell a report is converted.
- No, all your reports, shortcuts, folders and other content will remain the same.
- What will happen to the universes that use the legacy universe format?
- Eventually legacy universes will be retired, and access will be restricted such that they will not appear in the universe list when creating report queries.
- What if we forgot about a report? Can we still convert it later?
- Yes.
- Can I still view unconverted reports?
- Yes, reports based on retired universe can still be viewed, refreshed and converted.
- Can I view the query logic of a report based on a retired universe?
- No, the report's query logic can't be viewed until the report is converted to use the new UNX universe.
- What can I do to prepare?
- Please take some time to generate and review your report inventory by doing the following:
- Navigate to Public Folders/BI on BI
- Open the Report Inventory - w usage report
- Refresh the report and review your report inventory
- Stay tuned for updates from us as we move forward and reach out to us at da-staff@isc.upenn.edu as you have questions about the migration or using Webi.
- Please take some time to generate and review your report inventory by doing the following: