BusinessObjects 4.0-Answers the Query

Anyone familiar with the client/server query and reporting tool marketplace has heard of BusinessObjects 4.0, a high-end decision support package for managed query environments. When I talked about managed query environments, I mean that your MIS department will have to establish and map permissions between data sources and users to get BusinessObjects working. The payoff, though, is control with a capital C. BusinessObjects lets MIS/IT maintain mainframe-like security, control who can fire off queries and reports (it even lets you set when your users can log on), and establish boundary conditions such as the maximum number of rows a query can return.

BusinessObjects 4.0 sets the standard in managed query environments. BusinessObjects lets users do integrated query, reporting, and online analytical processing (OLAP) on data, while developers can design universes (mapped data structures) of data.

The Evolution of BusinessObjects
BusinessObjects isn't a new kid on the block. Business Objects (the company) began shipping BusinessObjects 1.0 in 1990 and now has more than 4000 installations (for a look at one of these installations, see the sidebar, "Medtronic's Parallel Universes ," page 102) with 475,000 licenses world-wide. In addition to having proven staying power and an increasing revenue stream (estimated 1996 revenues of $85 million are up from $60 million in fiscal year 95), Business Objects has more than 450 partners and will offer new links to SAP, Oracle Express, and Arbor Essbase data later this quarter. Microsoft has asked Business Objects to join its Alliance for Data Warehousing, a select handful of vendors that includes ExecuSoft Systems, Informatica, NCR/Teradata, Pilot Software, PLATINUM Technology, Praxis, and SAP. Business Objects' new BusinessMiner product, which began shipping in February, will help launch data mining as a mainstream activity. An international company with dual headquarters in San Jose, California, and Paris, France, Business Objects offers English, French, Spanish, German, and Kanji versions of its products.

I first used BusinessObjects in early 1993 during the heyday of client/server developer tools. Back then, I divided these tools into two categories: high-end query and reporting tools (including BusinessObjects, PowerBuilder, and SQLWindows) and end-user query and reporting tools (including Lotus Approach, Access 1.0, and ReportSmith) that theoretically let users query SQL database servers without MIS intervention. At that time, BusinessObjects wasn't as developer friendly or as easy to use as the competition. It involved too much intrusive prelimi-nary setup for my taste, and the terminology (such as "universes") struck me as, well, strange.

The BusinessObjects of Today
So what is BusinessObjects today? BusinessObjects 4.0, the first major release since July 1994, is a modular set of enterprise tools that support reporting, querying, OLAP analysis, and data mining. The software doesn't let users update or otherwise change corporate data; it provides read-only data access.

BusinessObjects 4.0 runs under UNIX (Solaris and SGI IRIS due by the end of the first quarter of 1997, and HP-UX and AIX in the first half of 1997) and all versions of Windows. Business Objects will upgrade the Mac OS version of BusinessObjects 3.1 to 3.2, but the company has no plans to provide native Mac OS support for version 4.0. The company will support the Mac version for another 18 months, and plans to offer Mac users more up-to-date support once the Web version of BusinessObjects, code-named Darwin, ships later this year. BusinessObjects competes against products such as Cognos' Impromptu and PowerPlay (BusinessObjects provides a wizard to help you convert Cognos metadata), IQ Software's IQ/Vision and IQ/Objects, Crystal Reports' InfoSelect, and Brio Technology's BrioQuery Enterprise, brio.web.warehouse, and Brio Decision Support Suite.

BusinessObjects 101
The fundamental construct in BusinessObjects is the universe--a business-oriented mapping of the data structures in databases that can represent a business unit, an application, a system, or a group of users. For example, a universe can relate to a department in a company such as marketing or accounting. Universes play dual roles: They let users define queries, create reports, and analyze data using business terms rather than database table or column names, and they give MIS control over access to enterprise data. Universes are like semantic layers between users and the corporate database, isolating users from the gory details of database structure and SQL.

You define universes with the BusinessObjects Designer module, and you administer universes with the Supervisor module. The universe consists of granular bits of data known as objects (generally fields in databases) and classes that are groups of related objects.

Objects are the most granular components in a universe and are roughly analogous to field-level data in a relational database. Object names can be the same business terms that users assign to their everyday activities. For example, objects for a human resources manager can be Employee Name, Address, Salary, or Bonus, and objects for a financial analyst can be Profit Margin and Return on Investment. According to Business Objects, a typical universe contains 50 to 100 objects, but it can easily contain thousands.

Classes are the logical grouping of objects within a universe. In general, the name of a class reflects a business concept that conveys the category or type of objects. For example, in a universe pertaining to human resources, one class might be Employees. You can further divide classes into subclasses. So in the human resources universe, a subclass of the Employees class might be Personal Information.

In addition to designing universes, you can define hierarchies and dimensions that predefine what data your users can slice, dice, or drill down into. Users can access these hierarchies and dimensions and analyze the data using the optional BusinessObjects Explorer, with its multidimensional dynamic microcube or OLAP technology. BusinessObjects has also licensed the Visual Basic (VB)-like ReportScript from Mystic River that developers and users can use to create SQL scripts.

Most users, however, access their universes from the standard BusinessObjects Reporter and either run the canned reports that MIS prepares or use these reports to help create their own ad hoc reports. The optional Document Agent module implements a report server that lets users schedule, process, and route reports--over the Web. (Document Agent's Web support is limited to transmitting HTML reports. The Darwin project will offer a version of BusinessObjects that lets users perform interactive query, reporting, and OLAP over the Web.)

Business Objects also provides an add-in mining product, BusinessMiner (which began shipping in February) that offers end users the ability to mine data on the desktop using decision trees and rule-induction logic. Offering users data mining functionality at this price could represent a real breakthrough. Another component, BusinessQuery (available since February) is a Microsoft Excel add-on that lets users generate their reports and manipulate their data directly from Excel. Rather than looking at BusinessObjects from a developer's point of view, let's see how it looks to the users.

BusinessObjects from the User's Perspective
Most BusinessObjects users access universes in network mode by logging on with a password and opening a report or report folder (which can contain multiple reports that you select using tabs). However, you can also run BusinessObjects in standalone mode and access local data (such as an .xls or .dbf file).

Users can run existing reports, print them out, and route them via email. Users can also access the drop-down Data menu to look at the raw data or to edit the underlying report query parameters. If users have the BusinessExplorer module that permits multi-dimensional OLAP analysis, they can access either drill-down or slice-and-dice modes to analyze their data from the drop-down Analysis menu. Drill-down and slice-and-dice operations rely on predefined hierarchies and aggregates, such as totals and counts that BusinessObjects designers or savvy users define.