Summary

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The most important step in creating a new query is first formulating your business question in terms of what information you want to see, by which dimensions you want to explore the results, and which subsets of data you want to analyze. If the question is too broad, you may be overwhelmed by the amount of information returned. Conditions enable you to filter the information returned to you. You can create simple conditions or complex conditions. Predefined conditions are set by the universe designer and enable you to select predefined groupings and complex conditions. Predefined conditions that involve time periods enable you to execute a query that automatically selects the most recent period, such as the last 90 days or current month. If you are building a report that will be refreshed by other users, use prompts to allow report readers to select their own conditions. BusinessObjects enables you to create documents that contain multiple queries and multiple data providers. This feature enables you to create one report to analyze information that comes from a data warehouse and an OLAP database, for example. Construct the individual queries per data provider, then create the formatted report.

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