Customizing InfoView

There are three ways you can change the look and functionality of the InfoView application. Administrators can globally change the behavior of InfoView for all users. The users, if permitted, can set their preferences by selecting the Preferences icon. Finally, because this application is based on a published API, the application can be modified by changing the underlying code.

Note

Crystal Server Pages (CSP) has been deprecated for both the UNIX and Windows platforms. Although CSP on the Windows platform might still work, it is recommended that any custom ePortfolio CSP pages be migrated to JSP pages for the UNIX platform or ASPX pages for the Windows platform.

Global InfoView Settings

During the implementation of the InfoView, an organization might want to globally change the InfoView application to tailor the application to suit its needs. This might include cosmetic changes such as adding its logo or security changes that remove certain functionality from the users.

The changes made to InfoView will change the application in its entirety and will affect all users. This differs from the user preferences discussed later in the User Preferences section because those preferences are saved on a user-by-user basis and not for the InfoView application as a whole.

To access the InfoView administration page, the administrator or a user with administrator rights can, via the CMC, click the BusinessObjects Enterprise Applications and then select InfoView. This should open the page seen in Figure 24.8.

Figure 24.8. The properties page of InfoView.

Header and Style

The properties page is broken down into multiple sections as described in Table 24.8.

Table 24.8. InfoView Cosmetic Change Options

Option	Description
Do Not Display Logo	No logo is displayed and the colors selected for the header are displayed.
Display Business Objects Logo	This is the default setting and the image can be located at /BusinessObjects Enterprise 11/Web Content/Enterprise11/InfoView/images/banner_logo.gif.
Display Custom Logo	Specify the URL where the custom logo is located. Ensure that this URL is mapped to the web server.
Use Custom Header Colors	Change the default colors on the header.
Style Sheet	Found at /BusinessObjects Enterprise 11/Web Content/Enterprise11/InfoView/default.css, this style sheet can be replaced with your own or the default can be modified. The style sheet can be used to change such items as font, color, and size. Each entry in the style sheet is documented; however, make a backup copy of the default before making changes.

Display

This section hides or displays certain features, as described in Table 24.9.

Table 24.9. Global Display Features of InfoView

Option	Description
Show Preferences Button	If checked, this displays the Preferences icon. If this is not displayed, users will have no control over setting their preferences.
Show Type Drop-Down List	Removes the ability to filter the page by object type and all objects are displayed.
Show Filters Tab on the Schedule Tab	Administrators might not want users applying filters to reports. The filters section gives the user the ability to rewrite the filter or SQL WHERE clause, and this is recommended only for advanced users.
Default Navigation View	Administrator can select either Category or Folder as an initial view of the navigation section.
Maximum Number of Pages of Objects to Show	Pages of objects are created by the number of objects the user chooses to display on a page. If more objects are available than are displayed on the page, additional page numbers are shown.

Objects Listing

If a user has view rights, he can click the object's title to view the object. The administrator can select between either running the object against its data provider or against its latest successful scheduled instance.

Viewers

If checked, this option allows the users to use the Advanced DHTML Viewer. The Advanced DHTML Viewer enables report modification and this requires that the Report Application Server be running. See Chapter 27 for more information on the Report Application Server.

The Default Viewer sets the default viewer for InfoView when viewing Crystal Reports.

The User Preferences

A user can set or change her individual InfoView interface and interactions with user preferences.

General Preferences

The General Preferences tab of the Preferences screen provides access to a number of customizable user display settings for InfoView XI. These are described in Table 24.10.

Table 24.10. General Preference Settings for InfoView

Option	Description
Initial View	Upon log on, this is the first page that will be displayed for that user. If My InfoView is selected and running on-demand reports, the user has to wait until those reports are complete before the page is rendered. If this is the case, a scheduled instance might be a better option.
On My Desktop	Sets the number of objects per page. Should the total number of objects exceed this number, the additional pages are displayed as a link in the Workspace section.
For Each Object, Show Me	User can select what he finds applicable for display purposes for description, owner, date, instance count, and available actions.
View My Documents	The InfoView portal will, by default, display the report in the Workspace section. If the reports require more screen real estate, other options can be used. In a single full-screen browser, this option creates another browser session and displays the report and any other reports using this new session. The final option will create a new session for each report viewed.
Current Locale	This is the locale that is sent to the browser.
Time Zone	This is important for users that are going to schedule reports at a particular date and time. The default time entered to start the scheduling process is local to the web server (not the CMS). For example, if the user schedules the report and his time zone is PST and the web server is running in EST, the report will run three hours sooner than expected. This issue is further emphasized when the system has anonymous or guest access enabled because the guest user account can have only one time zone associated with it but it may be used by many users around the world. If this is the case, establishing an account for each of the scheduling users is recommended.

Web Intelligence Document Preferences

The preferences for Web Intelligence documents will differ by the platform on which Business Objects is installed. The differences are explained in Table 24.11.

Table 24.11. Web Intelligence Preferences

Option	Description
Select a View Format	This determines the format of the Web Intelligence document when viewing. The HTML or PDF options are available for all platforms. The Interactive option enables the DHTML interactive viewer (currently Java-based only).
Select a Report Panel	This Java-only option changes the query panel used to create or modify a query. The Java Report panel requires a download of a Java applet, so it might not be suitable for extranet environments. The HTML Report and Query panels do not require any download.
For Each New Drill Session	If drilling on the report is enabled, the user can specify whether he wants to drill on a duplicate report or the existing report.
General Drill Options	If drilling on a document requires a further query to be run, the user can choose whether he wants to run the query. The Synchronizing Drill on the Report Block option results in all report blocks showing the same data, as opposed to only the report block where the drill was initiated showing the new data. The Hide Drill Toolbar option enables the user to show the drill path on the report.

OLAP Intelligence Preferences

If Enterprise XI is licensed for Crystal Analysis, the user can select between running the ActiveX (sometimes called the rich client) or the DHTML versions of the viewer.

Crystal Reports Preferences

This page allows the user to set preferences specifically around the Crystal Reports viewers. Table 24.12 highlights the different options available.

Table 24.12. Crystal Reports Preferences

Options	Description
View My Reports Using	Allows the user to specify the type of viewer. A comparison of the viewers is described previously in the chapter. The ActiveX and Java viewers require an initial download.
DHTML Viewer Printing Uses	If the user has selected the DHTML viewer, the user has two options when printingeither export the report to PDF and use the Acrobat Reader printing control, or download an ActiveX printing control.
Preferred Measuring Units	Determines the preferred unit of measure for defining the reporting page layout.
Rendering Resolution	If the DHTML viewer is used, the user can select an appropriate resolution.

The final two tabs are the Password tab where the user can change his password and the About tab that describes the version.

Customizing My InfoView

My InfoView is a page that allows a user to add the most important report or report parts onto a single page. Each frame within the template can contain one reference. The reference can point to a supported object type, such as Crystal Reports, a Crystal Reports part, an instance or an instance filtered by username, a Web Intelligence report, an OLAP Intelligence report, any Microsoft Office document, a PDF, or a hyperlink. After the page is complete, it can be saved by clicking the Save link, which will save the page to the user's Favorites folder. Multiple versions of My InfoView can be saved by using the Save As link. The My InfoView button launches the object called My InfoView from the user's Favorites folder. If this page is deleted, clicking the My InfoView button brings up a blank page and the user can re-create the page.

To create this page, click the My InfoView icon and select a template from the list. This can alternately be accomplished by choosing the New drop-down box and selecting Single Dashboard. If the user is unsure of what the template looks like or which one will be best suited to her needs, she can select the template (see Figure 24.9) and preview it. If all the templates are unsuitable, the user can select the Split Screen button to split the screen horizontally, vertically, or a combination of the two.

Figure 24.9. Select a suitable template for your InfoView.

After the user is satisfied with the page splits, the user selects the Define Content link for each section of My InfoView to define the object that will populate that section. This brings up the form where the user selects the object she wants to display in that pane. The selections on the right are context sensitive to the object selected. For example, if the user selects a Crystal Report, she gets to select whether she wants a report part or the whole page, as shown in Figure 24.10. If the user selects a Web or OLAP Intelligence report, this option does not appear because report parts are not supported with this object type.

Figure 24.10. The Crystal Report Specific Options area has options for defining the content of a pane within My InfoView.

Note

The Object list displays only what the user has the rights to see. Also, if the view time security has been defined by either a Business View or universe, the data displayed is limited to only what the user is allowed to see. See Chapter 18, "Using a Semantic LayerBusiness Views and Universes," for more information.

After the user is satisfied, she can return to My InfoView to see the result. If the object is too large for the pane, a scrollbar will be automatically added (see Figure 24.11). The user can repeat the process until all the panes on the page are populated.

Figure 24.11. A report part added to My InfoView.

Programmatically Customizing InfoView

As mentioned earlier, InfoView is based off of a published API. The use of this API is described in Chapter 30, "Using the BusinessObjects Enterprise APIs." Some configuration files require further explanation.

Web.xml in the Java version and web.config in the .NET version of InfoView contain certain settings where an administrator can functionally and cosmetically change the way InfoView works.

In the Java edition, the web.xml file (usually located under the WEB.INF directory) contains some of the settings that might be of use to an administrator (see Table 24.13). This XML file is well documented and an administrator should be able to determine what each tag describes.

Table 24.13. Some Useful InfoView Settings from Web.xml

Setting	Description
path.dhtmlviewer	The path that describes the location of the DHTML Viewer. Check this if your report viewers are missing icons or do not display.
cms.default	The CMS default name for the logon page.
authentication.default	Sets the default authentication for logging on to InfoView. You can also hide this field or not allow a user to change it.
session-timeout	Sets the default amount of time a session will remain open.
homepage.default	Can specify the home page for the InfoView application.