Types of Data Providers

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BusinessObjects enables you to create documents based on one or more data providers. When the document contains multiple data providers, BusinessObjects automatically links the multiple result sets by dimensions that share the same values. In addition to universes, a data provider can access data from the following sources:

• Free-hand SQL Enables you to create your own SQL statements against data sources for which no universe has been built. The SQL Editor from this panel is quite basic and requires in-depth knowledge of SQL syntax. Therefore, the BusinessObjects supervisor may not enable this type of data provider for all users.

• Personal data files Enable you to access Excel spreadsheet, text, and dBase files and then analyze the results using the full set of BusinessObjects Reporter (the Slice and Dice Panel) and Explorer (drill-down) functionality. This is a powerful feature that enables you to access departmental data in a spreadsheet, for example, and combine it with corporate data from a universe. The settings for accessing personal data files as a data provider are similar to those for using them for a list of values, described in Chapter 9, “Incorporating Personal Data Files.”

• Stored procedures Sets of SQL statements defined by the DBA. The BusinessObjects supervisor must grant you access to the stored procedures.

• Visual Basic procedures Programs that a BusinessObjects developer builds with the Software Development Kit (SDK). A Visual Basic procedure can perform many functions—for example, refresh data, build reports, and then e-mail the results to multiple users. When using Visual Basic procedures as a data provider, you can either create a new procedure or select an existing one.

• OLAP Enables you to access data in a multidimensional database. To access OLAP data sources, your company must have purchased anOLAP Access Pack for the specific MOLAP cubes. BusinessObjects can access MS Analysis Services, Hyperion Essbase, IBM’s DB2 OLAP, SAP BW, and Oracle Express. Each OLAP Access Pack must be installed on your local disk for full-client use or on the WebI midtier for thin-client use.

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