How Designer Works

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Designer is a Windows client application that is installed on your PC, similar to Supervisor and BusinessObjects full client. Figure 5-6 illustrates how Designer interacts with the repository and the source data. When you modify universes, you are working offline on a copy of the universe. When you are finished with your changes, you export your copy of the universe to a repository that end users can access. Even if you are using BusinessObjects in Workgroup mode, without a repository, a designer still needs to put the modified universe (.unv file) in a shared folder that all users can access.

Figure 5-6: Process overview of how Designer interacts with the Business Objects repository

1. The universe designer logs on to the BusinessObjects repository. The repository checks if this person has the right to add a new universe or modify an existing one.

2. The designer either receives an error message or proceeds to the Designer Wizard screen. The designer can either create a new universe or modify an existing one.

3. The designer imports a copy of the existing universe as a .unv file into C:\ Program Files\Business Objects\BusinessObjects 5.0\Universe or whichever directory is specified under Tools | Options | Save.

4. The designer is logged onto the source system database specified as the connection for the universe. In modifying the universe or creating a new one, a SQL parameter file on the designer's hard disk reads the data dictionary for the RDBMS of the database specified in the connection (the data mart or OLTP).

5. The source database sends structure information (e.g., table names and column information) back to the designer's PC as part of the .unv file.

6. Once the designer is done modifying the universe, the designer must export the universe back to the repository for users to see the changes.

Designers (new, long-time, and rushed alike) sometimes forget this last step and inadvertently overwrite their changes the next day when they reimport a copy in step 3. The definitions for the universe are stored in relational tables in the repository, not as one .unv file. The relational tables in the repository are described further in Chapter 15.

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