Overview

As you have seen in prior chapters, Business Objects XI is a ready-to-run web-centric enterprise reporting solution that includes a self-service portal called InfoView and, with the purchase of the Application Foundation and/or the Performance Manager suite, a more advanced dashboarding capability. InfoView runs on Java application servers or on the .NET framework and requires no coding. It can be installed and configured in less than one hour. Basic customization including changing images and stylesheets can be done with minimal effort.

With the maturing of web technology over the past several years, organizations of all sizes have invested in home-grown or commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) portals. They have dabbled with single sign-on and spent sleepless nights worrying about the appropriate presentation of corporate logos and style sheets and being concerned with other usability standards. In many of these environments, InfoView might simply not fit in out of the box. It might not look right. It might not fit into the start page you have built, or perhaps, in its full, unbridled, feature-packed glory, your users are simply confused. Less is sometimes more.

This chapter will help you integrate BusinessObjects Enterprise using the SDK.

Note

The code samples shared in this chapter are part of a white-box portal application you can download from www.usingcrystal.com. The portal is ready to run and most of the code listed here is in a single utility class, BOEUtil.java.