Choosing the Right Integration Approach

The most flexible approach to integrating BusinessObjects Enterprise XI (or its sister product, Crystal Reports Server) is to use a software development kit (SDK) for COM, .NET, or Java. The InfoView portal and portions of the Central Management Console (CMC) are built using these SDKs. By implication, the SDKs are full-featured, and this chapter is devoted to understanding them. The Unified Web Services, described in Chapter 32, "Using the Web Service's SDK," is also very useful especially where CORBA network connectivity is not possible. However, the Web Services SDK is not full-featured.

Before continuing down the code-from-scratch/samples road, you might want to skip ahead to Chapter 31, "Using the Web Components," and see if any of the approaches described there are sufficient for your project. They include the ability to view, create, and edit reports simply by calling URLs; integrating components visually using Java Server Faces (JSF); or simply deploying prebuilt catalog browsing and viewing portlets into Microsoft SharePoint, WebSphere Portal, or any other JSR-168compliant Java portal.

Before diving into the BusinessObjects Enterprise SDK, Table 30.1 enumerates each of the integration approaches and which platforms they support.

Table 30.1. SDK Platform Support

SDK	Java	.NET	COM
BusinessObjects Enterprise (BOE) SDK
Crystal Page Server/RAS Viewer SDK
Crystal Java Runtime Control (JRC) SDK
Crystal RAS/EROM SDK
Web Intelligence REBean SDK
Unified Web Services (UWS) Client SDK
Universe Designer SDK
Application Foundation SDK
Dashboard Manager SDK
Not applicable/supported

Table 30.2 shows the component integration approaches and the platforms they support.

Table 30.2. Component Integration Platform support

URL/Component/PIK	Java	.NET	COM
URL Reporting
.NET Components
Portal Integration Kits (PIKs)
SharePoint
WebSphere Portal
JSR-168 Portlets
Not applicable/supported

In addition, you will want to determine the quickest and easiest way to provide the customized functionality you desire. The CMC is the 100% zero client web-based administration console that is provided out of the box with BusinessObjects Enterprise and Crystal Reports Server. This application is used in conjunction with each of the other products. Table 30.3 is a comparison matrix to help you determine what administrative functionality you may access with no custom coding.

Table 30.3. Out-of-the-Box Capabilities Matrix

Function	URL	PIKs	.NET Components	UWS	SDKs	CMC
Logging in/creating a session
Directory services/SSO support
Logging out
Catalog browsing
Searching for reports or other managed objects
View Crystal Report and thumbnails
Create/edit Crystal Report
View/drill WebI documents
Create/edit WebI Documents
View OLAP Intelligence documents
View MS Office/PDF documents
Manage Crystal Report notifications
Trigger and manage events
Schedule reports, optionally with events, to various destinations, including e-mail and inbox
Manage and monitor schedules
Access and manage inbox items
Create new objects, folders and categories
Manage security
Set user preferences
Manage and restrict user preferences
System metrics monitoring
Setting server properties
Auditing licenses and security rights
Universe Designer
Business View Manager
Dashboard and Performance Manager
Not applicable/supported