User manual BUSINESS OBJECTS DESIGNER

[. . . ] patents, which may cover products that are offered and licensed by Business Objects: 5, 555, 403; 5, 857, 205; 6, 289, 352; 6, 247, 008; 6, 490, 593; 6, 578, 027; 6, 831, 668; 6, 768, 986; 6, 772, 409; 6, 882, 998; 7, 139, 766; 7, 299, 419; 7, 194, 465; 7, 222, 130; 7, 181, 440 and 7, 181, 435. Business Objects and the Business Objects logo, BusinessObjects, Business Objects Crystal Vision, Business Process On Demand, BusinessQuery, Crystal Analysis, Crystal Applications, Crystal Decisions, Crystal Enterprise, Crystal Insider, Crystal Reports, Desktop Intelligence, Inxight, the Inxight Logo, LinguistX, Star Tree, Table Lens, ThingFinder, Timewall, Let there be light, Metify, NSite, Rapid Marts, RapidMarts, the Spectrum Design, Web Intelligence, Workmail and Xcelsius are trademarks or registered trademarks in the United States and/or other countries of Business Objects and/or affiliated companies. All other names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners. Business Objects products in this release may contain redistributions of software licensed from third-party contributors. [. . . ] When a Web Intelligence user builds a query using one or more objects in the Query pane the content of the Select clause line in the Select statement is inferred using the column(s) or function represented by each object. Designer 313 5 Building universes Defining objects Creating an object You create objects in the Universe pane. Web Intelligence users identify an object by its name and qualification. You can create objects manually in the Universe pane, or automatically by dragging the appropriate database structure from the Structure pane to the Universe pane. Creating an Object Manually You create an object manually by inserting an object in the Universe pane, and then defining the properties for the object. Right click a class in the Universe pane and select Insert Object from the contextual menu. Or Click a class and click the Insert Object tool. An object is inserted under the selected class and the Edit Properties box for the object appears. Ensure that object names are always expressed in the end user business vocabulary. This name may be different from the actual column names that the object is associated with in the database schema. Type a Select statement in the Select box, or click the Select button to use the SQL editor. Note: For information on object properties see the section Object properties on page 316. For information on using the SQL editor to define 314 Designer Building universes Defining objects 5 Select statements and Where clauses, see the section Using the SQL editor to define an object on page 330. Click OK. Creating an object automatically You can create an object automatically by selecting a column in a table in the Structure pane and dragging it to the Universe pane. An object is created under the nearest class to the point where you drop the column. You can change this value by selecting a new datatype from the drop down list box in the Edit Properties sheet for the object. You should edit the new object properties to ensure that it is appropriately named, and is relevant to end user needs. Editing object properties is described in the section Defining objects on page 313. The Objects strategy selected on the Strategies page in the Universe Parameters dialog box determines how the classes and objects are created automatically (File>Parameters>Strategies tab). You can also create strategies to customize the class and object creation process. Refer to Using external strategies to customize universe creation on page 513, and Selecting strategies on page 73 for more information on using strategies. Note: When you create class and objects automatically, you are creating the universe components directly from the database structure. The classes and objects that you create should be the result of a user needs analysis, and not be directed by the columns and tables available in the database. Designing the universe from user needs is described in the section Universe design methodology on page 27. Drag the column across to the Universe pane and drop the table at the desired position in the class hierarchy. The column must be dropped under an existing class. Designer 315 5 Building universes Defining objects A new object appears in the hierarchy. You should ensure that object names are always expressed in the end user business vocabulary. [. . . ] Click OK, then save the universe. Using shortcut joins A shortcut join links two tables that are already joined in a common path. You can use a shortcut join to reduce the number of tables that are used in a query. Refer to the section Shortcut joins on page 196 for more information. Note: Shortcut joins will not create loops. 586 Designer Using the sample materials 10 10 Using the sample materials Overview Overview This appendix provides detailed information on the structure of the Club database built with Microsoft Access. This is the database from which most of the examples and illustrations in this guide are derived. [. . . ]