BusinessObjects Enterprise Administrator's Guide

Setting report viewing options

Note:    This feature does not apply to Web Intelligence document objects.

The report viewing options available in BusinessObjects Enterprise allow you to balance users' need for up-to-date information with the need to optimize data retrieval times and overall system performance.

BusinessObjects Enterprise allows you to enable data sharing, which permits different users accessing the same report object to use the same data when viewing or refreshing a report. Enabling data sharing reduces the number of database calls, thereby reducing the time needed to generate a report instance for subsequent users of the same report, while greatly improving overall system performance under load.

You can control data sharing settings on either a per-report or a per-server basis:

• If you specify which servers a report uses for viewing, you can use per-server settings to standardize data sharing settings for groups of reports, and centrally administer these settings. (See Specifying default servers.)
• Per-report settings permit you to specify that particular reports will not share data. They also allow you to tailor the data sharing interval for each report to meet the needs of that report's users. In addition, per-report settings enable you to decide on a report-by-report basis whether it is appropriate to allow users to access the database whenever they refresh reports.

Data sharing may not be ideal for all organizations, or for all reports. To get full value from data sharing, you must permit data to be reused for some period of time. This means that some users may see "old" data when they view a report on demand, or refresh a report instance that they are viewing.

The default report viewing options for BusinessObjects Enterprise emphasize data freshness and integrity. By default, when you add a report to BusinessObjects Enterprise it is configured to use per-server settings for report sharing. The default server settings ensure that users always receive up-to-date information when they refresh a report, and guarantee that the oldest data given to any user is 0 minutes old. If you choose to enable per-report settings, the default settings allow data sharing, allow a viewer refresh to retrieve fresh data from the database, and ensure that the oldest data given to a client is 5 minutes old.

Tip:    Disabling the sharing of report data between clients is not the same as setting the "Oldest on-demand data given to a client" to 0 minutes. Under high load, your system may receive more than one request for the same report instance at the same time. In this case, if the data sharing interval is set to 0 but the "Share report data between clients" option is enabled, BusinessObjects Enterprise shares data between the client requests. If it is important that data not be shared between different clients (for example, because the report uses a User Function Library (UFL) that is personalized for each user), disable data sharing for that report.

For details on setting report viewing options on a per-server basis, see:

• "Modifying Cache Server performance settings" on page 109
• "Modifying Page Server performance settings" on page 113
• "Modifying performance settings for the RAS" on page 119
• "Configuring the Web Intelligence Report Server" on page 121

For more information on configuring BusinessObjects Enterprise to optimize report viewing in your system, see the planning section in the BusinessObjects Enterprise Installation Guide.

Note:    This feature does not apply to Web Intelligence document objects.

To set report viewing options for a report

1. In the Objects management area of the CMC, select a report by clicking its link.
2. Click the Process tab.
3. In the "Data Refresh for Viewing" area, click "Use report specific viewing settings." Then select the options that you want to set for this report.
4. Click Update.