Business Objects Developer Library
 

Developer Library > What's New

 

 

BusinessObjects XI R2 provides a number of new enhancements and features for developers. New API features are exposed to developers and a number of new samples, tutorials and examples are provided to help you build custom applications using the SDKs.

 

 

  • Contains full documentation for the software development kits provided with BusinessObjects Enterprise XI R2.
  • Contains sample code, tutorials, feature examples and sample applications to facilitate rapid learning and development.
  • The Developer Library is fully searchable and organized to improve developer productivity.

 

 

Refer to the BusinessObjects Enterprise documentation for more details about what's new in this release.

 

 

.NET Framework 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005 support

  • The SDK is fully compatible with the .NET Framework 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005.

  • Develop web applications using BusinessObjects XI .NET Providers. This enhancement to the SDK is based on both the ASP .NET security model and the data source object model in the .NET Framework 2.0.

  • Code snippets are provided when coding in Visual Basic or C#. These snippets are located in a subfolder within the larger set of Visual Studio 2005 code snippets.

Desktop Intelligence Support

  • Desktop Intelligence documents, also called Full Client documents, are now a part of the core BusinessObjects Enterprise platform.

  • Allows you to use URL reporting to view Desktop Intelligence documents. You can create web applications that enable on-demand viewing of Desktop Intelligence documents, in the same way that Crystal reports and Web Intelligence documents are viewed.

  • Additional packages that allow you to manage Desktop Intelligence document objects and Desktop Intelligence servers in the Central Management Server.

Publications

  • Personalize and deliver the content of an InfoObject to a list of subscribers.

  • Maintain a list of subscribers, in the form of principals, who will receive the InfoObject when you schedule the publication.

  • Maintains a list of profiles and profile targets, which are business questions and business answers that are applied to the InfoObject.

  • Users can subscribe to or unsubscribe from a publication, provided that they have the View Object system right on that publication.

  • As of this release, publications only support Desktop Intelligence documents.

Simplified development for the Java BI Platform

  • The SDK now supports a number of simplifications that make it easier to write your web applications.

  • Retrieve collections of categories and folders from the InfoStore without the use of queries.

  • Simplified navigation of folder hierarchies without the use of queries.

  • Schedule reports, object packages, and programs directly with the new ISchedulable.schedule method.

  • Use search patterns to find InfoObjects.

  • Built-in support for paging of object listings, which increases the efficiency of applications that list objects across multiple pages.

 

 

Refer to the Platform Web Services SDK documentation for more details about what's new in this release.

 

 

Ability to manage the BI Platform

  • The Platform Web Services SDK lets you administer the BusinessObjects Enterprise platform from a web service interface.

  • The BIPlatform service supercedes the previous Publish and BICatalog services.

New path query protocol language

  • The path query protocol language replaces the traditional SQL query language.

  • The path-based repository view offered by the path query language maps closely to the view of user applications such as InfoView. This makes the language intuitive to use in the sense that InfoObjects have a folder-based structure.

Access all InfoObject types

  • With this release, the plugins of all InfoObject types are exposed and can be modified, scheduled, and imported.

 

Refer to the Report Application Server SDK documentation for more details about what's new in this release.

 

 

New APIs for enchanced report customization

  • Full programmatic control for exporting.

  • Full programmatic control for saved export options.

  • Support for cross-platform printing from RAS SDK.

  • Full programmatic support of subreports.

  • Programmatic image support.

  • Modification of group condition fields.

  • Support for single sign-on.

  • Extensible URL Reporting components.

  • Control over setting datasources at runtime.

  • Customized paper size.

  • Using the RAS server without the Session object.

Improved database drivers

  • Business Objects Universe support from Crystal Reports.

  • Improved native Oracle database driver.

  • Cross-platform support for runtime datasets.

  • Teradata support.

  • Updated DB2 driver.

  • New XML database driver.

  • New Exchange 2000/2003 driver.

Enhanced deployment options

  • Single merge module for all RAS .NET and COM deployment scenarios.

  • Full control over the deployed database and exporting dlls.

Improved error messages

  • Error messages related to opening reports, exporting, and database connectivity have been improved to provide more meaningful detail and to assist Systems Administrators with problem diagnosis.

 

Refer to the Viewers SDK documentation for more details about what's new in this release.

 

 

Active X viewer

  • Export reports to an editable RTF format, directly from the viewer.

  • Print and output from the viewers now matches the quality of the Crystal Reports preview window, and includes better support of right-to-left text in languages such as Arabic and Thai.

  • Objects that are displayed in the ActiveX viewer can be highlighted individually or in groups, and then copied or pasted in HTML or Rich Text format to applications such as Word, Excel and Outlook.

  • Icons in the viewers appear in a standard order that is consistent with other Crystal Reports viewers. Also, the icons are easier to identify because they are more consistent with the Crystal Reports product.

  • Page navigation now supports the page-up and page-down keys.

  • Printing now supports multiple page ranges from the Print dialog box.

.NET Winform viewer

  • New exporting dialog box supports exporting to an editable RTF format.

  • New Dynamic Cascading prompts are supported at run time.

  • Icons in the viewers appear in a standard order that is consistent with other Crystal Reports viewers. Also, the icons are easier to identify because they are more consistent with the Crystal Reports product.

  • ToolTips can be disabled.

  • An error event handler is available for use.

  • Developer-written dynamic resource localization is permitted for languages that are unsupported.

.NET Webform viewer

  • New exporting dialog box supports exporting to an editable RTF format.

  • New Dynamic Cascading prompts are supported at run time.

  • Respects ASP.NET Page Culture directive.

  • Developer-written dynamic resource localization is permitted for languages that are unsupported.

DHTML viewers

  • New Dynamic Cascading prompts are supported at run time.

  • New exporting dialog box supports exporting to an editable RTF format.

  • New JavaServer Faces version of the DHTML report page viewer is available for use.

 

New Web Intelligence and Desktop Intelligence document viewer component

  • View Web and Desktop Intelligence documents.

  • Supports Interactive Editing.

  • Provided in both JSP and ASP. NET.

  • Works in InfoView or in a separate web application.

  • Easy to integrate in an application via URLs.

  • Easy to extend via a simple events mechanism.

  • Supports development in Eclipse or in Visual Studio. NET.

Report Engine SDK

  • Single API for Web Intelligence and Desktop Intelligence documents.

  • Display both Web Intelligence and Desktop Intelligence documents.

  • New Report Engine . NET SDK. Best of bread integration in . NET based on full managed code that supports all . NET languages (such as C#, VB. NET , J#).

Report Engine Java SDK

  • Ability to change universes or point to another universe.

  • Ability to modify the SQL generated by the query on a universe.

  • Additional reporting capabilities such as support for multiple data provider synchronization, report alerters, formatting (row span/coll span), and custom sort.

  • Additional support for queries such as combined query, subquery, object-to-object comparison, server-side ranks, and index awareness for prompts.

  • Web Intelligence report XML output can optionally include raw data in addition to the current formatted data.

Universe Designer SDK

  • Ability to specify object formatting.

  • Ability to create or edit derived tables.

  • Ability to define index aware objects.

  • Ability to add object descriptions like lineage or mapping information.

  • Ability to set universe parameters that are used in SQL generation.

New JSP Sample Applications

  • 6.5 Document Viewer sample migrated to XI R2 illustrates a migration path for applications based on WI SDK.

  • Document Viewer Integration sample illustrates easy integration of the Web and Desktop Intelligence viewer in an application.

  • Document Viewer Prompts Customization sample illustrates easy prompt customization in the Web and Desktop Intelligence viewer.

New JSP & ASPX Tutorials

  • How to display a Web or Desktop Intelligence document.

  • How to handle prompts to display a Web or Desktop Intelligence document.

  • How to create a Web Intelligence document using the Java Report Panel.

  • How to output a Web or Desktop Intelligence document in XML, PDF or XLS.

  • How to output a Web or Desktop Intelligence document data provider in XML.

  • How to save a Web or Desktop Intelligence document.

 

 

  • The new Query web service allows you to interrogate your enterprise deployment to:

    • find a list of universes,
    • list classes, subclasses and objects in a universe,
    • provide a combination of objects to generate an ad-hoc query,
    • and run the query and get the results back in XML or any other Web Intelligence export format.

  • The Report Engine web service supports Desktop Intelligence documents (for viewing, prompting, and exporting). To improve performance and scalability, a new chunking mechanism has been added to improve large data handling.

  • The session web services supports Active Directory (AD) and a new API exposing the SDK token enables a smooth integration between our web services and openDocument URL reporting.

  • The web services are installed and configured by default by the BusinessObjects Enterprise XI R2 setup, while the previous ANT task remains available for people who want to do a custom deployment.

  • A new publish web service allows users to publish any 3rd party documents to the platform. In addition, people are able to update the resource properties as well as perform basic administration tasks like category/folder renaming and moving.

  • The BICatalog web services has been updated to support the new Desktop Intelligence document type and integrates perfectly with the ReportEngine web service.

  • New sample demonstrates the integration of the Query web services with Visual Studio Tools For Office in Excel.

 

 

  • Crystal Reports fully supports the new ClickOnce deployment of Windows applications introduced in Visual Studio 2005.

  • Code snippets for Crystal Reports are available when building Web Sites or Windows projects using Visual Basic.

  • Several improvements have been made to the CrystalReportViewer control.

  • Accessibility has been improved in Crystal Reports .NET.

  • Crystal Reports .NET supports international characters through Unicode and GB18030-2000, the Chinese character encoding standard.

  • In Crystal Reports .NET, the Preview tab has been added to the embedded Crystal Reports Designer to enable you to preview reports at design time.

  • Project templates can be selected when creating a new web site or Windows project.

  • With Crystal Reports XI R2 and Visual Studio 2005 developers can target a 64-bit platform.

 

 

Dynamic graphic location

  • The Java Reporting Component now supports dynamic graphic location. Dynamic graphic location allows pictures and graphics in a report to be represented by a link stored in a database.
  • This new feature supports the common practice of storing images on a web server and storing references to those images in a database.

Data source configuration

  • A new set of XML tags have been added to the schema in the CRConfig.xml configuration file to support data source configuration information for use with the Java Reporting Component. With these new tags it is possible to set data source configuration information, without a JNDI server or web container.
  • For more information about the tags within CRConfig.xml, see CRConfig.xml Tag Reference.

Exporting features

  • The Java Reporting Component now supports exporting to following new formats:
    • Editable RTF
    • Character Separated Values (CSV)
    • For a list of the export formats supported by the Java Reporting Component, see Export format

Image viewing enhancements

  • The Java Reporting Component features improved report processing, decreasing the amount of time it takes to view a report with images.

RTF text interpretation

  • The Java Reporting Component now supports the interpretation and display of RTF encoded data, inserted as either string fields or memo fields within a report.

Server-side functionality

  • A series of functionality that was only available client-side, through the viewer, is now available server-side, through ReportClientDocument.
  • The following functionality is now available server-side:
  • Exporting
  • Printing
  • Saving (to the file system)
  • Database logons
  • Setting parameters

Thick-client viewer support

  • New to the Java Reporting Component is a thick-client viewer, enabling developers to create thick-client Java applications that view and export reports.

Plain Old Java Objects data access sample

  • A sample application, and API, are provided to demonstrate how to convert a collection of Plain Old Java Objects (POJO) into a datasource usable by Crystal Reports and the Java Reporting Component.

 

 

New API's

  • It is now possible to retrieve the fully qualified database table name for a table item in a report. Use the following syntax:
    report.Database.Tables(#).Qualifiers.Item(#)
    or
    report.Datbase.Tables(#).Qualifiers(#)
    where # is an integer.

Improved Database Connectivity

  • The RDC now uses improved database connectivity drivers, for added data connection manageability and performance.
  • Business Objects Universe support from Crystal Reports - You now have the ability to design and run reports against Business Objects Universe's as a data abstraction layer for your Crystal Reports.
  • Improved native Oracle database driver - The new Oracle database driver supports Oracle OCI v10 libraries, additional Oracle server SQL Expressions, as well as end-to-end Unicode characters in queries and returned data.
  • Teradata database connections - New SQL Expressions to support Teradata database connections.
  • Updated native DB2 driver native DB2 driver now supports Unicode.
  • Improved XML database driver - The new XML database driver supports reporting from web services and http data sources.
  • New Microsoft Exchange 2000/2003 driver - New features include customized reporting on Microsoft Exchange Data, which includes the following:
    • Calendar support (which includes recurring meetings)
    • Journal
    • Inbox
    • Tasks
    • Address Book
    • Contacts (which includes distribution list expansion).

    The 256 byte Field length limit has also been removed. This driver is now multi-thread enabled, which allows it to be used as an multi-threaded enterprise reporting data source.

New Runtime Features

  • New runtime features have been added for optimized financial calculations and image handling:
    • Image locations can be conditionally based on a formula that is calculated at report processing time.
    • Dynamic Cascading Prompts that are created in the Crystal Reports Designer are supported at runtime. Note: Prompts cannot be modified or created with the embedded RDC design-time environmen
    • In the Formula Editor, report designers can choose whether null values are handled as exceptions, zeros, or default values. That behavior is supported at runtime in the RDC, but cannot be programmatically set with the RDC API.
    • New Crystal Reports formulas have been added:
      • urlEncode
      • urlDecode
      • Time Zone functions
      • New rounding calculations, such as Ceiling, Floor, Multiple Round, and Round.
      • Improved Hierarchical Grouping to better support drilldowns and indentation.
      • The viewer and export formats now support images that span multiple horizontal pages.
      • The group sort order can now be conditionally based on a formula.
      • TopN, BottomN, TopPercentage and BottomPercentage values.
      • Support for NT Logon Impersonation for database

Improved Report Design-Time Experience

  • These new features improve the overall report design-time experience, to increase the productivity of report designers:
    • The charting dialogs have been redesigned and streamlined within the Report Designer, to make chart designing more intuitive.
    • A new and improved Printer setup dialog streamlines setting the page and paper size options for your report.
    • The new Printer Setup dialog box makes it easier to set options for the page and paper size of your report

Enhanced Deployment Options

  • Deployment has been enhanced to allow application deployments that work every time.
    • The RDC merge modules are now automatically installed to \Program Files\Common Files\Merge Modules. You have the option to update these merge modules when you run the new Crystal Reports Patch installation service through the Crystal Reports designer.
    • The merge modules support recent versions of InstallShield.
    • Enhanced configurable deployment options allow full control over deployed database and exporting DLLs.

More Descriptive Error Messages

  • The most common error messages now make it easier for system administrators to diagnose problems. For example, the following error messages have seen improvements:
    • Opening Files - Messages that previously returned the text "invalid TLSV record," or only the text "TLSV," now indicate exactly why a file could not be opened, with messages such as "File in use" or "Report file is corrupt."
    • Exporting - The following situations now return more informative errors:
      • The message "Export failed. The report contains a feature which is not supported by the format you are exporting to" appears when the following actions are taken:
        • A report is exported to text when the report contains a subreport in the page header.
        • A report is exported to CSV when the report contains a cross-tab.
        • A report is exported to PDF when the report contains non- exportable fonts, such as some non-True Type fonts.
      • The message "Export failed. The system does not currently proved the required amount of resources" is returned when the system is out of memory or out of disk space for temporary files.
      • The message "Export failed. The requested page ranges are invalid" is returned when an invalid page range is given (for example, 7-4, 0-0).
      • The message "Failed to export" is now returned only when a problem exists in the destination format or the exported document cannot fit in the target format, such as when a very wide report is exported to Excel.
    • Database Connections - When a problem occurs with a database connection, a meaningful error message is returned which, when possible, also includes the specific database SWLSTATE error code.

Improved ActiveX Viewer

  • The ActiveX Viewer has been improved to enhance interactive report viewing with the following new features:
    • From the new Exporting dialog box, you can export reports to an editable RTF format from the viewer. Note: There is no programmatic support in the RDC for exporting to editable RTF.
    • Icons appear in a standard order consistent with other Crystal Reports viewers. The icons have also been updated to be more consistent with the Crystal Reports product.
    • Page drawing performance dramatically improved in many scenarios through new caching of the rendered output.
    • Visual quality of output and printing improved to fully match Crystal Reports preview window, including better support of right-to-left text in languages such as Arabic and Thai.
    • Objects displayed in the ActiveX viewer can be highlighted individually or in groups and then copied or pasted in HTML or Rich Text format to applications such as Word, Excel and Outlook.
    • Page navigation now supports the page-up and page-down keys.
    • Printing now supports multiple page ranges from the print dialog.
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