BusinessObjects™ XI Release 2 for Dummies®

Chapter . Introduction

BusinessObjects XI Release 2 is an industry-leading suite of tools for reporting, query-and-analysis, performance management, and information management. The tools that make up the suite allow you to access, format, and share data, as well as analyze the information this data contains and measure your organization’s performance.

About This Book

For new users, business intelligence can seem dauntingly complex. BusinessObjects XI Release 2 For Dummies is an introductory-level book that helps you get started viewing and creating reports, building powerful queries on your organization’s database, and measuring your company’s performance — all without bombarding you with industry jargon and overly complex technical explanations.

The authors of this book have a combined experience of over 15 years of working with BusinessObjects tools; many of those years were spent working for the Business Objects company at its Paris headquarters. We combine and simplify — in a single book — what the official user documentation spreads across a large number of electronic manuals.

Foolish Assumptions

We wrote this book with certain assumptions in mind:

✓	You’ve recently encountered the BusinessObjects suite for the first time and are trying to get to grips with it, or that you want to take your knowledge of the system to the next level.
✓	You have a general familiarity with the personal computer, and you know your way around a basic user interface such as the one found in Microsoft Word ...