BusinessObjects™ XI Release 2 for Dummies®

Chapter 6. Defining a Universe

In This Chapter

• Discovering the universe (the BusinessObjects version of it, anyway)

• Importing universes

• Saving a universe (you don’t have to be a superhero)

• Exporting a universe

You’re now well on your way to setting up your universe in BusinessObjects. (Remember, in BusinessObjects-speak, a universe is the buffer between the user and data in a data warehouse containing objects and classes.) Oh, wait — you mean you thought that you were done in Chapter 5? Hardly! Up to this point, you’ve created a universe, but you’ve basically created just the shell of a universe. You’re miles (hey, at least it isn’t light-years) away from being able to create your first report or document.

Creating a BusinessObjects universe can be compared to a creating a house. In Chapter 5, you laid a foundation for your universe to fall back on. Before you get too deep into creating a universe, it may help you to work with other universes that other developers have already created. In fact, BusinessObjects provides (for example) a number of sample universes that can get you started. We go into what to expect before you start diving in and creating your own universes.

There’s more to BusinessObjects universes than just creating them; you can open other universes in your BusinessObjects installation, or even import one, (which has far greater effects). After you create a universe, you might want to save it for future use or even export it to help train a colleague later on. Who knows ...