BusinessObjects™ XI Release 2 for Dummies®

Chapter 8. Adding Dimensions to Your Universe

In This Chapter

• Creating objects

• Creating classes

• Using objects and classes

• Creating a list of values

So you have yourself a brand-new universe — but now you need a dimension. Although that sounds like something straight out of science fiction, in this case a dimension is really just an object that you’ll analyze. To make your BusinessObjects universe truly complete, your dimension needs one or more classes — and a few objects.

Classes and objects are the bread and butter of your universe. They are the data from your data source that you use to create your queries. But they’re also much more than that. The object is really a SELECT statement that is mapped to one or more column in one or more tables in your universe schema. (Here’s the English translation: When you build a query in WebI, the SELECT statement is referenced through the column that your object represents.) A working knowledge of SQL helps you with these tasks. If you’re a bit rusty, check out SQL For Dummies, 4th Edition by Allen Taylor (Wiley Publishing).

In the bigger picture, you include your objects in a class, which is simply a logical container that works like a suitcase (it can hold objects or other classes). You can create a class that’s no more than a single object — though you’re likely to have considerably more objects than that in the class, depending on how much data you have that fits the class.

Classes don’t have any technical mumbo-jumbo behind them, which makes ...