BusinessObjects™ XI Release 2 for Dummies®

Chapter 11. Documents in BusinessObjects

In This Chapter

• Understanding documents and reports

• Creating a document

• Opening a document

• Working with a document

Many users have confused two elements of BusinessObjects for years: the difference between Business Objects (the company) and BusinessObjects (the product) and — oh, yeah — the difference between reports and documents. You can find out about the former in Chapter 1; we talk about the latter in this chapter.

Also in this chapter, we show you how to work with documents with Desktop Intelligence (Desktop Intelligence, or DeskI, is a desktop application installed on your computer that lets you create queries and generate documents). We show you the basics of working with Desktop Intelligence to create a new document or open an existing document — and just to cover all the bases, we explain what a document is in BusinessObjects.

This chapter works specifically with Desktop Intelligence. If you plan on using WebI, see Chapter 13. Both DeskI and WebI have distinct advantages that make both a viable option as a query and reporting tool. However, if you’re looking to simply access documents created by your colleagues or create a report without using advanced features that are available in DeskI, then you might prefer using WebI.

Reporting is the key element of BusinessObjects for most users. If you use BusinessObjects, most of your involvement ...