Contents
Introduction
Would you like to do one or more of the following:
- ad-hoc analysis of your Siebel data, drilling down through multiple levels of detail, and "slicing and dicing"
to find trends and correlations within the data?
- let your users develop their own reports with no need for them to understand anything about the way Siebel stores its data?
- free your IT department from the need to spend hours and days writing Siebel Reports?
- use BusinessObjects as your corporate standard report writer across all applications, including Siebel?
- be able to deploy new reports to users without having to change your Siebel configuration?
- do all of this for all your Siebel users, whether they are directly connected or users of "Siebel Remote"?
- ensure that users can only access data to which they are authorised by the business rules defined in Siebel?
- improve the performance of Siebel Reports?
Business Intelligence for Siebel does all of this and more by integrating the world’s leading Query, Reporting and Analysis product,
BusinessObjects from the company of the same name, directly into Siebel.
This short document explains how you can easily implement all of this functionality in your Siebel implementation. For readers who
are already users of BusinessObjects, we would suggest that you skip directly to the section called "Integrating BusinessObjects and Siebel".
First, however, we provide some information on the capabilities of BusinessObjects.
Business Objects
Report end-users are running up against the limits inherent in traditional reporting tools. Users need immediate access to the data
stored in their information systems. Staff at all levels need to be able to create dynamic reports as and when they are required,
giving them the ability to analyse the data present.
BusinessObjects is a user-friendly Business Intelligence tool which is designed to allow end-users to analyse data stored in multiple
sources. BusinessObjects allows users to have quick and easy access to vital decision making data in a straightforward fashion. BusinessObjects
can be used for both simple reports highlighting key statistics, or interactively, to analyse business information.
Of course, such a tool would be useless were it not easy to use. Fortunately BusinessObjects employs a intuitive user interface
enabling users to quickly analyse information and produce reports. This greatly reduces the burden on IT staff, allowing them to
concentrate on more important issues.
BusinessObjects lets users use their standard business terminology, shielding them from the complexities of database schemas and
SQL. Reports utilising charts, tables, graphics and hyperlinks can be constructed using a simple drag-and-drop interface. Report creation
and data analysis are both combined into a single unified interface, simplifying user training.
Sample BusinessObjects Report
The BusinessObjects data analysis features allow users to both drill down into data (e.g. from yearly data to quarterly data)
and slice-and-dice data (e.g. Service request by month, or Service Requests by Account). A multitude of other features including
alerts (to highlight data that meets certain criteria), ranking and variance allow users to gain a deeper understanding of their data.
For more information about BusinessObjects and a demonstration, visit the
BusinessObjects website.
Integrating BusinessObjects and Siebel
BusinessObjects works by creating a "semantic layer", known as a Universe, over the data source from which it is going to report.
Data sources or "databases" are organised into many elements called "tables" and "columns". The tables and columns tend to have obscure
names and complex relationships between them that require an IT professional to understand.
The Universe hides all of this complexity from the person who is going to create the reports by storing in a single place all of
the relationships between the tables and by giving the elements friendly, meaningful names. For example, "Hobby" instead of "S_CONTACT_X.ATTRIB_06".
The report developer then just uses the friendly names and need not worry about the underlying complexity.
Unfortunately, if you try to integrate BusinessObjects and Siebel, you will start to hit problems. These problems split into 2 main families:
Creating the Universe
- There are over 1000 tables in the Siebel database in version 6. This increases to over 2000 in version 7.
Creating a universe is therefore an extremely complicated task even for a skilled IT professional. Unless the person in question
is also an experienced Siebel developer then "extremely complicated" may become "impossible". It is also very time consuming and expensive.
- Siebel comes with its own customisation environment called Siebel Tools. Virtually every customer uses this to change Siebel to
meet the particular requirements of their organisation. Every time you customise the Siebel business component layer in Siebel Tools,
the data model is changed and, therefore, the BusinessObjects Universe must be modified. Even after you have created a universe at great
expense, you are faced with an on going maintenance problem.
- When you upgrade to newer versions of Siebel, the data model is changed and the BusinessObjects Universe must be modified again.
- Constant communication is required between the Siebel developers and the BusinessObjects Universe developers.
There is a large risk of misunderstanding and error.
Integrating Reports into Siebel
- Siebel has "visibility" rules that restrict who can see what data. In the user interface, this is represented by My, My Team’s and
All views. For example, in a sales organisation, it may be decided that representatives can only see the details of Accounts where the
representative is on the sales team.
Organisations naturally require that their reporting tool uses the same data security logic as the application over which they are
reporting. However, it is extremely difficult to re-create Siebel visibility rules in the BusinessObjects Universe.
- By default, Siebel and BusinessObjects are accessed as distinct applications from the user’s desktop. This in itself is slightly
cumbersome.
However, it also means that any reports do not take account of the user’s current query in Siebel. For example, a user may have restricted
the Accounts that they are looking at in Siebel to those in certain countries with a turnover of in excess of a particular amount. If they ran a
report in BusinessObjects, then either they would see all Accounts or would have to re-enter the selection criteria in Siebel.
Business Intelligence for Siebel
Business Intelligence for Siebel solves all of these problems.
Creating the Universe
- Siebel stores all the relationships between tables in the database, and a set of user friendly names for columns in something called
the Siebel Repository. Business Intelligence for Siebel generates BusinessObjects Universe Definitions from the Siebel Repository with just a
few button clicks. This means that:
* no-one in the organisation need understand the Siebel tables and their relationships
* the Universe will take account of your customisations to Siebel
* in the event of upgrade you can simply re-generate your Universe definitions
* there is only minimal on-going maintenance cost
Defining a Universe based on the Siebel Repository
This part of the product is useful, as a stand-alone, to organisations who need to use Business Objects over their Siebel transactional
database but do not wish to restrict the data reporting users can view. A common example of this is users in a marketing department who
are trying analyse trends across a complete customer base.
Integrating Reports into Siebel
- BusinessObjects is called from within the Siebel User Interface. Users are presented with a list of reports that are applicable
to their current view in Siebel.
Calling BusinessObjects from Siebel
- When a BusinessObjects report is run, Business Intelligence for Siebel establishes a connection back to the Siebel application
and finds out the security information (My, My Team’s etc.) for the current view and the details of any Query by Example. It then applies
those rules into the Business Objects report so that users only see information to which they are authorised and which is relevant to their
current context in Siebel.
- Additionally, unlike the standard reporting situation in Siebel, it is possible to add new reports into Siebel at anytime using a
simple administration function rather than via a complete redeployment of the Siebel configuration (.srf file). This means that new reports
can be deployed immediately rather than in a complex release cycle, and much quicker business benefit is obtained.
- Finally, because Business Objects only accesses the database once when a report is run, many reports will run much faster than those written
using the reporting tools supplied with Siebel which potentially access the database many times in a single report execution.
Conclusion
Business Intelligence for Siebel allows Siebel users to easily access all of the generic benefits of BusinessObjects
(easy to use end user reporting, interactive reporting, scalability) as part of their Siebel deployment.
The BusinessObjects Universe is automatically generated from the Siebel Repository and so has no development overhead,
and takes account of user customisations and upgrades. Important security rules in Siebel are seamlessly incorporated into
reports and need not be considered in the development process.
