SAP BusinessObjects is an enterprise business intelligence platform that delivers reporting, analysis, and data visualization capabilities across organizations. The suite combines several tools — Web Intelligence (WebI) for ad-hoc reporting, Crystal Reports for formatted production reports, Universe Designer/Information Design Tool for semantic layers, and the Central Management Console for system administration — enabling users to access, analyze, and share data from SAP and non-SAP sources. A core strength of the platform is its semantic layer abstraction (universes) that shields business users from database complexity, allowing them to build reports using familiar business terms rather than SQL. Critical to understand: proper universe design, security configuration, and performance tuning at both the database and platform layers are essential for scalable, governed BI deployments.
What This Cheat Sheet Covers
This topic spans 15 focused tables and 111 indexed concepts. Below is a complete table-by-table outline of this topic, spanning foundational concepts through advanced details.
Table 1: Web Intelligence (WebI) Report Design
Web Intelligence is the self-service reporting tool most business users live in, and these are the building blocks for shaping a report once the data is in: how you break and section rows into readable groups, where you filter (report-side after the query versus query-side at the database), and the interactive touches — prompts, input controls, alerters, ranking, and drill — that turn a static table into something a reader can explore. The recurring distinction worth internalizing here is when a filter applies, because it determines both performance and what data stays in the document.
| Technique | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|
Insert → Section → Select [Region] | • Splits report into distinct blocks, one per dimension value • each section can have independent formatting and filtering | |
Right-click column → Break → Set on [Year] | • Groups rows visually within a table without creating separate sections • supports headers, footers, and subtotals at each break level | |
Drag [Country] to report filters pane | • Filters data after query execution — removes rows from visible output without modifying SQL • data remains in document and can be unhidden | |
[Year] In list 2025;2026 in query panel | • Filters at query execution time — reduces data retrieved from database • altering query filters requires refresh | |
[Region] = | • Interactive query filter that displays dialog at refresh time asking user to select values • drives dynamic report generation | |
Create input control → Bind to [Quarter] | • Dashboard-style UI widgets (dropdowns, sliders) placed in report or section headers • filter report data interactively without re-running query |