For the past two years I have been wading through the waters of Business Intelligence or BI as it is commonly referred as. I have been developing universes (a meta layer that binds to tables and columns, this is the short definition) and reports as well as modeling data for analytical purposes. My tool set is pretty standard as my company has invested in Oracle as the database and Business Objects XI , also known as BOXI, as the BI analytics tool.
BOXI is a tool that provides end users with the ability to answer their business questions by creating a data cube and slicing through the data. BOXI allows users to choose their dimensions and measures and output the data in various formats (excel, csv, pdf, etc) or a Web Intelligence document. The Web Intelligence document allows the user to drill down, up, and across the cube to find the ‘one version of the truth,’ the holy grail of BI.
BOXI provides an SDK for Java and .net that has allowed developers to embed BOXI reports into web applications, but now there is a new tool for integrating data from BOXI. Hold on, because this is where it gets cool. BOXI Release2 offers ‘Query as a Web Service.’ This tool enables a developer to create a web service through a desktop interface that is then published to an application server. Think of this as ‘black box‘ development. The developer selects dimensions and measures from a universe, provides some filters, and selects the publish button. Presto! There is a soap based web service waiting to be consumed . “But what does this have to do with Flex” you ask.
Flex the Service
By utilizing the Flex 2 framework you can consume a web service in a very few lines of mxml. We consume the service created by Query as a Web Service and then we bind it to a visual component (DataGrid, List, Chart, etc.). Here is a snippet of Flex 2 code that shows how to consume the service.
{userid.text}
{password.text}
{scac.text}
So What’s the Big Deal?
What’s the big deal?! I created a web service based off of a Business Objects universe and deployed it without having to write any code! Then I took the data retrieved by the web service and wrote a few lines of Flex to create a component that can provide my end user with data within any web application or device that has the Flash runtime. Now that’s what the big deal is! Fast and efficient development cycle that produces useful Business Intelligence data without having the user to muck around with the BOXI interface. Well, maybe it isn’t that big of a deal, but it’s still pretty cool.
BOXI is a tool that provides end users with the ability to answer their business questions by creating a data cube and slicing through the data. BOXI allows users to choose their dimensions and measures and output the data in various formats (excel, csv, pdf, etc) or a Web Intelligence document. The Web Intelligence document allows the user to drill down, up, and across the cube to find the ‘one version of the truth,’ the holy grail of BI.
BOXI provides an SDK for Java and .net that has allowed developers to embed BOXI reports into web applications, but now there is a new tool for integrating data from BOXI. Hold on, because this is where it gets cool. BOXI Release2 offers ‘Query as a Web Service.’ This tool enables a developer to create a web service through a desktop interface that is then published to an application server. Think of this as ‘black box‘ development. The developer selects dimensions and measures from a universe, provides some filters, and selects the publish button. Presto! There is a soap based web service waiting to be consumed . “But what does this have to do with Flex” you ask.
Flex the Service
By utilizing the Flex 2 framework you can consume a web service in a very few lines of mxml. We consume the service created by Query as a Web Service and then we bind it to a visual component (DataGrid, List, Chart, etc.). Here is a snippet of Flex 2 code that shows how to consume the service.
{scac.text}
So What’s the Big Deal?
What’s the big deal?! I created a web service based off of a Business Objects universe and deployed it without having to write any code! Then I took the data retrieved by the web service and wrote a few lines of Flex to create a component that can provide my end user with data within any web application or device that has the Flash runtime. Now that’s what the big deal is! Fast and efficient development cycle that produces useful Business Intelligence data without having the user to muck around with the BOXI interface. Well, maybe it isn’t that big of a deal, but it’s still pretty cool.
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