Portal Integration Kit Administrator's

Guide for Microsoft SharePoint

SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 Service Pack 3

windows
Copyright © 2010 SAP AG. All rights reserved.SAP, R/3, SAP NetWeaver, Duet, PartnerEdge,
ByDesign, SAP Business ByDesign, and other SAP products and services
mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered
trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and other countries. Business Objects and the
Business Objects logo, BusinessObjects, Crystal Reports, Crystal Decisions, Web
Intelligence, Xcelsius, and other Business Objects products and services mentioned
herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks
of Business Objects S.A. in the United States and in other countries. Business
Objects is an SAP company.All other product and service names mentioned are
the trademarks of their respective companies. Data contained in this document
serves informational purposes only. National product specifications may vary.These
materials are subject to change without notice. These materials are provided by
SAP AG and its affiliated companies ("SAP Group") for informational purposes
only, without representation or warranty of any kind, and SAP Group shall not be
liable for errors or omissions with respect to the materials. The only warranties for
SAP Group products and services are those that are set forth in the express
warranty statements accompanying such products and services, if any. Nothing
herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty.

2010-05-24
Contents
Chapter 1 Welcome to the BusinessObjects Enterprise XI Portal Integration
Kit 5
About this guide...........................................................................................6
Who should read this guide....................................................................6

Chapter 2 Configuring Your Deployment 7

Overview......................................................................................................8
Configuring BusinessObjects Enterprise for your SharePoint deployment..8
Security and Single Sign On..................................................................8
User and group rights.............................................................................9
Additional configuration settings..................................................................9
Specifying a server for viewing reports................................................10
Using parameters.................................................................................11
Scheduling and scaling recommendations................................................12
Exporting reports..................................................................................12
Data source information.......................................................................13
Availability column................................................................................13
Report rights.........................................................................................13
Miscellaneous settings and considerations...............................................13
Determining specific IDs for locations or reports..................................14
Performance Improvement...................................................................14
Crystal Reports considerations..................................................................15

Chapter 3 Building Customized Web Parts 17

Communication interfaces.........................................................................18
List web part..............................................................................................18

Portal Integration Kit Administrator's Guide for Microsoft SharePoint 3

Contents

List integration......................................................................................18
Viewer web part.........................................................................................19
Viewer integration.................................................................................20

Chapter 4 Troubleshooting 23
Trace Exceptions.......................................................................................24

Appendix A More Information 25

Index 29

4 Portal Integration Kit Administrator's Guide for Microsoft SharePoint

Welcome to the
BusinessObjects Enterprise
XI Portal Integration Kit

1
1 Welcome to the BusinessObjects Enterprise XI Portal Integration Kit
About this guide

About this guide

This guide details configuration and troubleshooting information for the
BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 Portal Integration Kit.

Who should read this guide

This guide is intended for the following audiences:

• administrators who want to know how to configure BusinessObjects
Enterprise to work with the BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 Portal
Integration Kit.
• portlet developers who want to know how to create customized portlets

Familiarity with your portal server is essential, as is a good working knowledge

of both Crystal Reports and BusinessObjects Enterprise.

6 Portal Integration Kit Administrator's Guide for Microsoft SharePoint

Configuring Your
Deployment

2
2 Configuring Your Deployment
Overview

Overview
There are many possible configurations for your SharePoint deployment.
This chapter provides detailed information about configuring BusinessObjects
Enterprise and on scheduling and setting report properties to maximize their
effectiveness for Information Consumers. This chapter requires that you
have experience in using and administering BusinessObjects Enterprise.
For more information on BusinessObjects Enterprise, refer to the SAP
BusinessObjects Enterprise Administrator's Guide, which is found in your
BusinessObjects Enterprise product distribution.

Configuring BusinessObjects Enterprise

for your SharePoint deployment
When you first install the BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 Portal Integration
Kit, you may need to configure or update certain settings within
BusinessObjects Enterprise to optimize your deployment.

Note:
After you install the BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 Portal Integration Kit,
no icons or shortcuts are added to your Start menu.

Security and Single Sign On

The BusinessObjects Enterprise XI Portal Integration Kit supports Windows

Active Directory and Windows NT Authentication automatic Sign On with
your BusinessObjects Enterprise deployment. Automatic Sign On is enabled
when the value is set to true in the web.config file.

After installing the BusinessObjects Enterprise XI Portal Integration Kit, you

need to ensure that your BusinessObjects Enterprise security settings are
set correctly. Otherwise, your users may see the following error message
when they attempt to access the portal:

"Unable to access the BusinessObjects Enterprise infras

tructure at servername to username. The infrastructure
may not be accessible, or you have not been granted ac
cess using automatic sign-on with authenticationmode.

8 Portal Integration Kit Administrator's Guide for Microsoft SharePoint

 Configuring Your Deployment
Additional configuration settings 2
Contact your reporting administrator for further details
on availability."
If you are using LDAP, NT, or AD authentication, ensure the following items
are set:
• BusinessObjects Enterprise Credential Prompt is set to false
• Your LDAP, NT, or AD deployment is set up properly
• Your portal user names match the aliases in your authentication system

Note:
If you are using Enterprise or LDAP authentication to sign on automatically,
the BusinessObjects Enterprise XI Portal Integration Kit will attempt to log
on with the portal user's name and a blank password. Please ensure that
your CMC authentication is setup to handle this situation.
For more information, see the “BusinessObjects Enterprise Security Concepts”
section in the SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise Administrator's Guide.

User and group rights

If users do not have View On Demand rights to reports that do not have
instances in the BusinessObjects Enterprise system, they will see an
“Unavailable” status (and no hyperlinks) in the Availability column of the
listing web part.

Users need View rights to see reports in the list; they need View On Demand
rights to access reports in real-time (versus reports that have been scheduled
and run beforehand).

To ensure that all users have View rights, in the BusinessObjects Enterprise
Central Management Console, add your users to the Everyone group and
then give this group View rights to specific folders that contain reports that
are accessed by SharePoint. For more information about setting user rights,
see the “Controlling User Access” section in the SAP BusinessObjects
Enterprise Administrator's Guide.

Additional configuration settings

This section provides information about optional BusinessObjects Enterprise
settings that you can configure for your SharePoint deployment.

Portal Integration Kit Administrator's Guide for Microsoft SharePoint 9

2 Configuring Your Deployment
Additional configuration settings

Specifying a server for viewing reports

By default, the reports that Information Consumers view are processed by

the the BusinessObjects Enterprise Page Server. If the page server is not
available, the Report Application Server (RAS) will be used.

If you want to configure the system to use the RAS to process reports, create
a new Server Group for your RAS in BusinessObjects Enterprise. Then,
specify this server group in all of the reports. (Alternatively, you can stop the
Page Server.)

For more information about server groups, see “Managing Server Groups”
in the SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise Administrator's Guide.

To specify the server that a report object uses

1. In the Objects management area of the Central Management Console

(CMC), select an object by clicking its link.
2. Click the Process tab.
3. In the Default Servers To Use For Viewing area, choose one of the three
options:
• Use the first available server

BusinessObjects Enterprise will use the server that has the most
resources free at the time of viewing.
• Give preference to servers belonging to the selected group

This option will attempt to process the object from the servers that are
found within the server group that you select from the list. If the
specified servers are not available, then the object will be processed
on the next available server.
• Only use servers belonging to the selected group

This option ensures that BusinessObjects Enterprise will use only the
specified servers that are found within the server group that you select.
If all of the servers in the server group are unavailable, then the object
will not be processed.

4. Click Update.

10 Portal Integration Kit Administrator's Guide for Microsoft SharePoint

 Configuring Your Deployment
Additional configuration settings 2

Using parameters

Parameter prompts work with the BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 Portal

Integration Kit only when you view reports in real-time (unless the parameter
is a stored procedure). In the Central Management Console, you must ensure
that the Prompt the user for new value(s) when viewing check box is
selected; otherwise, the values of the prompts in the report cannot be
changed by the Information Consumer. (The prompts will be disabled if they
are displayed in a web part.)

Tip:
• If your report contains parameters, users who view the report require
View On Demand (or greater) rights.
• To allow Information Consumers to modify parameter values, the reports
that they view must be real-time reports. However, real-time reports can
be resource-intensive; therefore, to reduce the processing load on your
BusinessObjects Enterprise services, you should use scheduled reports
whenever possible.
• If you have one report that has two uses (for example, real-time filtering
and general viewing by date), separate the usage by having two copies
of the report. For real-time filtering, allow users to view the report on
demand (which is resource intensive); for general viewing by date,
schedule the report to run as often as required. By separating the usage,
this method results in less impact on your system resources, because
only the real-time filtering report needs to be viewed on demand.

To specify parameter settings

1. In the Objects management area of the CMC, select a report object by

clicking its link.
2. Click the Process tab, and then click the Parameters link.
3. Under the Value column, select the value that is associated with the
parameter that you want to change.
4. Select the Prompt the user for a new value(s) when viewing check
box to ensure that your users are prompted when they view the report
instance through their web part.
5. Click Submit.

Portal Integration Kit Administrator's Guide for Microsoft SharePoint 11

2 Configuring Your Deployment
Scheduling and scaling recommendations

Scheduling and scaling recommendations

BusinessObjects Enterprise schedules, processes, and runs reports, general
scheduling and scaling recommendations that apply to BusinessObjects
Enterprise also apply to the BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.0 Portal
Integration Kit. Use the Central Management Console (CMC) to specify the
different scheduling properties for your reports. For more scheduling
recommendations, see the “Scaling Your System” section in the SAP
BusinessObjects Enterprise Administrator's Guide.

Tip:
• When you have reports that need to be updated regularly, schedule
reports to run as required if the users are going to access the same set
of data.
• When you need to view a report, schedule and run the report instead of
viewing it on demand. Scheduled reports are less resource-intensive.
• When assigning View On Demand rights, note that every time a user
(with the proper rights) refreshes a report, the report accesses the data
source. In addition, the Page Server or the Report Application Server
processes the request.
• When designing your portal, be wary of mixing web parts that contain
real-time views from the BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.0 Portal
Integration Kit along with other parts from different vendors that are page
refresh intensive. Whenever a page refresh occurs, everything that is
contained in the web page is refreshed. Thus, if the web page contains
a stock ticker that refreshes every ten seconds, any reports contained in
the same web page also refreshes.

Exporting reports

For performance reasons, set export options (Microsoft Excel, Adobe Acrobat,
and so on) at schedule time when possible. When users export a report
dynamically by selecting the alternative format viewing options on the toolbar,
this request is more process and resource intensive.

12 Portal Integration Kit Administrator's Guide for Microsoft SharePoint

 Configuring Your Deployment
Miscellaneous settings and considerations 2

Data source information

Set your database logon information for your reports through the CMC;
otherwise, users will need to log on to the database every time they refresh
or view a report.

Availability column

In your portal, note that the Availability column in a web part is not driven by
the status of a scheduled instance (for example, a recurring instance). The
Availability information comes from the default value that is specified in the
CMC for the report object.

To ensure that the Availability column displays the most appropriate

information for the report, do the following: in the Central Management
Console, select the schedule option for the report and then click the Update
button.

Report rights

If your report contains parameters, users who view the report require View
On Demand (or greater) rights.

If you are using the Page Server to view the summaries of different reports,
you need to grant your users Edit rights.

Miscellaneous settings and

considerations
This section provides information on identifying report instances and on
creating Crystal reports.

Portal Integration Kit Administrator's Guide for Microsoft SharePoint 13

2 Configuring Your Deployment
Miscellaneous settings and considerations

Determining specific IDs for locations or reports

Your Web Site Creators may want to access a location or report directly
through the location or report's unique identifier, or CUID. For example, when
a Web Site Creator wants to guarantee that he or she is accessing a specific
location or report, the CUID provides the necessary information.

To determine CUIDs for a location or report

1. In the BusinessObjects Enterprise Admin Launchpad, under the “Client

Samples” area, select Query Builder.
2. Specify the User Name, Password, and Authentication.
Note:
Ensure that you log on as an user with administrator rights in
BusinessObjects Enterprise.

3. Enter your SQL statement.

• You can enter the following SQL statement to find all the CUIDs that
are related to the World Sales Report:

select si_ID, si_CUID, si_name from CI_INFOOBJECTS

where SI_name = 'World Sales Report'
For other reports, replace “World Sales Report” with the relevant report
name.
• If you want to see all CUIDs on the system, type

select si_ID, si_CUID, si_name from CI_INFOOBJECTS

4. Click Submit.

Performance Improvement

To improve the performance of the BusinessObjects Enterprise XI Portal

Integration Kit when you are not using a web farm, you can enable the session
state on the web application server.

14 Portal Integration Kit Administrator's Guide for Microsoft SharePoint

 Configuring Your Deployment
Crystal Reports considerations 2

To enable the session state

1. Open the web.config file.

2. Remove the comment identifiers from the parameter that is used to create
a Session object in the HttpModules section of the web.config file.
The result should look like the following:

<add name="Session" type="System.Web.SessionState.Ses

sionStateModule"/>

3. Set enableSessionState to true in the pages declaration.

<pages enableSessionState="true" enableViewState="true"

enableViewStateMac="true" validateRequest="false" />
Note:
If you do not enable the session state, the Portal Integration Kit will
continue to operate in a stateless mode.

Crystal Reports considerations

When you create a report, follow these recommendations:
• Set the background of your report to be transparent in color.
• Make maximum use of your screen resolution and space for your report
parts.
• Ensure that parameter names are short and that parameter descriptions
are meaningful and useful, because your end users—Information
Consumers—will see the parameter names and descriptions in the toolbar.

For detailed information about creating Crystal reports, refer to the Crystal
Reports User's Guide, which is included in your Crystal Reports product
distribution.

Portal Integration Kit Administrator's Guide for Microsoft SharePoint 15

2 Configuring Your Deployment
Crystal Reports considerations

16 Portal Integration Kit Administrator's Guide for Microsoft SharePoint

Building Customized Web
Parts

3
3 Building Customized Web Parts
Communication interfaces

Communication interfaces
This chapter provides information on communication interfaces for web part
developers. Using this chapter as a reference guide, you can create web
parts that communicate with web parts from the BusinessObjects Enterprise
XI Portal Integration Kit.

For more information about Microsoft web part communication interfaces,

search for Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.Communication
Namespace documentation in MSDN.

Note:
A CUID is the unique cluster ID for an InfoObject within BusinessObjects
Enterprise. For more information about CUIDs and objects, see the SAP
BusinessObjects Enterprise .NET SDK Guide or the SAP BusinessObjects
Enterprise Java SDK Guide, at https://boc.sdn.sap.com/developer/library/

List web part

The List web part sends the chosen document and the active folder to its
surrounding environment through the various web part communication
interfaces. The List web part can receive the location that it needs to make
active using the web part communication interface or the portal page URL
query string.

List integration

Web part integration for developers occurs through the use of the Microsoft
defined communication interfaces.

The Document List web part makes use of the ICellProvider, ICellConsumer,
IRowProvider, and IRowConsumer interfaces.

The interfaces expect the following structured information for the Document
List web part:

18 Portal Integration Kit Administrator's Guide for Microsoft SharePoint

 Building Customized Web Parts
Viewer web part 3
Interface Description

Single cell with CUID, ID, full name,

ICellConsumer or partial name as value of the loca-
tion (folder or category).

Single cell that will contain the CUID

ICellProvider
of the location (folder or category).

Location and Document as two

columns with a single row. The val-
ues in the cell must contain the CUID,
IRowConsumer ID, full name, or partial name as the
value for the location (folder or cate-
gory) and the document (any se-
lectable object type in the list).

Location and Document as two

columns with a single row of data.
The values in the cells will be the
IRowProvider
CUID of the location (folder or cate-
gory) and the selected document
(selected object in the list).

Viewer web part

There are two viewer web parts: the Crystal Report View web part and the
Document View web part. The Crystal Report View web part is used to view
Crystal reports, and the Document View web part is used to view several
object types, including Crystal reports and PDF documents.

The Crystal Report View web part can receive the report that it needs to
make active via the web part communication interface or the portal page
URL query string. The Crystal Report View web part can send active reports

Portal Integration Kit Administrator's Guide for Microsoft SharePoint 19

3 Building Customized Web Parts
Viewer web part

to another web part through the communication interface. The Crystal Report
View web part is also able to send and receive prompts.

The Document View web part can receive an object type that it needs to
make active via the web part communication interface or the portal page
URL query string.

Viewer integration

The viewer web part supports the following interfaces:

Interface Description

Location and Document as two

columns with a single row. The val-
ues in the cell must contain the CUID,
IRowConsumer ID, full name, or partial name as the
value for the location (folder or cate-
gory) and the document (any se-
lectable object type in the list).

Location and Document as two

columns with a single row of data.
The values in the cells will be the
IRowProvider
CUID of the location (folder or cate-
gory) and the selected document
(selected object in the list).

20 Portal Integration Kit Administrator's Guide for Microsoft SharePoint

 Building Customized Web Parts
Viewer web part 3
Interface Description

Parameter values that will be used

for the current report that is being
viewed. Parameter and Value as two
columns with one or more rows signi-
fying the parameter and its chosen
value.

The parameter field values must be

IListConsumer made up from subreportname.pa
rametername, where subreport
name is the optional case-sensitive
name of the subreport followed by a
period. The parametername is the
case-sensitive name of the parame-
ter. Value corresponds to a string
value that will be converted to the
parameter-specific format.

Parameter values used by the current

report that is being viewed. Parame-
ter and Value as two columns with
one or more rows signifying the pa-
rameter and its chosen value.

The parameter field values must be

made up from subreportname.pa
IListProvider rametername, where subreport
name is the optional case-sensitive
name of the subreport followed by a
period. The parametername is the
case-sensitive name of the parame-
ter. Value corresponds to a string
value that will be converted to the
parameter-specific format.

Portal Integration Kit Administrator's Guide for Microsoft SharePoint 21

3 Building Customized Web Parts
Viewer web part

22 Portal Integration Kit Administrator's Guide for Microsoft SharePoint

Troubleshooting

4
4 Troubleshooting
Trace Exceptions

Trace Exceptions
In some instances, where you need to provide detailed information on an
issue (for example, when consulting with Business Objects technical support
staff), you can enable tracing. To enable tracing, you need to modify the
web.config file manually and change the BusinessObjects Enterprise
Trace Enabled key to True:

<appSettings>

<!-- Displaying problem tracking messages in web part

pages -->
<add key="BusinessObjects Enterprise Trace Enabled" val
ue="True" />
</appSettings>

Tracing provides you with stack trace information and web page configuration
options that can help you to understand any issues in greater detail. For
example, if you see an unexpected error message, and tracing is enabled,
the tracing information is listed at the bottom of the same web page where
the error occurred. Scroll down to see the tracing information provided by
SharePoint for the web part.

Note:
Tracing is a resource-intensive option and should only be enabled when
necessary.

24 Portal Integration Kit Administrator's Guide for Microsoft SharePoint

More Information

A
A More Information

Information Resource Location

SAP BusinessObjects product

http://www.sap.com
information

Select http://help.sap.com > SAP BusinessObjects.

You can access the most up-to-date documentation cover-

ing all SAP BusinessObjects products and their deployment
at the SAP Help Portal. You can download PDF versions
or installable HTML libraries.
SAP Help Portal Certain guides are stored on the SAP Service Marketplace
and are not available from the SAP Help Portal. These
guides are listed on the Help Portal accompanied by a link
to the SAP Service Marketplace. Customers with a mainte-
nance agreement have an authorized user ID to access
this site. To obtain an ID, contact your customer support
representative.

http://service.sap.com/bosap-support > Documentation

• Installation guides: https://service.sap.com/bosap-inst
guides
• Release notes: http://service.sap.com/releasenotes
The SAP Service Marketplace stores certain installation
guides, upgrade and migration guides, deployment guides,
SAP Service Marketplace
release notes and Supported Platforms documents. Cus-
tomers with a maintenance agreement have an authorized
user ID to access this site. Contact your customer support
representative to obtain an ID. If you are redirected to the
SAP Service Marketplace from the SAP Help Portal, use
the menu in the navigation pane on the left to locate the
category containing the documentation you want to access.

https://boc.sdn.sap.com/
Developer resources
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/businessobjects-sdklibrary

26 Portal Integration Kit Administrator's Guide for Microsoft SharePoint

 More Information
A
Information Resource Location

SAP BusinessObjects articles https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/boc/businessobjects-articles

on the SAP Community Net-
work These articles were formerly known as technical papers.

https://service.sap.com/notes
Notes These notes were formerly known as Knowledge Base ar-
ticles.

Forums on the SAP Communi-

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/forums
ty Network

http://www.sap.com/services/education

Training From traditional classroom learning to targeted e-learning

seminars, we can offer a training package to suit your
learning needs and preferred learning style.

http://service.sap.com/bosap-support

The SAP Support Portal contains information about Cus-

tomer Support programs and services. It also has links to
Online customer support a wide range of technical information and downloads.
Customers with a maintenance agreement have an autho-
rized user ID to access this site. To obtain an ID, contact
your customer support representative.

http://www.sap.com/services/bysubject/businessobjectscon
sulting

Consultants can accompany you from the initial analysis

Consulting stage to the delivery of your deployment project. Expertise
is available in topics such as relational and multidimensional
databases, connectivity, database design tools, and cus
tomized embedding technology.

Portal Integration Kit Administrator's Guide for Microsoft SharePoint 27

A More Information

28 Portal Integration Kit Administrator's Guide for Microsoft SharePoint

Index
C
communication interfaces 18
R
List web part 18 reports
Viewer web part 19 availability column 13
configuring 8 data source 13
BusinessObjects Enterprise 8 exporting 12
overview 8 rights 13
security 8
Single Sign On 8
specifying a server 10 S
user and group rights 9
Crystal Reports considerations 15 security 8
CUIDs 14 servers, specifying 10
Single Sign On 8

D
T
determining specific IDs 14
trace exceptions 24
troubleshooting 24
G
group rights 9 U
user rights 9
L
List web part 18 V
Viewer web part 19
P
parameters 11

Portal Integration Kit Administrator's Guide for Microsoft SharePoint 29

Index

30 Portal Integration Kit Administrator's Guide for Microsoft SharePoint