SAP Business Object Webi Developer Interview Questions & Answers

Question 1. What Are Some Of The Common Bi Report Types?

Answer :

• Analytical reports
• Operational Reports
• Dashboards

Question 2. What Is A Dashboard?

Answer :

A collection of summarized reports is called dashboard. In other words a dashboard is simply an organized way to look at several KPIs at once.

Question 3. What Is A Hierarchy?

Answer :

Group of related dimension objects is referred to as dimension hierarchies. An example of a dimension hierarchy is Geography, which can consist of City, Region, and Country. (Hierarchy is an ordered series of related dimensions, which can be used, in multidimensional analysis) Good examples of hierarchy are geography and time.

Question 4. Pick Five Available Data Sources For Webi Reports?

Answer :

• No Data Source
• Universe
• Accel
• Bex
• Analysis View
• Web Services

Question 5. What Are Some Of The Best Practices In Creating Reports?

Answer :

Limit the number of Data Providers Used

Push down operations towards the Database/Universe which means

Retrieve aggregated data instead of aggregation within the document

Do not (accidentally) disable the cache mechanism of Web Intelligence

Web Intelligence has a great caching mechanism for documents that have already been viewed. Using Cache improves the load time of documents; however there are a few functions within Web Intelligence that will prevent the use of the Cache. 

These functions are:

• Current Time ()
• Current Date ()
• Username ()
• Avoid Auto-Fit When possible
• Avoid Charts with a high number of Data Points
• Limit use of “Scope of Analysis”
• Build lean reports by having as little calculations as possible.
• Use Query filters instead of Report Filters
• Ensure Query Stripping is utilized

Question 6. Your Client Has A Weekly Sales Report And Wants To Know Whether There Was A Decrease Or An Increase In The Current Week’s Sales Compared To The Previous Week. Can That Be Done In Webi? If So How?

Answer :

Yes, you would do that by enabling Data Tracking.

Question 7. How Does Data Tracking Work?

Answer :

Data tracking follows the theme of formatting rules with a difference, that is, its formatting results are determined by comparing two different results.

With data tracking, we can analyze changes over time and are able to track increments and decrements of changes along measures and dimension values.

Question 8. What Different Operators Available To Combine Queries In Webi?

Answer :

Union, Intersection, Minus.

Question 9. What Is The Purpose Of Scope Of Analysis Panel In Query Panel?

Answer :

• It is used to do additional analysis
• It is used to do drill down on data
• It is used to analyze detail of data

Question 10. What Is The Difference Between A Sub Query And A Combined Query?

Answer :

A subquery is a just a query within a query, whereas a combine queries are two or more queries joined together to form a result set.

Question 11. What Is A Universe?

Answer :

Universe is a semantic layer that shows provides users access to database in a business friendly way.

Question 12. Where Is Data Tracking Enabled?

Answer :

By navigating to the Analysis toolbar and then to the Data Tracking tab, we will be able to adjust the data tracking options.

Question 13. What Are The Two Prerequisites Of Passing Parameters Between Reports?

Answer :

• We require a common value that the master report can pass to the target report, which is the same as in merged data providers. The value needs to be in the same type (for example, numeric to numeric object)
• In this method, we require that the target report will have a prompt condition as part of its query filters; this prompt functions as the landing area of the value being passed from the master report.

Question 14. How Does Web Intelligence Work?

Answer :

Web Intelligence provides business users an easy to use interactive and flexible user interface for building and analyzing reports on corporate data over the web, on secured intranets and extranets. The Web Intelligence software is installed by your administrator on a web server on your corporate network. To use Web Intelligence from you local computer, you log into the business intelligence portal Info View via your Internet browser. Then, depending on your security profile, you can interact with the reports in corporate documents or edit or build your own documents using a Web Intelligence report panel or query panel.

Question 15. What Are Different Tools Used To Create Or Edit Web Intelligence Reports?

Answer :

You can create or edit Web Intelligence documents using one of several tools:

• Java Report Panel
• Query – HTML
• HTML Report Panel

Question 16. How Is Web Intelligence Java Report Panel Designed?

Answer :

The Java Report Panel is designed for users who need more flexibility with designing report layout and defining formulas and variables. A graphical Formula Editor enables you to build formulas rapidly using drag-and-drop.

Note: The Web Intelligence Java Report Panel is available if your administrator has deployed Web Intelligence in ASP mode and if your administrator has deployed Web Intelligence in JSP mode.

Question 17. How Is Web Intelligence Query- Html Designed?

Answer :

• Designed for users requiring a pure HTML environment to build data providers, Web Intelligence Query – HTML offers the ability to define the data content of documents on multiple data sources. You can use Query – HTML to create new documents from scratch or edit the data providers in documents created using any of the other Web Intelligence tools.
• Used together with On-Report Analysis, Query – HTML provides a complete solution for building data providers and designing powerful reports in a pure HTML environment. Once you have run the data providers to generate a standard report, you can leverage Web Intelligence On-Report Analysis features to format multiple reports, add formulas, and create variables.

Note: Web Intelligence Query – HTML and On-Report Analysis in Interactive view format are only available, if your administrator has deployed Web Intelligence in JSP mode.

Question 18. How Is Web Intelligence Html Report Panel?

Answer :

Designed for users who need to build basic reports, the HTML Report Panel provides query and report features in a simple wizard-like interface. Each document is based on a single data source and can contain multiple reports, displaying different subsets of information. In addition, the HTML Report Panel is 508 compliant and can be customized for specialized deployments.

Note: The Web Intelligence HTML Report Panel is only available, if your administrator has deployed Web Intelligence in JSP mode.

Question 19. What Information Do You Need Before Logging Into Info View?

Answer :

Before you can use Info View and Web Intelligence you need the following information:

• A URL to the Info View server.
• The Info View server name and port number.
• Your login and password.
• Your authentication, which controls the Info View resources available to you.

Question 20. What Are The Two Ways In Which Data In The Web Intelligence Document Is Edited?

Answer :

There are two ways to open a Web Intelligence document in edit mode:

• View the document first and then switch to edit mode.
• Switch to edit mode directly without viewing the document contents first.

Question 21. What Are Data Providers?

Answer :

• A data provider contains one or more queries that return data from a database. A query requests data from the database. If the data is available, then the requested data is returned by default in the form of a table which contains rows and columns. When you build a query, you are creating a request for information from a database. A request can be very simple, for example; give me total sales in California for the first quarter of last year, or more complicated, for example; give me an average age of customers who bought sweaters during the spring television promotion in Paris.
• Queries are sent to the databases in a language called SQL (Structured Query Language). However, when you use Web Intelligence you do not have to know any SQL. The Web Intelligence report panel presents the information available in the database as objects that have names and meanings familiar to you. These objects are organized in a structure called a universe.
• You build data providers by combining objects in a universe. The universe translates the objects presented in your business language to SQL, and then sends the request for information to the database. Web Intelligence can generate SQL data providers of unlimited length. When the data is returned to the Web Intelligence report panel, it is presented in a table form, with columns that have the same names as the objects that you used in the query. The data is arranged in rows.

Question 22. What Is Scope Of Analysis?

Answer :

• The scope of analysis for a query is extra data that you can retrieve from the database to give more details on the data returned by each of the objects in a query. This extra data does not appear in the initial result document, but it remains available in the data cube, so you can pull this data in to the report to allow you to access more detail at any time. This process of refining the data to lower levels of detail is called drilling down on an object.
• In the universe, the scope of analysis corresponds to the hierarchical levels below the object selected for a query. For example, a scope of analysis of one level down for the object Year, would include the object Quarter, which appears immediately under Year.
• You can set this level when you build a query. It allows objects lower down the hierarchy to be included in the query, without them appearing in the Results Objects pane. The hierarchies in a universe allow you to choose your scope of analysis, and correspondingly the level of drill available.
• You can also create a custom scope of analysis by selecting specific dimensions to the Scope of Analysis pane.

Note: You cannot define a scope of analysis when working in Query Drill mode. Query Drill defines the scope automatically in response to drill actions.

Question 23. What Is The Functionality Of Cube?

Answer :

The scope of analysis for a query is extra data that you can retrieve from the database to give more details on the data returned by each of the objects in a query. This extra data does not appear in the initial result document, but it remains available in the data cube, so you can pull this data in to the report to allow you to access more detail at any time. This process of refining the data to lower levels of detail is called drilling down on an object.

When you run the query, the dimensions included in the scope of analysis are returned to the cube for that document, but are not projected onto the reports that the document contains. They can be added to the reports at any time, without having to run the query again. Values for the dimensions in the scope of analysis can also be viewed by switching a report to Drill mode, and then drilling down to them from the values displayed on the report.

Question 24. What Is An Ambiguous Query?

Answer :

An ambiguous query is a query that contains one or more objects that can potentially return two different types of information. In a universe, certain dimensions may have values that are used for two different purposes in the database.

For example, the [Country] dimension in the query below can return two types of information:

1. Customers and the country in which they spent their vacation.
2. Customers and the country for which they have made their reservation.

The role that Country plays in this query is ambiguous. A country value can be either the country where a vacation was sold, or a country where a vacation is reserved. One is existing information (sales), and the other is future information (reservations). To avoid ambiguities in a query, the universe designer identifies the different ways that objects can be used in the universe, and implements restrictions on how these objects can be combined. These restrictions are called contexts.

Question 25. What Is A Context?

Answer :

A context is a defined group of objects that share a common business purpose. This business purpose is usually the type of information that these related objects represent. For example, a sales context is a grouping of all the objects that can be used to create sales data providers. A reservations context is a grouping of all the objects that can be used in reservation data providers. Contexts are defined in a universe by the universe designer.

You can combine any object within the same context to create a query. You can also combine objects in different contexts. If you use an object that is common to both contexts, Web Intelligence will try to determine the context that best fits the other objects in the query.

Question 26. What Are Incompatible Objects?

Answer :

Sometimes it is not possible to use certain combinations of objects in data providers. This situation arises when objects bear no relationship to one another. These objects are called incompatible objects.

For example, the Island Resorts Marketing universe contains the [Reservation Year] and [Revenue] objects, which are incompatible. This is because there is no revenue associated with a reservation. Revenue is generated only when the customer is invoiced. The underlying database structure reflects this; you cannot build a query that aggregates revenue by reservation year because there is no such thing as revenue by reservation year. In other words, the aggregation context that you specified for the [Revenue] object does not exist.

When you build a query, Web Intelligence generates SQL behind the scenes. This SQL is run against the database to produce a result that Web Intelligence displays in a report. For a query to be free of incompatible objects, Web Intelligence must be able to generate a single SQL query to retrieve the data. If this is not possible, the query contains incompatible objects.

Question 27. How Can Queries Be Combined And What Is The Use?

Answer :

You can combine queries in three relationships:

• Union
• Intersection
• Minus

In a union combination, Web Intelligence takes the all the data from both queries, eliminates duplicate rows, and builds a combined data set.

In an intersection combination, Web Intelligence returns the data that is common to both queries.

In a minus combination, Web Intelligence returns the data in the first query that does not appear in the second.

Question 28. What Is Purging?

Answer :

When you purge data from a document you remove all data from the document, while leaving the document structure intact. If the document contains multiple data providers, you can purge specific data providers within the document.

Question 29. What Is The Different Table Templates Used In Web Intelligence?

Answer :

The different table templates you can use to display information on Web Intelligence reports:

• Vertical tables: Vertical tables display header cells at the top of the table and the corresponding data in columns.
• Horizontal tables: Horizontal tables display header cells at the left of the table and the corresponding data in rows.
• Crosstabs: Crosstabs are useful for presenting results that correspond to the intersection of two or more dimensions.
• Forms: Forms are useful in your report if you want to display detailed information per customer, product, or partner. For example, a form is a useful way of displaying individual customer records with information such as the customer account, name, address, and so on.