Retrieving Data

  • When using the "in list" feature in Deski, if you are typing items in yourself (rather than picking them from a list of values), the items in your list should be separated by commas. Do not type in any quote marks -- Desktop Intelligence will add them itself -- and do not put a space after a comma. However, if you are filling in a list of values in response to a prompt, you should separate the values with a semicolon, rather than a comma (but still no space between values).
  • If you notice that the objects in your universe aren't refreshed, be sure that when you first log on to Desktop Intelligence that the box labeled "Use is Offline Mode" is not checked.
  • If you get a "No data to fetch" message, and you're pretty sure you should be getting something, check to make sure you have configured your conditions correctly. For example: everything in the student data collection uses upper case letters. Another example: if you are entering a condition for a date in any of the financial data collections, use the full year, in other words, 06-01-2008 (instead of 06-01-08)
  • If you get a "Table or View does not exist" message, check to make sure the data collection is available on the warehouse status page.
  • To determine how many rows your query retrieved, choose "View" from the Data menu, then click on the Definition tab of the Data Manager window. The most recent execution of the query will be listed first, by date and time the query was executed, along with the number of rows retrieved, and the amount of time the database took to execute the query (please note that this time is not the time elapsed on your desktop machine).
  • When first testing a query you may wish to limit the number of rows retrieved to determine if your results are as expected. You can do this by clicking the Options button at the lower left corner of the Query Panel. Select "10 Rows", "20 Rows" or enter another value by clicking "Other" in the Partial Results area of the window. Remember to return the setting to "Default Value" when you are ready to retrieve all rows matching your query criteria.
  • You can use use wildcards in conjunction with the "Matches Pattern" operator to retrieve data that is like a value, rather than exactly equal to it. For example, using a percent sign ( % ) in the condition COA_Fund Matches Pattern 5% will retrieve all funds (to which you have access) from 500000-599999. Similarly, if you're trying to match almost the exact syntax, you can use an underscore ( _ ). For example, COA_ORG Matches Pattern '91_2' will retrieve ORG values 9132, 9142 and 9152.

  • If you have multiple queries in one report (one .rep file), you may want to rename your queries to better describe their use, so that when you go to edit or refresh them, you'll have a better idea of what data you'll be retrieving. To do this, go to the Data menu, and select "View Data" to display the Data Manager window. The General section of the Definition tab contains a field called "Name", which you can reuse to rename the query from the default "Query x with Universe" (i.e., "Query 1 with FINQUERY").

  • If you are trying to create a User Defined Object (UDO), but the universe you are in won't let you (in the Query Panel, clicking on User Objects does nothing, or Deski suddenly quits) try this:
    Log out, delete the .udo file for that universe, log back in and try creating the User Objects again. (Caution! doing this will remove any user objects you previously created for this universe; you will have to re-create them.)
    User Defined Objects all live on your local computer. They reside within one file per universe, in the following path:
    C:\Documents and Settings\<user_name>\Application Data\Business Objects\Business Objects 11.5\Universes\
    (where <user_name> is your user name on your computer)
    The file names will be <universe_name>.udo
    (where <universe_name> is the name of the universe, for example, "FINQUERY.udo" holds your local User Defined Objects for the FINQUERY universe.)

  • You can re-use queries between similar universes, so long as all the result objects and conditions from your query exist in the universe to which you'd like change. To do this, go to the Data menu, and select "View Data" to display the Data Manager window. The General section of the Definition tab contains a field called "Universe", which has a small button with "..." directly to the right. When you first display this window, the Universe field will display the universe against which the query is currently directed. Click the "..." button to display a list of all other universes to which you have access. Choose the one to switch your query to, and click ok. As long as all the objects in your query are available in the new target universe, that universe name will now appear in the Universe field. (This is convenient for switching from the FINQUERY to FINQUERY Template Universe, for example.)
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