A consistent request from our customer base for quite some time now has been to provide capabilities which enable selected objects and instances to be restored back into their XI environment from a file back up. It is very common in day to day management of an XI environment that report instance or system objects will be removed from the system, only to find later that these files need to be restored back to the system.

"Currently the only solution to this administration challenge is to recreate the files, or to do a complete restore of the full XI environment files from a system back up process. Clearly, restoring the full environment is a cumbersome and weighty process," explains Allan Pym, VP Business Development.

A focused, nimble solution is required to address this challenge, one which can address the time pressures that typically accompany the underlying requirement to restore the files.

"We are happy to announce today that the APOS Archive Manager solution has been enhanced to address these requirements in an efficient and direct manner," said Pym.

The expanded facility within Archive Manager provides:

As part of this solution announcement, we would also welcome additional beta testers to help us with the final rounds of testing of these capabilities. If you would like to get an advanced look at these capabilities, as well as have your input on the solution, please let us know you would like to join our beta test program by emailing apos@apos.com.

APOS BI Tools Training - Who Knew? | Fred Walther, Manager - Pre-Sales

We strive to make our tools easy to install, configure, and use on a daily basis. After all, the reason APOS BI Tools exist is to make life easier for administrators and users of BusinessObjects XI. We now offer formalized on-site training for the APOS BI Tools, to make our solutions even easier to use. Any new software, no matter how well designed, takes some time to learn. Formal training on APOS solutions allows you to shorten the learning curve, and hit the ground running with your APOS deployment. The training materials provided can be utilized as a review, or as an aid when new personnel will be using the software.

Formal onsite training allows you to more easily train multiple people, and when more people in your organization learn how the software works, you are less vulnerable to the potential challenges of having just one "expert" on a given solution.

Because the training is delivered directly by APOS or one of its partners, you are getting the information and materials direct from the source. Exercises provided in the training guides come from real-world examples that we have encountered while working with our clients. While the exercises provided are good, nothing is more effective than using your own data. As such, we can customize exercises to help solve issues that you are experiencing in-house. In this way, trainees will come away with a much deeper understanding of how the tools work, and will be able to apply this knowledge to future challenges.

Key Benefits:

Hit the ground running -- shorten the time to value Develop understanding of all product capabilities and features Train multiple people to diversify knowledge across your team Receive training materials so that lessons can be revisited time and again Learn directly from an APOS representative Real-world examples -- use your own data

Contact us to discuss how we can help with your BI Tools training needs!

Integration Kit for ESRI GIS | New Feature!

Select tool for ArcGIS 9.3

The Integration Kit for ESRI GIS provides bidirectional integration between Business Objects and ESRI ArcGIS Server, ArcIMS and ArcGIS Desktop. Integrating geographical information with business intelligence enables a new form of 'location intelligence'.

Our new select tool for ArcGIS 9.2 SP4+ now supports ArcGIS 9.3 on the .NET platform. Our new select tool adds the following capabilities to the powerful Integration Kit for ESRI GIS.

• Full source code for our new select tool is available, to facilitate customization and integration with existing interfaces.
• Select map features using a buffer. For example, select all fire hydrants within a 300 foot radius of an intersection.
• Features from multiple layers can be selected at once, using any of the selection methods (Rectangle, Circle, Oval, Polygon, Buffer). For example, a user may want to select all parks and schools within a 1 mile radius of a particular intersection.
• X,Y co-ordinates can be painted on the map when called from a BusinessObjects Enterprise report. For example, a report may contain a list of X,Y co-ordinates of missile strikes. These could be posted to the bridge and shown as dots on the map, each with their own Acetate text and Color values.
• The Acetate tag can be positioned in relation to the selected feature: TopLeft, TopRight, BottomLeft, BottomRight, MidLeft, and MidRight.
• New image formats are available: AI, BMP, DIB, EMF, GIF, JPG, JPEG, PDF, PNG, PNG24, PS, SVG, and TIFF.

For detailed solution information, evaluation software, and online web demo, visit here.

Case Study | Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences

"Using InfoScheduler has been very helpful in making us more productive. We are saving about 12 man hours each month." ...Kurt Ehrentraut, Head of Controlling Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences

Tools Used:

InfoScheduler

Background:
The Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences is one of the leading Austrian Universities of Applied Sciences. They offer an internationally recognized, well-established, practice-oriented education at university level at four locations in the central region of Upper Austria. Their second area of competence is to provide the economy with cutting-edge products from their research and development centers.

Challenge:
The Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences Controlling Department needed to provide a better understanding of the business by consolidating all relevant data of a cost center into one report to send to the person responsible for that cost center. With over 140 cost centers, Kurt Ehrentraut, Head of Controlling, wanted to save time and provide all the cost center reports on the 25th of each month.

Prior to using InfoScheduler, the Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences Controlling Department would have to periodically send and store over 100 project reports and over 140 cost center reports. Each report depended on different report parameters, and had to be exported and saved on disk, and then sent to the responsible person in each cost center.

Solution:
The Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences purchased APOS InfoScheduler, and found implementing the software very easy. Mr. Ehrentraut pointed out, "Using the InfoScheduler tool has been very helpful in making us more productive. We save a lot of time!" For his organization, Mr. Ehrentraut finds the most beneficial features of InfoScheduler are the ability to schedule reports, create attachments, and create mail headers with meaningful names.

As a result of the time savings, the Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences is able to redirect the time that is saved on administration. "The most important gain is the monthly procedure of sending the reports and the guaranteed delivery by mail to the recipient of the reports. Because of this measurement, the controlling department can offer a higher level of service."

View the full case study, along with other APOS case studies here.

Contact apos@apos.com to have your company featured in an APOS Case Study.

UNIX and APOS BI Tools | White Paper Now Available

APOS BI Tools work very successfully with BusinessObjects XI systems installed on a Unix platform. This whitepaper is intended to clarify the operation of APOS BI Tools with Unix, and any differences to their operation with Windows based systems. Request the white paper here.

We have added an improved level of Unix support to Bursting Manager recently. You can now schedule bursting definitions from the CMC -- you will not need to use a separate windows scheduler. Read our white paper for full details!

Business Objects User Conference in Dallas, TX October 20-22, 2008
Reporting & Business Intelligence with SAP and Business Objects seminar Orlando, FL - October 27-29, 2008 Copenhagen - January 19-21, 2009

Visit here to request evaluation software download instructions for our ever-growing suite of BI Tools.

Instance Administration and Scheduling . . .

Archive Manager - report instance archiving, with restore capability!
InfoScheduler - power batch scheduling from Microsoft Excel
Instance Manager - administrator power tool for managing instances
Instance Monitor - email notification of failed instances

System Management and Monitoring . . .

Object Manager - report promotion, object & security management
RealTime Monitor - powerful SNMP monitoring & control of servers, with alerts
KPI - metadata for analysis, who is viewing which reports, license analysis, server activity monitoring
RunTime Manager - set availability time windows for Job Servers, Page Servers, etc.

Enhanced Report Distribution . . .

Bursting Manager - burst a large instance into small ones, burst one report to many
Distribution Server - powerful post processing capabilities, zip support, password security and more
Report Package Booster - consolidate reports to password protected pdf/xls and distribute

Application Integration . . .

AddressBook Gateway - integrate Outlook/Exchange with ePortfolio/InfoView "schedule to email"
Integration Kit for crystalreports.com - schedule Webi, Deski, Crystal Reports to crystalreports.com
Integration Kit for ESRI GIS - two-way integration between BusinessObjects and ESRI GIS
Integration Kit for Microsoft Outlook - connect to BusinessObjects XI from Outlook, offline report viewing

Row Level Security . . .

View Time Security - row level data security without C++ development

This newsletter is published approximately 12 times a year, to share information about how APOS BI Tools and services are extending the BusinessObjects platform for companies like yours. If you do not want to receive future newsletters or would like to add someone else to our email list, visit here. If you have any compliments or suggestions, we welcome those too! This newsletter was sent to: [[EMAIL]] Head Office: 1118-100 Conestoga College Blvd., Kitchener, Ontario, Canada N2P 2N6 Tel: 519.894.APOS(2767) - Fax: 519.894.1891 Help Desk: 519.894.APOS(2767) Ext. 1 Branch Offices: 35447 McKee Road, Abbotsford, BC, Canada V3G 3E4 Tel: 604.864.0766 - Fax: 604.864.4291 80-83 Long Lane, London, UK EC1A 9ET EMEA Sales: 44 (0) 207 099 0374 EMEA Support: 44 (0) 208 819 9640 Ext 1  Email: apos@apos.com - Web: www.apos.com

(c)2008 APOS Systems Inc. All rights reserved. APOS BI Tools is a registered trademark of APOS Systems Inc. The Business Objects logo, SAP logo, Business Objects, SAP, Crystal Reports, Xcelsius, WebIntelligence and Desktop Intelligence are trademarks or registered trademarks of Business Objects and its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.