Distributing Reports Using Publications

Publishing:

• Publishing is the process of making documents available for consumption.
• The contents of these documents can be distributed automatically through scheduling to various destinations (internal BI inboxes, e-mail, FTP server...).

Publication:

• A publication is a collection of documents meant for distribution to a mass audience.
• Before the documents are distributed, the publisher defines the publication using a collection of publishing data.
• The publishing data includes the publication source, its recipients, and optionally a profile for data personalization.
• A publication object has to be scheduled to distribute its collection of documents to recipients.
• A scheduled publication will generate some instances sent to destinations with a supported output format (Adobe PDF, Excel, ...).

Publications

Publications can help you send information through your organization more efficiently.

It is possible for a new publication to be created either by administrator in CMC or by a granted user in BI Launch Pad. Due to complexity on setting up a publication and the impact on recipients, it is recommended to set up a new publication in CMC by administrators.

Benefits of Publications:

• Enable you to distribute information to individuals or groups of users and filter the information for each principal.

• Delivery of targeted business information to groups or individuals through a password-protected portal.

• Minimize database access by eliminating the need for users to send individual process requests.

Note

You can create different types of publications based either on Crystal Reports reports or on Web Intelligence documents. You can not mix and match report types within a single publication.

Usually, the publisher (the user who owns and schedules the publication) can view all publication instances for all recipients; the recipients can view their own filtered publication instances only.

Note

If you’re a publisher and want to add yourself to a publication as a recipient, use two user accounts for yourself: a Publisher account and a Recipient account. The Publisher account grants you the rights you need when you design and schedule publications, while the Recipient account grants you the rights of a typical recipient.

Definition:

A format defines the file type that a publication's output will be published in.

• A single document can be published in several formats and can be delivered to different destinations.
• Each format you choose will result in an instance of the document.

For publications with multiple documents, you can specify a different format for each document.

• For publications that include Web Intelligence documents, you can publish the whole document or a single report within the document to different formats.
• Any format you choose for a document apply to all recipients of the publication.
• If you want the recipients to receive instances in both a Microsoft Excel file and a PDF format, each recipient will receive both formats.

The following link gives descriptions of each format type:

Publishing Formats

A destination is the location that a publication is delivered to. You can deliver a publication to multiple destinations. A destination can be the Default Enterprise Location, the BI Inbox, an e-mail address, an FTP server, or a directory on a file system.

You can specify several destinations for a publication.

You can publish several Crystal Reports and merge them into a single PDF.

If you want to publish a publication as a single ZIP file, choose to zip the instances on a per destination basis. For example, zip the instances for e-mail recipients and leave them individually for BI Inboxes.

The Deliver objects to each user check box is selected by default for all destinations. However, in some cases, you may not want to deliver objects to each user. For example, three recipients have identical personalization values so they receive the same data in publication instances. If you clear the Deliver objects to each user check box, one publication instance is generated and delivered to all three recipients. If you select the Deliver objects to each user check box, the same publication instance is delivered three times (once for each recipient).

Depending on the size of a publication and how many recipients it is intended, there are several report bursting methods you can choose from:

Definition:

During publishing, the data in documents is refreshed against data sources and a personal filter is applied before the publication is delivered to recipients. This combined process is known as "report bursting."

Depending on the size of a publication and how many recipients it is intended, there are several report bursting methods you can choose from:

• One database fetch for all recipients.
• One database fetch for each batch of recipients.
• One database fetch per recipient.

• One database fetch for all recipients

  When you use this report bursting method, all documents in the publication are refreshed once, and then a filter is applied to personalize data and delivered to each recipient. This report bursting method uses the data source logon credentials of the publisher to refresh data. So this method will consume a single data source access for all recipients and a single filter per recipient.

  Note

  For instance, if you publish a Web Intelligence document to 50 recipients using this report bursting method, a single query will be executed on the data source to get all data (without any filtering), then SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 2025 will apply a personnalized data filter for each recipient before publication delivery.

  This bursting method is used by default for Web Intelligence document publications. It's also the recommended option when you want to minimize the impact of publishing on your database. This option protects data only when the documents are delivered as static documents. For example, a recipient who gets a Web Intelligence document in its original format can change the document and view the data related with other recipients. However, if the document is delivered as a PDF, the data would be protected.

  Note

  • This option protects data for most Crystal Reports.

  • The performance of this option varies depending on the number of recipients.

• One database fetch for each batch of recipients

  When you use this report bursting method, the publication is refreshed, profiles are applied for data personalization, and the documents are delivered to recipients in batches. This report bursting method uses the data source logon credentials of the publisher to refresh data. The batches are based on the personal filter values you specified for the recipients. The batch size varies depending on the personal filter value and isn’t configurable. So this method will consume a set of data source access for each batch of recipients and a single filter per batch of recipients.

  This bursting method is the default option for a Crystal Reports publications. It’s also the recommended option for high-volume scenarios. With this option, you can process batches concurrently on different servers, which reduce the processing load and time needed for large publications.

  Note

  For instance, if you publish a Crystal Reports report to 50 recipients using this report bursting method, several queries will be executed on the data source to get all data (without any filtering), then SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 2025 will apply a personnalized data filter for each batch of recipient before publication delivery.

  This option is unavailable for Web Intelligence documents.

• One database fetch per recipient

  Data in a document is refreshed for every recipient. For example, if there are five recipients for a publication, the publication is refreshed five times. This report bursting method uses the data source logon credentials of the recipient to refresh data.

  This option is recommended if you want to maximize security for delivered publications, but it will consume a single data source access and filter per recipient.

Definition:

Personalization is the process of filtering data in source documents so that only relevant data is displayed for publication recipients.

• Personalization changes the view of the data, but it doesn’t always change or protect the data being queried from the data source.
• If no personalization is applied within a publication, each recipient will see all data without any filtering. Published report data is unsecured in this case (not recommended).

The following diagram illustrates how personalization works. For example, an unpersonalized report contains sales revenues of all three store managers. When personalization is applied to the report in a published publication, each store manager receives only data that is relevant to him. Larry receives only sales revenue for his stores only, Barrett receives only sales revenue for his stores only, and Anderson receives only sales revenue for his stores only.

Recipients

Enterprise and Dynamic Recipients:

You can send personalized publications to two types of recipients:

• Enterprise recipients
• Dynamic recipients

Enterprise Recipients:

• You must apply a publication profile when you design a publication.
• Before you can use profiles to personalize data for Enterprise recipients within a publication, the profiles must be created and configured in SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 2025.
• If you need profiles added to the platform, contact your system administrator.

Dynamic Recipients:

• You can simply map a data field or column in the source document to data in the dynamic recipient source document.
• For example, you can map a Country field in a source document to the Country field in the dynamic recipient source.
• Each publication recipient from the dynamic source document will receive source document data relevant only from his country only.

In the figure above, two french persons (ID 1 = Pierre Martin and ID 2 = Antony Fuller) have been selected from a dynamic recipient source document as dynamic recipients in the publication. To set up personalization for those dynamic recipients, the Country field in the source document has been mapped to the Country field in the dynamic recipient source document. So when publication will be sent to those two french recipients (ID 1 = Pierre Martin and ID 2 = Antony Fuller), they will each receive a document with relevant data, so only data for french employees.

Note

A dynamic recipient source document can be either a Web Intelligence document of a Crystal Reports document located on SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 2025.

Personalization

Definition:

To personalize a publication with profiles, you must set profile values and profile targets for Enterprise recipients in a publication.

Note

Publication profiles are designed only for publication based on Enterprise recipients with global profile targets for personalization. If you are using dynamic recipients with local profile targets for personalization, you do not have to use publication profiles.

Profile Targets and Values:

Profile targets are data sources that give filter values for publications. The two types of profile targets are:

• Local profile target:

  A local profile target can be a variable in a Web Intelligence document or a field or parameter in a Crystal report. When you use a local profile target, the source document that includes the local profile target is filtered for the publication recipients.

• Global profile target:

  A global profile target can be a universe dimension object. This type of profile target can filter all source documents that use the universe.

Profile targets and profile values enable a profile to add a personal filter to a publication for the recipients. The principals specified for a profile receive filtered versions of the same publication that only display the data relevant to them.

Publication Profiles: Targets and Values

Profiles let you classify users and groups principals. Profiles work with publications to filter the content that users see by linking principals to profile values. These profile values are used to filter data within a report. Profiles use profile targets, which define how a profile is applied to a report. By assigning different profile values, the data within a report are filtered to specific principals.

Using a profile to apply a personal filter to a publication is a two-part process.

First, you create the profile in the Profiles area of the CMC. Creating a profile involves these tasks:

1. Create a profile.
2. Add users and groups to the profile.
3. Assign profile values to each user and group for that profile.
4. Specify a global profile target if necessary.

Second, when you create the publication:

1. Add users and groups to a publication as recipients.
2. Specify a local profile target for the profile to filter (for example, a field in a Crystal report).
3. Specify the profile or profiles that will be used for personalization.

Watch this video to see how to create a profile in the Profile area of the CMC.

• Publishing involves making documents available for distribution, with automatic scheduling to various destinations.
• Publications are collections of documents distributed to a mass audience, defined by publishing data including source, recipients, and personalization profiles.
• Publications enable targeted information distribution, minimize database access, and can be based on Crystal Reports or Web Intelligence documents.
• Documents can be published in multiple formats (e.g., PDF, Excel) and delivered to various destinations like email, FTP, or BI Inbox.
• During publishing, data is refreshed and filtered for recipients; personalization ensures only relevant data is displayed for each recipient.