Managing your reports - a guide
Learn how to effectively manage your documents within BusinessObjects.
Document folders
Knowing where to find the documents that matter to you is half the battle in BusinessObjects. See this table for an overview of where reports are stored.
| Name | Where | Used For | Document Storage Limit? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Public Folders | Home > Folders tile > Public Folders |
The place where you can access and find official versions of reports created by content providers. Which folders you can see depends on the type of access you've been approved for. There is also space for teams / departments to store their own reports. If you have student reporting access, this 'team space' will be visible to you in Public Folders > Student Systems > Locally Developed... |
N/A |
| Personal Folders | Home > Folders tile > Personal Folders |
Your personal storage space. We recommend using it to store:
|
Yes - 50 (Not yet implemented) |
| ~WebIntelligence | Home > Folders tile > Personal Folders > ~WebIntelligence |
You can see this folder in your Personal Folders. However, this is a temporary cache folder the system uses to autosave documents while you work. As the contents are frequently overwritten and emptied by the system, you must not use it to store documents. Never copy reports into or out of it; nor should you open any documents you find there. |
N/A |
| BI Inbox | Home > BI Inbox tile |
Documents can be sent between users of the system. If a colleague has sent you a document, it will be visible in your BI Inbox. If the document is important we strongly advise that you copy it from your BI Inbox to your Personal Folder. |
Yes - 30 (When exceeded, oldest is deleted first) |
Best practice tips
Never save documents to the /~WebIntelligence folder
Although located inside your Personal Folder, this is a temporary autosave folder that is frequently emptied and overwritten by the system. See the entry in the table above for more information.
Always copy vital reports from your BI Inbox to your Personal Folder
Do not store vital reports in your BI Inbox, but copy them to your Personal Folder for safe keeping before using. In your Inbox, select the report you wish to copy, then click the ellipsis button '...' > Organise > Copy. Then navigate to your Personal Folders, click '...' at the top right > Organise > Paste.
Share a link to a report rather than sending a copy to a colleague's BI Inbox
Rather than sending a report to a colleague's BI Inbox, you can forward them a link to the report instead, if it's in the Public Folders. Find the report in BI Launchpad, right click its name > Details > Document Link. Highlight the link with your mouse and then press Alt+C to copy it for forwarding
When sending to a BI Inbox, consider sending a shortcut, not a copy.
You only need to send a copy of the report if the recipient doesn't have access to the source folder the document is in, or if they want to make extensive changes to the document's design and data sources. Otherwise, a shortcut will do.
Scheduling Do's & Don'ts
Do not schedule reports to go to BI Inbox.
Especially true if the schedule will run regularly, because the report instances they create count towards the Inbox storage limit of 30 documents.
Instead, configure the schedule to deliver to 'Default Enterprise Location'.
Previous report instances can then be viewed by right clicking the document in Launchpad and selecting 'History'.