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This is an important reminder for all Business
Objects users.
When sending documents to other users
always purge the data first!
If you are a regular Business Objects full client user,
you need to be aware of the cautions about sending and sharing queries:
Sending documents to other users
Business Objects stores the report data and the query structure in the
same file together. If you are going to send a Business Objects query
to another
Business Objects
user,
you
need
to
first make
sure you
are
sending
ONLY
the query,
and not the data.
To purge the data from the report, go to the Data Menu and select View
Data.
Click on the "Purge" button on the Results Tab, click "Yes" to
the dialog question that pops up and then click on "OK". Your report
can
then be
saved and
sent to someone else as just the query, without the data.
To send a document to another user:
After you have purged the data,
with the document still open, go to the File Menu and select "Send to....
Users"
Click on the "To" button. Scroll down until you find the username of
the person to whom you want to send the query. Click on their name and
click Add (or just double-click their name), then click on OK. Check
to make sure you have the correct document and user listed, then click
on OK to send. It is helpful and nice to also send that person an email
to alert them that something is waiting for them in Business Objects
for
them to retrieve and run.
Why purging the data is important
- We must discourage the distribution of data to users who
have not been given authorization from the data stewards to have
access to those data.
This is why it is important to purge the data first. By sending just the query
without the data, you are ensuring that when the recipient refreshes it, they
are viewing the results based on their access, and not yours.We need
to make sure documents are not sitting in InfoView with data in them.
- Our current configuration of InfoView does not secure the data at
the InfoView level, but rather at the database level. This is a problem
that will be corrected with the next version of Business Objects
(version XIr2). Data Administration has been investigating other potential
ways
to avert the current
security problems, but we are mainly concentrating our resources
towards getting people moved to the new version as quickly as possible.
- If you write or edit reports, please take some time to go through
your queries and make sure you remove any and all ssns.
Receiving
and Refreshing reports in full client
To download a report sent
to you, go to the File Menu, select "Retrieve
from... Users"
A list of documents
waiting in your InBox will appear. You may select some or all of them
to retrieve. Once selected, they will be moved from
the zinc server down to your desktop and you can open and refresh and/or
edit them. They will no longer be in your InBox in InfoView.
If you are using InfoView,
you need to take particular note as this affects all the things you can
see in your Personal and
In boxes in InfoView.
Retrieving
in InfoView Log on to InfoView and
go to your InBox. Files other people send to you will reside there. The
file sent to you should not have any information in it yet.
To see the information in the report, click on "Refresh." At
this time, we are recommending that you do not save the documents in
InfoView. If the document contains any personal information of any type
about students or employees, you MUST NOT save it in InfoView.
Document saving options for InfoView users Since the InfoView security does not protect the data, you should not
save documents in InfoView. If you are a regular Business Objects full
client, you can click on "Edit." Business Objects will open, and you
can save the document with your other queries.
If you are an InfoView Only user, you should not save the document.
You can print it, and return later to refresh it again, if needed. Alternately,
you can click on the report, choose "Select all" from the Edit Menu,
launch MS Excel or MS Word, and paste the report into either a spreadsheet,
or into a word document as a table.
Please remember that if you save documents -- whether it's in Business
Objects or Excel or Word or anywhere else -- confidential information
about individuals must be keep in a protected place. We especially must
discourage all users from saving files of any kind that contain users'
ssns.
For additional information about InfoView, please see the InfoView
Overview page. Coming soon: Business Objects version XIr2, which will provide
much better security for corporate and personal documents. All documents
will reside on the server, and all access will be controlled by a username
and password. Please see the information about the Business
Objects upgrade below.
Purging documents
In InfoView, your options are to refresh such that no data will be retrieved,
or delete the document.
The "refresh and remove data" works with any document that has a user
prompt. Simply answer the prompt with a value that will return no data.
For example, if the prompt asks you for a year, enter 1007 instead of
2007.
To delete an InfoView document from your InBox, click on the "delete"
option in the line below the document name. Click on "ok" to the prompt.
Then
click
on the "Refresh List" option in the upper right menu on the screen, and
your list will be refreshed, with the deleted document removed.
Document and Data cleanup
Data Administration will be conducting an audit of all documents on
the InfoView server: this includes documents stored in Personal mailboxes
and/or in individuals' In boxes. If there are data stored in the query
-- particularly personal or confidential data -- the document will be
deleted.
If you have InfoView documents that should not be deleted, please
contact Data Administration. We can work with individuals
and departments to move things into the Corporate
Documents, and can
assist in other ways such as providing appropriate groupings for your
new corporate documents.
Also, now is the time to take a look at your inventory of Business Objects
queries. If you do not need it, you most certainly do not want to go
to the trouble of migrating it to the next version, so either delete
it now or plan to delete it soon.
How does a document become a Corporate Document?
Currently we do not have a way for individual users to save their own
documents to the server as Corporate Documents. However, if you have
an InfoView document that is a being shared with several people, it may
be a good candidate for becoming a Corporate Document. Please contact Data
Administration,
and we will give you instructions on how to prepare the query for publishing,
and then we will publish it for you, in the desired category.
Business Objects upgrade to version XIr2
Given the fact that the current version we are using is out of support,
and also questions about InfoView security, and the need to provide better
access controls
to
an increasing
population
of
Penn
warehouse users, we will be moving quickly to upgrade to the new version
in the coming weeks.
The upgrade will require that you migrate all of your queries.
Queries will no longer reside on your personal desktop or
laptop computers or departmental servers. Instead, all queries will
live on the repository.
This will necessitate that you identify all queries to move to the new
version, and indicate the folder in which they will reside. Data Administration will be assisting users with query migration, query
storage, and related upgrade issues.
The upgrade will require that you reset your password. With
the new version, we will no longer have a situation where Business
Objects ignores the password
at login; your Oracle database password and the Business Objects password
will be kept in sync. In order to prepare for that, all users
will need to go through an initial password-resetting when they are
ready to migrate.
Full Client users will need to install the software. We
will be working with local support providers and users to deploy the
new version of
the 3-tier client, now known as "DeskI" or Desktop Intelligence. This
will no longer be a simple push from a website; the install package
will be something that must be downloaded, unzipped, and installed
by following a scripted set of steps. Only registered Penn full-client
Business Objects users will be authorized to install DeskI.
TO PREPARE for all this:
- Please do an inventory of your queries as soon as possible, and
get rid of anything you don't want to migrate.
- Please make sure you know who your local support provider is.
- Please watch for -- and read -- coming communications from Data
Administration about the upgrade. We will be disseminating information
via the listservs,
at user group meetings, and through your local support providers.
rev. 4/20/2007 |
