SAP BO Universe LOVs

Points to be taken care about Universe LOVs

Introduction

This post explains few points to be taken care by the universe designers while associating list of values for attributes in the universes. This demonstrates how LOVs impact the space consumption in the server and how/what can be done to minimize this impact. This does not, though, explains all the delete rules for old report instances, or other space cleanup activities etc for a BO installation.

Demonstration:

Step 1:

Create a blank report and add one query filter (I have used my practice universe to demonstrate)

Set Prompt with list of values as shown below:

Step 2:

Add Resource Name (we may add any object, this is just to be able to refresh the report) in the result objects pane.

Step 3:

Click Run Query

Step 5:

Now go to the BO installation box and navigate to <<BO installation directory>>/Business Objects 12.0/Data/<<ServerName>>_6400/storage/universes

We see one temporary folder and one temporary .UNV file created for one universe which holds the LOVs temporarily for every instance of all reports running against one universe. These folders are named with the CUID of the universe in CMC and it contains .LOV files for each object (once refreshed for LOVs). LOV files are updated and added values as and when refreshing the DB updates the list of values retrieved.

Total Size of the folder is:

Step 6:

Now I added one more object in Query objects say OBS Path and set it to prompt it with list of values. Click “Run Queries”.

Step 7:

Total Size of the folder is:

Notice that if refreshing only two fields with list of values in one instance of any report generates 1.05 MB of data, then it would grow in GBs very quickly if all the users are using their reports on frequent basis.

Note: for one object,once refreshed, again refreshing the LOVs would not increase the size of temporary folders. 

Remediation:

1. Delete these folders from the server time to time.
2. Do not associate list of values for all the objects at the universe level where it does not make sense.

By default, list of values are associated to all the objects. So, we should remove association of LOVs for all objects where this does not make sense for end users.

How to do it:

1. As in my case, Resource Key contains internal ID of the resource which does not make sense to end user.
2. Go to the respective universe in the universe designer.
3. Right click on the Resource Key object.
4. Object properties.
5. In Properties sub tab, uncheck “Associate a List of Values”
6. Click on Apply and OK.

Save the universe and export it.

For such objects, Prompt with list of values option will be disabled in the filter pane -> filter properties.

And That's it.

Thank you for reading. 

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