Following up on a previous blog post, I thought it might be worth sharing some details about Business Objects’ new Lifecycle Manager tool and its features. The Lifecycle Manager tool is a Java web application that allows administrators to accomplish two important tasks — promotion of BI content from development environments into production, as well as version control of that content. These are two features that are long overdue for Business Objects and will hopefully allow us to replace workarounds like using the Import Wizard to do our content promotion. Let’s take a closer look at these two features.
Content Promotion
The Promotion Jobs section of the Lifecycle Manager application allows you to select objects in one Business Objects system which can then be promoted to another system or output to a BIAR file. The user can set up multiple systems (Development, Test, QA, Production), then create and schedule jobs to move the content from one system to another. The tool will also detect any dependencies, such as the universes and connections used by a report, and allow you to promote those as well with a simple click. The tool allows most types of objects to be promoted, including folders, reports, universes, connections, QaaWS, events, calendars, access levels, business views, users, groups, and profiles. The screenshots below show a typical workflow for this process.
One important feature to note is that when scheduling a promotion, you can set up “mappings” which allow you to use different Connection objects, QaaWS URLs, or Crystal Reports connections between your source and destination systems. This means that you can have your Development system point to development databases, and when you promote the BI content you can automatically have that content point to your production databases. This is a huge feature!
Version Management
The Version Management section of the Lifecycle Manager tool is essentially a front-end for the Subversion version control software. When Lifecycle Manager is installed, the user can choose whether to use an existing Subversion system or to have the setup program install a new instance of Subversion. If you are using an existing SVN system, I do suggest creating a new repository just for Lifecycle Manager.
The Version Management interface provides a seamless method to check BI content into version control directly from Business Objects. The tool connects directly to any of your Business Objects systems. The same types of objects that are supported in Promotion Jobs are supported here — reports, universes, connections, etc. You can easily check objects in and out, view version history for individual objects, or restore deleted objects all from this interface.
For More Information
If you are interested in Lifecycle Manager, it is available for download on the SAP Service Marketplace and does not require an additional license to use. The documentation is also available on help.sap.com:
Monday, February 1, 2010 at 2:09 pm
Ryan,
In your article, you mentioned that “You can easily check objects in and out.” I don’t see this feature to check in/out an object in the User Guide. Can you please explain how I can do this in BO?
Thanks…
Monday, February 1, 2010 at 2:21 pm
Actually, I will revise my original question. From the User Guide, it seems to me that I have to add objects one-by-one into the VMS. The guide just dedicates 2 pages for this feature. If you have more info on this, I would really appreciate it. Thanks again.