Updated - May 20, 2008

You are a partner (VAR, OEM), an application developer or even a power user who needs to deploy Web Intelligence to business users. Does your use of Web Intelligence require any of the following?

look and feel branding for the Web Intelligence application
more control over user workflows to reduce ad-hoc user errors or server overload
workflow simplification for commonly used features
integration of external content (e.g. web content mashups, external applications)
interoperability between Web Intelligence and 3rd party workflows

Since BusinessObjects XI Release2 SP2, Web Intelligence extension points provide a flexible and powerful way to quickly customize the Java client of Web Intelligence XI R2 SP2.

There are two enhancements in extension points (May ‘08):

New extension points that deepen customization capabilities for Reporting and Analysis workflows. So today, the new extension points release supports the entire chain of ad-hoc workflows: from Query to Analysis to Reporting.
Extension points are also applicable now to the Web Intelligence Rich Client released with BusinessObjects XI 3.0 (see http://www.businessobjects.com/product/catalog/web_intelligence/). This means the same extension points written for the Web Intelligence Java Report Panel also can be used with the Web Intelligence Rich Client

Web Intelligence Extension Points

How Can Web Intelligence Extension Points Help Partners and Application Developers?

The new extension points provide a customization API for the Java Report Panel client and Rich Client of Web Intelligence to allow developers to customize various functionalities to meet business needs.

Configure the Web Intelligence look and feel
The most basic and common type of customization can even be done by power users. It involves a simple-to-use, simple-to-understand properties file. Change the splash screen, add logos, remove buttons from the interface to streamline available features for users with different skills and needs. For example:
- Display/hide query & report panels
- Display/hide toolbars: main, reporting, formatting, navigation
- Display/hide frames: data, report navigation map, available charts/tables, the UI for defining report properties
- Customize the branding: Colors, icons/logos

Extend workflows via custom Java classes
Application developers and partners can customize interface event handling and workflows. There are a wide range of capabilities including object and function access, event “listeners” for drag and drop events, metadata extraction, display customization, etc. Developers now have programmatic control to enable a wide range of customization such as:
- Embed query, analysis or reporting workflows directly into another Java Swing application
- Intercept drag & drop events to display messages to guide end-users (e.g. “Based on the Objects you’ve added to your query, you might want to add X, Y filter…”)
- Enable an object’s List of Values to display a user’s preferred list as a complement to the LOV selection
- Create report templates, even invoke the templates based on context of a user’s query (e.g. automatically sectioned by Geo or Year)
- Enable end-users to save an individual table or chart in as CSV
- Define right click copy of a selected column then paste, correctly formatted, into a formula function or Prompt field
- Add a search function to the Report Panel that enables end-users to find additional documents related to their report’s context
- Create the capability for users to Add Comments to a the context of a report
- Expose InfoView’s Discussion Threads within the context of a report to enable end-users to have contextual discussions
- Pull out a table’s values to run through a Business Objects Data Quality routine, enable identification of possible misspellings, redundancies, etc.

Integrate your Web application into Web Intelligence by calling Java Report Panel functions directly.

Manage objects in the query panel
Add custom toolbars

Web Intelligence Extension Points

Complete detailed documentation and samples can be downloaded here. Post questions and discover best practices in our Diamond Community Website.

For DHTML client customizations, check out the Web Intelligence SDK. A complete documentation of this fully supported public API is located at the following URL http://devlibrary.businessobjects.com/BusinessObjectsXI/en/en/RE_SDK/default.htm.

Enjoy! We hope you use this prototype to discover the many ways of customization that can change the way people consume information. Please give us feedback to make sure we know how you're using this and what else you would like to see it do in the future. And remember, this is a prototype only and NOT for use in production environments.