25+ Tricky SAP BI/BO Interview Questions with SMART ANSWERS

Last updated on 04th Jul 2020, Blog, Interview Questions

SAP BusinessObjects (BO or BOBJ) is an enterprise software company, specializing in business intelligence (BI).Its flagship product is BusinessObjects XI (or BOXI), with components that provide performance management, planning, reporting, query and analysis, as well as enterprise information management.

1) What Are Business Objects?

Ans:

Business Objects are basically called domain objects. A domain model shows a set of domain objects and explains how they related to each other. Hence a business model also will show a set of domain objects and will show the relationship between them.

2) What Is A Universe?

Ans:

Universe is called as the semantic layer between the Database and the one who designs inorder to create the objects and the classes. Universe hence will map to the data in the Database.

3) What Is An Object?

Ans:

Object is just an entity. The object is called as the instance of a class.

4) What Is Business Objects Repository?

Ans:

The term Business objects Repository is the metadata only. Repository will be like a database. Business Object Repository will store business objects like user, data, access styles, access permissions. Business objects Repository is a centralized concept and a set of data structures can be stored.

5) What Is Domain?

Ans:

Domain is called as a logical grouping of system tables.

6) How Many Types Of Domain Are There In A Basic Setup?

Ans:

There are normally 3 types of domain in a basic setup. They are

1. Secure

2. Universe

3. Document

7) What Is Called A Category?

Ans:

category is called as the grouping of various entities.

8) What Is A Bomain.key?

Ans:

BOMain. Key is a file which is containing all the information about the repository site .Therefore it will contain the whole address of the repository security domain.

9) Can We Have Multiple Domains?

Ans:

Yes. We can have multiple domains

10) Which Is The Domain Can’t Be Have Multiple?

Ans:

The domain which cannot be having multiple is the security Domain.

11) When Is The Repository Created?

Ans:

Repository Creation will depend on the version. Repository creation will happen after installing the software in 5i/6i versions after installing the software, whereas in the Xi version the repository will be created at the time of installation.

12) How The Access To The Rows Of Database Is Restricted?

Ans:

The restrictions also will depend on the Version. In XI version we can be done this by using the row-level security in the designer module. In 5i/6i version the restriction of the access to the database is done by the supervisor.

13) What Is The Term Object Qualification Referring To?

Ans:

Object qualification is just representing what kind of object is that. The three types of object qualifiers are:

1. Measure

2. Dimension

3. Detailed

14) Which Will The Size Of A Database?

Ans:

The size of a database will be between 4 and 8 Tera Bytes.

15) Which Is A Loop?

Ans:

Loop is circular flow.

16) How Can We Overcome Loop?

Ans:

Loop can be overcome by Alias and Context.

17) How Is Called As A Join?

Ans:

Join is normally used for linking tables depending upon how the data is requested by the user.

18) Explain The Different Types Of Joins?

Ans:

Joins are of different types. They are

1. Inner join

2. Outer Join

3. Left Join

4. Right Join

5. Full Outer join

19) What Are Called Linked Universes?

Ans:

Sometimes the data provided may be from two different universes and the data in these two universes can be linked someway. These types of universes are called Linked Universes.

20) What Is Called Alerter?

Ans:

Alerter is used to give alert or attention to a block of data by highlighting it.

21) What Is Called Filters?

Ans:

Filters are used to get necessary data from a group of data.

22)What Is Called Breaks?

Ans:

Breaks are used to group the data without changing anything in the format.

23) What Are Called Conditions?

Ans:

conditions are used to get some data based on certain criteria’s or conditions.

24) What Is The Difference Between Master-detail And Breaks?

Ans:

In Breaks common entities will be deleted. In master-detail we will declare a certain entity as a master to get the detailed information or it will report in this case that the table format is changed.

25) What Are Metrics?

Ans:

Metrics are a system of parameters .Metrics is a way of quantitative and periodic assessment of a process that is to be measured. Metrics are normally used to track trends, productivity.

26) What Is A Set?

Ans:

Set is called as the grouping of a number of users.

27) What Is The Advantage Of Afd?

Ans:

AFD is used to create Dash Boards.

28) Where Normally Afd’s Are Stored?

Ans:

AFDs are normally stored in repository, corporate or personal.

29) What Is The Source Of Metrics?

Ans:

The source of Metrics is by measure objects.

30) How Many Analysis Are Used In Business Objects?

Ans:

2 types of analysis are used in Business Objects. They are
1. Slice-Dice Analysis
2. Drill Analysis

31) What Are The General Issues In Migration Process?

Ans:

he general issues in migration process are
1. Alignment
2. Performance

32) What Is Solution For Improving Performance?

Ans:

The main solution for improving performance is to make use of the Aggregate tables.

33) Types Of Sap Businessobjects Universe In Sap Businessobjects?

Ans:

Simple SAP Businessobjects universe and complex SAP Businessobjects universe.

34) What Is The Main Use Of Bca?

Ans:

The main use of BCA is that BCA can be used for refreshing and scheduling and exporting and saving in different format like .html, .rtf, .xls and .pdf

35) What Are Called Universal Parameters?

Ans:

RDBMS connection, size rights, Name of the universe, and description are called as the universal Parameters.

36) What Is The Difference Between User And Versatile?

Ans:

SUPERVISOR offers various types of users of Business Objects products. The user profile determines by default what products a user can use. User profiles can be customized to reflect the needs of the users.
? User (all products but DESIGNER and SUPERVISOR)
? Versatile (configurable)
USERs use the Business Objects end-user products to query, report, and analyze data. They may also use the optional REPORTER and EXPLORER modules for multidimensional analysis. End users can produce documents containing data from one or more data sources.
A versatile user is a customized user who may be given access by a supervisor to any combination of Business Objects products.

37) What Are The User Requirements In This Universe?

Ans:

The user’s requirements in this universe are the Database connections, key column, join and check for loop if you need measures, metrics. The steps to be followed should be
1. The connection should be defined.
2. Create the classes and objects
3. Give the joins and then resolve the loops.
4. Generate the universe.

38) What Is The Use Of Business Objects Data Services?

Ans:

Business Objects Data Services provides a graphical interface that allows you to easily create jobs that extract data from heterogeneous sources, transform that data to meet the business requirements of your organization, and load the data into a single location.

39) Define Data Services Components.

Ans:

Data Services includes the following standard components:

• Designer
•  Repository
•  Job Server
• Engines
•  Access Server
•  Adapters
•  Real-time Services
•  Address Server
•  Cleansing Packages, Dictionaries, and Directories
•  Management Console

40) What Are The Steps Included In Data Integration Process?

Ans:

•  Stage data in an operational datastore, data warehouse, or data mart.
•  Update staged data in batch or real-time modes.
•  Create a single environment for developing, testing, and deploying the entire data integration platform.
•  Manage a single metadata repository to capture the relationships between different extraction and access methods and provide integrated lineage and impact analysis.

41) Define The Terms Job, Workflow, And Dataflow

Ans:

•  A job is the smallest unit of work that you can schedule independently for execution.
•  A work flow defines the decision-making process for executing data flows.
•  Data flows extract, transform, and load data. Everything having to do with data, including reading sources, transforming data, and loading targets, occurs inside a data flow.

42) Arrange These Objects In Order By Their Hierarchy: Dataflow, Job, Project, And Workflow.

Ans:

Project, Job, Workflow, Dataflow.

43) What Are Reusable Objects In Dataservices?

Ans:

Job, Workflow, Dataflow.

44) What Is A Transform?

Ans:

A transform enables you to control how datasets change in a dataflow.

45) What Is A Script?

Ans:

A script is a single-use object that is used to call functions and assign values in a workflow.

46) What Is A Real Time Job?

Ans:

Real-time jobs “extract” data from the body of the real time message received and from any secondary sources used in the job.

47) What Is An Embedded Dataflow?

Ans:

An Embedded Dataflow is a dataflow that is called from inside another dataflow.

48) What Is The Difference Between A Data Store And A Database?

Ans:

A datastore is a connection to a database.

49) How Many Types Of Datastores Are Present In Data Services?

Ans:

Three.

•  Database Datastores: provide a simple way to import metadata directly from RDBMS.
•  Application Datastores: let users easily import metadata from most Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.
•  Adapter Datastores: can provide access to an application’s data and metadata or just metadata.

50) What Is The Use Of Compact Repository?

Ans:

Remove redundant and obsolete objects from the repository tables.

51) What Are Memory Datastores?

Ans:

Data Services also allows you to create a database datastore using Memory as the Database type. Memory Datastores are designed to enhance processing performance of data flows executing in real-time jobs.

52) What Are File Formats?

Ans:

A file format is a set of properties describing the structure of a flat file (ASCII). File formats describe the metadata structure. File format objects can describe files in:

•  Delimited format — Characters such as commas or tabs separate each field.
•  Fixed width format — The column width is specified by the user.
•  SAP ERP and R/3 format.

53) Which Is Not A Datastore Type?

Ans:

File Format

54) What Is Repository? List The Types Of Repositories.

Ans:

The Data Services repository is a set of tables that holds user-created and predefined system objects, source and target metadata, and transformation rules. There are 3 types of repositories.

•  A local repository
•  A central repository
•  A profiler repository

55) What Is The Difference Between A Repository And A Datastore?

Ans:

A Repository is a set of tables that hold system objects, source and target metadata, and transformation rules. A Datastore is an actual connection to a database that holds data.

56) What Is The Difference Between A Parameter And A Variable?

Ans:

A Parameter is an expression that passes a piece of information to a work flow, data flow or custom function when it is called in a job. A Variable is a symbolic placeholder for values.

57) When Would You Use A Global Variable Instead Of A Local Variable?

Ans:

•  When the variable will need to be used multiple times within a job.
•  When you want to reduce the development time required for passing values between job components.
•  When you need to create a dependency between job level global variable name and job components.

58) What Is Substitution Parameter?

Ans:

The Value that is constant in one environment, but may change when a job is migrated to another environment.

59) List Some Reasons Why A Job Might Fail To Execute?

Ans:

Incorrect syntax, Job Server not running, port numbers for Designer and Job Server not matching.

60) List Factors You Consider When Determining Whether To Run Work Flows Or Data Flows Serially Or In Parallel?

Ans:

Consider the following:

•  Whether or not the flows are independent of each other
•  Whether or not the server can handle the processing requirements of flows running at the same time (in parallel)

61) What Does A Lookup Function Do? How Do The Different Variations Of The Lookup Function Differ?

Ans:

All lookup functions return one row for each row in the source. They differ in how they choose which of several matching rows to return.

62) List The Three Types Of Input Formats Accepted By The Address Cleanse Transform.

Ans:

Discrete, multiline, and hybrid.

63) Name The Transform That You Would Use To Combine Incoming Data Sets To Produce A Single Output Data Set With The Same Schema As The Input Data Sets.

Ans:

The Merge transform.

64) What Are Adapters?

Ans:

Adapters are additional Java-based programs that can be installed on the job server to provide connectivity to other systems such as Salesforce.com or the JavaMessagingQueue. There is also a SoftwareDevelopment Kit (SDK) to allow customers to create adapters for custom applications.

65) List The Data Integrator Transforms

Ans:

• Data_Transfer
•  Date_Generation
•  Effective_Date
•  Hierarchy_Flattening
•  History_Preserving
•  Key_Generation
•  Map_CDC_Operation
•  Pivot Reverse Pivot
•  Table_Comparison
•  XML_Pipeline

66) List The Data Quality Transforms

Ans:

•  Global_Address_Cleanse
•  Data_Cleanse
•  Match
•  Associate
•  Country_id
•  USA_Regulatory_Address_Cleanse

67) What Are Cleansing Packages?

Ans:

These are packages that enhance the ability of Data Cleanse to accurately process various forms of global data by including language-specific reference data and parsing rules.

68) What Is Data Cleanse?

Ans:

The Data Cleanse transform identifies and isolates specific parts of mixed data, and standardizes your data based on information stored in the parsing dictionary, business rules defined in the rule file, and expressions defined in the pattern file.

69) What Is The Difference Between Dictionary And Directory?

Ans:

Directories provide information on addresses from postal authorities. Dictionary files are used to identify, parse, and standardize data such as names, titles, and firm data.

70) Give Some Examples Of How Data Can Be Enhanced Through The Data Cleanse Transform, And Describe The Benefit Of Those Enhancements.

Ans:

•  Enhancement Benefit
•  Determine gender distributions and target
•  Gender Codes marketing campaigns
•  Provide fields for improving matching
•  Match Standards results

71) A Project Requires The Parsing Of Names Into Given And Family, Validating Address Information, And Finding Duplicates Across Several Systems. Name The Transforms Needed And The Task They Will Perform.

Ans:

•  Data Cleanse: Parse names into given and family.
•  Address Cleanse: Validate address information.
•  Match: Find duplicates.

72) Describe When To Use The Usa Regulatory And Global Address Cleanse Transforms.

Ans:

Use the USA Regulatory transform if USPS certification and/or additional options such as DPV and Geocode are required. Global Address Cleanse should be utilized when processing multi-country data.

73) Give Two Examples Of How The Data Cleanse Transform Can Enhance (append) Data.

Ans:

The Data Cleanse transform can generate name match standards and greetings. It can also assign gender codes and prenames such as Mr. and Mrs.

74) What Are Name Match Standards And How Are They Used?

Ans:

Name match standards illustrate the multiple ways a name can be represented. They are used in the match process to greatly increase match results.

75) What Are The Different Strategies You Can Use To Avoid Duplicate Rows Of Data When Re-loading A Job.

Ans:

•  Using the auto-correct load option in the target table.
•  Including the Table Comparison transform in the data flow.
•  Designing the data flow to completely replace the target table during each execution.
•  Including a preload SQL statement to execute before the table loads.

76) What Is The Use Of Auto Correct Load?

Ans:

It does not allow duplicated data entering into the target table.It works like Type 1 Insert else Update the rows based on Non-matching and matching data respectively.

77) What Is The Use Of Array Fetch Size?

Ans:

Array fetch size indicates the number of rows retrieved in a single request to a source database. The default value is 1000. Higher numbers reduce requests, lowering network traffic, and possibly improve performance. The maximum value is 5000

78) What Are The Differences Between Row-by-row Select And Cached Comparison Table And Sorted Input In Table Comparison Transform?

Ans:

•  Row-by-row select – look up the target table using SQL every time it receives an input row. This option is best if the target table is large.
•  Cached comparison table — To load the comparison table into memory. This option is best when the table fits into memory and you are comparing the entire target table
•  Sorted input — To read the comparison table in the order of the primary key column(s) using sequential read.This option improves performance because Data Integrator reads the comparison table only once.Add a query between the source and the Table_Comparison transform. Then, from the query’s input schema, drag the primary key columns into the Order By box of the query.

79) What Is The Use Of Using Number Of Loaders In Target Table?

Ans:

Number of loaders loading with one loader is known as Single loader Loading. Loading when the number of loaders is greater than one is known as Parallel Loading. The default number of loaders is 1. The maximum number of loaders is 5.

80) What Is The Use Of Rows Per Commit?

Ans:

Specifies the transaction size in number of rows. If set to 1000, Data Integrator sends a commit to the underlying database every 1000 rows.

81) What Is The Difference Between Lookup (), Lookup_ext () And Lookup_seq ()?

Ans:

•  lookup() : Briefly, It returns single value based on single condition
•  lookup_ext(): It returns multiple values based on single/multiple condition(s)
•  lookup_seq(): It returns multiple values based on sequence number

82) What Is The Use Of History Preserving Transform?

Ans:

The History Preserving transform allows you to produce a new row in your target rather than updating an existing row. You can indicate in which columns the transform identifies changes to be preserved. If the value of certain columns change, this transform creates a new row for each row flagged as UPDATE in the input data set.

83) What Is The Use Of Map-operation Transform?

Ans:

The Map-Operation transform allows you to change operation codes on data sets to produce the desired output. Operation codes: INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, NORMAL  or DISCARD.

84) What Is Heirarchy Flatenning?

Ans:

Constructs a complete hierarchy from parent/child relationships, and then produces a description of the hierarchy in vertically or horizontally flattened format.

•  Parent Column, Child Column
•  Parent Attributes, Child Attributes.

85) What Is The Use Of Case Transform?

Ans:

Use of the Case transform is to simplify branch logic in data flows by consolidating case or decision-making logic into one transform. The transform allows you to split a data set into smaller sets based on logical branches.

86) WHAT ARE THE BUNCH OF TOOLS AVAILABLE UNDER BUSINESS OBJECTS 4.0 PLATFORM?

Ans:

We have the following type of tools under SAP BO BI 4.0:

Administrator tools

• Business User tools – Business user tools are the ones intended for a business user (example –HR manager or a financial manager of any organization) which help them to view and manage business reports to aid them in a decision-making process.
• Data manager tools – They are used to design a sematic layer between the designer tool and its source of data.
• Designer tools – It provides the facility to design a query based on your reporting requirement.

87) WHAT IS BI LAUNCH PAD?

Ans:

This can be achieved through BI launch pad.

BI launch pad is a SAP BO BI 4.0 business user tool used for broadcasting the reports. It provides an interface to the SAP BO business intelligence platform repository that enables us to navigate to view & manage our business intelligence documents. It is a web based application/portal from where we can access the reports and organize the reports as per our need.

88) WHAT IS THE RESULT OF A QUERY?

Ans:

The result of the query is the final report. A report is a business representation of the data.

89) DEFINE DRILL MODE

Ans:

This is a kind of analysis mode associated with business objects and helps in breaking down data as well as in viewing data from all the possible angles and the levels of detail for discovering the factor that has caused good – bad result.

90) IF A BUSINESS NEEDS HIGHLY FORMATTED REPORTS, WHICH TOOL WOULD YOU CHOOSE?

Ans:

We would go with ‘SAP crystal reports for enterprise’ in this case as it gives very powerful formatting options.

91) WHAT IS A PERSONAL CONNECTION?

Ans:

Personal connection can be created only by a single user and it can’t be made used by others. The details regarding such a connection can be usually stored inside PDAC.LSI file.

92) WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT TYPE OF CONNECTIONS AVAILABLE?

Ans:

There are three different kinds of connections available:

• Personal connection
• Shared connection
• Secured connection

Personal connection is the one which can be used by you only i.e. this connection is available to only the user who creates it. No other user has access to use this connection. We have a PDAC.LSI file where the connection details are kept in case of a personal connection.

Next, comes is the shared connection where all the users can access the connection. We have a shared server in this case and the connection details are kept in SDAC.LSI file.

The limitation of shared connection is that we can’t establish rights & permissions over the objects. Also, we cannot export the universe to a central repository in case we are using a shared connection.

The last type of connection available is secured connection which can be shared between the users and we can also set rights & permissions in CMS (central management server). in this case.

Additionally, we can export the universe to a central repository in case we are using a secured connection. Secure connections are saved in the repository.

93) WHAT IS SHARED CONNECTION?

Ans:

This is a kind of connection that is usually made used by other user via a server which is shared one. The details regarding the connection can be stored within the SDAC>LSI file which can be found within the installation folder of the business objects.

94) WHICH OF THE CONNECTION DID YOU USE IN YOUR PROJECT AND WHY?

Ans:

In my project, we were using secured connection as we were working in a team and also the reports had to be shared between the cross-functional team.

We had to create BO reports over the IDT universe and publish these reports. When it comes to a live project, the secured connection is the best kind of connection to use because here we can limit the access to different users. Also, secured connection can be accessed from different servers.

The last and main reason of using secured connection is that since it is saved in a repository, so if your requirement is to publish the reports over repository, you will have to use a secured connection.

95) WHAT IS A SECURED CONNECTION?

Ans:

Secured connection is a kind of connection that can be helpful in overcoming the various limitations associated with the former connections. The rights related with this kind of connection can be set over documents as well as objects. Universes can be brought inside central repository only by making use of secured connection. The parameters regarding these connection care usually saved inside CMS.

96) EXPLAIN YOUR IDEA OF A UNIVERSE IN BO AND ITS RELEVANCE WITH THE ASSIGNMENTS YOU HAVE WORKED UPON.

Ans:

A universe is a logical layer between backend and a front end of the reporting. It is a metadata layer which isolates the technical complexities of the source system from business user/report developer.

In the universe, the required attributes and measures are picked up from the backend and arranged in a way we want to use them further for reporting. In my project, we used to create IDT universe on top of calculation views developed in HANA. These IDT universes were further utilized to create BO reports.

97) DEFINE CUSTOM HIERARCHIES?

Ans:

The custom hierarchies can be used for defining the universe for facilitating drill down that is customised and can happen between objects from different or same classes considering the user requirements.

98) DEFINE A CONTEXT IN THE UNIVERSE.

Ans:

Context can be defined as the particular path of join between a specific group of joins or the tables for the purpose of a particular query. A particular object that can be found inside the column of a table, belonging to particular context is supposed to be compatible to all the various kinds of objects belonging to the same context. In the case of objects that are from the various kinds of context, different kinds of SQL can be generated, and the results can be merged inside micro cube. This is for making sure that there is no incorrect result associated with a loop or any other kind of issue related with join path.

99) HOW THE UNIVERSES CREATED IN IDT ARE MADE AVAILABLE IN BO?

Ans:

Once universe is created, we publish the universe using a secured connection and then import the universe in BO to make a report on top of it.

100) DEFINE A CHASM TRAP.

Ans:

Chasm trap is a condition that arises when the values inside the fact table get inflated at the time of measuring the values from two different fact tables by considering the dimensions inside dimension table.

101) HOW CAN CHASM TRAP BE SOLVED?

Ans:

Chasm trap should be solved by making use of two different methods.

• In the case of SQL parameters in universe, the option generates numerous queries for each and every measure that needs to be chosen. This helps in generating SQL statement for every measure and gives the correct results.
• Another approach is to include two joints in different contexts, where the problem will get solved by generating two synchronized queries.