Business Intelligence Interview Questions for freshers experienced :-

1. What is Business Intelligence?

Business Intelligence is a process for increasing the competitive advantage of a business by intelligent us
e of available data in decision making.

The five key stages of Business Intelligence:

Data Sourcing
Data Analysis
Situation Awareness
Risk Assessment
Decision Support

2. What is a Universe in Business Intelligence?

A universe is a Business object terminology. Business objects also happens to be the name of the compa
ny. The universe is the interfacing layer between the client and the datawarehouse . The universe defines
the relationship among the various tables in the datawarehouse.

Or

Universe is a semantic layer between the database and the user interface (reports).

3. What is OLAP in Business Intelligence?

Online Analytical Processing, a category of software tools that provides analysis of data stored in a datab
ase. OLAP tools enable users to analyze different dimensions of multidimensional data. For example, it pr
ovides time series and trend analysis views. The chief component of OLAP is the OLAP server, which sits
between a client and a database management systems (DBMS). The OLAP server understands how dat
a is organized in the database and has special functions analyzing the data.

A good OLAP interface has writes an efficient sql and reads an accurate data from db.To design and arch
itect having good knowledge on DB understanding the report requirements.

4. What are the various modules in Business Objects product?

Business Objects Reporter

Reporting & Analyzing tool
Designer
Universe creation
database interaction
connectivity
Supervisor For Administrative purposes

Webintelligence Access of report data through internet

BroadCast Agent For scheduling the reports

Data Integrator The ETL tool of Business Objects, designed to handle huge amounts of data

5. What is OLAP, MOLAP, ROLAP, DOLAP, HOLAP? Explain with Examples?

OLAP On-Line Analytical Processing.

Designates a category of applications and technologies that allow the collection, storage, manipulation an
d reproduction of multidimensional data, with the goal of analysis.

MOLAP Multidimensional OLAP.

This term designates a cartesian data structure more specifically. In effect, MOLAP contrasts with ROLAP
. Inb the former, joins between tables are already suitable, which enhances performances. In the latter, joi
ns are computed during the request.

Targeted at groups of users because its a shared environment. Data is stored in an exclusive server-base
d format. It performs more complex analysis of data.

DOLAP Desktop OLAP.

Small OLAP products for local multidimensional analysis Desktop OLAP. There can be a mini multidimen
sional database (using Personal Express), or extraction of a datacube (using Business Objects).

Designed for low-end, single, departmental user. Data is stored in cubes on the desktop. Its like having yo
ur own spreadsheet. Since the data is local, end users dont have to worry about performance hits against
the server.

ROLAP Relational OLAP.

Designates one or several star schemas stored in relational databases. This technology permits multidim
ensional analysis with data stored in relational databases.

Used for large departments or groups because it supports large amounts of data and users.

HOLAP:Hybridization of OLAP, which can include any of the above.

6. Why an infocube has maximum of 16 dimensions?

It depends upon the Database limits provided to define the Foreign key constraint, e.g. in Sql Server 2005
, the recommended max limit for foreign keys is 253, but you can define more.

7. What is BAS? What is the function?

The Business Application Support (BAS) functional area at SLAC provides administrative computing servi
ces to the Business Services Division and Human Resources Department. We are responsible for softwar
e development and maintenance of the PeopleSoft? Applications and consultation to customers with their
computer-related tasks.

8. Name some of the standard Business Intelligence tools in the Market?

Some of the standard Business Intelligence tools in the market According to their performance

1.MICROSTRATEGY
2.BUSINESS OBJECTS,CRYSTAL REPORTS
3.COGNOS REPORT NET
4.MS-OLAP SERVICES
Or

1.Seagate Crystal report

2.SAS
3.Business objects
4.Microstrategy
5.Cognos
6.Microsoft OLAP
7.Hyperion
8.Microsoft integrated services
9. How do we enhance the functionality of the reports in BO?
You can format the BO Reports by using various features available. You can turn the table reports into a
2-Dimensional or 3-Dimensional charts. You can apply an Alert to show some data in a different format , b
ased on some business rule. You can also create some prompts, which will asks user to give some input
values before seeing the reports, this way they will see only filtered data. There are many similar exciting
options available to enhance the reports.

10. What are dashboards?

A management reporting tool to gauge how well the organization company is performing. It normally uses
traffic-lights or smiley faces to determine the status.

Business Intelligence Interview Questions

11. Explain about Auditing in BO XI R2? What is the use of it?

Auditor is used by the business objects administrators to know the complete information of the business i
ntelligence system.

it monitors entire BIsystem at a glance.

Analyzes usage and change impact
optimises the BI deployment
12. How do we Tune the BO Reports for Performance Improvement?
We can tune the report by using index awareness in universe

13. Why we ca not create an aggregate on an ODS Object?

Operational Data Store has very low data latency. Data moved to ODS mostly on event based rather than
time based ETL to Data Warehouse/Data Mart.
ODS is more closer to OLTP system. We dont normally prefer to store aggregated data in OLTP. So it is
with ODS.
Unlike data warehouse where data is HISTORICAL, ODS is near real time(NRT). So data aggregation is l
ess important is ODS as data keeps changing.
14. What is hierarchy relationship in a dimension.
whether it is:

1.1:1
2.1:m
3.m:m
4.1:M
15. How to connect GDE to Co Operating system in Abinitio?
We can connect Ab Initio GDE with Co>operating system using Run->Settings.In there u can specify the
host IP address and the connection type .Refer Ab Initio help for further details.

16. Explain the Name of some standard Business Intelligence tools in the market?
Some of the standard Business Intelligence tools in the market According to there performance

1.MICROSTRATEGY
2.BUSINESS OBJECTS,CRYSTAL REPORTS
3.COGNOS REPORT NET
4.MS-OLAP SERVICES
17. What are the various modules in Business Objects product Suite?

Supervisor:

Supervisor is the control center for the administration and security of your entire BusinessObjects deploy
ment.
Designer:
Designer is the tool used to create, manage and distribute universe for BusinessObjects and WebIntellige
nce Users. A universe is a file that containe connection parameters for one or more database middleware
and SQL structure called objects that map to actual SQL structure in the database as columns,tables and
database.
BusinessObjects Full client Reporting tool:

Helps to create businessobjects reports based on the universe and also from the other data sources.
BusinessObjects Thin client Reporting tool:

Helps to querry and analysis on the universe and also share the report among other users. It doesnt requi
re any software, just need a webbrowser and the system connected to the businessobjetcs server.
Auditor:

Tool is used for monitor and analysis user and system activity.
Application Foundation:

This module covers a set of products which is used for Enterprise Performance Management (EPM). The
tools are

1.Dashboard manager
2.Scorecard
3.Performance Management Applications
18. From where you Get the Logical Query of your Request?
The logical SQL generated by the server can be viewed in BI Answers. If I have not understood the questi
on, Please raise your voice.

19. Major Challenges You Faced While Creating the RPD?

Every now and then there are problems with the database connections but the problem while creating the
repository RPD files comes with complex schemas made on OLTP systems consisting of lot of joins and c
hecking the results. Th type of join made need to be checked. By default it is inner join but sometimes the
requirement demands other types of joins. There are lot of problems with the date formats also.

20. What are Global Filter and how thery differ From Column Filter?
Column filter- simply a filter applied on a column which we can use to restrict our column values while pull
ing the data or in charts to see the related content.

21. How to make the Delivery Profilers Work?

When we are Use SA System how Does SA Server understand that It needs to use it For Getting the Use
r Profile information?

22. Where to Configure the Scheduler?

We configure the OBIEE schedular in database.

23. How to hide Certain Columns From a User?

Application access level security- Do not add the column in the report, Do not add the column in the prese
ntation layer.

24. How can we Enable Drills in a Given Column Data?

To enable Drill down for a column, it should be included in the hirarchy in OBIEE. Hyperion IR has a drill a
nywhere feature where dont have to define and can drill to any available column.

25. Is Drill Down Possible without the attribute being a Part of a Hierarchical Dimension?
No
26. How do u Conditional Format.?
while creating a chat in BI Answers, you can define the conditions and can apply colour formatting.

27. What is Guided Navigation?

I think it is just the arrangement of hyperlinks to guide the user to navigate between the reports to do the a
nalysis.

28. How is Webcat File Deployed Across Environment?

How the users Created Differs From RPD/Answers/Dashboards Level?

RPD users can do administrator tasks like adding new data source, create hirarchies, change column na
mes where as Answers users may create new charts, edit those charts and Dashboard users may only vi
ew and analyse the dashboard or can edit dashboard by adding/removing charts objects.

29. Online/Offline Mode how it Impact in Dev and Delpoyment?

Online Mode- You can make changes in the RPD file and push in changes which will be immediately visib
le to the users who are already connected. This feature we may use in production environment.

Offline mode- can be useful in test or development environment.

30. Explain the concepts and capabilities of Business Intelligence.

Business Intelligence helps to manage data by applying different skills, technologies, security and quality
risks. This also helps in achieving a better understanding of data.Business intelligence can be considered
as the collective information. It helps in making predictions of business operations using gathered data in
a warehouse. Business intelligence application helps to tackle sales, financial, production etc business da
ta. It helps in a better decision making and can be also considered as a decision support system.

31. Name some of the standard Business Intelligence tools in the market.
Business intelligence tools are to report, analyze and present data. Few of the tools available in the mark
et are:

Eclipse BIRT Project:- Based on eclipse. Mainly used for web applications and it is open source.
Freereporting.com:- It is a free web based reporting tool.
JasperSoft:- BI tool used for reporting, ETL etc.
Pentaho:- Has data mining, dashboard and workflow capabilities.
Openl:- A web application used for OLAP reporting.

32. Explain the Dashboard in the business intelligence.

A dashboard in business intellgence allows huge data and reports to be read in a single graphical interfac
e. They help in making faster decisions by replying on measurable data seen at a glance. They can also b
e used to get into details of this data to analyze the root cause of any business performance. It represents
the business data and business state at a high level. Dashboards can also be used for cost control. Exa
mple of need of a dashboard: Banks run thousands of ATMs. They need to know how much cash is depo
sited, how much is left etc.

33. Explain the SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence components.

SQL Server Integration Services:- Used for data transformation and creation. Used in data acquisition for
m a source system.
SQL Server Analysis Services: Allows data discovery using data mining. Using business logic it supports
data enhancement.
SQL Server Reporting Services:- Used for Data presentation and distribution access.
34. What Is The Channel?

A channel is a Web site that uses push technology, also known as Webcasting, to keep subscribers abrea
st of up-to-date information.

Each BUSINESSOBJECTS channel is associated with a BROADCAST AGENT, itself associated with a u
ser group in the Business Objects repository. One BROADCAST AGENT can have several channels.

35. What Is A Prompt?

A Prompt is an end users object, which allows the users to enter the value or select the values to restrict t
he data in the report.

36. What Is Designer?

Designer is a Business Objects IS module used by universe designers to create and maintain universes.
Universes are the semantic layer that isolates end users from the technical issues of the database structu
re.
Universe designers can distribute universes to end-users by moving them as files through the file system,
or by exporting them to the repository.

37. Where Will You Find The Address Of Repository In Bo?

BO Main.key, File that contains the address of the repositorys security domain.

38. What Are The Various Business Objects Products?

User Module
Designer
Supervisor
Auditor
Set Analyzer
Info View (Web Intelligence)
Business Objects Software Development Kit (SDK)
Broadcast Agent etc.

39. What Is Business Intelligence 80 / 20 Concept?

In a business Intelligence environment 80% of development time is allocated to OLAP interface designing
, 20% of time allocated to Report development.

40. What Is Data Mining?

Data Mining is the analysis of data and use of software techniques for extracting hidden, comprehensible,
and useful information from databases.

41. What Is The Technique Used In The Bca?

1.BROADCAST AGENT is a collection of server components that can be deployed over a distributed CO
RBA network.
2.The distributed architecture enables scalability, load balancing and failover.

42. What Is Business Intelligence?

Business Intelligence is a technology used for preparing the reports for multidimensional analyses.

43. What Are The Different Multidimensional Analysis Methods Available In Business Objects?

There are 2 Multidimensional analysis methods available in BO, they are:

1.Slice and Dice.

2.Drill Down.

44. What Is Drill Up/down/by/through?

Drill mode allows you to analyze data from different angles and on different levels of detail.
Drill down displays next level of detail in hierarchy.
Drill up goes back up through the hierarchy to display data on less detailed levels.
By using Drill by option you can move to another hierarchy to analyze other data that belongs to a differen
t hierarchy.
Drill Through if the lowest level of detail you need is not currently available in the report, you can drill thro
ugh to the database directly from drill mode and get the data you need. You do not have to edit the query
in the Query Panel.

45. What Is Join?different Types Of Joins?

Join is the relation that occurs between the two tables that helps to combine into one table.
The purpose of join is that to restrict the Cartesian product.
The join is specified in the Where clause of the sql statement.
The different types of joins are:

Equi join is based on the equality between the values in the column. Because the same column is presen
t in both tables, the join synchronizes the two tables.
Outer join An outer join links two tables, one of which has rows that do not match those in the common c
olumn of the other table.
Theta join A theta join links tables based on a relationship other than equality between two columns.
Shortcut join Shortcut joins can be used in schemas containing redundant join paths leading to the same
result, regardless of direction.

46. What Is Slice And Dice?

Slice and dice mode enables you to switch the position of data in a report (for example, move data from c
olumns to rows).

47. What Do You Mean By Object Qualification?

The qualification of an object reveals how it can be used in multidimensional analysis.

An object can be qualified as a dimension, a detail, or a measure.
In the Universe pane, the symbol beside each object indicates its qualification.

48. What Are The Tasks Of The Universe Designer?

The responsibilities that universe designer has:

Designing, Creating and maintaining the Universe.

Distributing the Created Universes.

49. Did You Do Metadata Reporting In Bo?

Metadata reporting of BO is possible. BO provides a separate universe which actually contains repository
tables, objects etc.Using this Universe one can do metadata reporting in BO.

50. What Is Olap Interface?

A good OLAP interface writes an efficient SQL and reads an aqua rate data from database.
To design the interface and architect having good knowledge on database under standing the report requi
rements.

51. What Are The Roles Of Bo Administrator?

The following are the responsibility assigned to administrator:

Installations and configurations in a distributed environment.

Creating the BO Enterprise Repository.
Performing back up and recovery of Metadata.
Tuning the servers.
Deployment of reports.

52. What Are Different Types Of Parsing?

There are two types of parsing:

1.Quick parsing
2.Through parsingents

53. What Is A Data Provider?

The data source (Query) is called as the data provider.

54. What Are The Types Of Filters Which Affects The Report?

There are two types of filter:

A global filter affects the whole report.

A blockspecific filter only filters data for the specified chart, table or crosstab.

55. What Are The Activities In Data Mining?

Modeling the relationships among objects in the data mining to explore and use those relationships.

56. What Are The Data Mining Technologies?

Statistics
Cluster Analysis
Neural Network
Data visualization
Decision Trees

57. What Are The Formats Supported For Business Objects Documents?

You can view Business Objects documents in the following formats:

HTML
PDF
Enhanced Document Format
Business Objects Format

58. What Is An Application Developer Or Report Developer?

Design the Reports according to the report requirement templates.

Testing the each report with following types of tests:

1.Unit Testing
2.System Testing
3.Performance Testing
4.User Acceptance Test (UAT)

59. What Are The Advantages Of Business Objects Over Other Dss?

User Friendly
Familiar Business Terms
Graphical Interface
Drag and Drop
Powerful reports in less time
Enterprise wide Deployment of documents using WebI
Customized dashboards using Application foundation and Business Objects SDK

60. What Are The Types Of Query Filter That You Use In Web Intelligence?

There are four types of Query Filter you use in Web intelligence:

1.Predefined Filters
2.Single and Multi value Filters
3.Prompted Filters
4.Complex Filters

61. What Functions Are Supported?

Designer provides four types of functions:

1.Number
2.Character
3.Date and
4.@Functions.
Functions beginning with the @ character are BusinessObject functions that render the definition of object
s dynamic and databaseindependent.

62. What Is Join?

A Join is a relationship that explains how the data in one table relates to data in another table.

63. What Are Cardinalities?

Cardinality expresses the minimum and maximum number of instances of an entity B that can be associat
ed with an instance of an entity A. The minimum and the maximum number of instances can be equal to 0
, 1, or N.

Because a join represents a bi-directional relationship, it must always have two cardinalities.
There are two main methods for detecting or editing cardinalities:

The Detect Cardinalities command

The Edit Join dialog box

64. How Can You Check The Universe?

Using check Integrity, u can check the universe.

Go to Designer, Tools -> check Integrity

65. What Is The Difference Between Built-in-strategies And External Strategies?

Built-In-Strategies:

Extracting the joins with tables

Detect cardinalities in joins
Create default classes and objects from the tables
Objects In this we can set how the objects to be displayed in the universe pane
Joins In this we can set how the joins between the tables has to be retrieved like matching column name
s or matching names etc.
Tables In this it will reads the table structure from the database.
The other strategies:

Setting the number of rows to be retrieved default 100

The number of row retrieved from database
The execution time of the query based on the number of minutes specified.
The maximum size of the long text objects.
External Strategies: External strategies are declared in STG section of .PRM file. We can create the exter
nal strategy using either sql or flat file.

66. What Are New In Bo 5.1?

Save business objects documents in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF)

Add hyperlinks to reports such as mail addresses and web site addresses.
These hyperlinks are maintained when you save the report in HTML or PDF.
Zero Administration Only the business objects client software installed on the windows pc; all middleware
is stored and administered on the web intelligence web server and the server side processing is handled
by the web intelligence system.

67. What Is The Repository?

The repository is the database in which the information about the users and data is present. It is created a
nd maintained by the general supervisor. It is used to share resources of business objects.
It comprises of three domains:

Universe domain It holds all the exported universes and there may be more than one universe domain in
the repository.
Document domain It holds all exported documents, templates, scripts, and lists of values.
Security domain secured connections are stored in this.

68. What Are All The Data Providers Supported By Bo?

Queries on Universe
Stored procedure
Free hand SQL
Text files or Spread sheets
VBA Procedures
OLAP servers
SAP

69. What Are The Main Components Of The Designer Interface?

The main components that interact in the designing of universe are :

Table browser The table browser is used to choose the tables and columns.
The Structure pane The Structure pane refers the database structure of the universe.
The Universe pane The Universe pane refers the components in which it is going to use in BO or WEBI d
ocuments.

70. What Are The Different Schemas Supported By Bo Designer?

Star Schema
Snowflake Schema
Multistar Schema
Normalized production Schema
Data warehouse with aggregates

71. What Is Strategy?

The strategy is the script that automatically extracts the structural information from the database or flat file
.

Built-in-strategies
External strategies

72. What Is Supervisor?

Supervisor is the product is used to set up and maintain a secure environment for Business Objects produ
cts.

73. What Is A Report Bursting?

Report bursting allows you to maintain the version documents based on the user profiles.

74. What Is Bca?

BCA is a software product for the users of WEBI and BO to process and distribute documents automatical
ly at the scheduled dates and time.

75. How Do You Create A Universe, Step-by-step Approach?

Designing, Creating and maintaining a universe The phased in this include:

Planning: Break down the information system into functional areas.

Analysis: Analyze the information needs of users
Design: Design a conceptual schema
Design: The specification of a universe
Implementation: Create a universe with DESIGNER
Test the universe with BUSINESSOBJECTS/WEBINTELLIGENCE
Distribute the universe
Repeat the above steps for other universes
Maintenance: Update and maintain the universe
Notify end users of changes.

76. What Are The Ways By Which U Can Distribute The Universe?

There are two ways to distribute a universe:

1.through the repository

2.through the file system.

77. What Is Scope Of Analysis?

Scope of analysis me a subset of data, returned by a query that you will use for analysis in your report.
The data for your scope of analysis does not appear in the report until you decide that you want to use it i
n analysis.

78. What Are Linked Universes?

If the data provided is from two different data providers then we can link those two universes, such type of
universe is called Linked Universe.

79. What Are The Types Of Hierarchy?

There are two types of hierarchies:

1.Default hierarchy: It contains the dimension objects in the order in which they are presented in the class
.
2.Custom hierarchy: A custom hierarchy is created from default hierarchy.

80. What Are The Features In Bca?

Automated document scheduling and publishing.

On the server side, CORBA-enabled features such as load balancing and server optimization using cache
s.
Tracing BROADCAST AGENT activity

81. What Is A Hierarchy?

A hierarchy is an ordered series of related dimensions grouped together to perform multidimensional hier
archy.
The relationship between object in the hierarchy is one to many.

82. Can We Have A Report With Multiple Data Sources?

Yes.

83. How Do You Design A Universe?

The design method consists of two major phases:

During the first phase, you create the underlying database structure of your universe. This structure includ
es the tables and columns of a database and the joins by which they are linked. You may need to resolve
loops which occur in the joins using aliases or contexts. You can conclude this phase by testing the integri
ty of the overall structure.
During the second phase, you can proceed to enhance the components of your universe. You can also pr
epare certain objects for multidimensional analysis. As with the first phase, you should test the integrity of
your universe structure. Finally, you can distribute your universes to users by exporting them to the reposi
tory or via your file system.