Introducing the Universe Management Tool
In Business Objects, the Universe acts as a metadata layer by providing an interface to complex database structures with a simplified view. Universes are developed using BOBJ Designer. Typically, universes are developed in a multi-developer environment and often require viewing and synchronizing differences between multiple versions. Universes developed are stored on the developer’s desktop with a .unv extension and finally exported to the central repository (the BOBJ CMS) with a secured connection. BOBJ Designer does not provide the functionality to compare differences between multiple versions of the same universe.

The Universe Management Tool (UMT) is designed to complement the functionality of the BOBJ Designer. It does not replace any existing functionality within BOBJ. It allows the Business Objects Administrator to manage the lifecycle of a universe in a much more effective way by providing features such as compare, highlight differences, merge, document, bulk update, version control, etc.

UMT provides the capability to verify and handle large universes having thousands of objects. It enables tracking changes made to the universe by multiple users and consolidating those changes into a final universe. Administrators, Developers and Business Users are provided with a better review by comparing two versions of same universe and selectively merging the differences into a final universe. This also helps Business Users to review the requested changes to the existing Universe.

The Business will be facilitated with a standard change management process with ease and correctness. UMT enables the user to document the universe, make changes by moving objects or auto-merge in the universe, document these changes, use the updated document or the updated universe to commit the changes, check the impact on the reports and validate the universe by parsing it. Given below are the feature classes and details of the specific features that fall under these classes:

Compliance : Allow for automated documentation of the business logic encapsulated in multiple modules of the Business Objects infrastructure for the purpose of auditing and compliance. Specifically the following documents can be generated:

a) The Universe metadata
b) Reports - Webi, Deski (Crystal Reports will be available shortly)
c) Difference between two universes
d) Changes being migrated between environments

Risk Assessment and Mitigation: Allows for carrying out risk analysis due to any impending change to the universe or the database. Specifically the following assessments can be performed:

a) Impact of the change on the reports using the Report Impact Analysis feature.
b) Automatically identifying and updating the universe with any changes happening to the physical database using the DB Refresh feature.
c) Automatically save a version of a universe prior to the change for backup.

Process Enablement: Allows for more efficient change management by enabling the following processes:

a) Compare and merging Universes (manual or automatic)
b) Parallel development on the same Universe.
c) Bulk auto update of business descriptions for the Universe.
d) Improved error management.