One of my customers called me today with what seemed like a simple request. He wanted a list of all of his BO Enterprise users. Now I don’t do much with Enterprise but it seemed so simple that I told him I would do a bit of digging.

The first thing we found was that this data is in the BOE CMS InfoStore.  The CMS data is stored in such a way that the only way to access it is either through the SDK (serious programming) or the free “Query Builder” that comes with BOE.  The next thing we found was that this Query Builder comes with very little explanation or documentation.  Fortunately I was able to find a link with some sample queries, and a BLOG with several postings on using the Query Builder.  The author of the BLOG has even published a Business Objects XI Query Builder Guide, which my customer purchased ($27) .  The BLOG and guide are primarily the work of Julian Romeo, a serious BOE user and senior member of the BOB forums.  My customer thought the guide was worthwhile even though there were sample scripts that did what he wanted.

So this post is for those of you who are active BO users.  Let me know if you have anything to add with regard to your use of the Query Builder.

And thanks to Les Stratemann of CPS Energy for inspiring this post, sharing his experience and pointing out the Query Builder Guide.