Does the BI Mobile App do any caching?

[Former Member]

I have been using the BI Mobile App and I have noticed that when a report or dashboard comes up for the first time, it is a black icon. After I have opened it up once or added it to Home, the icon becomes a miniature screenshot of the report.

Does this mean that the app is actually caching the report? I have had some complaints from users that some dashboards are taking too long to load. Is there a way to activate cashing from the BI Mobile app so that the report does not get downloaded from the server over and over again every time it is opened?

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi sebastian,

As far as i know, there is no caching associated with this process of downloading your documents.

First time you see only list of documents, so it can not read what is there as content inside so does show as blank, but once its downloaded it shows the preview of the content, which helps in easy identification based on content.

There are no caching servers related to your mobile, so i see very less of chance of caching available at this point with mobile.

Thanks

Mallik

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Does that mean that the dashboard or report gets downloaded from the server to the device every time it is opened?

This is the behavior I have observed but it sounds very inefficient and yields long start up times.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

By caching I meant that the report would be stored on the device for quicker access, instead of being re-downloaded from the server.

Sorry if my terminology wasn't clear.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

hi,

once you run dashboard and reports it will be stored on local device. so next time it will only refresh the only data. structure to be local stored.

Thank You,

Haresh

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks Haresh,

That is the functionality I expected but the app says Downloading and takes a while, even when I have already opened a particular dashboard before.

Am I missing some config?

[Former Member]

The app only caches a report when you add it to your 'My Items' page by tapping the + sign in the top right corner of the report thumbnail. When you first open a report it does save a thumbnail image of the report but this does not mean it has been cached. During an active session the report may be cached but this cleared when the app is closed. Only by adding the report to my items will it actually be permanently cached on the device.

If in the case you were to modify the report on the server and you have it cached on your device then when you refresh the server screen in SAP BI app you will see that the report has been flagged to alert you that it has been modified and needs to be updated.

You can also disable caching in the mobi.properties file.

[Former Member]

Hi Ashton,

where can I find the mobi.properties file?

Thanks for your answer!

Best regards,
Gerardo

[Former Member]

Hi Gerardo,

In versions prior to BI 4.0 SP7 the mobi.properties file is located in your Tomcat directory.
\webapps\MobileBIService\WEB-INF\config\

Later releases of BI 4.0 and BI 4.1 allow you to modify this setting from the CMC.

Login to the CMC > select Applications > double click SAP BusinessObjects Mobile

Click on Client Settings > set offlineStorage to false or true

[Former Member]

Hi Ashton,

Thank you, I found it within CMC. We work with BI 4.1.

I have one more question, maybe you had the same issues in the past.

We developed a prototype with Design Studio which is running fine on BI Mobile app. But if we try to do any changings within the Report (e.g. replace crosstab or changing css file), nothing happens, means we still get the same Report as before. So far the only way to get the changings within the Mobile app on iPad, was to uninstall the complete app an re-install again. We didn't use the functions "add to device" or to "My items", furthermore the offline mode is set to false.

So we don't have any ideas why we don't get any changings.

Do you have any ideas, whats going wrong?

Gerardo

[Former Member]

Hi Gerardo,

Have you modified your zen.properties file?

As documented on page 37 of this guide: http://service.sap.com/~sapidb/011000358700000449022014E/ds13_admin_bip_en.pdf

[Former Member]

Hi Ashton,

Thanks for your reply. I will check those settings and give you a short feedback the next days.

Gerardo

[Former Member]

Hi Ashton,

the properties file was already modified as documented.

Do you have any other ideas?

Best regards,
Gerardo

[Former Member]

Hi Sebastian,

Yes this APP has a some Caching memory because of cache memory only we are able to view in offline, this help the user the view much faster as it is not connected to any backend but when it connect to online yes it take little bit time then the offline because first it clear the data which is in cache memory, backend process between the client and the server (time may extend because of mobile network/wifi) then it shows you the live data.

I hope you may understand from it 

Regards,

Vishal.G

[Former Member]

Your Correct.

[Former Member]

Hi Sebastian Estevez,

You can caching a reports format once you run in apps, but it will refresh every time when you open your report,

if you set your report not refresh when open report then you will get instance report after one time open it.

it is depending on you,

Thank You,

Haresh