How can I create a Wizard that would make BODS automated

[Former Member]

Hi All,

Good day.
I was wondering if there would be a way to make BODS easier.
Ex.
I wanted to create a Job that would extract, validate and convert a data with just a command button and
some inputs that I will have to key.

If there would be a way, what PL would be used to do this?

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Terrence

My preference would be to do this in XML driven by a.n.other scripting language - probably Python. We currently do part of this where we take as our starting point an Excel workbook and (using Python) read the worksheet headers and generate complete jobs to load those worksheets into SQL Server for validation etc. The toolset we use for this is:

• Python with xlrd - to read the Excel and generate an XML definition of the input data
• XQuery with saxon as the XQuery processor that reads the XML definition and generates the complete load job (workflows and dataflows, in XML)
• The generated job is then imported into a local repo from which it is run

This approach could be extended to cover the subsequent validate etc steps.

This approach has worked well for us and has given us the benefits...

1. Generated jobs are standardised (no surprises!) as are all object names
2. Easy to react to changes in input formats - just regen
3. Scale - we used this same approach to generate >400 ABAP dataflows to import data from ECC.

If you need more detail on this please feel free to get in touch.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hello Maurice,

Can you provide some pointers for usage of Xquery with Saxon for generating BODS XML tags. I am also working on a similar problem statement. I am using vba for generating BODS xml. I want to know how to proceed with Xquery and saxon for same case.

Thanks

Pankaj

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Maurice,

Can you kindly elaborate this points, as well as can you elaborate on how this happens and how it connect to BODS to create such jobs.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Terrence

I am going to write up a document on the approach we took to this in th

e next few days.

[Former Member]

Thanks for all your feedback

As I searched, there's another way doing this.
They said it can be done by using SQL codes, then the BODS will read it the it will create a Project, a Workflow and Dataflow.

Is that really possible? If yes, how?

[chethan_lingaraju]

You must be looking for wizard like Microsoft's DTSWizard.exe for creating SSIS package.

But I don't see much difference in using such wizard and creating jobs manually, its almost the same effort with just a fancy GUI and guided flow.

If your aim is to reduce the effort involved in developing jobs having same framework, you can create one sample job, export it to ATL and use it several times.

Every time, developer will have to import the sample ATL, rename objects & apply required changes.

[former_member187605]

Have you looked at DS Workbench? That might suit your needs.

[Former Member]

Thanks a lot Dirk.

But then a question, does the one you create on DS Workbench will reflect on BODS?
Also, can we also create a script using this for advance purposes?

Thanks again.

[former_member187605]

DS Workbench generates code that can be further customised in DS Designer.

If you really want to buikd DS applications outside of  the standard set of DS tools, consider the usage of the Object creation XML toolkit as documented in ch. 9 of the SAP Data Services Integrator Guide.

[abhishekbiwal]

you can create a macro embedded excel, in which you can have a few option with check box to perform, extract, validate and convert.

In the back, you need to have a real time job or scheduled job which will read the XML output from the Marco excel and perform the necessary action.

Hope this approach helps your need

Thanks and regards,

Abhishek Biwal

[Former Member]

Hi Abhishek,

Thanks for the feedback, what I mean is that to make all the filters for example and the script in the Job.

Ex. I wanted to create in my job a DF that have my filter for example I need only a BP that is 'TEMPORARY' and 'APPROVED'.
And I have this windows form where I will key my input for it to create that DF.

[abhishekbiwal]

There a firm, which has developed this scenario, just cant remember their name

They had used ASP.net to create forms and stuff, and in the background it would call the BODS API's and create respective jobs for them. based on the inputs of the form

Thanks and regards,

Abhishek Biwal

[Former Member]

Oh I see.
Do you still have the link for that said topic?

Sorry for the answers. We're just finding out a ways to make BODS much easier to use.

Thank you very much Abhishek.

Regards,

Terrence