Exporting Business Intelligence data to an external database

You use the Business Intelligence Controller to specify the way in which you want Business Intelligence data to be exported from one or more projects to an external database. To save you from having to enter the same configuration settings each time you export data, you can save your configuration settings in a control file, which you can open when you carry out subsequent exports in order to export data using the same settings.

Before you export data, ensure that you have set up the external database ready for export and that no users are logged into the project(s) from which you are going to export data.

To export Business Intelligence data to an external database:

1. Launch the Business Intelligence Controller application (BIController.exe).
2. If you want to open a previously-saved set of configuration settings, click to open the control file that contains the settings that you want to use.
3. On the Powerproject Options tab, in the Planning data group, click the appropriate radio button to specify whether you want to export data from an Enterprise data source, a single PP file or from all the PP files within a folder with file names that match a particular pattern. Depending on the radio button you click, the fields in one of the following groups become available:
   • Use the fields in the Enterprise data source group to specify the server name, data source ID and project ID of the project from which you want to export data.
   • Use the Filename field in the Single PP file group to specify the single PP file from which you want to export data.
   • Use the Directory field in the Directory of files group to specify the folder that contains the PP files from which you want to export data; use the Pattern field to specify which of the PP files within the folder are included in the export. For example, enter *.pp to export data from all PP files in the specified folder; enter ABC1*.pp to export data from all PP files with a file name beginning ABC1, etc.
4. Enter the user name and password that applies to the specified project(s) in the Powerproject login group. Note that if you are exporting data from multiple PP files, they must all share the same user name and password.
   
   If you specify details of a user that belongs to the top-level security group in the specified project(s), all of the data from the specified project(s) is exported; if you specify details of a user with restricted access rights, only data that the security group's access rights allow you to view are exported.
5. Click the Database options tab.
6. In the Database connection type group, click the appropriate radio button to specify the way in which you want Business Intelligence Controller to connect to the external database. Depending on the radio button you click, the fields in one of the following groups become available:
   • Use the DSN field in the DSN (data source name) group to specify the name of the ODBC data source and enter the user name and password that are required to access the data source; click Administer to launch the Windows ODBC Data Source Administrator dialog, which you can use to set up and name a data source if required. The user name and password that you enter here are ignored if the data source is configured to use Windows authentication.
   • Use the Connection string field in the ODBC connection string group to specify a connection string with which to connect to the database. In most cases, we recommend that you connect using a connection string, rather than by specifying the name of the data source. Click here for sample connection strings for each database type.
7. Click the Business Intelligence export options tab.
8. Specify what to do with any existing data in the database in the Existing data field. Select:
   • "Delete all content" to remove all existing data from the database.
   • "Erase current planning data only" to remove any data objects from the database that have the same internal ID as any data objects that are being exported, leaving all other data. Selecting this option enables you to update an existing database with any data that has been changed since the last export.
   • "Leave" to leave all data as it is in the database. Selecting this option enables you to build up an historic record of exported data.
9. If you want the Business Intelligence Controller to run multi-threaded - ie to use all of the cores on the CPU of the server machine on which it is running, select the Optimise CPU check box. This will result in a faster export.
   
   You may want to clear this check box if the server is machine is servicing Powerproject clients at the same time as you run the Business Intelligence Controller.
10. If you want to save these configuration settings in a new control file for later use, click ; if you are currently using a control file and you want to save any configuration changes that you have made to the control file, click .
11. Click to export data from the specified project(s) to the external database.

You can now report on the data using a reporting tool of your choice.

Related Topics:

Creating and compiling your own Business Intelligence export models

Setting up an external database ready for export

Sample database connection strings

Invoking a Business Intelligence export in your own applications