Based on my experience I want to share some of best practices for BO universe and Report developments which includes the basic needs to maintain some naming standards to develop your universe & reports in an organization standard with high quality.

Universe Design Check List

• Universe Name & Universe Description should be defined with proper Business Name and description.

• Class name should be started in INIT cap.
• Objects name should be started in INIT cap.
• Object should be placed in alphabetical order in the class.
• Measure Objects in any class should be placed after the dimensions/detail objects.
• Always define every object with meaningful description so that it helps user easily understand the purpose of it which avoids going through heavy documentation (User can view the description of a selected object in left most section of the status bar in query mode)

• Create the context with proper business logic names. It will help you to find out what context is used in a particular report.

• Always place any derived tables or isolated tables down in the universe structure pane so that they are easily identifiable.
• Alias’ names should be same as those of the respective base table’s name followed by the (short) name which identifies the purpose of its creation. For Example:- DIM_DT is a date dimension for which, the Aliases, Start Date and End Date may be named “DIM_DT_START_DATE and DIM_DT_END DATE respectively.
• Avoid automatic creation of Classes/Objects as this process lacks the analysis of user needs.
• Short Names or Abbreviations of classes/objects should be uniform across the universe (like Number may be replaced with “Nbr” or “Num” but, it should be uniformly practiced).
• Custom Hierarchies may be built wherever necessary to make sure that all reports using drill analysis will fetch consistent results.
• Predefined / prompted condition objects should be placed in a separate class.

Web Intelligence Checklist

Below are the general practice guidelines unless the company/project has any specific standards.

1. Font
   1. Report Contents – Size – 8; Font – Arial; Style – Regular
   2. Report Header – Size – 9; Font – Arial; Style – Bold
   3. Sub Totals – Size – 8; Font – Arial; Style – Bold

2. Alignment
   1. Text: Left Align
   2. Numbers: Right Align
   3. Header / Report Name: Left/Center Align (depending on requirements)
   4. Header / Last Refresh parameters: Right Align
   5. Footer/Page Number: Center Align
   6. Footer/Document Name: Right Align
   7. Footer/Any Confidentiality Note: As stated in requirements
3. Format
   1. Numbers: Positive – (#,##0); Negative – (#,##0); Equal to Zero – 0; Undefined – 0
   2. Percentage: Positive – #,##0[%]%; Negative – (#,##0)[%]%; Equal to Zero – 0; Undefined – 0

• Variable names should start with “V_” or “Var_”.
• Avoid creation of variables/formulas (in tool bar) without naming them.

• Name the report tabs and queries with meaningful names and tab / query name should start with Capital letters. Example, Have DLY (daily), MTH (Monthly) and QTR (Quarterly) in end of report name to identify the report frequency easily. Example, “DWBI SALSE REPORT MTH”.
• Follow the same hierarchy for Condition (objects) as classes/objects. It helps user locate the conditions quicker and makes condition objects more meaningful as well.
• In query panel, pulling the Dimension objects followed by detail objects before selecting Measures help user locate the objects easily (it avoids scrolling down in search of any objects. This helps more in case of queries built with more than 25 objects).

• Purging the data before saving it to the repository saves a lot of space on servers; It also helps in retrieving/opening the documents faster unless the reports have the option , “Refresh on open”.
• Always keep the report in top home page and fist tab (if it has multiple tabs) before export to repository.
• Having report Header (Company Logo and name of the report), Footer (Page Number, Name of the tab and any comments of the tab, etc.,) would provide more look & feel of the report.
• Export / Save the report with result mode and don’t export / save the report in repository with structure mode.

These are some of check list / best practices which  I used to follow in my project and it would delivery high quality of reports. Hope it would help you in your organization or project to improve the project standards. Feel free to post your comments.