How to Rename and Move Universe

Objective:-

Rename the Universe and/or change Universe folder without affecting the underlying reports.

Scenario:-

Many times during development cycles you may be asked to rename a Universe to meet with client standards or during migration to Production you may have to change the Universe folder.

The most important thing at that time is to ensure that the reports build on the universe don’t break.

Solution:-

I am providing an example of both these scenarios and how they can be handled together. If you just need to rename or just change folder skip the appropriate steps and the solution remains valid. 

Here are the steps listed on the best approach to do this without affecting the reports and involving minimal work –

Note that these were tried on BO XI 3.1 but I assume that it would work on XI R2 as well.

Below are the steps to follow :-

1. Import the Universe using Designer from the existing folder. 

2. Rename the Universe name from Parameters (DO NOT rename the Universe file name). If you change the Universe file name by selecting Save As, it will automatically create a new copy of the universe.

Note - If you don’t wish to rename but simply change the Universe folder, you can obviously skip this step.

 3. Now export the Universe to the new folder. You will get the below message –

You need to select “Move” in this case. If you select Copy it will create another copy of the Universe in the new folder and your reports will still point to Universe in old folder.

4. If you also renamed the universe as in Step 2, you will get another dialog box as below –

Here you need to select “Update”. If you select Copy it will create another copy of the Universe in the new folder and your reports will still point to the old Universe.

Additional Note – The underlying reports will work fine after this change and will point to new universe. However, if you open the report it will show the old universe name. Making any changes to the report in WebI or Rich Client will refresh the Universe Name in the report too.