How to make Date List-of-Values in Prompts to display only DATE instead of complete TIMESTAMP in Business Objects

If you use prompts asking end-user to enter the dates, you may have faced this issue with Business Objects Date LOVs (List-of-Values). LOVs show complete timestamp (MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM:SS AM/PM) instead of just date (MM/DD/YYYY) even though date is not defined as timestamp in your database.

Following example explains the problem as well as the solution:-

1) Time Id is stored as timestamp in the database; however I use SQL-Server convert function to change it to the date. Now I create a simple report with this single object and use it as prompt as well. The list of values (LOVs) for prompt is still showing the timestamp along with the date.

2)   One of the solutions that many forums suggest is to convert the date prompted in character format. However this leads to three problems: - 1) The “WHERE” condition will give you wrong results. 2) You will loose ability to use calendar while selecting a custom date. 3) I get wrong results as the dates in ranges give incorrect results.

3)   My requirement is to show date list of values as dates without timestamp as well as not to loose ability to use calendar while selecting a custom date. Off course correct results too!!

4)   I create one more object in the Universe and name it as Time Id Prompt. In this object I will convert the date into character and use required appropriate format. 

5)   Now I go to properties tab and name the list of values as TIMEIDPRMPT.

6)  Now edit the list of values, go to SQL for the List Of Values and you should see something like below :-

Change the list of values SQL so that you can order the list of values in ASC/DESC order. Don’t forget to check the button of not generating SQL again:-

7)  Now go to your original object Time Id and just link the list of values by List Name as follows:-

This will ensure that your list of values is actually pointing to Time Id Prompt List Of Values.

8)   Export the changes and generate a sample report :-

9)  So this helps you accomplish three things:-

a)    Do not display timestamp along with list date of values in Business Objects.

b)   Still have the ability to pick custom date from calendar.

c)    Your results are not wrong as the underlying value is still in date format.

The Burning Khichadi!!

Nice title, no? Brain child of my roomie Nakul. After the usual slogging of 20 mins on decision of what needs to be prepared, we finally decided to prepare Khichadi. :)

Why do we slog on daily basis on this decision? Its quite boring to decide what to prepare and with my self being veggie, these (poor or rather helpless) guys are left with not much options. So what happens is we end up with Raita :D. As per Ravi (My other roomie) that this is the only thing which makes my prepared food interesting otherwise he prepares curries better than me ;). So you must have understood by now like what does comprise of this decision making.

So now next question, why Khichadi?. Since I was on-call support person this weekend, I was having comp-off on Monday. We prepare lunch for next day the previous night and hence this night Ravi wanted to prepare food just enough for tonight, so that I am left with good options to prepare myself at home next day and he gets a chance to eat outside. I was not giving in, as it meant to prepare food for alone the next day and main reason was these guys were eating outside without me :(. However, as you know Ravi is a good sales-man, he sold paratha and curd to me for next day and earned his own lunch outside :D

We have two pressure cookers at our place (Remember, importance of cooker from my other blog :P), but none of them work as desired. The whole preparation, properly cut onion, chilly, cabbage and potato along with green peas and lots of oil/spices turned into carbon as our cooker's safety valve burned :( As this safety valve burnt, all water converted into steam released and khichadi too burnt. Luckily we could save enough for our dinner tonight with extra supplement of two bowls of Bhel and Ice-cream :P. Anyways, it was all fun with explosion like sounds and comments by all. Best part was the ownership taken by Ravi to clean it (dont imagine Ravi as a very responsible guy), for a matter of fact, he likes that burnt khichadi and he ate it saying why should we waste it :) Somehow, we could finish the burning Khichadi and cleared cooker enough so that it can be washed.

The Essentials of America

I thought of writing some nice and interesting post today... so here we go :

Roti ... Kapda aur Makaan are still basic necessities of life in India (Now when I say nice and interesting post, dont think of these necessities as Mithun's famous titles. ;) )

Coming to the point what are basic necessities of life in US. Here is my list :

A) Cooker

B) Headphone

C) Ability to smile at anyone

Now isn't it weird? However, as always I got my points :

A) Cooker : Mexican, Italian, Mediterranean or Asian, whatever they may be called... under name of vegetarian food they wrap up all salads they have in a wheat or maida (I dont know what is maida called in English) roti. It makes me feel like a child. My mom used to prepare these rolls with a tomato ketch-up when I used to refuse sabzis in child-hood. So my Saviour is cooker. Easiest thing to prepare is daal and you can give it whatever flavor you want. Though I have not tried with every flavor, I still feel safe with daal :D

B) Headphone : Your phone may not have MP3 player. You can not afford an i-pod. You dont even have a MP3 player. Still you need headphone. Why? To protect you my friend. Though it is not that cold for anyone who is been here from long time... but for new-comers like me... the breeze when it enters my ears... I feel like ... :D . I guess you better understand importance of headphone in life.

C) Ability to smile at everyone : How do they know me ? Is she smiling at me ;) ? Am I looking something different ? These were my first thought when an unknown couple gave me warm smile. This is the culture over here ... to smile ... even when you had a good firing from your boss, even when you kept awake whole night for some or other issue ... you got to smile :D

So anyways ... jokes apart ... it is nice to cook your own food ... makes you feel importance of your parents.

Reaching NY!!

Almost all of them, to whom I have talked after reaching NY, have asked me the question... "How do you feel here?". Now, thats difficult question to answer... why... because I feel differently ... when I am at places... like I feel almost defenseless when I reach WTC station and I see the site of World Trade Center being constructed... where as few lanes ahead... when I reach Wall Street ... I feel excited as well as nervous... as this is the place where anything related to finances which will impact whole world happens. Anyways... answer is its good and place is well organized and disciplined.

After leaving Pune-Airport at around 11:30 AM IST (3rd Apr), I boarded Indigo Airlines to reach Ahmedabad at 2:30 AM IST. To my astonishment, I found international terminal of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Airport as locked. After enquiring a bit around there, I learnt that I dont have any place to dump my 49 Kgs of luggage. Hence, I just kept waiting for 30 mins infront of domestic terminal. In that span of time, near about 30 cab-drivers approached me and I said to everyone that I dont want to go. Finally, one more cab-driver came to me and as it is truly said that business is a gujrati's religion, he some how convinced me to book a hotel room upto evening. If I compare to this cab-driver in Gujrat to a cab-driver in Pune, there is a hell lot of difference. This man kept helping me in carrying luggage. He took me to nice hotel and took my luggage properly till room. It was so nice, that I got a feeling like this is a crooked plan to take away my belongings :)

Anyways after a sleepy day at Ahmedabad I finally checked-out from hotel room at 10:30 PM and reached international terminal, which to my delight was open and allowed me to check-in. I checked-in my luggage and kept waiting for Immigration check to take place. Police men over the security check looked to me and gave me a look like ... "shit.. first timers !! .. so many questions". Due to that I did not try to ask him any question and went ahead to board flight AI-191. AI-191 was comfortably good. Best part was on a three seat, they just allotted two seats. I was too happy to see that... it was not over-crowded and happily dumped my extra baggage on middle seat :) I postmortem the screen ahead of and remote in my seat :D and tried to watch every movie on the go. Till Frankfurt, I did not even realize, half of the journey was done. Food was ok types. They did not include chapatti and just replaced it with bread every time. Substitute works but does not gives satisfaction :P

After a thorough check of me(shoes, jacket, watch and belt) and my hand baggage, they finally allowed me to board my own flight. I did not understand the whole purpose of that check as we were supposed to be on same flight.

When we left Frankfurt, it was already 09:35 AM local time and we were already more than an hour late due to traffic (Runways are more crowded than roadways)

Now, Pilot has started playing a lot of videos about New York, culture, process and commutation. Mean while I received I-94 form which I filled and started watching my 3^rd movie in a row. After hour or so cabin-crew announced that we will be reaching Newark airport in few minutes. Every one started collecting their things. We locked our seat-belts. And nearly after 30 minutes we finally landed on Liberty International Airport, Newark. We were directed to visitors line to get immigration clearance. Now, here tragedy happened, moment I reached officer, he told me that I have not filled departure form and asked me to fill it and come again. I filled that form and again stood in that line. By the time my number came, the officer over the window went away. Again I had to jump to some other line. In between, all this, 3 more flights landed and queue was already quite long.

It took around 1 hour to get that thing over and finally I went to collect my luggage. Then in 2 mins I was out of the Airport... standing free… feeling the cold breeze of NY !!

Copy-Paste World!!

This one comes after a good public demand!!

I visited Cross-Word this morning(I rarely buy books, but try to read them completely over there only, as most of us :P). I saw a book over there which said "Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win". I said to my friend that I am not convinced. He replied saying that it is true, only original thing works and sales at business.

I started my philosophy(Got a chance to start my pravachan ;)). I asked him, are you having an ability to innovate something new? Can you introduce something which was never implemented/thought of? No. We are common people(mango people :P). However, does that mean we can never grow/ never do anything great? Cant we desire for something big/beautiful? Again a big no. Nothing works like smart work. It does not need to be original from you. Most valuable thing which comes out of Windows operating system is "Copy-Paste". Most of Hindi movies are copy-paste of either Hollywood movies or south-indian movies. Will you call Hindi movies a failure? Most of the policies implemented by our governments are already implemented somewhere in western world, does that mean we are not good? No.

We have to start accepting and recognizing the fact that someone is good than us and we can desire to be like them. Its nothing wrong. We have to change our mind-set that beautiful girls are not good natured.(So called middle class saying ;)). Hence as per me to win in business, you dont need to invent new business, you need to change the way you do business.

Why so serious?

You dont even smile for a day. It takes you more than ten minutes to remember your last happiest moments. Why do you behave like you are struck by Swine-Flu? You feel like you are unlucky and facing every problem in life? You are not able to buy your dream house? You are not able to get that big opportunity at the job? You are harassed by your boss? You feel home-sick? You are not able to find bride or You are married? Baat kya hai dost? Why so serious?

I have tried my best to list down all problems I can think of. However, I am not going to discuss solutions to these over here.

I am going to list down what all we miss thinking of these problems. You have not met/talked to a friend in last three weeks. You are not able to cherish a successful run of your first code in production. You have missed that road-side panipuri. You have lost, your innocence. Finally, you have lost your life.

There is a saying: K Sera Sera (I came to know about this when I watched Sarkar produced by K Sera Sera productions) which means "what will be... will be". In worrying for your future dont forget to enjoy your present.

CAUTION: This does not mean that you dont appear at office for a whole week and keep saying your boss K Sera Sera.

I passed out intelligent, but process killed me!!!

This is the funniest title I could think of for my near-about three years in IT industry. If you ask me how I felt when I left previous project. Really speaking I was relieved. I scared night shifts(I am BE first class with out any night out ;) ). However, when I look at previous project from my current project, I understand that my previous was much more complex project and we were not technologically competent.
I am strong in logic. Hence I think I am good in programming. However, point is how many times I applied logic or I did programming in my previous project. It was not lack of opportunity, it was lack of time. Out of 9 hours we used to work, much of the time was spent in following SLAs and processes. So when one of my friend from Mumbai says that if you dont work hard right now when will you work hard? I say that I am ready to work hard. However, work should interest me. If I am not competent enough I must be given opportunity towards it. If I am judged through how many extra curricular activities I am doing rather than how I am working then it will be a wrong decision. A wrong decision for me and for the organization too.
I am not against process. I think process streamlines your operations. However, when a person develops from one year to another and his brain is not given enough challenging tasks he will get frustrated. As an intellectual person you are not getting chance to prove yourself then chances are you will move out. Again opportunities are also very important in life. Just imagine you get married and have one kid and you are offered an onsite opportunity. Certainly you may not want to disturb their lifes. Lack of opportunities at correct timings can be very well reason of frustration and boredom.
One thing is for sure, I met friends of life at my previous projects. It was very well mixture of simple, good, intellectual, smart and very smart people. I learnt a lot of project/management tricks from their. It was really nice to be a part of it.