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CA Service Desk Manager ODBC Driver

Business Objects reporting applications (Crystal Reports and Web Intelligence) access data using an ODBC driver that connects directly with the CA Service Desk Manager object engine named the domsrvr.

This connection provides a number of benefits:

• SELECT statements used by BusinessObjects reports reference objects and attributes using their CA Service Desk Manager names (in other words, their Majic names). For example, a SELECT statement for a report on contacts could be written:

  SELECT combo_name FROM cnt WHERE last_name LIKE 'smith%'
  

• The CA Service Desk Manager ODBC driver maps attributes like combo_name and objects like cnt to their corresponding DBMS name or names.
• All CA Service Desk Manager security, including data partition and tenancy restrictions, is automatically applied to reports. All connections between BusinessObjects and CA Service Desk Manager are associated with a CA Service Desk Manager contact, and the CA Service Desk Manager ODBC edits input SELECT statements to enforce the security restrictions associated with the end-user reporting role. BusinessObjects does not connect directly to the database.
• The CA Service Desk Manager Attribute Alias feature "flattens" or de-normalizes the CA Service Desk Manager database. Attribute aliases are additional attributes in CA Service Desk Manager objects that allow a query to reference attributes in joined tables without an explicit join, allowing the base table to be used as if it were a reporting view.
• The CA Service Desk Manager ODBC driver supports date literals in queries, and automatically translates values in CA Service Desk Manager internal date format to a standard DBMS date.

Important! The CA Service Desk Manager ODBC driver is supported only for BusinessObjects reporting (Crystal and Web Intelligence). CA Service Desk Manager does not provide a standalone ODBC client, and does not recommend use of the ODBC driver with applications other than BusinessObjects.