Frequently Asked Questions

Q. When is Data Warehouse available? 
A. The Data Warehouse is available  Monday through Friday from 8:00am – 5:00pm.

Q. Instructions for Saving Your Customized Reports to the New BiQuery Server.
A.  Please read the following instructions carefully: http://www.wwu.edu/depts/admcs/customization_info.html before proceeding.  Please phone ADMCS x4444 with problems or questions.

Q. How do I get permission to the student data warehouse?
A. Go to the Administrative Web Forms menu at https://west.wwu.edu/admcs/forms. Fill out and submit the "Data Warehouse Request" form.

Q. How do I install BI-Query version 9?
A. Follow the instructions on this page: http://www.wwu.edu/depts/admcs/biqw/How_to_install_BIQuery9.htm

 Q. Why do I get the message “RUNDLL Error Loading –S The specified module could not be found”? 
A. This message pops up on Windows 2000 machines after the initial install or reinstall of working files used to run the BIQry application.  Ignore this message as it does not have any effect on the performance or integrity of the product and does not come up on subsequent reboots. 

Q. How do I SAVE my newly created reports so that I can rerun them whenever I need to? . 
A. Publish your reports back to the repository.  To publish your report – select FILE>PUBLISH. 

Q. How do I get Data Warehouse changes made by ADMCS? 
A. RETRIEVE the Dataw model from the repository and the most current copy of all the centrally maintained data definitions and reports that are copied giving you all the latest changes. This synchronization takes a couple minutes to perform.

Q. Do I lose any changes or additions I've made to my Dataw when synchronization occurs ?
A. If you perform the following procedure you will not loose changes and addition: Publish your reports and changes to the model back to the repository.  To publish your model or report – choose FILE>PUBLISH.  NOTE:  Your model will always be published back to folder where the model originated from – for the Dataw model,  the folder is AA_Dataw. 

Q. How can I immediately stop a query/report that I ran incorrectly? 
A. The model is implemented with a governor (a regulating device).  There are two ways. (1) After 500 records or five minutes a popup window will appear displaying a message with a prompt whether you  would like to continue or stop.  (2) Another way to stop the query/report process is to mouse click on the traffic light icon on the tool bar.
Q. Where can I get help?
A.  HR will be conducting classes on running and writing Bi-Query reports against the Data Warehouse. If you need help getting set up properly or need basic Bi-Query help contact ADMCS Help Desk, x4444.  If you need help on "what the data means" contact the Institutional Research office.
Q. How do I delete a report? 
A. The current release does not support deleting reports by a general BI-Query User.  To resolve this issue, we have created a folder called “ZZ_DELETE_FOLDER”.  The ADMCS operations staff will open this folder daily and delete its contents.  Therefore, if you need to delete a report you should publish your report to this folder to be automatically deleted the following day.

Q. What does the message “ORA-00942 – Table or View does not exists” mean? 
A. You have not been authorized to access the Oracle database tables.  You need to submit the "Data Warehouse Request" form to the appropriate data custodian to get access to the data in the Data Warehouse. Find it on the Web forms menu: https://west.wwu.edu/admcs/forms
Q. How do I see the ‘Attribute Comment’ when I click the ‘?’ next to an field name?  
A. If the ‘Load Comment’ button is greyed out, you will need to connect to the database. (Host->Connect, or click on the plug icon on the tool bar. ) Click the ‘Load Comment’ button - text describing the attribute (field) will appear in the text box. When you are finished, click CANCEL. Do Not click OK to ensure that when the metadata is updated, you will get the latest comments when you click Load Comment. Clicking OK will solely save the current comment, it will not automatically get updated if there is a change.

 Q. How do I change my BI-Query User password?
A. Starting with version 8, BI-Query uses your Universal ID username & password, just as Outlook does. Therefore, it is no longer possible to change your password using BI-Query. To change your Universal ID password, visit the "Password Information" page: http://west.wwu.edu/atus/password

Q. Why do I get the error “Connection error: An unknown error occurred” when I try to run a query or report?
A.  BI-Query is unable to find the database connectivity software it needs. Close BI-Query. Open the 'WWU Applications' icon on your desktop. Double-click the icon "Database Connect Installation." It will install some files, then prompt you to reboot. After rebooting, open BI-Query, and try connecting to the database again. If it still doesn't work, or if you are unable to run the "Database Connect Installation" application, please contact the ADMCS Help Desk at x4444.

Q. When I open BI-Query, the bottom half of my screen is filled with an empty Query: Untitled window. How do I make it go away?
A.  Close the Query: Untitled window by clicking the close box with the 'X' in it, and then choose Publish from the File menu. Follow these screen shots to see a step-by-step demonstration. If you have any questions, please contact the ADMCS Help Desk at x4444.

Bi-Query WEB


Q. I don't know much about BI-Web, how can I get a BI-Web primer?
A. Click on this link for tutorial http://www.wwu.edu/depts/admcs/biqw/biwstart.htm

Q. How do I log onto BI Query/Web? 
A. A link to BI Query/Web can be found on the ADMCS home page (http://www.wwu.edu/depts/admcs) and MyWWU (http://my.wwu.edu) under the Technology tab. Use your Outlook/Active Directory username and password to log in, and enter ‘wwu’ in the ‘Domain’ text box..

Q. Why do I get only a gray screen with a letter "X" in the upper left corner of the screen when attempting to open DataW in IE or why do I get a message like "Java.Lan.ClassNotFoundException" or  http://<ServerName>/ADYCodebase/com/hcl/bi/rendering/RenderApplet.class?
A. Go to Tools -> Internet Options -> Advanced -> Java (Sun). Uncheck the box that says “Use Java 2 v1.3.1_02 for <applet> (requires restart).” Restart your browser, log back in to BI Web, and re-launch Dataw.
 For XP Users: Windows XP does not ship with the Microsoft Java Virtual Machine installed, as previous versions of Windows did. So in addition to unchecking the above setting, you must install the MS Java Virtual Machine. Please contact the ADMCS Help Desk at 650-4444 for the location and instructions.