BEx: In Query Design I can't EXPAND Dim to select Char (missing + sign)

Question

Hi,
I am in BI 7, but created some queries in RRMX i.e. the 3.x query designer.
I went back to create a new query and I see my InfoArea but no means to expand it to select a cube, missing + sign and I can't expand the InfoArea.
When I managed to open one of the old queries, in the query design, I see my design but all the Dimensions are missing the + sign and I can't expand them to select characteristics;
In the same token, I can't expand the KEY Figure tree to select key figures, etc.
Any help?

Answer 1

Hello Amanda,
    1) a   There is no such rule as when to use query designer or analyzer. Essentially creating a query is done in query designer only. The only thing when using analyser to open query designer is that you can directly go to that query and change it and run the same in the analyser(Excel). To change a query when you directly go to query designer, you need to open the query manually using the "open query" button and you cant execute the report in excel from there(only web). As you can see there is no real difference, in my personal experience using query designer and then running the query on the web is much faster than using the analyser. Also excel has a limit of 65536 rows after which you cant really display the result. There is no such limit in the web analyser.
        b) Report designer is just for creating reports that look good when they are printed basically. You can refer the following link for more info.[http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70/helpdata/en/43/5fc0680a876b7de10000000a422035/frameset.htm]
2)      There may be a problem with maybe the patch level or something. No real idea why this is occuring. You can definitely open the report in excel using the BI7 analyser. Programs -> Business explorer ->Analyzer.
Regards.