To make data objects available to report developers using BIRT Designer Professional, place the data objects in a shared resource folder, just as you do with other shared resources, such as libraries and style sheets.

To make data objects available to dashboard and Report Studio users, you must publish the data objects in an iHub Encyclopedia volume. From the iHub perspective, a data object is a resource, similar to Java classes, image files, or libraries, which are resources for reports published in iHub.

You can publish data object design (.datadesign) files or data object stores (.data). A common strategy is to publish the design files, then schedule those files to be run regularly to generate the data object stores. To manage system resources effectively, iHub volume administrators can make the data object stores generally available to users while limiting access to the data object design files.