Business Intelligence, Business Intelligence (BI) Development, Business Intelligence Platform November 21, 2012October 10, 2019

Using Custom Images in OBIEE 10g & 11g

In both OBIEE 10g and 11g, custom images need to be placed in 2 folders before use within reports/dashboards.

In OBIEE 10g, images need to be placed in:

(1) $BIHOMEoc4j_bij2eehomeapplicationsanalyticsanalyticsress_oracle10images

Windows directory path example:
C:OracleBIoc4j_bij2eehomeapplicationsanalyticsanalyticsress_oracle10images

Linux directory path example:
/usr/local/OracleBI/oc4j_bi/j2ee/home/applications/analytics/analytics/res/s_oracle10/images

-and-

(2) $BI_HOMEwebappress_oracle10images

Windows directory path example:
C:OracleBIwebappress_oracle10images

Linux directory path example:
/usr/local/OracleBI/web/app/res/s_oracle10/images

In OBIEE 11g, images need to be placed in:

(1) $OBIEE_FMW_HOMEuser_projectsdomainsbifoundation_domainserversbi_server1tmp_WL_useranalytics_11.1.17dezjlwarress_blafpimages

Windows directory path example:
C:obiee11guser_projectsdomainsbifoundation_domainserversAdminServertmp_WL_useranalytics_11.1.1silp1vwarress_blafpimages

Linux directory path example:
/u01/product/middleware/user_projects/domains/bifoundation_domain/servers/bi_server1/tmp/_WL_user/analytics_11.1.1/7dezjl/war/res/s_blafp/images

-and-

(2) $OBIEE_FMW_HOMEOracle_BIbifoundationwebappress_blafpimages

Windows directory path example:
C:obiee11gOracle_BI1bifoundationwebappress_blafpimages

Linux directory path example:
/u01/product/middleware/Oracle_BI1/bifoundation/web/app/res/s_blafp/images

Note: you may also create or use directories at the same level or below the images directories under the s_oracle10 (in 10g) and s_blafp (in 11g) directories, for example, if you wanted to put all your custom images into a separate directory.

Then in Answers / Analysis, you would reference the image as shown below.

Edit the Column Properties:

Then, in the Style tab, within the Cell area, click on the Image object…

Then in the Graphics dialog, select “Custom Image” and enter fmap:images/your_custom_image.jpg.

Note: If your images are in a directory other than the images directory, you need to supply that path, but still starting below s_oracle10 or s_blafp directories.

And set the Image Placement property. Images Left (shows the Image to the left of the column data), Images Right (displays the image to the right of the column data), Images Only (displays the image only – no column data)

If new images were placed into the directories after the last BI Server / Presentation Server restart, you will need to restart the BI Server and Presentation Server for the images to be displayed.

Business Intelligence Platform November 12, 2012October 5, 2019

How to remove the popup menu when navigating from one report to another via a navigation link

When you click on a navigation link value, by default a pop-up arises with the name of the possible report(s) that you can navigating to. Even if it’s just one possible report, the pop-up still occurs (see example below). This happens after upgrading from OBIEE 10g to 11g, and there is no system wide setting to fix this.

This can be annoying to users because its an extra unnecessary click. They want to be navigated to the next report after the single click on the navigation link. Especially if they worked on OBIEE 10g before and did not have to do this. The good news is, removing this popup is easy.

Edit Dashboard

Edit the Analysis

Edit the Column Properties for the relevant column

In the Column Properties dialog, go to the Interaction tab.
Check the box below the Action Links table for “Do not display in a popup if only one action link is available at runtime”

Once you check the box for one column in your analysis, it will become checked for all navigation link columns in that analysis – so you do not need to check for others columns after you have done for any one column.

You will now be navigated directly to the next report without the popup showing. Unfortunately, this has to be done for each report because there is no system wide setting to change it for all.

Data Education & Training October 10, 2012October 11, 2019

Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g (OBIEE 11g) Books

There are a few Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g (OBIEE 11g) books on the market currently. For quite sometime, not many books have been available for OBIEE, and in particular OBIEE 11g.

Anyway, below are 2 books that I think are worthwhile, and 1 that you might want to look into … the links take you to Amazon, and shows the paperback versions. But you can easily navigate to the Kindle versions from there.

Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g: A Hands-On Tutorial by Christian Screen, Haroun Khan and Adrian Ward (Jul 19, 2012)

Oracle Business Intelligence 11g Developers Guide by Mark Rittman (Sep 18, 2012)

Implement Oracle Business Intelligence (Volume 1) by Mr. Riaz Ahmed (Mar 30, 2012)

I read pretty much all of the Screen/Khan/Ward book and found it to be good, but experts might find it a bit basic. I just started reading the Rittman book, got through the first 3 chapters, and so far it has been very good.

I have not read the Ahmed book because it is not yet available on the Kindle, and that’s my preferred way of buying books due to its convenience. But it might be worthwhile checking it out.

Happy Reading!

BI Administration, Business Intelligence (BI) Development, Business Intelligence Platform, Data Development, Reporting October 5, 2012October 11, 2019

EVALUATE_SUPPORT_LEVEL inside NQSConfig.INI is not set

If you use the Oracle EVALUATE function in OBIEE, then you will need to set a parameter in the NQSConfig.INI file in OBIEE 11g.

If you get this error below, then you are using the EVALUATE function somewhere inside OBIEE (in one of your analyses/requests) and the parameter needs to be set appropriately in the NQSConfig.INI file.

State: HY000. Code: 10058. [NQODBC] [SQL_STATE: HY000] [nQSError: 10058] A general error has occurred.
[nQSError: 43113] Message returned from OBIS.
EVALUATE_SUPPORT_LEVEL inside NQSConfig.INI is not set to support EVALUATE. (HY000)

This is what you need to do to correct the problem…

Edit the NQSConfig.INI file, located at: OBIEE_INSTANCE/config/OracleBIServerComponent/coreapplication_obisn

This is what you will see by default in the config file…
————-
# EVALUATE_SUPPORT_LEVEL:
# 1: evaluate is supported for users with manageRepositories permssion
# 2: evaluate is supported for any user.
# other: evaluate is not supported if the value is anything else.
EVALUATE_SUPPORT_LEVEL = 0;
————-

Change the parameter as follows: EVALUATE_SUPPORT_LEVEL = 2;

Save and restart the BI Server. Your requests should work fine now.

Business Intelligence (BI) Development, Business Intelligence Platform, Reporting October 5, 2012October 11, 2019

OBIEE 10g: Unable to sort table although “Enable column sorting in dashboards” is checked

I discovered an interesting scenario recently. Although “Enable column sorting in dashboards” was checked (turned on), I was unable to sort on a particular table. The mouse icon changed when I moused-over the column headings which gave the impression that it would sort, but it simply did not work.

Turns out there was an invalid “view” above the Table object in the Compound Layout. This happens when an object is removed from an analysis/request and its placeholder is not removed from the Compound Layout. See the screenshot below – notice the empty placeholder above the table with the message “The view that was in this position the the Compound Layout is no longer available. …”.

To fix the problem, simply remove/delete that invalid view from the compound layout and you will now be able to sort the table.

BI Administration, Business Intelligence Platform, Data Security October 5, 2012October 11, 2019

Configuring OBIEE 11g to use LDAP (Active Directory) Authentication with External Groups table

I have been working on configuring OBIEE 11g to use Active Directory for authentication and an external table for Groups. It has been a bit of a challenge primarily because I was not familiar with the Active Directory terminology and parameters, and so I was initially doing some guess work – about what the various parameters should be set to, and it was not very easy to determine what was and what was not correct.

Anyway, thanks to a few Oracle documents and a few blog articles I have made significant progress and I think I have it working properly now, and testing it thoroughly.

Below are some of the documents and articles that I used…

Here you will find some Oracle documentation:

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E14571_01/bi.1111/e10543/toc.htm

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23943_01/bi.1111/e10543/privileges.htm#BIESC6054

A great intro article:

http://www.rittmanmead.com/2012/03/obiee-11g-security-week-understanding-obiee-11g-security-application-roles-and-application-policies/

An article directly related to the topic:

http://www.rittmanmead.com/2012/03/obiee-11g-security-week-connecting-to-active-directory-and-obtaining-group-membership-from-database-tables/

These provided some more details that helped me to understand the parameters better and be in a better position to work with the Active Directory administrator:

http://bimetrics.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/integrating-ms-active-directory-with-obiee-11g-in-weblogic-server/

http://obieeelegant.blogspot.com/2012/01/obiee-11g-integration-with-ldap.html

http://paulcannon-bi.blogspot.com/2012/07/configuring-ldap-authentication-for.html

http://www.biztech.com/blog/2011/09/integrating-active-directory-with-obiee-11g/

Good luck!

Business Intelligence (BI) Development, Reporting September 8, 2012October 11, 2019

The difference between using logical columns and physical columns in derived columns calculations

When you define a calculated measure column using a logical column, OBIEE performs the aggregation for the columns used in the calculation first, before applying the calculation.

So for example, if a calculated measure (Total Revenue) is derived from the product of two LOGICAL columns (Unit Price x Number of Items), then OBIEE will create SQL such that the Unit Price and Number of Items columns are aggregated first, and then the multiplication.

However, if the calculated measure is derived from the product of two PHYSICAL columns, then the multiplication will be executed first, and then the aggregation after.

This can make a difference in some cases, so know what you want to accomplish and then carefully choose the appropriate column type for your derived column.

Reporting August 22, 2012

The steps for creating a BI Publisher Report

This is a brief post that outlines the steps for creating a BI Publisher (Published Reporting) report that may serve as a pre-introduction to the tool.

BI Publisher is a great tool for creating and publishing pixel-perfect reports – for documents such as statements, letters, etc. It has a lot of great features that will take some time to master but getting started is fairly straightforward. In OBIEE 11g, BI Publisher can be accessed directly from the main web interface that you see when you log into OBIEE, and you can get started directly from there.

Here are the steps …

1. Create a Data Source (if not already created) – or in other words, create a connection to a Data Source (such as an Oracle database)

2. Create a Data Model or select an existing one – defines the data used by reports (data will come from the Data Source above). The Data Model will include …

2b. Create one or more data sets in the data model – the actual data selected
2c. Create one or more List of Values (LOVs) – primarily for use in drop down lists
2d. Create one or more parameters – to add flexibility to your report
2e. Save Sample Data to data model (optional but important – report previews will display better when creating layouts)

3. Design one or more layouts for the report data (template file and set of properties for rendering template file) Layout can be created using MS Word, Adobe Acrobat, MS Excel, Adobe Flashm and BI Publisher Layout Editor). BTW, a report can include multiple layouts.

4. Configure properties for the report – this includes properties that affect the formatting and output of the report.

5. Add translations (optional) – this allows you to add translations for any text that is translatable in your report.

6. View the report using the report viewer – to make sure it looks good and is formatted correctly.

7. Schedule the report and set its destination (basically creating a Report Job) – set the time and report output type.

If you would like to get more details, a tutorial on Getting Started with BI Publisher can be found here on OLL.

Business Intelligence August 12, 2012

Oracle BI 11g Architecture Diagram with Descriptions

The main reason for this post is to share the above Oracle BI 11g Architecture diagram that includes notes about each component, but I will also add a few other notes about the Oracle BI Architecture…

The above diagram, which can be considered as the Overall Oracle BI Domain, provides a brief description of each component (click it to enlarge) but I will mention a few other things here.

The WebLogic Admin Console running on the WebLogic Administration Server is used to start the WebLogic Managed Server. Once you start the WebLogic Managed Server, it will typically autostart the Java Components and the System Components. However, the components can be started/stopped individually via Fusion Middleware Control.

The WebLogic Server, which is a Java-based application server, manages all the Oracle BI Java components. And OPMN (Oracle Process Management & Notification) process manages the non-Java components called Oracle BI System Components. Both the Java and non-Java components (System Components) can be managed via the Fusion Middleware Control interface.

Interact with the Java components in Fusion Middleware Control under bifoundation_domain -> bi_server1. Interact with the System Components in Fusion Middleware Control under Business Intelligence -> coreapplication.

Business Intelligence July 22, 2012

8 Reasons Oracle BI Apps is likely to have a Lower TCO than home-grown BI environments

Oracle Business Intelligence Applications, aka Oracle BI Apps or OBIA, is a set of pre-built BI solutions, that provide information to business stakeholders that they use to make more informed decisions and improve business outcomes.
Oracle provides BI Analytics Applications for ERP – which include Financials, HR, Procurement & Spend, Projects, Supply Chain management, Order management, Logistics; and for CRM functions – which include Sales, Marketing, Service, Call Center, Price, and Loyalty.
The pre-built solutions include Source adaptors, ETL, data warehouse data models, metadata repository, dashboards and reports – the entire BI/DW value chain. The platform also allows for customizations.

This short article shares some reasons why implementing Oracle BI Apps will likely have a much lower TCO than traditional home-grown BI environments.

(1) Implementation of Oracle BI Apps is faster and requires a smaller implementation team. There will be much less design effort, far less redo’s, much less waiting between team members, and a lot less risk.

(2) After implementing one or more Oracle BI Apps, the platform can be extended to add additional Applications as needed by the business. And since all applications share conformed dimensions (including standardized codes), they will integrate easily for cross-functional area analysis.

(3) Maintenance of Oracle BI Apps is standardized and has a proven recommended methodology. If the appropriate steps are followed, maintenance of the solution is smooth, and requires less team members when compared to a traditional BI platform.

(4) A great base of a solution on which your company can grow. Having such a solid starting point for the Apps that you implement will lead to quick user adoption and early generation of many more high-value ideas about the data that they would like to see, manipulate, analyze, etc. This is a much higher value activity than scrambling to come up with ALL the reporting requirements and definitions when starting a project from scratch.

(5) Since the Oracle BI Apps are performance and administration optimized, a BI team will spend less time working on performance and adminsitration tasks.

(6) The features of the DAC and the overall BI Apps design lead to faster ETL run times resulting in more effective batch windows.

(7) Although all companies are different and have different needs for business analytics, Oracle BI Apps are created from tremendous research and feedback from hundreds of companies. What you get out-the-box will undoubtedly be of tremendous value, as your company will benefit from all those ideas and best practices developed from working with hundreds of customers over many years. You will be getting and benefitting from metrics that you would not have though about.

(8) Since OBIA is built on top of OBIEE, the applications are easily customizable. With the existing framework built using best practices, an implementation team can follow that framework to add custom objects throughout the BI value chain – from the source through to the presentation layer.

Despite these benefits, each business is different and must be analyzed carefully to determine if the Oracle BI Apps is an appropriate solution. Good luck with your BI/DW plans!