BITeamwork 3.0: Quick Start New Featuresaws3.artofbi.com.s3.amazonaws.com/BITeamwork... · options that a company’s internal application development team simply cannot achieve

BITeamwork 3.0: Quick Start -‐ New Features Updated for BITeamwork Version 3.3

Introduction BITeamwork 3.0 is the culmination of many releases that have come before it with customer supported insights,

enhancement requests, and testing that makes this release superbly perfect for Collaborative BI in Oracle BI (OBIEE).

http://www.biteamwork.com

Business Use Cases Satisfied in BITeamwork 3.0 Lots of great innovative functionality now exists in BITeamwork 3.0. We’ve identified several new use cases and have

solved for these by the new functionality you see below. Here are a few business cases:

1. Users need the ability to quickly add commenting to one or more specific tables or pivot table views in an

analysis report. A user, for example a finance controller, would assess a report containing actuals and budget

dollars matched with a variance. if the variance seems suspect then the user needs the ability to enter a

comment directly within the confines of the table. there is no need for a pop-‐up window as the end-‐users

desire to see the comment inline with the row for which a comment concerning the variance is being added.

This comment should of course be based on the context of any filters associated with the page or dashboard.

a. This business use case is satisfied by add comment functionality in the column criteria functionality of

the the ad-‐hoc report in the analysis editor by updating the formula with a snippet of code. there is no

need for APEX or any other programmatic interface, just BITeamwork.

2. Oracle BI customers would like to push server configuration updates of Oracle BI server location information

to users of the Oracle BI mobile devices. A problem with the Oracle BI mobile BI system is that there is

currently no streamlined way to provided users with a single configuration of the servers associated with a

customer's Oracle BI servers to automate the configuration of user mobile devices.

a. This business use case is satisfied by the mobile configuration option in the BITeamwork Control Panel

which allows an administrator to input an Oracle BI Mobile configuration XML string. The connection

point URI to provide end users is already setup dynamically by accessing a URL page provided by

BITeamwork.

3. Oracle BI customers have other systems and applications which users access on a daily basis that relate to the

data found in the Oracle BI dashboards and reports. Several customers have expressed the need to take an

existing dashboard, report, or graph and place it into one of those other systems, applications, or portals. An

example would be placing an Oracle BI product sales trend graph in the Sales Team Microsoft SharePoint

portal intro page showing the latest data. This functionality is not natively available for Oracle BI without

BITeamwork 3.0 Copyright Art of BI Software, LLC 2013-‐2015

http://www.biteamwork.com/

individual report programmatic development which may take days to weeks and exposing passwords in plain

text.

a. This business use case is satisfied by the Embedded BI capability new to this release. An administrator

may access any dashboard, hover over the particular section, graph, view, etc. which reveals an icon.

Clicking the icon provides an option to set that selected “view” as an object to embedded. Once a

description of the view is added the form for embedding setup can be submitted. Once submitted a

code snippet to which will be embedded in any HTML related area of any application will be provided.

Providing this small snippet of code to a developer or application administrator will allow the code to

be placed in the properly application locate. Running the application page will then allow the Oracle BI

embedded view to be rendered.

b. This use case in BITeamwork version 3.3 was extended even further to include dynamic prompt

capabilities so that an organization can pass prompt values through the Embedded BI view to get real

time dynamic OBIEE views directly to an external portal giving a true dynamic feel to end users

without ever having to log in to the OBIEE portal itself.

New Functionality in BITeamwork 3.0 Below is a listing of new or updated functionality in the BITeamwork 3.0 release.

● Embedded BI

○ Provides ability to publish an Oracle BI graph, view, or dashboard to any other web based portal or

application on the network.

○ Utilize arbitrary prompts to control OBIEE views and data in any portal environment

● Oracle Mobile BI Configuration

○ Provides ability to configure hundreds of Oracle BI ipad/Android devices in minutes. This is controlled

via a configuration option in the Application Configuration area of the BITeamwork Control Panel.

● Comment pop-‐up orientation

○ Provides a consistent reference of the pop-‐up when hovering over a cell comment so that the

comment box does not push off screen and stays on the page in reference to the cell on which the

focus occurs.

● Environment URI -‐ via System Config in BITeamwork Control Panel

○ Provides an ability to set the specific reference URI for the Oracle BI server on which the embedded bi

(and potentially other server references are made). This is helpful for when a high-‐availability server

environment is in use so that this URI may point to a single DNS.

● Inline Cell Commenting

○ Provides an explicit manual approach to configuring a specific table or pivot table with a comment

text box by which users may add a comment. The comment will persist with that report table and

abide by rules of the BITeamwork commenting engine


Installation of BITeamwork 3.0 Installation instructions for BITeamwork 3.0 fall into two different categories similar to other software with which you

may be familiar.

● Fresh or New Installation

○ Gives each environment a net new baseline from which to begin using BITeamwork. This is the least

path of resistance and instruction steps can be found as listed below:

i. Instructions:

● http://biteamwork.com/docs/installation-‐guide

● http://biteamwork.com/quickstart-‐installation#install-‐it-‐video

○ This is the recommended approach for existing customers who are testing in a sandbox or

development environment. If there is a desire to retain any previously created comments stored in

the repository, then the Upgrade or Hotfix Installation should be used.

● Upgrade or Hotfix Installation

○ See section below for the upgrade or hotfix installation

If there ANY issues installing BITeamwork please communicate this to our product support team using our support

system at https://artofbi.zendesk.com . Installation of a new enterprise software product, even for a product plug-‐in

such as BITeamwork can be fairly straightforward. However, based on your current environment's configuration, your

knowledge of the existing BI system, and ability to accurately adjust configuration components of BITeamwork per

the instructions, these factors potentially may affect the outcome of the BITeamwork installation. We suggest that

the installer make us of our support team and troubleshooting tips in order to achieve successful installations.

Hotfix Patch to BITeamwork 3.0 from Existing Install A hotfix patch is usually a one-‐off fix submitted per customer issue resolution or a minor release of BITeamwork that

satisfies a known bug or issue. Sometimes that hotfix patch will simply require an update to the WAR file deployed to

the application server (i.e.: WebLogic), other times there may be a need for a SQL script Patch to be executed against

the existing BITeamwork database repository when applying the overall hotfix patch provided to you. There are three

types of patches categories: WAR file, SQL Script, Configuration Files. A hotfix usually requires just the WAR file

and/or SQL Script. An upgrade can also be implemented in the same way as a patch but usually more specific upgrade

instructions are provided. Upgrades are also often only incorporate a WAR file and SQL Script but often there is an

update to the Configuration Files as well.

In order to apply a Hotfix Patch (or basic upgrade) follow the instructions below:

● Given an existing installation of a version less than BITeamwork 3.0 this upgrade or hotfix should be applied to

achieve a correct upgrade to this version. BITeamwork 3.0 is truly an UPGRADE from previous versions.

● The term hotfix is used to relate to a single patch or minor version release of BITeamwork. For hotfixing, the

folder in the downloaded BITeamwork directory called applyHotfixAndPatches may be used.


http://biteamwork.com/docs/installation-guide

https://artofbi.zendesk.com/

○ Instruction Steps:

i. Move the WAR file from the download to this /applyHotFix…. directory.

ii. Configure the sh or bat file with the local server’s information as directed when editing the file

iii. Execute the sh or bat file

iv. Apply any SQL Upgrade files that are provided with the BITeamwork download for that

version

v. Restart OBIEE system components

vi. Verify version and accuracy by logging in to OBIEE

Working with New Functionality In order to take advantage of the new features in the release of BITeamwork, please view the basic steps as shown

below for each new area of functionality. As you are testing or working with the respective features please attempt

to utilize it as you would in a real-‐world scenario, use your own business data where possible, and in your own

corporate development or sandbox environments where possible. If the functionality does not seem to be available

or work as you expect or as you see below then please contact us immediately with your concern .

A Embedded BI In order to consume an Oracle BI dashboard, report, or other graph through a different web portal other than the Oracle BI /analytics portal, one must programmatically engineer Oracle Bi and some other forms of code language through hours of application development effort plus trial and error. This is a costly and time consuming endeavor. The solution now in BITeamwork is Embedded BI. As you will learn via the steps below, achieving the ability to reference (essentially copy) a graph or table from OBIEE and then copy a snippet of code to be placed in a separate web port or application is very fast, very easy, and saves an organization time, money. It also provides reliability of solution enhancements and additional metadata options that a company’s internal application development team simply cannot achieve. Embedded BI is the term we’ve chose to use as you are actually embedded an Oracle BI artifact (i.e. graph or chart, etc.) into another application. The content that is rendered as part of the Embedded BI process is a static rendering of the Oracle BI artifact in this BITeamwork 3.0 release. This was done to remove concern from customers of any additional license fees being imposed as in Oracle terms any dynamic rendering of content for non-‐named users when using a user based license may require additional user licenses. Static embedded BI results avoids this concern entirely. For Oracle BI customers having a processor based license there is no concern whatsoever as static vs. dynamic content rendering is irrelevant to their license type. In order to learn about embedding Oracle BI content, follow the steps below:

1. After installing BITeamwork login to OBIEE with an user having the BIAdministrator privilege, for example ‘weblogic’.

2. Confirm in the OBIEE Administration page BITeamwork control panel security section that the user you are logged-‐in with has the Can Create an Embedded BI View privilege.


3. Open any dashboard and access a dashboard page with graphs, charts, or tables 4. Hover over the dashboard objects such as graph or charts. The hover should reveal a “gear” icon

above and to the let of each object. It may appear also that there is a ‘gear’ icon and when hovering the ‘gear’ icon appears slightly higher than the previous. This is because the selection takes into account a Compound View (i.e.: multiple views) or an individual view which can be embedded .

5. Click on the gear icon button once you have hovered over a view which you wish to embedded or for which you’d like to create an embedded link.

6. Review the Embedded BI View Manager once it appears.


7. Review the three fields which are ready to receive your input. ○ Proxy As

■ Is the user login under which you wish to proxy or emulate a user’s credentials or information security when the embedded view is rendered. Since typically the embedded view access is only given to a BIAdminstrator role, this is clearly a sensitive option. Leave blank if you wish for the embedded BI view to take the security of the user viewing the Embedded BI view or the administrator who set it up.

○ Description ■ Enter a bit of detail about this particular view based on the context of your filter

criteria and any other information you wish to convey to anyone who may see this view. It will be available to them when they click an “info” link near the final embedded view.

○ Tags ■ Add any tags or taxonomy to the embedded BI object that characterizes its

existence. For example, if creating an embedded view of a sales pipeline chart, one may enter the following tags separated by a comma: sales, pipeline, trending, year end, must make targets, goals, do your job.

8. Enter some text in the description field 9. Enter one or two tags in the Tags field separated by a comma 10. Click on the Info link, “Click to See”. This will expose some information about the view you are

actually selecting including the page of the report view you have selected and some other information about the report view selection. This is typically used for support purposes.


11. Click the Save & Show Snippet button

○ This will reveal a snippet of code in a text field area that is generated based on your selections.

12. Copy the text snippet from the text area that appears and paste it into your favorite text editor to review.

13. Notice how this is a short and sweet piece of HTML code that will be placed into any HTML web page, content management system, ERP/CRM application, or web page

14. Past the code into a development or sandbox instance where you can dynamically rendering HTML page content on your network.

15. View your results.

Adding Prompts to Dynamically Interact with Embedded BI Views As a customer adding an Embedded BI view to your intranet portal (i.e. custom website, SharePoint, etc.) to showcase your OBIEE data outside of the OBIEE portal, you also have the option to add arbitrary prompts or filters so that you may change the data or graph views respective to dynamic variables are user triggered dropdown control and the like. In order to do, you will still build an Embedded BI view as instructed above. Once you have the snippet in place and tested its validity on the portal to which it has been embedded you may then utilize prompts to control the filtering of the data.


As part of this exercise to adding prompts to the Embedded BI view you may need to return to the dashboard from which you have created the Embedded BI view in order to run the dashboard option to view Create Prompted Link option to identify the prompts available against the current dashboard which would impact the OBIEE view in question.

1. Open the dashboard containing the view or analysis that you wish to embed in another portal 2. Click the Database page options and selected Create Prompted Link


3. Copy the URL syntax from the browser’s address bar to capture the prompt selectivity on that dashboard page so that you understand exactly the prompt to value configurations that you can easily pass into your embedded BI view from the target portal site. As an example, the syntax may appear as follows: http://obi11gserver.com/analytics/saw.dll?Dashboard&PortalPath=%2Fshared%2F1.%20Quick%20Demos%2F_portal%2F1.00%20New%20Features%20Demo&Page=NewViz&Action=Navigate&col1=%22Offices%22.%22D1%20%20Office%22&val1=%22Eden%20Office%22&psa1=%22A%20-‐%20Sample%20Sales%22&col2=%22Offices%22.%22D4%20%20Company%22&val2=%22Genmind%20Corp%22+%22Stockplus%20Inc.%22&psa2=%22A%20-‐%20Sample%20Sales%22&col3=%22Offices%22.%22D3%20%20Organization%22&val3=%22Inbound%20Org.%22+%22International%20Org.%22&psa3=%22A%20-‐%20Sample%20Sales%22 The syntax above is URL Encoded which is why we have the %20 and other ascii characters in the URL. You can use a simple URL Decoder in order to make sense of the syntax if needed. A good free online decoder ( http://urldecode.org/ ) will allow you to see the syntax a bit more legibly. However, you can see that since you had some prompt values already selected when you choose the Create Prompted Link option that in the URL syntax you have name value pairs of col and val. These represent the Subject Area column and the respective values selected from the prompts.

4. Open the portal page source code or SharePoint Web Part where you will have already or will seek to insert the Embedded BI OBIEE view.

5. Insert the Embedded BI view snippet if you haven’t already and make sure that you’ve tested it and

it returns the view correctly to the the external portal page. Read the other manuals for BITeamwork Embedded BI if needed:

● Embedded BI on SharePoint ● Embedded BI on a Custom Portal ● http://biteamwork.com/training

6. Return back to the portal page source code or SharePoint Web Part

7. Create a standard HTML form object such as a dropdown (select) box, radio button or form field in

order to begin prototyping your custom prompt for controlling the Embedded BI View. It is recommended to keep this initial prototype simple with only one prompt to be passed in to the Embedded BI view. For example, if one of your prompt values is for YEAR, then create a simple HTML dropdown such as the one below.

<select id="tw_prompt1" onchange="console.log( this.options[this.selectedIndex].value ); "> <option value="2010">Year -‐ 2010</option> <option value="2011">Year -‐ 2011</option>


http://urldecode.org/

<option value="2012">Year -‐ 2012</option> </select>

This is simple HTML syntax which any of your application developers on your team should already be familiar with.

8. Add the HTML syntax created in the previous step directly above the DIV tag from the Embedded BI view. For example:

9. Add some JavaScript to the existing SCRIPT tag that is part of the basic Embedded BI view snippet

so that the value from the dropdown can be retrieved when a user makes a selection from the dropdown by adding the following lines

var tw_prompt1 = document.getElementById("tw_prompt1"); var tw_prompt1_val = tw_prompt1.options[tw_prompt1.selectedIndex].value; console.log( tw_prompt1_val );

Again, this should be directly under the SCRIPT tag of the existing Embedded BI view snippet as seen in the screenshot below.

You could actually test the above code in a browser and if you turn developer tools on (such as Firebug in Firefox or Developer Tools in IE and Chrome) you can view the output of a dropdown selection made.

10. Uncomment the section of the SCRIPT tag that appears with the suffix of _promptParams This should remain commented out if not using parameters to be passed into the Embedded BI view. Otherwise uncomment the line by removing the two forward slashes (“//”) at the beginning of the line.


11. Update the logic as seen in the given example you’ve uncommented to reflect your desired Embedded BI View filter or prompt parameters. In the example given with the Embedded BI view, it shows the column (col) is "Time.T05 Per Name Year" and operator is set to equals (eq) and the value (val) is set to a concatenation of the JavaScript syntax for the value you’ve retrieved into the variable tw_prompt1_val. This API is clearly JavaScript based, so any JavaScript coding skill your developers have will be rewarded for this straightforward effort. Notice the syntax '{"prompts":[{"col": "Time.T05 Per Name Year", "op": "eq", "val": " ... this is referred to as JSON syntax. In this case it is a JSON array for a prompts object. The array can have more than one value for the col,op,val combination of prompt logic and therefore more than one prompt (or Form) value can be used to dynamically change an Embedded BI view. That’s great, right? As a furthered example, if the view you are embedded has a column for Department and the subject area’s department table is named Departments and the field is called Department Name then for the column (col) syntax your JSON syntax would appear as follows: '{"prompts":[{"col": " Department.Department Name ", "op": "eq", "val": " ... In this furthered example since you have update the column value to reflect your actual view’s prompts or filters then you will also need to update the values (aka option tags) in the SELECT dropdown. For example, your dropdown may now look something like this:

12. Save your work and you can begin testing your example. Next we’ll look at a simple page refresh logic that allows the page to refresh to reflect the prompt selections.

13. Re-‐open the source code for the page or portal in which you are embedding the view.

14. Modify the HTML SELECT dropdown logic so that the onchange attribute will have a

location.reload(); function to assist the HTML page to refresh when the prompt value is changed.

<select id="tw_prompt1" onchange="console.log( this.options[this.selectedIndex].value ); location.reload();">


The location.reload(); is a function call for the page so that when the drop down changes the page will be refreshed and will render the correct filtered results in the Embedded BI view.

15. Save your page or Web Part and now test your Embedded BI again to ensure it is working correctly. Refresh the page using the refresh button (or F5 key) and then test the dropdown.

16. Re-‐open the source code for the page or portal in which you are embedding the view.

17. Add a second, third, or fourth prompt by repeating some of the logic provided above.

A. Add another HTML SELECT drop down for another prompt or filter that can be passed into

the Embedded BI view, (ex: Entity, Office, Time). Make sure that the id attribute (tw_prompt2 as seen in the screenshot below) is incremented because the id attribute must be unique to the page objects.

B. Add additional Javascript which explicitly captures the new HTML SELECT object’s value. As seen in the screenshot below, the logic is similar to what you created in an early step. You will ensure that the new variables are unique and that the document.getElementById() is referencing the new HTML SELECT object’s id, in the case of the screenshot below, tw_prompt2.

Then the only key area that you will need to also adjust is the multiple prompt JSON logic for the JSON prompts array which is discussed in the next few step.

18. Update the Embedded BI view snippets JavaScript variable that is suffixed with _promptParams so that the JSON logic reflects both parameters.

var bitw_7960db28_9302_4368_a775_fcd0fa1eeade_promptParams='{"prompts":[{"col": "Time.T05 Per Name Year", "op": "eq", "val": "' + tw_prompt1_val + '"},{"col": "Products.P4 Brand", "op": "eq", "val": "' + tw_prompt2_val + '"}]}';


Notice how the syntax is that inside of the brackets ([]), each prompt object which has attributes of col, eq, and val are contained inside of a the squiggly brackets ({}). If having more than one prompt object to pass to the Embedded BI view then separate each by a comma. To see this broken down a bit further, here is the value side of the variable which is suffixed by _promptParams. Remember the full name of your variable which is suffixed by _promptParams will differe per each EmbeddedBI view snippet that gets created in the BITeamwork system.

'{"prompts": [ { "col": "Time.T05 Per Name Year", "op": "eq", "val": "' + tw_prompt1_val + '" } , { "col": "Products.P4 Brand", "op": "eq", "val": "' + tw_prompt2_val + '" } ] }';

NOTE: There is a tremendous difference between single quotes and double quotes when using JSON syntax with JavaScript. Be sure to keep each type of quote specifically as described above. For more information about JSON or Javascript syntax, please visit the following links for some expert assistance, http://www.w3schools.com/json/json_syntax.asp , http://www.json.org/ , http://www.w3schools.com/js/js_syntax.asp , http://www.w3schools.com/js/js_strings.asp

19. Save your work and test the Embedded BI view with prompt selections.

Additional Thoughts for Embedded BI with Prompts: You can of course make the values in the drop down HTML SELECT menus dynamic if you are familiar with JavaScript, AJAX, JSON, and some other fairly standard coding mechanisms for web pages and portal. Some assistance from your application development team could go a long way in this matter.

Troubleshooting Embedded BI If you have trouble rendering the Embedded BI view or encounter any issues, please take a look at these common (or least currently known) issues and see if they help to solve your problem. If not, then please contact our support team and we’ll be glad to assist you. Please use Firefox for any of your testing of Embedded BI. You will also want to install the Firebug plugin to assist in diagnosing issues

● Embedded BI not rendering: ○ Open the BITeamwork Control Panel, navigate to the Application Configuration Manager. ○ Updated the Environment URL to the exact URL (or IP address) of your BI Server including

the port number, ex: http://mydevobiserver:9704 ○ Restart the WebLogic and BI System


http://mydevobiserver:9704/

http://www.w3schools.com/js/js_syntax.asp

http://www.w3schools.com/json/json_syntax.asp

http://getfirebug.com/

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/

http://www.json.org/

http://www.w3schools.com/js/js_strings.asp

■ Technically only the BITeamwork application needs to be stopped and started in the WLS Admin control panel but most people are not familiar with this area of WebLogic.

Disable Embedded BI Hover Option If you can disable the option that shows the Embedded BI hover icon if you have been given permissions to see the icon from a BI Administrator.

20. Open the user preferences “ Settings ” tab by clicking on the gear icon in the Collaborative Pane or in the Comment Pop-‐up.

21. Uncheck the checkbox Enable View Hover Options

22. Click the Refresh my BITeamwork user information refresh icon button. 23. Test that the hover functionality no longer exists for you by hovering over any view.

B Inline Cell Commenting As a generic side step to the more innovate cell annotation concept, we have addressed the need to add a comment within a table or pivot table for immediate visibility without having to hover over the cell in order to view a comment. We have coined this interactivity as inline cell commenting. In order to achieve this integration which is still based on the BITeamwork solution framework each individual report by which you wish to enable inline commenting must be individually edited. This differs from the BITeamwork standard cell annotation feature which is available for any table or pivot table report on any dashboard. Inline Cell Commenting functionality must be set up per individual report. The most important part to configuring inline cell commenting per report is to establish a unique granularity for the report by which the reports comments will be aggregated. For example, if working on a financial report that is a straightforward combination of Quarter, Account, Business Unit, Actuals, Budget, and Variance, then the combination of Quarter, Account, and Business Unit technically makes each row unique and this would be the granularity for the report when adding comments. Follow the steps below in order to successfully implement this functionality for any given report:

1. Create a new analysis request or open an existing one 2. Click on the Criteria tab


3. Add a dummy column to the open analysis ad-‐hoc report 4. Edit the formula of the column from the above step by selected “Edit Formula” 5. Check the “Custom Headings” and “Contains HTML Markup” checkboxes 6. Enter the in the Folder Heading text field to “Commentary” 7. Enter the in the Column Heading text field, “Comments” 8. Enter or copy the following text in the Column Formula area

'<div id="twICDiv_" class="twICDiv" twTextBoxCSS="width:250px;" twRId="' '"></div>'

NOTE: It is very important to initially leave the blank row intact. This will be filled in with your unique combination of data or columns which will make each row distinguishingly unique in order to reference the comment. This will be explained further at the bottom of this example.

9. In the blank row enter a concatenation symbol ( || ), the double pipe, so that the criteria column(s) from you subject area selections can be added to the string text you entered in the step above so that it forms a single string statement.

10. Add a column from the subject area which specifies the uniqueness of each row and add more double pipes ( || ) as necessary to complete the concatenation.

NOTE: The syntax for the concatenation filling in the blank row from above is: || “Cust Regions”.”C52 Country Name” || “Products”.”P1 Product” || Here there are two columns used to distinguish each unique row in the table for which a comment will be associated.


Preceding the initial double pipe (||) is: twRId=”’ (after the twRId= there is a double-‐quote and then a single-‐quote) At the end of the last double pipe (||) there is: ‘“></div>’ (a single-‐quote and then a double-‐quote followed by ></div> and a single-‐quote)

11. Click the OK button to close the Edit Column Formula dialog window.

a. There should be no errors in the syntax formula as the syntax is completely compliant with the Oracle BI parsing syntax for an custom column formula.

12. Open the Column Properties of this column by clicking on the “Column Properties” option of the select column we are using in this example.

13. Select the Data Format tab 14. Check the Override Default Data Format checkbox 15. Select the HTML option from the Treat Text as dropdown 16. Click the OK button to save. 17. Save the ad-‐hoc analysis request by click the save icon button. 18. Add the report to a dashboard page and then view the report in the dashboardEnabling Standard

Comment Object Features ○ By default in BITeamwork 3.0 the inline commenting option is set to provide a streamlined

simple system of commenting although it is well grounded as a comment object in the BITeamwork framework. As of this release when a comment is created is stays in place in the table. The “ Save Comment ” option immediately changes to “ Update Comment ”. The comment can then be appended to or erased entirely as it is configured to be a transient comment placeholder.

○ In order to provide standard comment functionality such as that seen for dashboard comments or the cell annotation functionality, the following attribute should be added to the DIV tag in in the inline column custom formula,

■ twMode=”[basic|full]” ● basic -‐ is the default mode described above ● full -‐ provide options as seen on other aspects of the BITeamwork

integration functionality feature set under the Options… links. ○ this is not available in BITeamwork 3.0 but will be accessible in a

later version ■ Intentionally Left Blank

○ API Attributes: ■ twAPI_ph_text


● Place Holder text value showing in the inline comment text box when no comment yet exists.

● Values: ○ Any text characters except !, &, or %

● Not entered or No Value ○ Defaults to “Enter Comment…” ○ You can use “...” as the value so that no characters are shown

■ twAPI_auto_exp ● Determines if the textboxes will auto expand to the size of the commentary

entered for the respective inline comment field ● Values:

○ You will now see the report in the dashboard with the comment column containing a text area for entering comments as well as some options for saving the comment.

NOTE: Clicking the “Results” tab of the analysis editor will not see the comment text area for this new comment column. The column text area will only show when the report is rendered on the dashboard as the testing of entering comments in the Results tab is not optimal for the commentary solution. ● Add a comment in the respective row where a comment is needed and then

click on the “Save Comment” link button. ○ A notification will appear stating that the comment was Saved

Successfully and disappear within a few seconds.

● Update the comment by modifying it so that you change the comment text and then click the “Update Comment” link button.

NOTE: Version 3.0 provides this inline comment functionality in a read/write single comment per filter context capability. All comments are tied into our common commenting framework but as of 2014/10/20 the inline comment functionality defined as you’ve read above until we receive further customer requests for additional features or enhancements ● View your results.


API for Customizations BITeamwork 3.0 now has controls in place to allow customers to customize several features of the platform. Part of which to do with the inline commenting is the ability to modify the style, size, and color of the text area in the cell for which inline commenting is needed. Following the API instructions with examples below will allow you to customize the areas outline below using the API. We are looking for additional customer enhancement requests for this topic at the moment to expand this capability.

● Text Area Input ○ The attributes of the text field can be fairly completely customized to the look and feel that

you need from a Cascading Stylesheet (CSS) perspective. In order to do this, in the DIV object used in the Custom Formula you will need to add an attribute, twTextCSS . This attribute will hold CSS attributes for an HTML5 textarea object.

○ By default, the comment text area is defined with only the following attributes: ■ border: 1px #aaa solid; resize: none; width:400px;

○ Example:

'<div id="twICDiv_" class="twICDiv" twTextBoxCSS="width:230px;height:20px;background-‐color:#ccc;" twRId="' || "Time"."Per Name Year" || "Products"."Product" || '"></div>'

●

○ auto ○ off

● Not entered or No Value ○ Defaults to providing auto expanding to match text entered

■ twAPI_textbox_css (previously twTextBoxCSS)

● Cascading Style Sheet and styling of the text box ● Values:

○ Any CSS, however avoid !,&, or % characters as these characters will break the rendering of the inline comments

● Not entered or No Value ○ Defaults to “Enter Comment…”

■ twAPI_inline_edit (previously twAllowEdit)

● If editing is allowed for inline comments fields in the report ● Values:

○ true ■ Default Value

○ false ● Not entered or No Value

○ Defaults to editing allows


■ twAPI_html_only

● Provides a display of the commentary entered in the inline cell comment as text based or HTML content.

● Values ○ true ○ false

■ Default Value

■ twAPI_ilc_actions_visible ● Show actions under the inline cell comment or not ● Values

○ true ■ Default Value

○ false

■ twAPI_ilc_actions ● A pipe separated list of options links that are available ● Values

○ all ■ Default Value

○ none ○ menu ○ reply ○ delete ○ edit ○ update

○ The Commenting API for inline comments will be expanded upon future releases and

additional real-‐world client enhancement requests.

Troubleshooting Inline Cell Commenting We’ve discovered very few anomalies with the inline cell commenting functionality. The primary one revolves around leverage non-‐relational data sources such as Essbase. Please read below to see issues and resolutions:

1. Clicking in Comment Begins to Drill Down in Report ○ This occurs because the drill interaction is turned on at the report level. Report level

interactions are okay and by themselves do not cause the issue. It is the drill action being enabled on the inline cell comment column which makes no sense to have enabled.

○ Turn off the drill interaction at the comment level for the inline cell comment you’ve created.

○ In the Criteria tab of the analysis: i. Click on the inline cell comment column you’ve created and select Properties


ii. Click on the Interaction tab iii. Change both dropdowns form Column Head and Value to None . iv. Click the OK button and then save the report and try again.

2. Comment textboxes Do Not Show on Report in Dashboard (w/ Essbase data source) ○ This has been seen to happen when using an Oracle Essbase data source with OBIEE. ○ Ensure that you have created the syntax for the inline cell commenting API correctly by

reviewing the structure. If needed simply enter a dummy value in the twRId value instead of the OBIEE concatenation pipes in order to test that the text boxes appear.

○ The solution to this has been found to be an issue with the Custom Formula. To solve this follow the steps below of:

i. Click on the comment column you created and select Edit Formula ii. Click on the Aggregation Rule (Totals Row) dropdown and select Server Determined.

iii. Click the OK button, then save and test the analysis

○ If the solution above does not work immediately then try to remove the column from the analysis, save it, logout/exit OBIEE and then return to create the comment field once more.


C Deploy Oracle BI Mobile to 100’s of Devices at One Time BITeamwork now gives administrators functionality to deploy the configured Oracle BI systems to hundreds of mobile BI uses at once. By providing a central location for Mobile BI users to access the Oracle BI server configurations established for the company, users will access the link via their mobile devices and the Oracle Mobile BI application will automatically configure itself.

Prerequisite In order to achieve this you will need to have BITeamwork 3.0+ installed and have either installed on your mobile phone or tablet the:

● Oracle BI Mobile HD iOS application , or ● Oracle BI Mobile Android application

Template XML Configuration We make use of the Oracle BI Mobile configuration XML logic and update the corresponding area of the BITeamwork interface. This allows an administrator to edit the base configuration with your Company’s Oracle BI server infrastructure access information in the XML logic, save the logic within BITeamwork, and the configuration will automatically be accessible to hundreds of users once you provide the BITeamwork access URL to them via email or other means of access. Here is the basic XML template from which we may start making the configuration adjustments. An example configuration for you to emulate for learning purposes is seen in the section below the configuration steps. This template immediately below is an approved configuration structure for the Oracle BI Mobile application which contains two Oracle BI server configurations. You may read more about the structure here, http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi/documentation/bieqj-2284016.pdf

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

<key>obim</key>

<dict>

<key>servers</key>

<array>

<dict>



<key>analyticsPath</key>

<string>/analytics/saw.dll</string>



<key>host</key>

<string>192.168.1.32</string>



<key>locale</key>

<true/>


https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oracle.obi&hl=en

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/oracle-business-intelligence/id534035015?mt=8



<key>name</key>

<string>ArtOfBI SampleApp v406</string>



<key>port</key>

<integer>7780</integer>



<key>selected</key>

<true/>



<key>ssl</key>

<false/>



<key>sso</key>

<false/>



<key>xmlpPath</key>

<string>/xmlpserver</string>

</dict>

<dict>



<key>analyticsPath</key>

<string>/analytics/saw.dll</string>



<key>host</key>

<string>192.168.1.38</string>



<key>locale</key>

<true/>



<key>name</key>

<string>ArtOfBI Config1</string>



<key>port</key>

<integer>9704</integer>



<key>selected</key>

<true/>



<key>ssl</key>

<true/>



<key>sso</key>

<true/>



<key>xmlpPath</key>

<string>/xmlpserver</string>

</dict>

</array>


<key>version</key>

<string>11.1.1.6.0</string>

</dict>

</dict>

</plist>

Configuration Steps The steps below walk through an example configuration and how-‐to setup for the Oracle BI Mobile configuration access point

1. Access the BITeamwork control panel 2. Click on the Application Manager link on the left side of the control panel 3. In the Application Configuration Manager area click on the Advanced Configuration section to

expose the Mobile BI XML Config option:

4. Open your favorite notepad editor (such as notepad++, textedit, or plain ‘ol notepad) on your workstation then copy the XML template above and paste it into a new document for editing. Based on the structure it should be immediately apparent that this is a key/value configuration script. Each Oracle BI server that you wish to configure as part of your automated configuration deployment to end users will be listed between a <dict></dict> tag. multiple <dict></dict> tags can be created as siblings of each other by specifying the properties for each OBIEE server by adjusting the tags in between. Each value between the <key></key> tags are default structural tags required by the configuration XML. The tag immediately below each <key></key> tag is the value associated with that key attribute. For example,

<key>port</key>

<integer>9704</integer> represents the port attribute of the Oracle BI Server where the application presentation layer is running. The tag for the attribute value in this case is listed as “integer”, other attribute value tags are “string” and for a boolean (true or false) the tag is simply the boolean value listed as <true/> or <false/>.


5. Modify the Oracle BI server properties section under the first <dict></dict> tag and change the values to correspond with your server. You will need to modify all the attribute values as it relates to your Oracle BI Servers. We recommend only updating the first section with the attributes for your development or sandbox environment. Preferably an environment that is easy to test such as one that is not secured by SSL or SSO until you’ve successfully established a connection to an Oracle BI server with a plain configuration.

6. Modify the host, name, and port <key> tags. Change: a. 192.168.1.32 to the server name or IP for one of your OBIEE instances.

i. Do not include HTTP or HTTPS ii. If using the server name just enter bi.companyxyz.com but not

http://bi.companyxyz.com b. ArtOfBI SampleApp v406 to any alias name you would like to show your end users in the

configuration list. For example, Oracle BI Production or TEST BI SERVER c. 7780 to the port number for which you are accessing the instance of the BI Server you are

configuring. For example, 9704. i. If there is no port number shown in the browser address bar when you are

accessing the Oracle BI dashboards then you would use enter 80, which is the default HTTP web server default.

7. Copy the text within the text editor containing your changes above. 8. Paste the copied text into the Mobile BI XML Config field

9. Click the “Save” button to save your changes. 10. Now provide the following link to your users via email or via a intranet portal page for them to

access. The link to be provided is: a. http[s]://<servername>/bitw/x/mobilebi/a/29894849/v2

11. Modify the link above so that it references your key Oracle BI implementation on which BITeamwork is now installed. For example use HTTPS only if your Oracle BI server will be secured via SSL, otherwise use HTTP. Change the URL and replace the <servername> placehoder with the name or IP of your server. For example, if testing this version of BITeamwork in your sandbox or development environment with IP address 192.168.1.11 running OBIEE on default port 9704 then


the URL to provide your end users becomes, http://192.168.1.11:9704/bitw/x/mobilebi/a/29894849/v2

12. Navigate to the URL you’ve configured in the previous step using the browser on your desktop workstation to ensure that you’ve entered it correctly.

This is the access page URL you will provide your Mobile BI users. The users will then click on the link present in this URL page while accessing the URL via their mobile devices. Once they click on the link, if the Oracle BI Mobile application is installed on their device, all server configurations you established in the XML configuration file will be added to the users’ list of available OBIEE servers which are available to them on their network. Users will still be required to enter and save their credentials but all server configuration information will be immediate visible on their mobile device.

13. Test on your mobile device and confirm the alias of the OBIEE server your configured in the XML script above is now visible for the first time in your list of available servers on your mobile device.

D Intentionally Left Blank Intentionally Left Blank

Provide Feedback We would very much appreciate an any feedback that you have concerning your installation, configuration, and

actual usage, inputs, and interactions with this version of BITeamwork. Please use https://artofbi.zendesk.com/ to

submit any general feedback, issues or concerns. Please include the following information when you provide the

feedback:

● Name

● Company Name

● OBIEE Version

● Database Version


https://artofbi.zendesk.com/

● If using an HTTP Web Tier or Proxy and what product (IIS, OHS, Apache, etc.)

● If the OBIEE environment has any customizations, skins or styles, and which?

● Feedback you’d like to give with detailed descriptions.

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BITeamwork 3.0: Quick Start New Featuresaws3.artofbi.com.s3.amazonaws.com/BITeamwork... · options that a company’s internal application development team simply cannot achieve