Oracle BI Extended Edition (OBIEE) Tips and Techniques: Part 1

From Dan: I have been working with Oracle’s BI tools for years. I am quite the Discoverer expert (a free tool now from Oracle Corp…OBISE …standard edition) but this tool is now on the back burner and I hardly even field questions on it anymore. OBIEE is the replacement product in Oracle’s BI offering. This tool originated from Oracle’s purchase of Siebel and Oracle has enhanced it, put it in with weblogics and SOA, and spruced up the end user piece. I do training on both the admin/repository side and the end user reports/dashboards side. This article will show you some of the newer features of the tool. This article will discuss how to get started, or, come up with a good development environment where all these pieces are already installed, etc. Remember OTN? Oracle Technical Network? This site is your friend. Oracle has produced a rather large VMBox image that has all of the BI tools, including BI Publisher, already installed and working. The Oracle BI Sample is available for download from from OTN at: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-foundation/obiee-samples-167534.html The Sample v107 is Oracle BI 11.1.1.5 and the Sample v207 is the Oracle BI 11.1.1.6. This download is a complete working OBIEE environment for VMBox: www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/virtualbox/downloads/index.html .

This download is HUGE: 26GB.

I have purchased quite the PC to run this image. It takes a lot of horsepower. Toshiba P750, Quad Core processors running at 2.20 GHz.

• 64 Bit Windows 7 Professional • 8gb RAM, 500GB (fast seek time) Hard Drive

Bring the image up in the VMBox environment…open VMBox…then open the Sample v207environment. There should be an Admin, End User, and another account. I usually pick the Admin login. ALL passwords are ‘Admin123’. IF these accounts do not exist, email me for the setup and start scripts. The Deployment Guide has instructions for starting the various services. I have been using the ‘weblogic’ user id and ‘Admin123’ passwords to work the examples and illustrations also found under the documentation tab/tutorial tabs where the Sample v207 image was downloaded. I found the Deployment Guide very helpful with startup tasks and accounts/passwords. I have been working with the User Guide for the OBIEE product. I have found many of the tutorials helpful as well. Once you have the environment running…open a web browser (I prefer Google Chrome for Oracle things…)…follow these steps:

• Do an IPConfig command from a DOS prompt on the OBIEE computer. This is the IP address used next

• http://<ip address from above step>/7001/analytics o login: weblogic o password: Admin123

Oracle BI Extended Edition (OBIEE) Tips and Techniques: Part 2

You can try these reports out yourself at: http://www.vlamis.com/testdrive-registration/ . This cloud image is the Sample207 image discussed in Part 1. So, you can use the cloud environment provided by Vlamis.com or you can use the same walk thru against the download OBIEE environment discussed in Part 1.

Additional walk thru’s and useful documentation can be found at: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-enterprise-edition/overview/index.html Logging into the Sample207 environment:

• http://<ip address>:7001/analytics o login: weblogic

password: Admin123 OBIEE (Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition) is based off the Siebels Analytics tool. This is a complete web development/data access/data formatting environment. You can:

• Run simple queries • Run existing reports • Integrate existing reports into groups that pull in related data and detail

(dashboards) • Produce quality reports and web pages using the integrated BI Publisher tool.

The Reports:

• Column reports • Matrix reports (also called pivot tables or cross-tabular reports) • Graphs • Narratives

• Links • Objects (such as images) • Can include prompts to filter to different data using the same report

This is the screen you would see upon logging in. The end user might see a dash board. This screen shows the user what they have available at the click of a mouse. Being the administrator, this user would see anything available. The ‘New’ menu item then click on ‘Analysis’ brings up the report-building interface.

The report-building interface allows easy access to tables and columns. The representation here, the folders would be tables; the items in the folders would be columns. This is not entirely true though; the folders could be complex joins across your entire enterprise of data (yes…mixing Oracle, other databases, and even spreadsheet

data!). The columns can be a data column from a table, a calculation, or a mix of other items. The subject areas are then displayed.

All of these table objects, columns, reports, and subject areas are all controlled by permissions both in the OBIEE interface and the Weblogics environment.

The ‘Save’ button (upper right corner) is an important button. Safe often and frequently! Undo…undoes the last action only…usually… Lets build a simple report using the B -Training subject area. On the menu bar…select New then Analytics then B – Training.

The report is easy to build. You can drag and drop the columns from the subject area into the ‘Selected Columns’ area or simply double click on them. This report has

• Product Type from the Products folder • Month from the Time folder • 121 Period Ago Rev from the Time Series folder • (2) Revenue columns from Base Facts.

The easiest way to add an additional column is to drag another column out onto the selected columns area, then click on the ‘Options’ icon in with the column name and select ‘Edit Formula’. From here, you can change the contents of the column to almost anything. All SQL functions work here too!

Notice you have all the columns on the report available, all of the columns in the subject area, and of course, the power of SQL at your fingertips. Also notice we can adjust the heading from here. Simply click on the ‘Custom Headings’ box near the top.

Enter this calculation into the edit window and click ‘Ok’. ((“Base Facts”.”Revenue”/”Time Series”.”121 Period Ago Rev”)-1)*100 …If there is a syntax error, this window will not close and will inform you (yes…with the usual meaningful error from Oracle Corp) of the problem it encountered.

Click on the ‘Results’ tab to view your report. Save your report. To rerun your report…simply click on it from your startup dashboard, from the catalog, or ‘Open’ it.

From here, we can fix the columns, add conditional formats, add data formatting, add a heading, then we could add additional features to the report by adding a prompt, a graph, additional columns of detail, additional reports, and so much more. We can easily execute this report. We can include this report into a new or existing dashboard…to be executed with other reports and graphs. This information should get you started on creating reports. The next section will introduce you to BI Publisher.

Oracle BI Extended Edition (OBIEE) Tips and Techniques: Part 3

I have been working with Oracle’s BI tools for years. I am quite the Discoverer expert (a free tool now from Oracle Corp…OBISE …standard edition) but this tool is now on the back burner and I hardly even field questions on it anymore. This is part 3 of a 3 part series on getting OBIEE setup (part 1) and creating some reports (part2). This final chapter will expose you to BI Publisher.

You can try these reports out yourself at: http://www.vlamis.com/testdrive-registration/ . This cloud image is the Sample207 image discussed in Part 1. So, you can use the cloud environment provided by Vlamis.com or you can use the same walk thru against the download OBIEE environment discussed in Part 1.

Additional walk thru’s and useful documentation can be found at: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-enterprise-edition/overview/index.html Logging into the Sample207 environment:

• http://<ip address>:7001/analytics o login: weblogic

password: Admin123 The Sample v307 is Oracle BI 11.1.1.7 preinstalled and ready to go is now available. This download is a complete working OBIEE environment for VMBox: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-foundation/obiee-samples-167534.html. Oracle BI Publisher is an enterprise reporting product that provides the ability to create and manage highly formatted reports from a an equally wide variety of data sources. BI Publisher is designed to make use of MS Word and Adobe Acrobat. Other data sources are the Oracle database (based on queries), web services, and Discoverer.

OTN has a nice overview of BI Publisher. Check out this link: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-publisher/overview/index.html BI Publisher is imbedded in OBIEE and is OBIEE’s standard reporting feature. In this article, we will take a report we created in Part 2 and pretty it up using BI Publisher. I called it ‘Product_Sales’, its properties looks like this:

The data looks like this:

Now, lets publish the report using the built-in BI Publisher in OBIEE. My report Product_Sales is stored in ‘My Folders’ in the browser catalog.

Using BI Publisher Lets create a new report. Click New Data Model

Change the Default Data Source to Oracle BI EE… Click on Data Sets and select Oracle BI Analysis from the New Data Set drop-down menu.

Notice the different supported data sources. Basically, BI Publisher will pull the query from these various sources, or, just format the data from the XML or such…

This will bring up the ‘Create Data Set’ dialog box. Give your report a name and select the magnifying glass next to Oracle BI Analysis…this brings up a Oracle BI Catalog popup. Find your Analysis (mine was under ‘User Folders’ and remember, its Product_Sales.

Your dataset should look something like this. Notice the left column of the data model…you can add events under triggers, you can add additional fields, list of values, parameters, and bursting is how the report is to be distributed and in which formats. Once you get a data set, from any of the sources, now it is a matter of what do you want the output to look like. Lets continue. Up on the upper right…there is now an XML button. Click this to try your query.

You should get something that looks like the above. Click on the ‘Options’ button next to the ‘Return’ button and save the data as ‘sample data’. Now click on the Return button on the upper right corner to return to the data model. Now that we have a data model, we will now create a report to use it. Remember, this article is a very high and simple use of BI Publisher. BI Publisher can do so many things. Click on Catalog My Folders New Report

Then choose ‘use existing data model’ then select the data model from the last exercise.

Select ‘Report Editor’, give your report a name (I used ‘Product_Sales_Report2’…so it doesn’t conflict with the data model…I should have used a ‘data model’ name in my data model!).

From here, you can select a variety of formats or you can build your own. We will select the ‘Blank Portrait’ report. It is easy to drop back in here and pick a different template. BI Publisher allows you to create these report templates so that all your reports have the same company logo, colors, and general format. How cool is that?

From here, you are ‘report writing’!!! Drag and drop the columns into the report. I’ve already created an article that is way too long…but you can do a lot from this editor screen. Drag and drop your columns from the Data Source onto the canvas.

Click on the ‘Interactive Preview’ and select an output for your report. I selected PDF. Click again on the Interactive Preview button and you should see this:

Now, we have a report that we can select from this interface. We can add the report to a click point on the dashboard. This report is now available thru the OBIEE interface. It can be included in dashboards, printed, scheduled to run, have alerts posted to it (announce when certain data items appear in the report…), etc. The BI Publisher tool can now be used to ‘burst’ or run and distribute the results. The bursting process can produce multiple output types and send to multiple distribution lists, etc. This is quite the flexible report-handling tool. The latest release of BI Publisher is 11.1.1.7. Some of its new features include:

• Can now make PDF’s of OBIEE Dashboards • Retry limit increased when the scheduler fails to start the job • Now reports against BI Subject areas • Additional charting abilities • Additional CVS import support • ODBC and JDBC support for other data stores • Excel templates made easier • Additional check printing features • Support for ENDECA • Charts can be enhanced easier now

About Dan: Dan Hotka is a Training Specialist and an Oracle ACE Director who has over 35 years in the computer industry, over 29 years of experience with Oracle products. His experience with the Oracle RDBMS dates back to the Oracle V4.0 days. Dan enjoys sharing his knowledge of the Oracle RDBMS. Dan is well-published with 12 Oracle books and well over 200 printed articles. He is frequently published in Oracle trade journals, regularly blogs, and speaks at Oracle conferences and user groups around the world. Dan Hotka - Author/Instructor/Oracle ACE Director www.DanHotka.com Dan@DanHotka.com DanHotka.Blogspot.com 515 771-3935