Today’s topic is a rather common one and could be found on most of the blogs. After a long time, I again implemented the same so thought of sharing it with all.

Most of the BI projects have numerous dashboards and the business owners want them to get displayed in a list form such that all the related dashboards(present under same shared folder in catalog) should be showed under one link. This can be achieved by changing some configuration in the instanceconfig.xml file located in the folder <OracleBIData>\web\config\.

Stop the Presentation services and add the below tag in the instanceconfig.xml file:

<DashboardMaxBeforeMenu>2</DashboardMaxBeforeMenu>

and restart the Presentation services.

This tag will change the existing dashboard display and will list the dashboards present in single shared folder under one link.

Hope this helps.

I have got a number of requests to write on this topic, so here I am with Level Based Measures in OBIEE. As usual to start with lets understand what does this mean and how is it created in OBIEE.

What are Level Based Measures?

For all my new readers I would like to first explain what is a Measure. A Measure is any measurable entity and aggregation functions can be applied on them. In other words any entity which is  viewed/compared with respect to dimension columns is a measure. eg: Total Sales, Dollar Amount are measures which can be viewed against Time, Region Dimensions.

Now, Level Based Measures as their name state are calculated at a particular level. It can be better understood with the following example:

Lets assume there is a company ABC which has its Sales extended in many  regions, countries and cities. Now, the CEO of the company wants to see the Total Sales at Country Level(Western Region has US and Canada as countries) i.e. one level below Region and one level above Cities. So, here our measure Sales has to be summed up to the Country level. Similarly, the same Sales measure can be viewed against Time Dimension at any particular level. Eg: Quarterly Sales.

These type of measures are called the Level Based Measures.

How are Level Based Measures created?

Before understanding how is it created we have to understand the concept of Dimension Hierarchies.

A Dimension Hierarchy is basically a drilldown(from top to detail) of a dimensional attribute. As explained in my previous example (company ABC), while analyzing Total Sales against Region Dimension we saw three levels of Region Dimension, the topmost level was Region, the second was Country and the last was City.  These 3 levels will become the levels of our Dimension Hierarchy across which the Total Sales can be viewed. Similarly, the Time Dimension can have Total, Year, Quarter, Month and Date as its levels.

The Dimension Hierarchy is created in the BMM Layer in the OBIEE RPD and based on it we can decide at which level of a particular dimension do we actually need to see the measure.

Now again coming back to our question How are Level Based Measures Created. Once the Time Dimension Hierarchy is created, we need to set the content level of the Total Sales measure to a particular level(present in the Time Dim Hierarchy) to make it a Level Based Measure. This can be done by double clicking on the Total Sales column and then setting the level in the Levels tab. The setting of content level can be better explained by the below image.

How do Level Based Measures Work?

When we dont set any level in the RPD for Total Sales measure and create a report with columns Per Name Year and Total Sales, we get the below output. The Total Sales is aggregated at the Year level.

But after setting the content level at Month in the RPD, if we run the report, then the report will show the Total Sales at Month level and the data doesn’t get aggregated at the Year Level. In the below image you can see 12 records for year 2008.

 Another interesting thing to note with Level Based Measures is that when we drill below the Month Level in the report, the values for corresponding measure keeps on repeating, restricting the users drilling capabilities below Month Level. This can be understood by the below images.

 The above image shows the drill from year to month level. Please note that the Total Sales corresponding to Per Name Month 2008/01 is 43810.

 The above image shows the drill from Month Level to the Week Level. But the values for Total Sales column remain the same as in the previous image even after drilling to a lower level restricting the users from viewing the detail data.

This can also be used for security restricting the inappropriate users from viewing the detail data.

 This is all about the Level Based Measures. I hope it helps you to understand the basic logic behind using them.

Please let me know your feedback and keep posting…

I think most of you must be familiar with the term MUDE in OBIEE and for those who aren’t, its Multi User Development Environment.

It is a very commonly used technique while development but still I am writing this post here because some people still dont know how can we make use of it. MUDE in OBIEE is a very useful technique for the Dev Teams. As the name states, by using MUDE “Multiple users can work on the RPD simultaneously“.

How does it work??

Say for example, 3 people are working in a team and all 3 have to work on the same RPD and make some changes to it. In normal scenerio, one will start working and other 2 have to wait until the first person completes his work. This is a time consuming and inefficient process. Whereas, using MUDE all 3 can work on the same RPD simultaneously by checking out the objects, making changes to them and checking them back in to the Master Repository.

An important concept to understand here is ‘Creating Projects in RPD‘ . We need to create Projects in the RPD because the entire MUDE process revolves around checking out Projects and checking them back in the RPD by the users.

The checkout and checkin process works by using the concept of Master and Local copies of the RPD. When a person checks out a project in RPD in MUDE mode, a Local copy of the RPD is created on the machine on which that person is working. The Master copy remains intact until the changes are merged with the Local changes and published on the network. We will understand the detailed process while moving ahead.

Implementation??

Implementation is very simple. We need to follow the below steps:

1) The first thing that we need to do in RPD is to create projects(assuming that the tables are imported in Physical layer and BMM layer is setup accordingly). Go to Manage>Projects and create a new projects.

Projects are nothing but a grouping of one or more than one Logical Fact Tables. These projects need to be created so that users working on different Logical Fact tables can be assigned different projects.

2) Setup a shared directory where the Master RPD will be placed. Copy the Master RPD into the directory.

3) In the RPD go to Options>Multiuser and set the path of the shared drive(created in step 1 above) in Multiuser Development Directory. The same thing should be done on all the systems using the MUDE.

4) Now open the Admin tool on your system and go to File>Multiuser and then select Checkout. A list of projects on which you have permissions will be visible to you. Select the Project(containing Logical fact table) on which you have to work. This will checkout the Project and will create 2 RPDs on your system in Repository folder. One is the subset.rpd, containing the extracted project and other is the originalsubset.rpd which is the original copy of the RPD.

5) Once the project is checked out, you can make your changes to the underlying objects.

6) Now, to checkin your changes, go to File>Multiuser>Merge Local Changes. Now, as and when you try to Merge Local Changes with the Master RPD, a lock is placed on the master RPD. This is to ensure the version control and to prevent the code overwrites while merging. A screen will popup which will show you the lock information and you can enter your change details into it (functionality of typical version control tool). The lock prevents other users from checking in their changes and also view changes made by you.

7)  When we merge the local RPD with Master RPD a merge screen will appear. Normally, in case of no conflicts, it merges automatically. But, in case of conflicts with other users, you manually have to resolve the conflicts.

8 ) Now, to release the lock from the Master RPD you have to Publish your changes on the network. When we Publish the changes on the network. The local copy of the Master RPD will be copied to the shared drive and the lock will be removed. Also, the local copy will be deleted from the Repository folder after publishing the changes.

After this 2 excel log files will be generated, one in your local folder and other in the shared drive. These will contain the information about the merge process.

Advantages??

• Useful and efficient development technique.
• Saves time and allows many people to work on the same RPD at the same time.
• Version control and merge is handled by OBIEE itself.

This is how the MUD actually works in OBIEE. I hope it will be helpful for all my readers and also will prove an efficient development methodology.

Table of contents for Clear Prompts

1. Refresh Prompts while navigating Dashboard Pages
2. Refresh Prompts while navigating Dashboard Pages-1

Hi Friends,

Sometime back I posted about clearing the prompts while navigating between the Dashboard pages. In that post I mentioned about modifying the instanceconfig file and adding the below tag :

<PersistPageState>FALSE</PersistPageState>

The only drawback with the above method is that it has an Application wide impact. This means that once we update the instanceconfig file, it will be applicable to all the dashboards accross the application.

Sometimes, there are requirements where in we have multiple Dashboards in an application and in some Dashboards users want the prompts to be cleared while navigating between the pages whereas in others, users want the prompt values to persist. To cater such scenerios, we can make use of the below alternative.

Requirement: I have 2 Dashboard Pages, Page 2 and Page 3. I have selected a value in the prompt on Page 3. Now, when I navigate to Page 2 and navigate back to Page 3, I want my prompts to be clear.

It can be implemented as below:

1) Create Page 3 with prompt and report.

2)  Create a link on Page 2 by using “Link or Image” dashboard object. This link should navigate to Page 3 i.e. the destination should be entered as Page 3.

3) Now, select a value in Prompt on Page 3 and click GO. This will set the selected value in Prompt.

4)  Navigate to Page 2 from Page 3. This can also be done using a link but I am not covering the same in this example.

5) Navigate back to Page 3 by clicking the Link on Page 2.  

You will see that the prompts on Page 3 are cleared.

The above approach can be used for clearing the prompts while navigating between the dashboard pages. It is a rather simple approach but might be useful for some of you.

Few days back I got a requirement from one of my friends according to which he wanted to have the value of  Presentation Variable(selected from prompt) being passed amongst the underlying Multi Select prompts on the Dashboard.

Requirement:

Each national Promotion have NP Relase date and NP End date ,so, the requirement is to show the National Promotion in Multi Selector which the NP Relase date or NP End date between the Start date and End date (selected promt values).

Requirement

I think the above requirement can be achieved in Dropdown prompts but not in the case of Multi Select Prompts.

Any help or suggestions regarding this will be appreciated.

Thanks

Sometime back I was under the impression that the Java Host server is only used for displaying Charts,Graphs and all those flashy images, but, after the below incident I found one more usage of the Java Host server.

Today, I had a requirement to create some reports in BI Publisher. When I logged in to OBIEE and tried to access BI Publisher from More Products then I got the below error:

“An error occurred during execution of “connect“. No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it”

I was amazed when I got this idiotic error as I just did a fresh OBIEE install. Another interesting thing was that I was able to access the BI Publisher Standalone application and was able to login into the application successfully.

When I read the error, it said ‘target machine refused to connect’ which meant the server is shut down but that was not the case as I was able to login in standalone application. So, this thing brought up more confusions.

After all this confusion, I went and checked all the servers and found that except Java Host server all the servers were started. So, just as a trial I started the Java Host Server and to my surprize my problem got resolved.

I think this post might not be that helpful for some people but it can avoid you from wasting some time.

Table of contents for Architecture

1. Insight of OBIEE Architecture
2. Insight of OBIEE Architecture-II
3. Insight of OBIEE Architecture-III
4. Insight of OBIEE Architecture-IV

Hey Friends,

We have been discussing the OBIEE Architecture and we have covered 3 segments. So, here I am with the 4th segment DataSources.

This is a rather simple one as we all know till now that OBIEE is a reporting tool and works on data from  underlying Databases, so here DataSources are the underlying Databases with which the OBIEE server interacts. OBIEE is a very smart tool and it has got the capability of reporting on multiple Databases and also multiple types of Databases like XML, Oracle, SQL Server etc.

Now, in the previous posts you have seen what is an OBIEE Repository and what is the Physical Layer and what are connection pools. I am reminding you of these things because our current segment is based on this and we will see how.

Now, when we design the OBIEE Metadata or repository for reporting, we import the tables on which we need to perform reporting into the physical layer from the respective DBs. And then we apply appropriate joins between the tables and furthur pull them to BMM and then to Presentation Layer for reporting.

 The question that comes out here is “How does the BI Server interacts with the underlying DBs for showing the reports???”

The answer to this question lies in the Connection Pools. If we open the Connection Pool we can see that we need to select the Call Interface, give the name of the DSN, give a Username and password. These things help up to connect to the Database.

Call Interface – There is a drop down from where we can select the appropriate Call Interface. Some examples are ODBC, OCI etc. Both ODBC and OCI can be used for Oracle. The main difference between using them is, In ODBC we need to create a DSN in the system where the server is installed but OCI is a native DSN and we can use it directly without creating the DSN in the system.

DSN- This is the name of the DSN which OBIEE uses to connect to the underlying DB.

Username- The user with which OBIEE connects the DB. Generally the user used for reporting should only have the read priviledges on the DB.

Password- Password of the user with which OBIEE connects to the DB.

 Now, when a user runs the report in Answers the OBIEE server accesses the DB using the connection pool with the specified Call Interface and username and returns the data.

The next question is “How does the BI server takes care of a report formed using columns and tables from multiple DBs???”

As I have told you earlier also that BI server is very intellegent and is built in such a way that it can process request formed form multiple DBs. When the user generates a report involving multiple DBs, the request navigates to the Navigator section in the BI Server which checks the underlying DBs with which OBIEE needs to interact to. Then the BI server generates separate queries for the DBs and fire them on the respective DBs. Then it fetches the data from the underlying DBs and combines the result set in its own memory and displays the result in the report.

With this post we have covered the 4 segments of the OBIEE Architecture. I hope this will help you alot in understanding the BI Architecture and also in understanding the OBIEE behaviour. In the upcoming posts I will also try to go into the details and throw some more light on the BI Server components.

Till then Keep Posting….

I was working on a requirement some days back wherein I had to restrict the number of records in the Pivot table on a page. Firstly, I started to look for Pivot properties but when i didn’t get anything then i used this approach.

Follow the below steps to achieve the same:

1) Go to the criteria tab of your report and add a new column(any column).

2) In the fx of that column add the following :

     cast ((TRUNCATE(RCOUNT(1)/20,0)+1) AS INTEGER)

RCOUNT(1) is just like ROWNUM on Database and generates a sequence. Divide it by the number of records you want on a page in the report. Cast as Integer will remove the decimal places.

3) Now, drag this column and add it to the Page section of the Pivot Report and you achieve the target.

After following the above step, it looks like as shown below:

Hope this helps…. Keep posting….

Yesterday, I was working on some issue and had to make use of Rank and Dense Rank in some reports in OBIEE. Here I am sharing the same with you as I think this might help some of you.

First of all lets understand what is Rank and Dense Rank. Let me explain the same with an example.

If in a class there are 5 students and in an exam 2 got 95 and other 2 got 93 and the last one got 91. So, using the Rank function will give you the below output:

Students     Marks     Rank

And if we make use of the Dense Rank Function it will give the below output:

Students     Marks     Rank

Hence, Dense Rank doesn’t skip the values and provides a continuous series of numbers as compared to Rank.

Now, lets see how can you write a query for the same on the DB.

Now, lets understand how to implement the same in OBIEE.

The above two syntax show that how we can make use of Rank and Dense Rank functions in OBIEE.

Now, one important thing to note here is that we can make use of Rank as the filter in a report but we can’t use Dense Rank as the filter in a report. This is because Rank is an internal function to OBIEE and hence, when we make use of Rank as the filter in a report, OBIEE forms a subquery to calculate the Rank and filters the data in the outer query.

eg: RANK(class.student by class.marks) <=3

But, the same doesnt happen with Dense Rank. For Dense Rank OBIEE doesnt perpare and subquery and tries to use the entire Dense Rank expression in the where clause in the query which Oracle doesnt permits. It gives an ORA error stating that ‘Window Functions are not permitted’

I hope this will help you to understand the Rank and Dense Rank functions and their usage in OBIEE.

Keep Posting…

You must be wondering why it took me so late to put in my next post. Actually was busy with some new modules and project releases. But this time I have a good news to share with you. I have appeared for Oracle BI Foundation 10.1.3 Essentials(Exam code 1ZO-526) exam and cleared it. You can get the details about the exam at this location:
http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=41&p_org_id=15942&lang=US&p_exam_id=1Z0_526

The syllabus is vast and covers the basics of entire OBIEE. But my only suggestion for preparation of this exam is “be clear with the basics”. The questions are simple but asked in a tricky manner. The exam consist of 70 multiple choice questions for which the time allotted is 90 mins.

Kindly post your queries if any furthur details are required.