NEW - Oracle BI 11g Trainings

New Oracle BI 11g trainings are announced. There are 2 trainings that are similar to the previous trainings for 10g. One of them is about creating analyses and creating dashboards. So this one is related with the web interface. Build Repositories is the other training which focuses on creating and modifying the repository. Here are the details:


I - Oracle BI 11g R1: Create Analyses and Dashboards

Introduction to Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition

• Introduction to Oracle BI
• Architecture Overview

Working with Oracle Business Intelligence Analyses

• Introduction to Oracle BI Analysis Editor
• Oracle BI column types
• Working with analyses in Oracle BI
• Using advanced formatting

Administering the Presentation Catalog

• Maintaining the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog in the Catalog page
• Oracle BI and catalog security Overview
• Managing security Using roles
• Understanding security inheritance
• Setting object permissions
• Setting system privileges
• Archiving catalog items

Limiting and Grouping Data in Analyses

• Introduction to filters and selections
• Creating, editing, and grouping filters
• Adding prompts to analyses
• Dynamic filtering
• Using saved analyses as filters
• Creating groups
• Creating calculated items
• Creating selection steps

Oracle Business Intelligence Analyses: Advanced Features

• Setting analysis properties
• Combining analysis criteria by using set operations
• Executing direct database analyses
• Editing logical SQL generated by an analysis
• Creating a link to a saved analysis
• Creating an Excel Web Query file

Working with Views and Graphs in Analyses

• Introduction to views, graphs, and editors
• Working with views in Compound Layouts
• Creating and editing graphs
• Linking master-detail views
• Performing common view tasks

Showing Results with Gauge Views and Map Views

• Introduction to Gauge views
• Working with Gauge views
• Introduction to Map views and their components
• Creating and editing Map views

Measuring Results with Key Performance Indicators

• Introduction to KPIs
• Creating KPIs, setting trending, dimensionality, and thresholds
• Introduction to KPI Watchlists
• Creating a KPI Watchlist
• Changing Dimensionality for a KPI Watchlist event

Showing Results With Pivot Tables

• Introduction to pivot tables
• Creating, arranging, and formatting a pivot table
• Using hierarchical columns
• Sorting in pivot tables
• Setting aggregation and using totals
• Showing an item's relative value
• Building calculations and displaying running sums

Creating Oracle Business Intelligence Dashboards

• Introduction to dashboards and dashboard pages
• Creating and editing dashboards
• Using the Dashboard Builder
• Exploring dashboard oject properies and options
• Publishing dashboard pages
• Creating personal customizations and using other page options

Configuring Oracle Business Intelligence Dashboards

• Types of dashboard content
• Embedding content in dashboards

Creating Dashboard Prompts and Variables

• Overview of variables
• Introduction to dashboard prompts and prompt types
• Adding a named dashboard prompt to a dashboard
• Adding a hidden named dashboard prompt to a dashboard
• Creating additional prompt page and setting page preferences
• Variables and prompts
• Adding variable prompts to a dashboard
• Wiring dashboard prompts

Using Oracle Business Intelligence Delivers

• Introduction to Oracle BI Delivers
• Configuring delivery devices and adding delivery profiles
• Introduction to alerts
• Adding an Alert Section to a dashboard
• Overview of Agents
• Configuring an Agent
• Using Analysis and KPI conditions to Deliver content with Agents
• Subscribing to an Agent

Integrating Analyses with MS Office

• Introduction to Oracle BI Office Add-in
• Working with Oracle BI content in Microsoft Office applications

Working with Oracle Business Intelligence Briefing Books

• Introduction to Oracle BI Briefing Books
• Adding Content to Briefing Books
• Editing Briefing Books
• Downloading and viewing Briefing Books
• Adding a list of Briefing Books to a dashboard
• Using Briefing Books with Oracle BI Deliver

II - Oracle BI 11g R1: Build Repositories

Repository Basics

• Exploring Oracle BI architecture components
• Exploring a repository's structure, features, and functions
• Using the Oracle BI Administration Tool
• Creating a repository
• Loading a repository into Oracle BI Server memory

Building the Physical Layer of a Repository

• Importing data sources
• Setting up connection pool properties
• Defining keys and joins
• Examining physical layer object properties
• Creating alias tables

Building the Business Model and Mapping Layer of a Repository

• Building a business model
• Building logical tables, columns, and sources
• Defining logical joins
• Building measures
• Examining business model object properties

Building the Presentation Layer of a Repository

• Exploring Presentation layer objects
• Creating Presentation layer objects
• Modifying Presentation layer objects
• Examining Presentation layer object properties

Testing and Validating a Repository

• Checking repository consistency
• Turning on logging
• Defining a repository in the initialization file
• Executing analyses to test a repository
• Inspecting the query log

Managing Logical Table Sources

• Adding multiple logical table sources to a logical table
• Specifying logical content

Adding Calculations to a Fact

• Creating new calculation measures based on existing logical columns
• Creating new calculation measures based on physical columns
• Creating new calculation measures using the Calculation Wizard
• Creating measures using functions

Working with Logical Dimensions

• Creating logical dimension hierarchies
• Creating level-based measures
• Creating share measures
• Creating dimension-specific aggregation rules
• Creating presentation hierarchies
• Creating parent-child hierarchies
• Using calculated members

Using Aggregates

• Modeling aggregate tables to improve query performance
• Setting the number of elements in a hierarchy
• Testing aggregate navigation
• Using the Aggregate Persistence Wizard

Using Partitions and Fragments

• Exploring partition types
• Modeling partitions in an Oracle BI repository
• Using the Calculation Wizard to create derived measures

Using Repository Variables

• Creating session variables
• Creating repository variables
• Creating initialization blocks
• Using the Variable Manager
• Using dynamic repository variables as filters

Modeling Time Series Data

• Using time comparisons in business analysis
• Using Oracle BI time series functions to model time series data

Modeling Many-to-Many Relationships

• Using bridge tables to resolve many-to-many relationships between dimension tables and fact tables

Localizing Oracle BI Metadata and Data

• Localizing repository metadata
• Localizing Oracle BI data

Setting an Implicit Fact Column

• Adding fact columns automatically to dimension-only queries
• Ensuring the expected results for dimension-only queries
• Selecting a predetermined fact table source
• Specifying a default join path between dimension tables

Importing Metadata from Multidimensional Data Sources

• Importing a multidimensional data source into a repository
• Incorporating horizontal federation into a business model
• Incorporating vertical federation into a business model
• Adding Essbase measures to a relational model
• Displaying data from multidimensional sources in Oracle BI analyses and dashboards

Security

• Exploring Oracle BI default security settings
• Creating users and groups
• Creating application roles
• Setting up object permissions
• Setting row-level security (data filters)
• Setting query limits and timing restrictions

Cache Management

• Restricting tables as non-cacheable
• Using Cache Manager
• Inspecting cache reports
• Purging cache entries
• Modifying cache parameters and options
• Seeding the cache

Enabling Usage Tracking

• Setting up the sample usage tracking repository
• Tracking and storing Oracle BI Server usage at the detailed query level
• Using usage tracking statistics to optimize query performance and aggregation strategies
• Analyzing usage results using Oracle BI Answers and other reporting tools

Multi-user Development

• Setting up a multiuser development environment
• Developing a repository using multiple developers
• Tracking development project history

Configuring Write Back

• Enabling write back in a repository
• Creating a write back template
• Granting write back privileges
• Enabling write back in an analysis

Performing a Patch Merge

• Comparing repositories
• Equalizing objects
• Creating a patch
• Applying a patch
• Making merge decisions

Oracle Business Intelligence 11g - Multiple Compound Layouts in Analysis

You will be able to create multiple compound layouts in the reports in the analysis. This means you don’t have to create many reports for different views of the reports. You are going to create one analysis with different views and these views will be placed in different compound layouts. When it comes to publishing the analysis, you’re going to select which compound layout view will be used. 

So to demonstrate this scenario, I’m going to login to the BI Server and start to create a new analysis.

And add some different views to the default compound layout. So now there are 3 views in the compound layout view:

• Title View
• Table View
• Chart View

The next step is creating the second compound layout. You can either create the compound layout or duplicate the existing one. I used both ways. As a result now there are 3 compound layouts in the analysis. 

After saving the analysis, I’m going to publish the analysis in the dashboard. To publish 3 different compound layouts, I created 3 Dashboard Pages for this analysis. I drag the analysis to the section place holder in the dashboard editor page. You’ll see the show view option just there. And choose the one of the compound layout based on your requirements. As a result there are 2 columns in the page and one section in each column. I publish the same analysis with different compound layouts.

Oracle Business Intelligence 11g - Authentication and Creating Users

Now it comes to user authentication in Oracle Business Intelligence 11g. As you already see the installation steps, OBI is installed with the integration of WebLogic Server. Although there’s a repository file which is created by default as sample, you need to create user account in the WebLogic Server. You’ll have a chance for accessing the list of users in the repository file (*.rpd). You still edit the repository by using the BI Administration tool. But creating the user is done through the WebLogic Server Console. First I login to WebLogic console.

I open the BI Administration Tool and open the repository in “Online” mode. When you click the manage menu on the tool bar, you’ll see the “Identity” management which about security, user accounts and permissions etc. It’s the same as Security Manager in the 10g version with some exceptions. I can see the list of users and groups but don’t have any option to create the user object.

So that’s why I goto Security Realm in the WebLogic Console. In the “Users and Groups” tab, you’ll see the users and groups tabs. I click the new button and start to create the user.

First I specify the username and password. And set the authentication provider. 

Next step is related with the group membership. I make the new user as a member of BI Administrators group. Then save the changes. 

After creating the new user, I can see the user in the identity manager (security manager). In addition to that list, I can successfully login to the BI server with the new user.

Oracle Business Intelligence 11g - Create a Report

 

  In my previous posts, I wrote an article about how to start BI Services by using WebLogic Console. Now in this post, I’m going to focus on analysis. Formerly known as Requests. So first I login to Oracle Business Intelligence from the address below:

http://localhost:9704/analytics 

After I enter the credentials, the first page appears on the screen is the “Home Page”.

On the left part of the screen, you’ll see some shortcuts for mostly used features. Analysis and Interactive Reporting section is the link that I’ll start. As I click the link a new question comes on the screen about the “Subject Area”. I’m going to use the “Sample Sales Lite”.

In the subject area section, you’re going to see the table names, column names and also hierarchy names. So this is the first difference with the previous version. You can see the details of the hierarchies and their levels before accessing the data.

I simply drag the columns from the Subject Area pane to the analysis as usual. And add some filters to eliminate some of the rows. 

Here is the first analysis  in the compound layout with the Title and Table views included.

 Then I add a Chart view to my sample analysis and configure the chart properties by setting the measure labels, chart type and size etc.. Then I just save the analysis.

SIOUG - Slovenian Oracle User Group

This conference took place in Portoroz where there is a beautiful coast in the southern part of Slovenia. I’ve attended a great seminar which is delivered by Michal Kostrzewa from Oracle. He delivered a session about Maximum Availability Architecture. I met with one of the experts who is member of Oak Table. He is Joze Senegacnik. He told me that he has started to work with Oracle products with Oracle version 4. So you can understand the experience that he has. You can access his web site from the link below:

http://www.dbprof.com

Also I saw one of my colleague who works as an instructor at Oracle University. But the difference is he has been working with oracle products for around 26 years. I’m talking about Marko Borovnik. One of the best instructor.

I delivered 2 sessions in Slovenian Oracle User Group Conference. Those sessions were about ODI and OBI. Here is the detail about the seminars:

http://www.sioug.si/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=130&Itemid=84&lang=en