OBIEE 11G and Flex using crossdomain.xml in Weblogic

For Flex viewer to communicate with a remote data source you need to deploy a small XML file in the root directory of the domain containing the data source.

The crossdomain.xml file has the structure


<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE cross-domain-policy SYSTEM "http://www.adobe.com/xml/dtds/cross-domain-policy.dtd">
<cross-domain-policy>
<site-control policies="all"></site-control>
<allow-access-from domain="*"></allow-access-from>
</cross-domain-policy>



With OBIEE 10G we had a physical directory.

Now with 11G we are presented with weblogic and no root directory, .......bother.

The solution is to deploy an application for the root directory.

All is explained below

in the %BI Home%\Oracle_BI1\bifoundation\jee directory you create a directory called (in this case) apps
in the apps directory you place your crossdomain.xml file and create two further directories.

META-INF and WEB-INF

in the WEB-INF directory you place two files with the contents detailed below

web.xml



<web-app xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" web="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd" schemalocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd" id="WebApp_ID" version="2.5">
<welcome-file-list>
<welcome-file>crossdomain.xml</welcome-file>
</welcome-file-list>
<mime-mapping>
<extension>xml</extension>
<mime-type>application/xml</mime-type>
</mime-mapping>
</web-app>





weblogic.xml



<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<wls:weblogic-web-app xmlns:wls="http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/weblogic-web-app" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/weblogic-web-app http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/weblogic-web-app/1.1/weblogic-web-app.xsd">
<wls:weblogic-version>10.3.3</wls:weblogic-version>
<wls:context-root>/</wls:context-root>
<wls:container-descriptor>
<wls:default-mime-type>application/xml</wls:default-mime-type>
</wls:container-descriptor>
</wls:weblogic-web-app>

Then you deploy the open directory (apps) as an application on the BI server and accept all defaults.

Char to Date

How to convert a CHAR to a Date datatype.

Assuming that the format of the char date is consistent the easiest is to use the EVALUATE function

EVALUATE('TO_DATE(%1,%2)' AS DATE,,'dd/mm/yyyy')

Here's a good article on more with changing a CHAR using the CAST function in OBIEE.

Happy Hacking

Upgrade done.

Upgraded from 10g to 11g without major incident.

It was a fairly steep learning curve, what with the shift in technology from a 'simple' oc4j to a full on weblogic enterprise level webserver, and yes I was caught out by not having a loopback adaptor. Here's an article.

Apart from that it was learning all the new file locations, the new ways to stop and start services and acclimatising to the look and feel of OBIEE 11G.

A few things didn't convert straight out the box.

• Images are handled differently.
• Some graphs needed a new sort column.

Just worked slowly and methodically through the existing dashboards, report by report - learning all the time.

Having a great time though and wouldn't go back.