OBIEE Online Virtual Box 11.1.1.7.1

Well, colour me excited, no more download of the SampleApp to peek at the new features. Actually I probably will continue to download, but this a a fascinating first for Oracle. Making the sample dashboard available online - wow.

The Sample Application (SampleApp) for Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition is a comprehensive collection of examples designed to demonstrate Oracle BI capabilities and design best practices. It brings together several integrated Oracle BI products & technologies and illustrates how they can seamlessly work together in solving functional problems. These examples include latest OBIEE functionalities and OBIEE architecture examples (Semantic layer modeling, Multi-source federation, Integration with Essbase, ORE, TimesTen and more).


http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-foundation/obiee-samples-167534.html

What’s New in OBIEE Sample App 309

http://www.youtube.com/user/OracleBITechDemos

OBIEE Link: http://slc02okm.oracle.com:7780/analytics/

UserName: Prodney
Password: Admin123

OBIEE How to reset the lost Weblogic Admin User password?

You installed OBIEE 11G and you did not write down the Weblogic Domain admin password, or you’ve had it installed for a while and can’t remember what the password is to get into the WebLogic Admin console to make a change. There is a (technical and tricky) way to reset this password.

1. Make sure all the services are down
2. change directory to <Middleware_Home>\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\bin
cd <Middleware_Home>\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\bin
3. Source the setDomainEnv.cmd(Windows) / setDomainEnv.sh (Linux) script so we can get all the WebLogic variables set correctly
In windows: setDomainEnv.cmd
In Linux: . setDomainEnv.sh
4. Now change the directory to security directory in your instance.
cd <Middleware_Home>\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\security
5. Move the DefaultAuthenticatorInit.ldift to a backup file
In Windows:
mv DefaultAuthenticatorInit.ldift DefaultAuthenticatorInit_old.ldift
In Linux:
mv DefaultAuthenticatorInit.ldift DefaultAuthenticatorInit_old.ldift
6. Run the “java weblogic.security.utils.AdminAccount newuser newpassword .” to generate a new DefaultAuthenticatorInit.ldift with a new user with the assigned password within the security directory
eg: java weblogic.security.utils.AdminAccount weblogic weblogic123 .
Note: replace newuser and newpassword with a user and password of your choosing. Ensure the password is a minimum of 8 characters and contains at least one numeric character. Also, don’t forget the period “.” at the end of the above command, it is required.
7. Change directory to <Middleware_Home>\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\AdminServer\security
cd <Middleware_Home>\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\AdminServer\security\
8. Edit the boot.properties file and replace newpassword and newusername with the user and password you defined in step 6. Do this for all the servers in the domain.
password=newpassword
username=newusername
The boot.properties will get encrypted once the admin server starts up
9. Rename or remove directory <Middleware_Home>\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\AdminServer\data\ldap as it will get recreated once the WebLogic Admin server starts.
e.g:
rename <Middleware_Home>\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\AdminServer\data\ldap <Middleware_Home>\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\AdminServer\data\ldap_OLD
10. Change directory to <Middleware_Home>\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\bin and start the Weblogic Admin Server
In Windows: startWebLogic.cmd
In Linux:  ./ startWebLogic.sh
11. Once the weblogic server is up, you’ll be able to login to Console with the new weblogic Admin user and password.

OBIEE Security log Debug Switch

Very simple configuration but import if you want to debug the Security which plays a vital role everywhere.

Perform the following steps in order to switch the debug setting on/off

1) Log in to WebLogic Server
2) Navigate over left pane and expand the Environment node->select Servers.
3) Select the desired server from the available servers.
4) Click on Debug tab and expand Weblogic option available in Debug Scopes and Attributes table
5) Expand the security->atn and check DebugSecurityAtn option.
6) Click on Enable/Disable button at the top or bottom of the table.

Remember with all changes on the Weblogic Administration Console you will need to "Lock & Edit", make your change and then "Activate Change" once complete. The buttons to do so are at the top left of the console.

The output allows us to debug LDAP connections, see the groups and users, which allows us to check what filters we are applying.

OBIEE New Features in 11.1.1.7

New Presentation Features

1) Recommended Visualizations Feature for Creating Views

• When you create a view, you can choose a recommended view type based on the data in your analysis and, optionally, what you want to use it for (for example, to analyze trends).
• You can choose a suggested “Best Visualization” as well as a “Recommended Subtype”. Or you can instead choose the “Recommended Visualization” option, for which you specify your intent for the new view.

2) Breadcrumbs

• Breadcrumbs have been added to help users understand their current location within Oracle BI content and the path that they have used to navigate Oracle BI content.
• Breadcrumbs display at the bottom of the page, and users can click a breadcrumb or the breadcrumb overflow button to navigate to a specific location on their breadcrumb trail.

3) Enhancement to Dashboards

• The ability to create custom print layouts for high-fidelity printing of dashboard pages (i.e. automatic creation BI Publisher reports)
• A new default style called FusionFX (instead of “blaf”)
• The addition of the Freeze Column option to the Column Properties menu. This option allows you to freeze a column at an edge (top or left) of a dashboard layout
• The addition of “Size” and “Page Size” options that allow you to control the position and size of columns and sections
• The ability to export an entire dashboard or a single dashboard page to Microsoft Excel 2007+
• A new “Replace Analysis in <Dashboard>” option added to Answers to replace an analysis on a dashboard
• A new “Return to <Dashboard>” option within Answers to return to a dashboard from the Analysis editor

4) Enhancements to Graphs

• 3 new graph types:  Waterfall graph, Stacked graph and 100% Stacked graph (the latter two are subtypes of Bar and Area graphs)
• Zoom to data range. This option lets the system evaluate the range of values on an axis, and choose appropriate minimum and maximum values for the scale. This is useful when graphing a set of large values that are all within a small percentage of each other
• Hide sliders in graph views that listen to master-detail events. For graphs in master-detail relationships, if you want to simplify the appearance of an analysis or dashboard, you can hide the slider that is created to accommodate detail columns

5) Enhancements to Views

• A new view type named performance tile. This view type displays a single aggregate measure value in a manner that is both visually simple and prominent
• Action links in trellis views. In simple trellis views, action links can now be used on inner graphs per unit, including the context of the outer edges. Action links can also be used in legends and in axis labels. In advanced trellis views, action links can be used in microcharts, where the microchart functions as a single unit (such as an aggregate number), including the context of the outer edges
• For map views, you can now vary the width of a line by measure to accentuate a feature
• You can link a map view as a detail in a master-detail relationship
• Auto Correct option for Map views (as errors in Map views can occur for various reasons). If the issue appears to be related to missing layers, maps, or styles, then it might be possible to correct the map by replacing the missing map view components with similar items that exist in the spatial metadata
• Legend and formatting highlighting
• Null suppression at view and analysis levels. You can set null suppression options at the view level (which overrides the analysis level) for data views including: table, pivot table, trellis (both simple and advanced), graph, gauge, and funnel views when the entire row or column contains nulls
• Ability to include or exclude calculated items and groups at the view level for columns and column headers. Specifically, two new options have been added: Include Custom Member and Exclude Custom Member

For tables, pivot tables, and advanced trellises:

• The ability to ◦specify the method to be used to browse data — either scrolling or paging controls
• Resize rows and columns
• Row count. If your table or pivot table view contains a grand total or subtotal on the row edge, the display totals, that is the grand total and subtotals, are now included in the Rows per Page count for content paging. In prior releases, if you had the Rows per Page count set to 10 for example, the table or pivot table would display more than 10 records if display totals were shown in the view results
• For right-click interactions, the ability to specify whether the Hide Columns interaction is available at runtime

6) Enhancements to Prompts

• This release includes an enhancement to the SQL Results prompt option. If you are working with double columns, you can now write the SQL statement so that filtering is done on code values rather than display values
• An enhancement to the prompt constraint option. The prompts designer can now limit a column prompt value list by more than one column
• This release includes enhancements to the parameters for prompted links

7) New Menu Options for Exporting Views and Results
This release adds the Excel 2007+ and Powerpoint 2007+ options for exporting views and results

8) Total Member Placement for Hierarchical Columns
This release includes an enhancement that allows placement of total members on a hierarchy

9) Browse Catalog Search Results by Object Attributes
The capability to use full-text search to find catalog objects and then filter the search results by attributes. This search is available when the administrator integrates Oracle BI Enterprise Edition with Oracle Endeca Server. After the full-text search results are returned, the Catalog area displays a list of matching items, and the Search pane displays the search results grouped by attribute (that is, Type, Name, Path, and Created By)

10) Navigate from the Total or Grand Total in a Table or Pivot Table
If an analysis contains a total or grand total and the associated attribute or hierarchical column contains an action link or a conditional action link, the action link (or conditional action link) is applied to both the column and the total or grand total

11) New BI Desktop Tools Available for Download

• Oracle Hyperion Smart View for Office
• Oracle Hyperion Financial Reporting Studio (if Essbase is installed)
• Oracle Essbase Studio Console (if Essbase is installed)
• Oracle Essbase Administrative Services Console (if Essbase is installed)

12) Enhancement to Favorites
This release provides the capability to organize your favorites from the Category Tree area and the Selected Category area in the Manage Favorites dialog. In previous releases, you could organize favorites from the Category Tree area, only

13) Integration of Oracle BI EE with Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System
With this release, OBIEE is integrated with Enterprise Performance Management Workspace (as part of the installation process)
Recommended Visualizations Feature for Creating Views
Breadcrumbs
Enhancement to Dashboards
Enhancements to Graphs
Enhancements to Views
Enhancements to Prompts
New Menu Options for Exporting Views and Results
Total Member Placement for Hierarchical Columns
Browse Catalog Search Results by Object Attributes
Navigate from the Total or Grand Total in a Table or Pivot Table
New BI Desktop Tools Available for Download
Enhancement to Favorites
Integration of Oracle BI EE with Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System

New BI Mobile Features

14) Maximize views with double-tap gesture
With this new feature, you can access on your iPad more data—even within dense dashboards—without the restrictions of the smaller form factor. You expand an individual view by double-tapping on it. The individual view then displays within the full screen of the iPad. This maximizing of views can be done on views accessed within a dashboard, and also when viewing an analysis independent of a dashboard. See “Working with Analyses and Dashboards.”

15) New view and graph types
The following new graph types are supported with BI Mobile: Performance tiles, Waterfall graphs, 100% stacked graph, Stacked graph

16) Fixed headers
In analyses with fixed headers, you can use a single-finger drag gesture to scroll through data in all directions

17) Changing Orientation
It is now possible to change between landscape and portrait orientation while viewing Oracle BI content

18) Breadcrumbs
You can see the navigation path you have taken while moving through the catalog as a trail of breadcrumbs (near the top of the screen by the Back arrow). In this way, you can see your current location and how you got there, then decide whether to use the Back arrow to navigate in reverse, or to use the Home icon to quickly return to the Home screen

19) Security toolkit
The Oracle Business Intelligence Mobile Security Toolkit provides the ability to generate a signed version of the Oracle BI Mobile HD application. The toolkit includes the instructions and necessary content to build this application making use of Apple’s Xcode and the IOS SDKs. The Oracle BI Mobile Security Toolkit will be updated on a regular basis in order to synchronize with the Oracle BI Mobile HD application available on the Apple App store. See “Using the Security Toolkit for Mobile Device Management.”

20) Viewing of Oracle BI Publisher reports in dashboards

21) Integrated Full-Text Catalog Search
As in the desktop version of Oracle BI EE, you can use full-text search to find catalog objects in Oracle BI Mobile based on attributes such as author and column name. This search is available after the administrator integrates Oracle BI Enterprise Edition with Oracle Endeca Server

New BI Server Features

22) Changing the Repository Password From the Command Line
You can now change the repository password from the command line using the obieerpdpwdchg utility

23) New Options to Enforce Consistent Versions in Multiuser Development Environments
You can now add options to the multiuser development option file to enforce Administration Tool, MUD protocol, and RPD version consistency among MUD developers

24) New Utilities Available to Generate and Compare Logical Column Type Information
You can use the Administration Tool utilities Generate Logical Column Type Document and Compare Logical Column Types to generate a list of logical column types, and then compare it with logical column types in a subsequent version of the repository. You can also use the command-line utility biservergentypexml to generate the list of logical column types

25) Additional Database Support for Cardinality Estimates in Oracle BI Summary Advisor
The Prefer Optimizer Estimates feature, which improves performance by using cardinality estimates during the Summary Advisor process, is now available for Microsoft SQL Server and IBM DB2

26) Oracle BI Summary Advisor Measure Subset Recommendations
Oracle BI Summary Advisor now recommends only aggregates that contain specific measures that are both present in the analyzed query workload, and that can optimize the query workload if aggregates are created

27) Model Check Manager Enhancements
Model Check Manager now runs parallel queries against the database for better performance. In addition, you can now check models from the command line using the validaterpd utility with the -L option

28) Access to Apache Hadoop Data Sources
Oracle BI EE now supports Apache Hadoop as a data source

29) Support for Multi-Source Session Variables
Oracle BI EE now supports session variables that can be populated from multiple data sources and retain values from all source systems

30) NUMERIC Data Type Support for Oracle Database and TimesTen
You can now change a configuration setting to enable NUMERIC data type support for Oracle Database and TimesTen

31) Ability to Map Flex Object Changes Using the biserverextender Utility
You can now use the biserverextender utility to import flex object changes from ADF data sources and map them to the Business Model and Mapping layer and Presentation layer

32) Support for Servlet Communication Between the Oracle BI Server and Oracle OLAP
The Oracle BI Server now uses a servlet for communication with Oracle OLAP data sources, rather than relying on the JavaHost service

New Features for Administrators

33) Support for Oracle Endeca Server
You can configure Oracle Endeca Server as a search engine for full-text searching

34) Support for Multitenancy
You can configure Oracle BI EE so that it supports the use of multiple tenants  (Dont confuse with multi-instance installs!)

New BI Publisher Features

• Connect Directly to Oracle BIEE Subject Areas to Create Reports
• Excel Template Builder Enhancements (supports automatic insertion of fields and repeating groups)
• Layout Editor Enhancements (Time series axis formatting, Hide axis option, Independent axis formatting)
• Enhanced Create Report Guide
• PDF to PCL Conversion for Embedding PCL Commands in RTF Templates
• Support for PDF 1.7 Specification
• MDX Query Builder
• Support for Local XML File Data Source
• Support for CSV File as a Data Source
• Support for Endeca as a Data Source
• Support for Private Data Sources
• Enhancements for Sample Data Usability

Validating the Catalog

Over time, inconsistencies can develop in the catalog as links are broken, users are deleted, or NFS file system issues are encountered. These inconsistencies can eventually lead to incorrect behavior, such as the inability to edit an agent's recipient list. You can periodically take the production system offline and validate the catalog, to be informed of and to take corrective action on inconsistencies.

Tasks in the Validation Process

The validation process performs the following tasks:

• Ensures that each object in the catalog is larger than zero bytes.
• Ensures that each item in the catalog has a valid corresponding .atr file.
• Ensures that each link in the catalog is valid.
• Ensures that the files in the account cache are valid.
• Ensures that all XML objects in the catalog pass schema validation.
• Attempts to repair object names that were damaged by ftp programs.

 Important Guidelines for Validating the Catalog

Before you validate the catalog, keep the following guidelines in mind:

• You must refresh the user GUIDs before validating the catalog. If you attempt to validate a catalog whose user GUIDs are not synchronized, then the validation process assumes that all accounts have been deleted and effectively removes all account information from the catalog.
• Use care when validating a catalog in a development environment, if that environment has a different security store from the production environment. If the validation is performed with a different security store, then many accounts might be removed from the catalog.
• When you turn on any validation of the catalog, all ACLs (that is, all privileges and every item's permissions) are "scrubbed," which means that dead accounts are removed from them and any changed items are written to disk. Therefore, even if you simply create a report without fixing any broken items automatically, you might find that the catalog is still extensively "changed."
• Before validating the catalog in a clustered environment, do one of the following:
• Shut down the Presentation Services cluster and run the validation directly against the cluster's catalog.
• Make a copy of the cluster's catalog and run the validation against that copy.
• Before using the 7-Zip utility to make a copy of a catalog, first shut down all nodes in the Presentation Services cluster or put all nodes in that cluster into Maintenance Mode (which is the recommended approach).
• Be aware that any changes that are made to the catalog online concurrently to the validation process are not included in the validation.

While backing up the catalog is always good practice, there is no practical difference between running validate against the catalog directly versus running the validation on a backup copy.

Authentication In OBIEE

OBIEE Support four types of authentication.

 

1)LDAP Authentication : Users are authenticated based on credentials stored in LDAP.This is the BEST method to do authentication in OBIEE and it supports company’s Single Sign On (SSO) philosophy as well.

 

2)External Table Authentication : If users belongs to multiple groups ,that information is being pulled from the data base scheme table.This usually implemented with LDAP Authentication

 

3)Database Authentication: The Oracle BI Server can authenticates user based on database logins. If a user has read permission on a specific database.Oracle BI Presentation Services authenticates those users

 

4)Oracle BI Server User Authentication: User are directly crated in OBIEE and are authenticated against those credentials. This is the worst authentication method if company has larger then few people using the system. Believe me Maintenance is a nightmare here.

 

Two authentication methods are usually combined together.like LDAP and external table authentication.

And as i said earlier LDAP and/or LDAP with external table are BEST authentication(Again each case is different)

 

Oracle BI Server User Authentication is not quite popular as it has its support/maintenance issue associated ,once system grows beyond certain users

OBIEE - Change Repository Password

If you need to change your repository password, the one you use to 'unlock' the repository for editing or uploading, it is relatively simple to change

Open the repository as normal...


In the File menu is a “Change Password” option

Click and change the password, couldn't be simpler.