OBIEE - Displaying the Value of System Variables

Following from the previous article here on the subject of displaying your repository variables, I thought it may be time to look at showing some of the system variables

On a dashboard, drag in a text item and edit the contents to include something like

We are running OBIEE version [u][b]-@{system.productVersion} [/b][/u]
This is the @{dashboard.name} dashboard
and we are on the @{dashboard.currentPage} page.

Explaining OBIEE to Your Boss!

To explain all the details behind OBIEE would take a long time, probably bore a non-technical person half-way to death, yet still not provide them with any details they can conceptually grasp.

There is tons of documentation - the problem is wading through it all, and all your boss wants is-

"OBIEE in a Nutshell".

The OBIEE server exposes to an end user their business focussed measures and dimensions that can be used to assemble analyses of interest.

Assuming that your boss wants to find out how many cars were sold last month and whether they were new or used would assembling a theoretical query of:

"Calendar.Month", "Car.Condition", "Sales.UnitsSold"

with a filter of last month on "Calendar.Month"

The OBIEE server will now organise how the raw data sources are to be queried. It generates one, or more, queries against the data source(s). retreives the results, applies some post processing, and presents back to the user a result set that can be used to generate not only tables, but graphs, pivot tables and maps.

The OBIEE server has modelled physical raw data, applied calculations and transformations, all interwoven with a consistent security model, ensuring data access is seamless and controlled.

In discoverer or reports and to some extent in publisher you design a query. In OBIEE we no longer hand-craft individual queries, rather we model relationships and the ineractions between heirarchical behaviours. This allows for any possible random query entered by a user in the presentation layer to be transformed from a logical to a physical query, transparent to the user, and the results returned and displayed in the manner requested.

11G authentication failure - Validate Catalog

When you move repositories between machines and copy the catalog it is possible that there will be conflicting permissions between the details in the catalog and details held in weblogic.

I have previously mentioned how to reset the GUIDS - the glue between weblogic authentication and the catalog.

Sometimes this is not enough - usually when you find that have no permission to change settings on your My Dashboard or you cannot change settings in My Account.

A light touch 'refresh' may be something like:
If you add the following to your instanceconfig.xml file
<Validate>OnStartup</Validate>
<ValidateItems>None</ValidateItems>
<ValidateLinks>None</
ValidateLinks>
<ValidateAccounts>Clean</ValidateAccounts>
<ValidateHomes>None</ValidateHomes>
and open a command line in ../instances/instance1/bin
you can use opmnctl to stop and start the services. This may take some time depending on the size of your catalog.
Remove the Validate section from your instanceconfig.xml and stop/start opmnctl.

To force a 'deep clean' you can opt for something like:

<ps:Validate>OnStartupAndExit</ps:Validate>

<ps:ValidateAccounts>Clean</ps:ValidateAccounts>

<ps:ValidateHomes>Report</ps:ValidateHomes>

<ps:ValidateItems>Clean</ps:ValidateItems>

<ps:ValidateLinks>Clean</ps:ValidateLinks>

As always the documentation is available here from Oracle.

Paper at Oracle Business Intelligence Conference

I have just presented a paper with my colleague at the recent OBIEE conference held at the London Bridge Hotel on Tuesday 8th November. Nerve racking as we only had a day's notice, but the presentation was well received.

We were demonstrating what we have achieved combining spatial data, namely a road network, with business data, the mechanisms behind the scene and some of the output we produce.

Drop me line if you want a copy of the presentation.

-- Update

Oracle have kindly put the presentation up and you can view it here.

How does location impact your business? Do you know, or are you just guessing?

"They" say that 80% of all business data can be mapped to a particular location or at least a geographic area, yet most BI platforms have only limited capabilities for location-based visualization and analysis. Although some have made the argument that location no longer matters in the digital world, I think those who make this argument are missing the point. After all, customers, potential customers, employees, and other corporate resources all exist someWHERE in space. Why is this aspect of business analytics so often ignored in the major platforms?

I will be presenting some of what we've been doing at the OBIEE seminar in London in November