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.

Find out how OBIEE helps to track H1N1.

Looking back at some of the uses of OBIEE I came across this:

Kaleida Health’s Flu Monitoring Dashboard was developed quickly using Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition to provide insightful reporting regarding patients with the flu, including H1N1.

 
Find this article here.

The dashboards were used to monitor the arrival and location of patients to help predict where spikes would occur and allocate resources to most effect.

A positive and heartwarming story.