Oracle BI 12c - Default Ports

Below is the list of default ports  to configure firewall permissions for Oracle BI 12c.

Oracle BI System Components

9507: BI Presentation Services
9508: Cluster Controller
9509: Cluster Controller (monitor)
9510: Java Host
9511: Scheduler
9512: Scheduler (monitor)
9513: Scheduler (script)

Weblogic Components

9500: Admin Server (HTTP)
9501: Admin Server (HTTPS)
9504: Admin Server (Internal)
9502: Managed Server (HTTP)
9503: Managed Server (HTTPS)
9505: Managed Server (Internal)
9506: Node Manager

How to enable the 'export' option in OBIEE 11g/12c.

We can enable the ‘export’ option at each report level, each page level and at entire dashboard level also. 

Please find below the detailed steps on how to enable the export option at these 3  levels.

    1.  Export option Enable @ Dashboard level:

Step1 : Open any dashboard page and then

Step2: Go to   Top right corner Page optionsà Edit Dashbaord

Step3: Go to   Toolsà Click on “Dashboard properties”  to enable the Export option at dashboard level (i.e. applies to all pages, Reports in the dashboard)

             Click on the “Page report links” to enable the Export option at current page level ( i.e.applies to particular page only and all Reports in that page dashboard)

Step4: Click on Dashboard propertiesà Dashboard properties window will popup.  --> Go to Dashboard Report Links (Edit icon)—Click on the symbol again Report Links—Report links   popup should be open up to choose the options.   We can enable the required options and Save  the changes. Verify the dashboard for results.

Here we can also see   copy/print/analyze/etc other options other than Export.

This will enable the 'export' option at each page level  under the dashboard and at all report level also under the dashboard/pages.

Note: Click on SAVE  icon and ensure the changes are saved  before we check the results.

   2.   Export option Enable @ Page level:

 Step1 : Open any dashboard page and then

 Step2: Go to   Top right corner Page optionsà Edit Dashbaord

 Step3: Click on the “Page report links” to enable the Export option at current page level ( i.e. applies to particular page only and all Reports in that page dashboard)

 Step4:  Click on “Page report links” —Report links popup should be open up to choose the options.We can enable the required options and Save the changes.   Verify the dashboard for results.

  Here we can also see   copy/print/analyze/ etc.  Other options other than Export.

This will enable the 'export' option at particular page level only and at each report level under that page.

Note: Click on SAVE  icon and ensure the changes are saved  before we check the results.

    3.   Export option Enable @ Report level:

Step1 : Open any dashboard page and then

Step2: Go to   Top right corner Page optionsà Edit Dashbaord

Step3: Right click on the Properties(XYZ symbol on top right corner of any Section) à  Click on  “Report links” —Report links popup should be open up to choose the options.We can enable  the   required options and Save  the changes. Verify the dashboard for results.

   Here we can also see   copy/print/analyze/  etc..  Other options other than Export.

This will enable the 'export' option at the bottom of a particular report  only .

Note: Click on SAVE  icon and ensure the changes are saved  before we check the results.

OBIEE 10g/11g Hierarchy Drill Down or/and Drill Through or/and Drill Chaining

OBIEE 10g supports level based hierarchy, with OBIEE 11g enhancements it supports level based as well as value based hierarchies with some additional configurations. The natural drill down is supported and can be configured to support drill through also. 

What id drill chaining? Does OBIEE support drill chaining?  Drill Chaining is a ability of analyze to jump from a level of one dimension hierarchy (product level in product hierarchy) to a level in another dimension hierarchy (Region level in Market hierarchy). This blog is an attempt to demonstrate on how to configure drill chaining and how it works in OBIEE 10g.  I don’t see any specific reason why it can be done in OBIEE 11g.

Drill Chaining Scenario

A scenario where user would like to start with a simple report for product and revenue, then jump from product level in product hierarchy to Region Level in Market dimensional hierarchy , and then, drilling down the whole Market hierarchy to jump to Manager level in Employee dimension and finally drill down to customer.

The analysis steps are as follows..

Define a simple query Product and Revenue from Sales Subject area

The result show revenue broken down by product

Click on any product and see jump from Product level in product hierarchy, to “Region Level” in Market dimensional hierarchy…

Then, drilling down the whole Market hierarchy to jump to Manager level in Employee dimension

Then from employee hierarchy, jumping to Customer, then orders details

Repository Configuration 

For Detailed Level in Product hierarchy, choose the tab “Preferred Drill Path”, and set “Total level” for “Market hierarchy” as next drill.

Similarly, for Detailed level in Market Hierarchy, choose tab “Preferred Drill Path”, and set  “Total level” for “Employee hierarchy” as defined as next drill….

These simple configurations in repository can set the drill chaining and achieve the result discussed earlier.

Note : Referred from the following blog http://bidirect.blogspot.com/2013/09/obiee-10g11g-hierarchy-drill-down-orand.html 

OBIEE 12c is released !!!

Much waited OBIEE 12c is released. This version is another major release from Oracle after OBIEE 10g and11g. This version has many improvements, Enhancements, and advanced new features in installation, migration, analyses and dashboards, Oracle BI Mobile, Oracle BI Publisher, metadata repository development, system administration, integration and API, and localization.

Download link: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-enterprise-edition/downloads/business-intelligence-2717951.html

Documentation: http://docs.oracle.com/middleware/1221/biee/index.html

Highlights:

New Features in Presentation Services:

·         Visual Analyzer: A brand new powerful visualization application in OBIEE Suite. VA provides greater flexibility to Rapidly create rich analyses through drag-and-drop configuration of new visual grammar. Using VA we can build the reports from the sources OBIEE repository and also from external content.

·         Views Enhancements: New context menu (Right Click) on all graphs & other views to sort, drill.

·         New Heat Matrix view type to represent the two-dimensional data. This is well suited for analyzing large amounts of data and identifying outliers.

·         New Data Format properties “Scale for % (x 100)”: Specify whether to multiply data by a 100 to display it as a percentage when setting the properties of a column

New Features in BI Server:

·         Logical Level Sequence Numbers for Time Dimensions for faster time series calculations. And to improve the query time.

·         DISPLAY, SORTKEY Syntax Supported in the SQL ORDER BY Expression

·         Oracle Database FAN & Connection Failover Supported by Oracle BI Server

·         Generate Fragmented Aggregates in Aggregate Persistence

·         Following New Command Line utilities are added

o    Download Repository

o    Upload Repository

o    List Connection Pool

o    Update Connection Pool

o    Rename Application Role

o    Delete Application Role

o    Rename Users

o    Delete Users

o    List Repository Variables

o    Update Repository Variables

New Features in Administration:

·         Installation: Much faster and straight forward. And mostly, the configurations & folders directories are simple and clean.

·         NO more OPMN, all services including OBI System & Java services are managed by WebLogic.

·         Migrating from OBIEE 11g to 12c: We can migrate the Oracle BI 11g metadata to 12c is a two step process, and is carried out by using the BI Migration Script (migration-tool.sh). The catalog and WebLogic Security configurations needs to be reconfigured/migrated like in OBIEE 11g.

·         BAR (BI Archive file): A new archive format which contains OBIEE Catalog, RPD and Security packaged in one file. The file will be created in current environment and imported in Target environment. The BAR file creation process has following options while creating it.

o    export all: To export everything including users and data sources are the same between two systems.

o    export without user folder content: Migrating the Catalog without the User’s Folders.

o    export without connection pool credentials: Migrating the upgraded RPD from one environment to another without connection Pool information. When Imported the BAR in Target environment, The RPD will be updated the new changed by not changing the Target System Connection Pool Information.

o    Syntax:

§  Creating the BAR File from Current Environment: 
exportServiceInstance(domainHome, serviceInstanceKey, workDir, exportDir, applicationName=None, applicationDesc=None, applicationVersion=None, includeCatalogRuntimeInfo=false, includeCredentials=None)

§  Importing the BAR file in Target environment:
importServiceInstance(domainHome, serviceInstanceKey, barfile)

New Features in Security:

·         BISystemUser and BISystem Removed, No need to have BISystemUser in LDAP. The system user concept is now deemed “virtual” and is represented by the credential oracle.bi.system/system.user, for which the values are securely randomly generated by the Configuration Assistant.

·         User GUIDs Removed: user GUIDs have been removed to make administration easier. GUIDs are replaced with user names. There is no longer any need to refresh GUIDs as part of lifecycle operations

·         Database Security Store: Policy & Credential store is configured in database instead of the file System-jazn & etc.

·         Easier SSL Configuration: Configuring SSL is much easier than earlier versions.

Thanks,

Nandha

OBIEE 11.1.1.9: New Features for Front-End Developers and Business Users

 In this post, we will see some useful new features for Front-End development. Some of these features like tree map, new styles, etc. were included in the OBIEE 11.1.1.7.10 version, but I’m including them here anyway because if you are moving from an earlier release of 11.1.1.7 you probably haven’t seen them yet.

Search & Sort options inside the Subject Area

There is a new option to search inside the subject area when we create an analysis. If we press the magnifying glass icon in the Subject Areas pane, a search box appears and OBIEE will return all the objects that contains the text that we entered. We can also use the % wildcard.



In addition there is also the option to order the objects inside the subject area sorting the folders and the presentation columns inside them. The default value is showing the objects in the way that are saved in the repository.

 

Save Calculated Items in the Web Catalog

A very useful feature for business users is the possibility to create calculated items in an analysis and save it in the catalog in order to reuse it in other analyses for the same subject area.
In the Results tab there is a new icon for creating a new measure. The calculation is created in the same way the column formulas are created.



After the new measure is created you can go to the Criteria tab and in the column pop-up menu select the Save Column As option. In this manner you save this new measure as a new object in the catalog to be reused in other analyses. The feature of creating a new calculated measure for tables and pivot tables was included in the 11.1.1.7.10 version but the possibility to save the column in the catalog is a new feature of the OBIEE 11.1.1.9.





You can also change the properties of the new column in the Criteria tab but be aware that conditional formatting and conditional action links for the column are not saved to the catalog. Regular action links are saved for the column as well as the format properties.
The saved column can be edited from the catalog pane and catalog page. All the changes that you make in the catalog are applied to every analysis that used this column. If you modify it inside a particular analysis, these changes are valid only for the analysi
s that you are working on.



To be able to save new measures as columns you should have the Save Column privilege.

Global Variables

In this version we find a new new type of variables: the Global Variables. Global Variables can be defined in the context of an analysis and can be used in other analysis. Useful to do some intermediate reusable calculations.
To create a new global variable, select the Edit Formula option for the required column. When you press the Variable button in the Formula Editor you will see the new Global option. The Insert Global Variable dialog appears and you can select an existing global variable to be used in the formula, or you can create a new one. To create a new one you need to enter a name, type and value. If you want to use an expression like in the example (Min(Revenue)) as value, the data type should be Text.



To reference a global variable you need to use the fully qualified name including the context: @{global.variables.variablename}.


Also to manage global variables you should have the Manage Global Variables privilege.

New Visualisation: Treemap

There is a new visualisation called Treemap since OBIEE 11.1.1.7.10. Treemap groups the dimensional data that you selected in the analysis in tiles. By default, the tiles size is based in the content of first measure of the analysis and the tiles colour is based in the content of the second measure. If you have only one measure in your analysis, is used for both size and colour.



You can edit it as any other view and change the group by information as well as the measures which affects the size and colour of the tile and the range of colours that you want to use. Also you can choose the style between seeing the information in coloured bins or using continuous colour fill. If you selected the first one you can also select the amount of different coloured bins do you want to use.

New Preview Styles

When you want to preview an analysis in the Results tab, instead of showing immediately how the analysis will look, OBIEE offers you different Styles to see your analysis. These feature was also included since the 11.1.1.7.10 version. In case you want to create a custom style, Oracle recommends to use the new Skyros style as a starting point.

Horizontal Layout for Radio Button and Check Box Dashboard Prompts

Radio button and check box dashboards prompts can be showed horizontally. When you create a new dashboard prompt using check box or radio button under Options, you can select between horizontal or Vertical Layout appears under Options.

Enhancements in Export & Print Options

In this version, you will find more options in the Print and Export Options dialog. You can select if you want to include charts, images and formatting or to specify column properties like the column width and to wrap the text in columns.


Reference Link http://www.rittmanmead.com/2015/05/obiee-11-1-1-9-new-features-for-front-end-developers-and-business-users/

OBIEE Services as Window Service

OBIEE Services as Window Service

By default the only Fusion Middleware 11g components configured as MS Windows Services by the install process are:

• Weblogic Node Manager
  (configured as a MS Windows Service if Custom Install route is chosen when installing Weblogic)
• FMW 11g Process Manager (OPMN)
  (installed as a MS Windows Service if a System Component Instance is configured)

This document shows how to install the Weblogic AdminServer and BI Managed Server as MS Windows Service for the OBIEE 11g installation.

Note: If you install OBIEE 11g version 11.1.1.5+ with the Simple Install type, then you will only have an AdminServer and not a BI Managed Server; therefore, the Managed Server section would not apply in that specific version and installation type.

Stop all the bi services.

1.Configure the boot.properties to create an encrypted method to automatically pass the admin username and password

%middleware_home%\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\AdminServer\security\boot.properties

eg., %middleware_home% - E:\obiee then boot.properties file exists in the following location

E:\obiee\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\AdminServer\security\boot.properties

Add the following lines:

username=[the Administrator username created during install, e.g weblogic]
password=[the weblogic username password e.g welcome1]

Note: the above credentials are the same as the one provided when the AdminServer is started from Command line. Do not use or leave the brackets [ ] in the file. They are only used to show what should be entered.
As soon as you start the Admin Server the username and password values in this file will be encrypted


Admin Server:
2..Create a command script called installAdminServer_Service.cmd in the following path
E:\OBIEE\wlserver_10.3\server\bin,

Please note that the middleware home values need to be specific to your install

3.Then add the Weblogic_home and setDomainEnv path in InstallSvc.cmd which is under the following path E:\OBIEE\wlserver_10.3\server\bin

For troubleshooting / debugging purposes it is helpful to redirect standard out and error to a text file. Although most information is captured in the AdminServer server log files, you will not see all standard out and error when the server is started via a MS Windows Service (unlike when you start an AdminServer in console modefrom the command prompt using startWebLogic.cmd). To redirect standard out to a text file, backup and edit installSvc.cmd file and change the line at the bottom of the file so it includes the -log parameter. For example:

"%WL_HOME%\server\bin\beasvc" -install
-svcname:"%DOMAIN_NAME%_%SERVER_NAME%"
-javahome:"%JAVA_HOME%" -execdir:"%USERDOMAIN_HOME%"
-extrapath:"%WL_HOME%\server\bin" -password:"%WLS_PW%"
-cmdline:%CMDLINE%
-log:"[middleware_home]\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\AdminServer\AdminServer-stdout.txt"

Note: You may also want to change the service name from beasvc to Oracle so that all of your Oracle services are ordered together in the services screen, for example:
-svcname:"Oracle %DOMAIN_NAME%_%SERVER_NAME

4.Next,  run as administrator "installAdminServer_Service.cmd" and the service should be installed, it will have a name like "Oracle %DOMAIN_NAME%_%SERVER_NAME%" or beasvc if you left it at the default (e.g. Oracle bifoundation_domain_AdminServer)

The Service "Startup Type" will be 'Automatic'. Just like any other MS Windows Service you can change the 'Startup Type' to 'Manual'.

Start the Service. The Service will come back fairly quickly to say it is started. The actual time taken for AdminServer to start and reach a state of 'RUNNING' will be longer - perhaps two or three minutes. The state of the server can be monitored by reviewing the stdout txt file.

Managed Server:

1.Configure the boot.properties to create an encrypted method to automatically pass the admin username and password

%middleware_home%\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\bi_server1\security\boot.properties

eg., %middleware_home% - E:\obiee then boot.properties file exists in the following location

E:\obiee\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\bi_server1\security\boot.properties

Add the following lines:

username=[the Administrator username created during install, e.g weblogic]
password=[the weblogic username password e.g welcome1]

2..Create a command script called installManageSrvr_Service.cmd  in the following path
E:\OBIEE\wlserver_10.3\server\bin,

change the -log parameter in the installSvc.cmd file to the new location. Fore example:

-log:"[middleware_home]\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\bi_server1\bi_server1-stdout.txt"

Then run the installManagedSrvr_Service.cmd as Administrator to create the Managed services.