OBIEE 11g Certification Available

Oracle tends to work hard to ensure that best practices are adhered to when working with their products. They even go as far to offer certifications which acknowledge one's ability to demonstrate product knowledge and acuity for implementing, developing, etc. with Oracle products. The release of OBIEE 11g is no exception, and Oracle has recently released the OBI 11g Certification Exam for those so inclined and ready to be stamped as an OBI 11g guru.

This certification holds some similar exam topics to that of its predecessor certification exam for the 10.1.3.x OBI version. But clearly with OBI 11g there are many new areas on which to be tested. Reading over the OBI 11g Exam certification topics one can get a good feel for what Oracle thinks are "must have" areas within the new application to focus on. Even if not taking the exam, learning these topics should provide an administrator, developer, or super-user with keen insight to working with and implementing OBI 11g.

The OB 11g Oracle certification is currently only available for Oracle partners. However, whether you gearing up for the OBI 11g exam or just needing to get educated on OBI 11g, BI Consulting Group has already released several OBI 11g training courses via their BICG University education center on the following topics:

# OBIEE 11-301: Dashboard/Report Application Development
# OBIEE 11-401: Repository/Metadata App Dev
# OBIEE 11-402: Server Architecture

In conclusion, I have always been a fan of official certifications as they show that one took the initiative to learn the information, was grilled on that information via examination, and knew the material well enough to achieve certification status. To me, this is only one or two steps below taking the time to write a book on the topic in question - guru status.

Do you think Oracle certifications are worthwhile?
How has an Oracle certification the helped you in the past?
Should Oracle offer a public OBI 11g certification?

BI Publisher and OBIEE, Part 1

BI Publisher originated as a Java application called "XML Publisher" (hence the "xmlp" naming convention) embedded within Oracle's E-Business Suite. XML Publisher has been an integral component within E-Business Suite as a means to deliver highly refined PDF-formatted output of raw transactional data, primarily for hard-copy printing.

In its incarnation as Business Intelligence Publisher (hereinafter "BIP"), it is essentially the same application at heart but with several powerful new features. Like XML Publisher, BIP is a XML transformation engine that applies XSLT templates (created on the fly from user-generated WYSIWYG templates in RTF format) against raw data to produce reports with highly customized visual layouts in a variety of output formats.

XMLP differs from BIP in two significant ways:

First, BIP has much greater flexibility using a variety of template sources, output formats, delivery methods and scheduling options.

Second, and more importantly, BIP is not restricted to E-Business Suite as a data source - in fact it has been expanded to interface with a wide variety of applications, including JDBC-complient databases, Webservices, Hyperion... and OBIEE.

From a high-level pespective, BI Publisher...

• transforms raw data from various sources (JDBC, Webservices, OBIEE, etc)
• according to a layout designed using native functionality of best-of-breed layout tools (Word, Excel, Acrobat, etc)
• into various file formats (HTML, PDF, Flash, CSV, XML, XLS, etc)
• and delivers them via various mechanisms (Email, FTP, HTTP, WebDAV, Fax, etc)
• either on demand or according to a user-defined schedule
  

Any organization making the investment into OBIEE should understand and take advantage of the extensive data formatting & delivery functionality provided by BI Publisher.

This discussion is divided into two parts illustrating BIP's basic functionality within the context of its two native OBIEE interfaces:

1. with BI Presentation Services as a specialized integration source, wherein Answers Requests are treated as a unique data type (Part 1)
2. with BI Server as a JDBC-compliant SQL database, wherein Presentation Tables are treated as simple database tables (Part 2)
   

Assumptions for this discussion:

• BIP was correctly installed and configured onto a demo system during a full OBIEE installation process (full installation & configuration of BIP can be tricky, but is out of scope for this discussion - see Oracle's documentation for more info)
• OBIEE on this demo system is serving the demo "Sample Sales" repository
• MS Office is installed on the client system (screenshots herein represent MS Office 2007 but should adequately demonstrate functionality for previous versions)
  

PRE-REQ: Install "BI Publisher Desktop" (interfaces desktop client apps Excel and Word with BI Publisher)

1. Log in to OBIEE as Administrator
2. Click to "More Products - BI Publisher"
3. Click to "Business Intelligence"
4. Click on "Template Builder" (in Developer Tools) - Save BIPublisherDesktop.exe then run
   

PART 1: Integration with OBIEE Presentation Services (via Answers Requests)

BIP can interface with the OBIEE Presentation Services as a data source. BIP "sees" existing Answers requests and treats them as reports ready for formatting & delivery. In this exercise we will create a simple Answers request, then connect to it from BIP and build a simple template using MS Word, then observe how we can use native functionality in MS Word to modify the resulting output.

CREATE ANSWERS REQUEST

1. Click to Answers
2. Open the "Sample Sales Reduced" Subject Area
3. Create & save new Request titled "BI Publisher Request" in your personal folder with the following dimensions & facts:
   Products . Brand
   Time . Year
   Facts Revenue . Revenue
   

CREATE BI PUBLISHER REPORT

1. Open BI Publisher ("More Products" - "BI Publisher")
2. Click to "Shared Folders" - "Business Intelligence"
3. Click to "Create a New Report"
4. Enter Name = "Answers Request Demo"
5. Click "Create"
   
   
6. Click "Answers Request Demo" - "Edit"
7. Click "Data Model" = "New"
8. Enter Name = "BI Publisher Request"
9. Select Data source = "Oracle BI Answers"
10. Click Flashlight icon
    

    NOTE: Directory structure matches Web Catalog structure - because BIP here is communicating with Presentation Services

11. Click "users" then [your username] then "BI Publisher Request"
12. Click "Save" (green disk icon in upper LH corner of screen)
    

CREATE TEMPLATE USING WORD

1. Open MS Word
2. Click to "Add-Ins"
3. Click "Oracle BI Publisher"
4. Click "Log on" - Pop up window will appear
   NOTE: Value for Report Server should be the local OBIEE install
   
   
   
5. Click "Login"
6. "Open Template" window will open
7. In "Workspace" drop-down, select "BI Publisher"
8. Expand "Shared Folders" then click "Business Intelligence"
9. In the "Reports" area, click on the "Answers Request Demo" (which you created in BIP above)
   

   NOTE: Directory structure matches BIP structure - because Word here is communicating with BI Publisher

10. In the "Layout Templates" area, click on "New"
11. Click on "Open Layout Template"
    
    
    
12. Click to "Add-Ins"
13. Select "Insert" - "Table wizard"
    
    
    
14. Select report format = "Table" and click "Next"
15. Click "Next" (Data Set = "ROWSET/ROW")
16. Click >> (selects all available fields), then "Finish"
17. Select "Preview" - "PDF"
    
    
    
18. Obey prompt to save document in RTF format
19. PDF viewer will render output
    
    
    
20. Use "Add-ins" - "Insert" to create new objects, then experiment with native Word formatting functionality to create your desired report layout
21. When ready to proceed, select "Add-ins" - "Oracle BI Publisher" - "Upload Template As..."
    
    
    
22. Enter Template Name = "Answers Request Demo Template"

REVIEW NEW TEMPLATE CONFIGURATION IN BIP

1. Return to BI Publisher
2. Click to "Shared Folders" - "Business Intelligence"
3. Click "Answers Request Demo" - "Edit"
4. Click "Report" - "Layouts" - "Answers Request Demo Template"
   

   NOTE: This is the RTF template which you created in MS Word above

5. Click "View" (link in upper RH corner)
   
   
   
6. Voila!
   

PART 2 Integration with OBIEE Server (via Presentation Tables)

(To be continued...)

Oracle Customer Forum featuring Transaction Network Services (TNS)

Oracle will be featuring one of our customers from BI Consulting Group in a Customer Reference Forum next Wednesday, March 4th.

Discussion is set to surround the details involved with the implementation of Financial Analytics, specifically Payables, Receivables, and Profitability Analytics. The source systems accessed included Oracle eBusiness Suite (EBS) as well as some third-party data sources.

Click to the evite for more or contact your Oracle Rep to get registered (I think this is only necessary if you want to field questions during the discussion period),

Link to Session Evite

Toll Free Number (USA/Canada): +1 800 439 4935
International Toll Number: +1 706-634-9081
Conference ID: 86414290

A brief glimpse at iBots

What are iBots?

iBots are intelligence agents or Bots. These agents are triggered by a schedule or condition that in turn generates a request to perform analytics on data based upon defined criteria.

Where do iBots originate from?

Oracle BI Delivers is the application to create, modify and manage iBots.

How do iBots work?

In order to understand how an iBot works, we should start by first creating a new iBot from scratch.

Navigate to "Delivers" ......


.....and click the link to create a new iBot.



From here, we will tackle each individual tab to get an understanding of what the process is to create an iBot.

1) Overview tab

This view is a summary of the current settings for the selected iBot.

One can navigate to specific settings by clicking on the links in the summary or clicking on the tabs located at the top.

2) General tab


This is where the priority of the iBot and how to send the delivery content are set.

The priority options are low, normal, or high. The priority works with the delivery profile for a user to determine the destination for alerts of different priorities.

The following Data Visibility options affect the customization of the delivery content:

Personalized (individual data visibility):
- uses the data visibility of each recipient to customize iBot delivery content for each recipient. Note that The Run As field if not available.

Not personalized (use the Run As user's data visibility):
- sends the iBot's delivery content to the specified recipients. All users receive the same content as if they were the user specified in the Run As field.

Not personalized (use iBot owner’s data visibility):
- sends the iBot’s delivery content to the specified recipients using the data visibility of the specified user (Run As box field) who created the iBot. In other words, all recipients will receive the content that's viewable to the Run As user.


3) Conditional Request tab


This page is used to select a request to trigger the iBot. The results of the conditional request determine whether the iBot sends its delivery content and initiates any subsequent actions:

- If the request does not return any rows, the iBot is not triggered.

- If the request returns at least one row, the iBot sends its delivery content and initiates any subsequent actions.

Requests can be chained together to create complex conditional logic.

4) Schedule tab

iBots can be executed based on a specified schedule. You can define a starting date and time for the iBot, a recurrence schedule, and an ending date.

5) Recipients tab

Use this tab to select the users and groups to receive the delivery content of the iBot.

One has the ability to select specific individual users and groups to receive the contents of the iBot.
**You can select multiple users by holding down the SHIFT or CTRL keys and selecting adjacent or nonadjacent users.**

Also, one can select which users or groups can subscribe to the iBot. This allows users the flexibility to receive and view the contents of the iBot AND customize prompted filter values for columns.

Keep in mind that in order to publish iBots, the content must be shared.


6) Delivery Content tab

Use the Delivery Content tab to specify the type of content to deliver with the iBot, such as a
dashboard page or a saved request. The delivery format for the content can also be selected, such
as HTML, PDF, XLS, CSV, or text.

The contents of the Headline field will appear as the subject of the request.

The two field text boxes below allows one to attach a message when the iBot is delivered depending on if the iBot is delivered as an attachment or if there are no records returned by the conditional request.

7) Destinations tab

The User Destinations and Specific Devices portions of this tab are pretty self explanatory.

As for System Services...

Oracle BI Server Cache is used for seeding cache.

(** To have the cache created for individual users, the Personalized option for data visibility in the General tab must be selected.)

Disconnected Application Cache is only available to companies that have licensed Disconnected Analytics.

(** To have the disconnected application cache created for individual users, the Personalized(individual data visibility) option for Data Visibility in the General tab must be selected.)

(**Nonpersonalized data is not used for Disconnected Analytics users.)


8) Advanced tab


Use the Advanced tab to specify one or more actions to execute after the iBot is finished running.

Actions include the execution of other iBots, custom scripts, custom Java programs or Workflows.




For further reading on iBots, I would suggest downloading the Oracle Business Intelligence Answers, Delivers, and Interactive Dashboards User Guide to read further about creating iBots. What I provided is just a brief glimpse of iBots.

(http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B40078_02/doc/bi.1013/b31767.pdf)