Workaround: OBIEE compatibility issue with Firefox 10

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This work around is related to my previous post on OBIEE error: “Your browser is not supported by Oracle BI Presentation Services” being triggered by an automatic update to Firefox 10 being rolled out to end users.

Alvin Vu who is a good friend and Solution Architect just shared a good work around that is a little bit simpler than others I had previously found on the web. He was able to trick OBIEE into thinking he is using Firefox 9.0 using the User Agent RG add-on.

Steps to implement his work around:

1) Open Firefox and click on Tools > Add-ons

2) Once in the Add-ons Manager type user agent on the search box on the top right

3) Select "User Agent RG 1.0" from the search results and click on Install

4) Go to Tools > User Agent > Firefox > 4

This seems to be a easy to implement solution while Oracle makes a patch available for 11.1.1.5, as I mentioned last week this issue had already been fixed in OBIEE version 11.1.1.6.0 which has not entered general availability yet.

List of Bug Fixes Included In OBIEE 11.1.1.5.0

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The following is the list of Bugs fixed in OBIEE 11.1.1.5 Release grouped by component :

Admin Tool

* 7538753 SAP BW IMPORT DOES NOT RETRIEVE UNIQUE NAME FOR MEASURE COLUMNS
* 10012297 ADMIN TOOL CRASH ON VERY LARGE EXPRESSIONS – OVERFLOW AT APPROX 3200 CHARACTERS
* 10032385 TABLE MISSING IN SQL "FROM" CLAUSE – FWD PORT 8308443 TO 11G
* 10045212 EQUALITY EXPRESSION IN LTS "WHERE" CAUSES INTERNAL SQORRQLIST ERROR ON QUERY
* 10264475 ADMINISTRATION’S "SHUTDOWN SERVER" MENU SHOULD BE REMOVED
* 10265121 ADMIN TOOL EXPRESSION BUILDER CRASHES ON DOUBLE-BYTE LOGICAL COLUMN NAME
* 10394725 ON-LINE MODE CHECK-IN OF DYNAMIC INIT BLOCK CAUSES [43058] REFRESH LOCK FAILURE

Answers

* 6521146 ERROR: "NO FILTER" WHEN USING "COMBINE WITH SIMILAR REQUEST" – UNION
* 7534635 INACTIVATING DRILLDOWN ON COLUMN VALUE ALSO INACTIVATES COLUMN HEADER LINK
* 9026854 CLARIFICATION REGARDING DATA FORMAT WHEN COMBINING REQUESTS
* 9107277 KEEP THE NUMBER PRECISION IN DATABASE WHEN "DOWNLOADING TO EXCEL"
* 9524080 PIVOT TOTAL DIFFERENT TO TABLE TOTAL WHEN REPORTAGGREGATEENABLED TRUE
* 9697529 JAPANESE CHARACTER SET NOT PASSED CORRECTLY TO DRILL REPORT IN FIREFOX BROWSER
* 9871470 SORTING ON A NULL VALUED COLUMNS GIVES ASSERTION ERRORS
* 9886904 CORRECT DOC FOR ADDING CUSTOM DATE FORMAT STRING
* 9918283 CORRECT DASHBOARD FORMATTING PROBLEMS WITH SCROLLING
* 9928318 ROW HEADER MISSING AT PIVOT TABLE VIEW FOR MIGRATED REPORTS IN 11G
* 9968574 SOME UPGRADED 10G CHARTS SHOW UP JAVA EXCEPTION
* 10023165 MAPS DO NOT WORK IN MAP VIEWS WHEN JOIN COLUMN CONTAINS A "&" CHARACTER
* 10065166 GAUGE RANGE IS NOT UPDATED WHEN IT CHANGES THE FIELD VALUE
* 10078041 ACTION LINK DOES NOT WORK WHEN COMPOUND LAYOUT ONLY HAS A MAP VIEW
* 10091354 "SCALE MARKERS" OPTION IS MISSING IN VERTICAL AXIS 2
* 10147762 CANNOT SET GAUGE FOOTER (TITLE), KEEPS SHOWING "UNDEFINEDUNDEFINEDUNDEFINED"
* 10182955 BUBBLE CHART IS NOT BEHAVING AS EXPECTED
* 10213761 CONDITIONAL DASHBOARD SECTIONS (GUIDED NAVIGATION) ALWAYS RUNS REPORTS
* 10229397 CANNOT SAVE REQUEST USING STANDARD DATE FORMATS.
* 10282140 CELL IMAGE AT BLANK CELL OF PIVOT TABLE IS NOT DISPLAYED WHEN USING COND FORMAT
* 10296730 UNABLE TO USE PRESENTATION VARIABLE IN SCALE MARKERS
* 10312496 CHARTS. MEASURE LABEL IN GRAPH PROMPTS DOES NOT CHANGE CONTENT OF THE CHART
* 10312795 ACTION LINK ON COLUMN HEADING NAVIGATION DOES NOT CONSIDER PROMPT VALUES
* 10329343 CLICKING A LINE GRAPH BETWEEN TWO DATA POINTS DRILLS TO LAST VALUE IN HORIZONTAL
* 10337649 PIVOT TABLE SHOWS BUTTONS FOR SORTING ON CALCULATED ITEMS.
* 10402102 INCORRECT RESULT WHEN USING [NEW CALCULATED ITEM] PROP IN PIVOT TABLE
* 10414887 DRILL DOWNS NOT WORKING IN CHART PIVOTED TABLE SELECTED FROM VIEW SELECTOR
* 10418875 CHART SIZE IS CHANGING AFTER WEBCAT UPGRADE FROM 10G
* 10634175 GRAPH ENGINE IS NOT RESPONDING
* 10639913 COMPLETE TEXT IS NOT SAVED IN DB IF CURSOR IS MOVED AWAY DURING INSERT
* 11711658 FILTER NEEDS TO SUPPORT UNTYPE LITERAL FOR RANK OPERATOR AS 10G DOES
* 11805468 CUSTOMIZED GAUGE VIEW IS NOT CONSISTENT WHEN EXPORTED AS PDF,HTML AND XLS
* 11817696 INCORRECT FILTER IS BUILT IF FILTER IS CONTRUCTED BEFORE SELECTING REQ. COLUMNS
* 11845286 PIVOT TABLE WITH PERCENTAGES, GRAPHED PERCENTAGE VALUES DISPLAYED ARE INCORRECT
* 11894921 GRAPH LABEL OPTIONS NOT AVAILABLE IN 11G
* 11895279 INCORRECT FILTER VALUE WHEN USING ACTION LINK WITH GRAPH
* 12412666 ALL PAGES LOSES CONDITIONAL FORMATTING
* 12561361 PSE FOR BASE BUG 10295403 ON TOP OF 11.1.1.5.0 FOR GENERIC OS

CHARTING

* 8990756 MISLEADING INFORMATION IN DOC REGARDING PIVOT TABLE SETTINGS

DASHBOARDS

* 7459700 ABILITY TO SPECIFY FIXED COLUMN WIDTH TO A DASHBOARD PROMPT
* 10177865 OBIEE 11G : DEFAULT VALUES CANNOT BE DE-SELECTED FROM MULTI SELECT PROMPT
* 10279722 DASHBOARD SLIDER PROMPT SHOWS THUMB VALUES WITH TWO DECIMAL PLACES FOR INTEGERS
* 10279829 DASHBOARD SLIDER PROMPT SHOWS WRONG VALUES FOR "ALL COLUMN VALUES" OR "SPECIFIC
* 10310511 "REQUIRE USER INPUT" MESSAGE APPEARS THE FIRST TIME ONLY FOR THE REQUIRED PROMPT
* 10389799 DASHBOARD NAVIGATION MAY CAUSE GETELEMENTBYTAGNAME ERROR IN IE
* 10411545 PROMPT WITH BETWEEN OPERATOR AND SQL DEFAULT VALUES ARE NOT UPGRADED PROPERLY
* 11056057 ERROR WHILE UPGRADING THE DASHBOARD WITH CERTAIN FILTER FUNCTIONS
* 11076452 ABILITY TO CONSTRAIN PROMPTS AGAINST A SLIDER PROMPT
* 11717024 ERROR 500 OCCURS WHEN SETTING ACCESSIBILITY MODE TO ON
* 12620143 PSE FOR BASE BUG 12561330 ON TOP OF 11.1.1.5.0 FOR LINUX X86 [46] (PSE #602152)

INSTALL

* 9459177 PREREQUISITES FOR DEPLOYMENT ON SEPARATE MACHINES
* 9540009 UNIXCHK.SH ENCOUNTERS HOST NOT FOUND ERROR WHEN DNS IS NOT AVAILABLE.
* 10071302 ENTERPRISE INSTALL: CONFIGURE PORTS : FORMAT OF INI FILE
* 10126542 OBIEE 11G INSTALATION FAILS AT AS INSTANCE CREATION DUE TO PERM SIZE ERROR
* 10287335 CANNOT START BISERVER1 . SWITCH TO JSSE FRAMEWORK REQUIRED
* 10302421 OBIEE 11G WINDOWS PROMPTS FOR USERNAME / PASSWORD AFTER ENCRYPTING CREDENTIALS
* 11849674 SAG: DISCREPANCY IN DOCUMENTED ORACLE DATABASE REQUIRED FOR MAPVIEWER

MIGRATION

* 7432799 ORACLE EUL CONVERTER CRASHED WHILE GENERATING A REPOSITORY

REL_NOTES

* 12604761 TWO STEPS OF THE UPGRADE TO 11.1.1.5.0 ARE NOT CLEARLY DOCUMENTED

SCHEDULER

* 10036466 "RE-RUN INSTANCE(S) NOW" MENU IS NOT AVAILABLE FOR COMPLETED JOB INSTANCES

SECURITY

* 8996295 PROVIDE DETAIL INFORMATION TO SETUP WNA(KERBEROS) FOR OBIEE AUTHENTIFICATION
* 9216995 PROVIDE LATEST DETAIL INFORMATION ABOUT HOW TO SETUP LDAP SSL FOR OBIEE
* 10194154 TECHNOTES- PROVIDE DETAIL INFORMATION TO SETUP WNA(KERBEROS) FOR OBIEE AUTHENT
* 10198837 BIEEHOME LOGIN PAGE IS NOT DISABLED EVEN AFTER ENABLING THE SSO
* 10218031 USING EXTERNAL DB TABLE TO SET ROLES SESSION VARIABLE DOESN’T ACCEPT LONG NAMES
* 10373788 IF OBJECTGUID PUBLISHED AND SAMACCOUNTNAME CHANGED USER CANNOT CONNECT ANYMORE
* 11731080 QA:SECURITY GUIDE NEEDS UPDATE FOR DEFINING A USER SESSION VARIABLE

SERVER

* 6510747 NETWORK FAILURE DURING PHYSICAL QUERY HANGS END USER WITHOUT ERROR MESSAGE
* 6836444 OBIEE SERVER SYSTEM DATE IS WRONG AND DOES NOT MATCH MACHINE SYSTEM DATE
* 8371912 BI SERVER CRASHES ON NAVIGATION SPACE MAP RACE – SR 3-887711721
* 9433198 DOCUMENT SYSLOG ENTRIES IN SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR’S GUIDE
* 9696424 DOC INSTANCECONFIG PARMS ALLOWEDLANGUAGES & ALLOWEDLOCALES IN SYSADMIN GUIDE
* 9954411 PSR:MOD_SUPPORTED NOT ENABLED FOR TERADATA AND CAUSES CAMPAIGN SLOW PERFORMANCE
* 10258683 REQUEST WITH COMPLEX FILTER IS CONSUMING ALMOST ALL CPU & NO SESSION IS CREATED
* 10258755 EXCEL FAILS TO CONNECT TO 11G BI SERVER USING ODBC DSN
* 10335924 REPORT-BASED TOTALS FAIL ON MEASURES CONTAINING AGGREGATION EXPRS SUCH AS FILTER
* 10374571 NEED FLEXIBILITY TO OVERRIDE HOSTNAMES WHEN CUSTOMER DNS IS INCORRECT OR BROKEN
* 10650122 PIVOT VIEW WITH UNION OF NON – COMPATABLE TYPE ERROR IN OBIEE 11G AFTER UPGRADE
* 11804596 NQQUERY LOG LEVEL 2 IS TOO VERBOSE – BACKPORT 10308263 TO 11.1.1.5
* 11809295 NQUDMLGEN NOT GENERATING UDML FILE IN UTF FORMAT

UPGRADE

* 9886765 ERRORS ENCOUNTERED WHEN UPGRADING WEB CATALOG USING UA.BAT
* 10121344 ERROR IN LOG USING UA TO UPGRADE BI SCHEDULER SCHEMA ON SQL SERVER DATABASE
* 11069928 UPGRADE SHOULD HANDLE PROMPT WITH INCONSISTENT VALUES AS 10G DOES

WEB_ADMIN

* 8564456 SHARED FOLDER ACCESS PERMISSION ISSUE
* 9381764 CATALOG MANAGER COPY FUNCTION NOT WORKING AS EXPECTED
* 9739865 EXITING MANAGE SESSION RESULTS IN HTTP ERROR
* 10016252 LACKING INFORMATION ON FORCEABSOLUTECOMMANDURL FOR ABSOLUTECOMMANDURLPREFIX
* 10144989 WEB CATALOG DOES NOT UPGRADE TO 11.1.1.3.0
* 10218524 VALIDATION ERROR AFTER THE UPGRADE OF WEBCATALOG TO OBIEE 11G
* 11723425 INCORRECT DEFAULT VALUE OF DEFAULTROWSDISPLAYED IN THE INSTANCECONFIG.XML
* 11827202 OPMN NOT STARTING AFTER SETTING UP THE REPLICATION AGENT

WEB_GNRL

* 10191078 FILTER VALUES ARE RESET IN GO URL WHEN COLUMNS ARE SORTED OR RE-ARRANGED
* 10360461 NEED ABILITY TO CONTROL NEW, DASHBOARD AND OTHER HEADER LINKS
* 11780508 10G COLUMN FILTER PROMPT WITH PROMPTCAPTION ATTR NOT UPGRADING
* 12416695 TOOLTIP EMPTY IN MAPVIEWER

WEB_INTGRT

* 10294759 FMAP-REFERENCED IMAGES IN ANALYSIS HEADERS DONâÂÂT APPEAR IN DOWNLOADS TO EXCEL

WEB_MKTG

* 8692820 DIRECT DATABASE CAMPAIGN LOAD FORMAT COMBINED LISTS FAILS
* 9908019 SAW SERVER CRASH WHEN LOADING A PARTICULAR CAMPAIGN
* 9935859 UNGROUP OF SEGMENT BLOCKS CORRUPTS SEGMENT DEFINTION AND BAD COUNTS
* 10331355 MOVING CRITERIA WITHIN A SEGMENT’S GROUP CORRUPTS THE INCLUSION OPTIONS


References:

NOTE: 1329694.1 – List of Bug Fixes Included In Oracle BI Publisher 11.1.1.5.0

Posted in Infrastructure OBIEE Troubleshooting by idelatorre. No Comments

Configuring WebLogic Automated Startup Credentials

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As one of those who have recently acquired administrator duties as part of our organizations push to adopt OBIEE 11g I recently struggled with the issue of how to correctly start the Web Logic server so that it would not die with my session expiration

The main issue I faced was the fact that every time I tried to start WebLogic I would be asked for the administrator username and password, this really got in the way of automating the WebLogic startup. After a little bit of digging into the WebLogic Server Documentation I discovered a section about the boot.properties file and how use it to configure the startup credentials so that input from a command prompt wouldn’t be necessary. Here are the simple steps to implement this configuration:
  1. Locate the $MW_HOME/user_projects/domains/[domain (ie. bifoundation)]/servers/[managed server (ie. biserver_1)]/security
  2. Edit the boot.properties file by entering or replacing the following lines:username=<weblogic administrator user>
    password=<weblogic administrator password> 

     

  3. Execute the commands below to stop the WebLogic server:cd $MW_HOME/user_projects/domains/bifoundation/bin
    ./stopWebLogic.sh
  4. Now execute the command below to bring the server back up:./startWebLogic.shNote: Notice how this script will no longer ask you to enter the WebLogic administrator’s user name and password.
  5. Review the credentials in the boot.properties file, the first time the server is started it will read the clear text credentials and replace them with encrypted values.cat $MW_HOME/user_projects/domains/bifoundation/servers/biserver_1/security
After this configuration is in place you are now able to configure WebLogic to start automatically with your server without nay mayor issues:

 

Other posts that might be of your interest are:

Summary:

After reading this post you should be able to configure the boot.properties file to provide the server with startup credentials, a necessary step when configuring the WebLogic Server automated startup. This post should also help in answering or resolving these related topics:
  • How to configure WebLogic to start automatically with my server?
  • The WebLogic server does not start automatically, it is prompting for a user name and password
  • WebLogic not reading boot.properties file at $MW_HOME/user_projects/domains/[domain (ie. bifoundation)] (this location has been deprecated, use the one listed above)

Questions and Comments: Please use the comment form on this post to send us your questions and comments, we look forward to hearing from you!

Commentary: Oracle releases OBIEE 11.1.1.5

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This past week Oracle released a Oracle Business Intelligence 11.1.1.5 which supersedes 11.1.1.3. This is the link to the download page.

It is my anticipation that most of the commentary about this release will center around two much anticipated features:

  • The “Oracle Business Intelligence Mobile” App that allows executives and other corporate users to consume business intelligence content from Apple mobile devices such as the iPad or the iPhone.This is how the new OBIEE 11g Map Viewer control used in the context of a revenue map looks in the iPad.
  • A native (BAPI) adapter that allows repository developers to access SAP BW InfoCubes as regular data sources in the physical layer of the OBIEE 11g repository / semantic model. This is of particular interest for organizations such as one of my clients that have significant investments on their SAP BW implementations but realize the long list of Business Objects and BEx Explorer when compared with OBIEE 11g.

So, are you ready to use OBIEE 11g in your production environment? I look forward to reading your questions and comments!

Environment variables to simplify your life – OBIEE 11g System Administrator Edition

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As I spend a lot of time switching between a very well defined set of directories in the Oracle Middleware home for OBIEE 11g I have been developing a list of variables that I like to use in my scripts and configure in the servers that I most commonly work with. They have proven to be very useful in being able to remember where each component or file has been moved with the upgrade to 11g.
#########################
### OBI 11g Variables ###
#########################
#use INST_NUM to simplify the setting of all other instance related variables
export INST_NUM=1 #Most developer workstations will only have one instance
#Middleware home
export MW_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/Middleware/
#Enterprise Manager Home
export OBIEM=$MW_HOME/Oracle_BI1
#Oracle Instance (contains services, config, domain, etc)
export ORACLE_INSTANCE=$MW_HOME/instances/instance$INST_NUM
#Configuration File Directory (Most of them)
export OBICFG=$ORACLE_INSTANCE/config
#Cache Directory (out of the box location)
export OBI_CACHE=$ORACLE_INSTANCE/bifoundation/OracleBIServerComponent/coreapplication_obis$INST_NUM/cache
#MDX Cache (out of the box location)
export OBI_MDXCACHE=$ORACLE_INSTANCE/bifoundation/OracleBIServerComponent/coreapplication_obis$INST_NUM/MDXCache
#Repository Directory
export OBIRPD=$ORACLE_INSTANCE/bifoundation/OracleBIServerComponent/coreapplication_obis$INST_NUM/repository
#Webcat Directory
export OBICAT=$ORACLE_INSTANCE/bifoundation/OracleBIPresentationServicesComponent/coreapplication_obips$INST_NUM/catalog
#Weblogic Server home
export WLS_HOME=$MW_HOME/wlserver_10.3
##########################
##END OBI 11g Variables ##
##########################
#before you save your changes also make sure you set the following variables to their correct value
export CLASSPATH=/ora01/app/oracle/oraInventory:$CLASSPATH
export TMP=/tmpexport
TMPDIR=/tmp
Summary:
After reading this post you should be able to answer questions such as the ones listed below:
  • What is the path to the OBIEE 11g Web Catalog ($OBICAT)?
  • What is the default location of the Oracle Middleware Home ($MW_HOME)?
  • Where is the opmnctl located at in my OBIEE 11g install ($OBIEM/opmn/opmnctl)?
  • Where is the OBIEE RPD repository located at in OBIEE 11g ($OBIRPD)?
  • What is the path to the Fusion Middleware Control (Enterprise Manager) instance on my OBIEE 11g server ($OBIEM)?
Questions and Comments: Please use the comment form on this post to send us your questions and comments, we look forward to hearing from you!

Nota Importante: OBIEE 11g solo se puede instalar con el metodo “Software Only” en ambientes de 64-bit

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Después de un par de intentos fallidos de solucionar un problema con el nuevo motor gráfico que no despliega algunas graficas en mis dashboards, los ingenieros de soporte de Oracle me han mencionado que la unica forma de instalar OBIEE 11g en ambientes Unix/Linux de 64 bits es usando la opcion de “Software Only” en el programa de instalacion e instalando WebLogic de forma separada.



La imagen en esta nota muestra la opcion “Enterprise” que instala una version 32-bit de WebLogic. La ventaja de usar un servidor virtual de SUSE Linux corriendo en Oracle Virtual Box es que puedo facilmente restaurar mi respaldo y empezar el proceso sin tener que instalar la base de datos y correr RCU de nuevo.


OBIEE 11g deployments on 64 bit environments must use

Espero poder publicar una guia de instalacion para ambientes de 64-bits, mientras tanto el vinculo a las notas donde se menciona esta limitante es este:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E14571_01/doc.1111/e14770/biee.htm#CHDIHIE

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Posted in Español by idelatorre. No Comments

Sunopsis five years after it’s acquisition

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On October of 2006 Oracle acquired Sunopsis a sofware company whose flagship product was one of the up-and-coming players in the datata warehousing arena. Sunopsis for easy integration in environments with multiple database systems and differentiated itself by adopting an Extract-Load-Transform architecture that decreased the learning curve for database developers that were immediately able to create transformation using familiar SQL syntax. By utilizing the computing power in the target database Sunopsis’ ELT architecture potentially decreased the need for additional computing power in a dedicated ETL server.

Fast forward five years and Sunopsis is now Oracle Data Integrator, it is a key component of the Fusion Middleware Data Integration product line and it’s looking good, a few features that large enterprise customers will find interesting are:

  • SOA enabled an can deploy and consume web services for data transformation and integration
  • Integrates well into your data cleansing (names, addresses) and Master Data Management framework
  • Out of the box CDC functionality with a Publish-and-Subscribe model implemented either via triggers or log mining (Oracle and DB2)
  • As previously stated, by utilizing the source and target database’s computing power ODI decreases it Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

It seems as if the merging of Oracle Warehouse Builder and Sunopsis’ functionalities has been beneficial to the end product and, in general, to the enterprise customer. Now it remains to be seen how aggressively Oracle”s sales force can take market share from ODI’s top competitors IBM Information Server and Informatica PowerCenter.

Stay tunned for additional product reviews and, of course, OBIEE and Business Intelligence updates…

Real Time Operational Business Intelligence with GoldenGate

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Oracle Corporation’ (ORCL) acquisition of Golden Gate Software on July of 2009 was a big step for Oracle in its quest to build a open and heterogeneous product line that will be more appealing to enterprise customers with complex OLTP and data warehouse environments. You can find a detailed presentation of the considerations that were taken into consideration regarding this acquisition here.

In the data warehousing space this is a welcome addition to the earlier acquisition of Sunopsis (now Oracle Data Integrator ) a Extract-Load-Transform alternative to traditional ETL tools such as Informatica and IBM Information Server (DataStage) that plays nice in heterogeneous database environments and is significantly easier to use, and more stable than the displaced Oracle Warehouse Builder (OWB).

Key areas where Golden Gate can be of use in a heterogeneous database environment:

  • Simplifying disaster recovery by maintaining near-real time copies of transactional databases
  • Change Data Capture and extraction and staging for data warehouse environments
  • Real-Time operational business intelligence by means of a message queue and a Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) or Business Process Management (BPM) solution

Under the last scenario events can be fed into real time alerts or dashboard Key Performance Indicator’s in real time in addition to triggering additional events when the event is orchestrated via an enterprise bus.

Here’s a link to a step by step installation and configuration demo at Oracle Technology Network (OTN).

Stay tunned for additional product reviews and OBIEE tips and tricks that are coming soon and check my review of Oracle Data Integrator here..

 

Drop [oracle] database (and clean after yourself)

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Hey I’ve got to document this so I don’t forget how to cleanup after myself:

  1. FIRST, find out which files to cleanup after dropping the database thanks to geekinterview.com
    select * from dba_data_files;
    select * from v$logfile;
    select * from v$controlfile;
    archive log list
    initSID.ora
    In addition you can clean the UDUMP, BDUMP, scripts etc
  2. Now go ahead and drop that datatabase (the one that’s already backed up):
    ORACLE_SID=<OAS Repository SID>
    export ORACLE_SID
    sqlplus /nolog
    conn / as sysdba
    shutdown immediate
    startup mount exclusive restrict;
    drop database;
    exit
  3. Now go and cleanup those files!
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Posted in Oracle Database Tips by idelatorre. No Comments

OBIEE error: “Your browser is not supported by Oracle BI Presentation Services” being triggered by automatic update to Firefox 10

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I just wanted to post a quick note today as Mozilla starts rolling off automatic updates to the lastest version of their browser (Firefox 10.0). Users in our development team who allowed the install to go through have been receiving an error message to the tune of “Your browser is not supported by Oracle BI Presentation Services” when trying to access the application.

We did try to install the Modify Headers (http://www.garethhunt.com/modifyheaders) Firefox plugin and trick the application into thinking we were using Firefox 9.0 without success and have resorted to unisintalling Firefox 10.0 and installing the previous version available here:  http://download.cnet.com/Mozilla-Firefox/3000-2356_4-12319392.html

A proactive way to avoid the new version being rolled into your system is to disable automatic updates by going to Preferences > Advanced > Updates and ensuring that the “Ask me what I want to do” radio button is selected as the anwer to  the uption “When updates to Firefox are found:”.

More updates to come as we find out more about this situation….

Tags: OBIEE, Firefox 10, Error, Issue, Browser is not supported, Presentation Services

11g Bug: Issue with equality operator on content filters

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I ran into an weird issue yesterday trying to troubleshoot data security for my current gig. What it came down to is the fact that for some reason the equality operator in the expression below wasn’t being resolved correctly by OBI:

LOWER( TRIM(“Data Warehouse”.”".”SCHEMA_NAME”.”ALS_BI_SEC_USER_DEPT”.”EMAIL_ADDRESS”)) = ( LOWER( TRIM( VALUEOF(NQ_SESSION.”USER”))))

Even after toying with :USER, applying the TRIM function to both sides of the expression and copying the physical SQL from the session log to my query tool and confirming that replacing the variable reference with my username would return the correct number of rows I still wasn’t getting any rows in the table I tried to filter.

The solution came to be modifying my content filter to look like the expression below, using the IN operator instead of an equality. This is definitely yet another bug in 11g.

LOWER( TRIM(“Focus Warehouse”.”".”DFOCUSBV”.”ALS_BI_SEC_USER_GROUPS”.”EMAIL_ADDRESS”)) IN ( LOWER( TRIM( VALUEOF(NQ_SESSION.”USER”))))

Read the rest of 11g Bug: Issue with equality operator on content filters »

Changing the value of a session variable at the session level

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In OBIEE it is possible to update the value of both session and presentation variables with the  value of  a prompt selection, I recently ran into a situation where I needed to update the value of a session variable beyond this scope. I couldn’t find a good solution without using the write back feature but I thought I would document the NQSSetSessionValue() function.

NQSSetSessionValue is an ODBC function that allows a developer to update the value of a session variable for the globally, the syntax for the function call is as follows:

call NQSSetSessionValue(‘<data type> <variable name>=<new value>;’);

A simple example of its use would be:

call NQSSetSessionValue(‘string SV_DEFAULT_DEPARTMENT=Finance;’);

One caveat is that you cannot use the variables as part of your function call, so I couldn’t use VALUEOF(SV_DEFAULT_DEPARTMENT) as part of my function call, this led me away from this solution path.

Note:

This is an ODBC function, it cannot be run from “DIRECT SQL request” against a connection pool, instead you need to go to the Administration link on the top right and click on issue SQL. If your requirement is somewhat different of what I was attempting, you can play around with the function in the screen illustrated below and once you are satisfied with the behavior of your function call you can add this function call at the beginning of your logical SQL in a report.

OBI_Issue_SQL

List of Bug Fixes Included In Oracle BI Publisher 11.1.1.5.0

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List of Bug Fixes Included In Oracle BI Publisher 11.1.1.5.0The following is a list of all bug fixes included in Oracle BI Publisher 11.1.1.5.0, grouped by type:

Administration (ADMIN)

* Bug 9381019 XMLP ROLES NOT HONORED WITH SSO ENABLED FOR AD SYNCHED USERS.
* Bug 9934771 UNABLE TO LOGON TO PUBLISHER USING SECURITY MODEL EBS: JAVA.LANG.ILLEGALACCESSER
* Bug 10326227 EBS SECURITY MODEL INTEGRATION SIGNON W/CASE SENSITIVE PASSWORD NOT SUPPORTED

Install and Upgrade (BIPUPGRADE)
 
* Bug 11665472 BI PUBLISHER REPOSITORY UPGRADE FROM 10G TO 11G FAILS WHEN A 10G FOLDER IS EMPTY

Core Formatting API (CORE)

* Bug 9727000 CSV OUTPUT COLUMN ORDER DOES NOT MATCH SQL SELECT COLUMN ORDER
* Bug 10182980 ER: WAY TO FORMAT DATES (E.G. D HH:MM:SS) ON Y AXIS AND MARKER TEXT IN CHART

* Data Model (DATAMODEL)
*
* Bug 10226625 MDX STATEMENTS THAT INCLUDE "+" DO NOT WORK WITH PUBLISHER 11G
* Bug 10231671 MDX QUERY WITH NAMED SETS NOT RETURNING EXPECTED RESULTS.
* Bug 10303941 BIP11G: RESPONSEDATA XPATH FILTER NOT APPLIED TO XML DATA RETURNED BY WS SOURCE
* Bug 10365310 EXCEPTION/ERROR WHEN THERE IS A COLUMN NAMED IN CHINESE IN BI ANALYSIS

Delivery Service and API (DELIVERY)

* Bug 9848981 SFTP FAILS TO NEGOTIATE SECONDARY CIPHER
* Bug 9937937 SSHTOOLSPRIVATEKEYFORMAT.CLASS & OPENSSHPRIVATEKEYFORMAT.CLASS FAILS TO LOAD

Integration (INTG)

* Bug 9646599 USER ROLE DEFINED AS PRIMARYGROUP IN ACTIVEDIRECTORY GROUP ARE NOT RECOGNIZED
* Bug 9664768 ER: NEED TO BIND USER ATTRIBUTE VALUES DEFINED IN ACTIVEDIRECTORY IN DATA QUERY
* Bug 9704401 ER: NEED TO SUPPORT DEFAULT GROUP FOR ALL USERS IN LDAP/AD SECURITY
* Bug 9753736 SOME ROLES FROM ACTIVEDIRECTORY ARE NOT LISTED IN ADMIN ROLE-FOLDER MAPPING
* Bug 10221061 CATALOG NOT DISPLAYED USING BI SERVER SECURITY W/ EXTERNAL TABLE AUTHENTICATION
* Bug 10367106 CANNOT CREATE DATA SET IF BI ANALYSIS HAS JAPANESE COLUMN NAME

Layout Tools (LAYOUTTOOL)

* Bug 9811428 CANNOT INSTALL BI PUBLISHER DESKTOP ON WINDOWS 7
* Bug 10036545 UNABLE TO UPLOAD OR VALIDATE RTF TEMPLATE WITH UNNAMED MERGEFIELD
* Bug 10037640 LOGIN SCREEN APPEARS AFTER INSTALL OF ANALYZER FOR EXCEL USING SSO
* Bug 11061157 HYPERLINK WITH DATA PARAMETERS IS NOT WORKING CORRECTLY BI PUBLISHER LAYOUT

Scheduler (SCHEDULE)

* Bug 9053770 CSV REPORT OUTPUT WHEN SENT VIA EMAIL HAS .DAT EXTENSION OR NO EXTENSION
* Bug 10052481 ETEXT REPORT FAILS WHEN RUN AS A SCHEDULED JOB
* Bug 11685035 OBIEE 11G : BI PUBLISHER WEBSERVICE CALL TO SCHEDULE A REPORT FAILS
* Bug 11776420 CURRENT PARAMETER VALUE IS NOT BEING DISPLAYED USING SCHEDULER
* Bug 12347367 SCHEDULE FAILS IF A REPORT HAS HIDDEN PARAMETER

Templates (TEMPLATES)

* Bug 9571670 ER: EXCEL TEMPLATE TO SUPPORT XSLT LOGIC AND XSL CUSTOM EXTENTIONS
* Bug 9706624 FONT MAPPING FOR PDF TEMPLATES IS NOT WORKING FOR CZECH CHARACTERS
* Bug 10072475 ER: PARAMTERS INCLUDED IN PRINT HEADER FOR EXCEL EXTRACTS
* Bug 10118898 BI PUBLISHER TEMPLATE VIEWER ADDS UNEXPECTED BLANK PAGES IN FIXED SIZE TEMPLATE
* Bug 10139027 RTFPROCESSOR THROW EXCEPTION
* Bug 10143841 ER: PARAGRAPH-ALIGNMENT LOST WHEN BLOCK IN A LIST AND OUTPUT-FORMAT IS RTF
* Bug 10143943 ER: PARAGRAPH-PROPERTIES ARE LOST WHEN PARAGRAPH IS IN A LIST
* Bug 10303133 ER: BI PUBLISHER TABLE IS NOT GETTING CENTERED WHEN OUTPUT IS HTML
* Bug 10304256 BULLETS AND NUMBERING DO NOT WORK TOGETHER

Web Server (WEBSERVER)

* Bug 7420229 QUERY FROM BI PUBLISHER REPORTS APPEARS TO MISS/SKIP THE CACHE FOR LIST OF VALUE
* Bug 9669973 ER: NEED TO SUPPORT PRE-PROCESSING XML WITH XSL FOR EXCEL TEMPLATE
* Bug 10337868 TAB DELIMITER DOES NOT WORK FOR A CSV OUTPUT
* Bug 11670678 RUNNING CLOCK INDICATOR ( HOURGLASS ) DOES NOT SHOW UP FOR HTML OUTPUT
* Bug 11679262 SYSDATE SYNTAX {$SYSDATE()$} NOT WORKING FOR DEFAULT VALUE IN REPORT PARAMETERS
* Bug 11718291 DATE PICKER OF DATE PARAMETER IN A REPORT HIDES BEHIND THE PDF OUTPUT IN IE8

E-Business Suite – XDO (XEBS)

* Bug 9747198 WATERMARK IN ARABIC IN PDF APPEARS FROM LEFT TO RIGHT – SHOULD BE RIGHT TO LEFT
* Bug 9836706 INCORRECT NUMBER FORMAT FOR CARRY FORWARD CALCULATION
* Bug 9860192 CONVERSION TO PDF FORMAT FAILS WITH ERROR – FOR INPUT STRING: "4901001241"
* Bug 10321578 PERFORMANCE ISSUE WHEN USING PDF TEMPLATE
* Bug 9381019 XMLP ROLES NOT HONORED WITH SSO ENABLED FOR AD SYNCHED USERS.
* Bug 9934771 UNABLE TO LOGON TO PUBLISHER USING SECURITY MODEL EBS: JAVA.LANG.ILLEGALACCESSER
* Bug 10326227 EBS SECURITY MODEL INTEGRATION SIGNON W/CASE SENSITIVE PASSWORD NOT SUPPORTED

Install and Upgrade (BIPUPGRADE)

* Bug 11665472 BI PUBLISHER REPOSITORY UPGRADE FROM 10G TO 11G FAILS WHEN A 10G FOLDER IS EMPTY

* Core Formatting API (CORE)
*
* Bug 9727000 CSV OUTPUT COLUMN ORDER DOES NOT MATCH SQL SELECT COLUMN ORDER
* Bug 10182980 ER: WAY TO FORMAT DATES (E.G. D HH:MM:SS) ON Y AXIS AND MARKER TEXT IN CHART

Data Model (DATAMODEL)

* Bug 10226625 MDX STATEMENTS THAT INCLUDE "+" DO NOT WORK WITH PUBLISHER 11G
* Bug 10231671 MDX QUERY WITH NAMED SETS NOT RETURNING EXPECTED RESULTS.
* Bug 10303941 BIP11G: RESPONSEDATA XPATH FILTER NOT APPLIED TO XML DATA RETURNED BY WS SOURCE
* Bug 10365310 EXCEPTION/ERROR WHEN THERE IS A COLUMN NAMED IN CHINESE IN BI ANALYSIS

Delivery Service and API (DELIVERY)

* Bug 9848981 SFTP FAILS TO NEGOTIATE SECONDARY CIPHER
* Bug 9937937 SSHTOOLSPRIVATEKEYFORMAT.CLASS & OPENSSHPRIVATEKEYFORMAT.CLASS FAILS TO LOAD

Integration (INTG)
 
* Bug 9646599 USER ROLE DEFINED AS PRIMARYGROUP IN ACTIVEDIRECTORY GROUP ARE NOT RECOGNIZED
* Bug 9664768 ER: NEED TO BIND USER ATTRIBUTE VALUES DEFINED IN ACTIVEDIRECTORY IN DATA QUERY
* Bug 9704401 ER: NEED TO SUPPORT DEFAULT GROUP FOR ALL USERS IN LDAP/AD SECURITY
* Bug 9753736 SOME ROLES FROM ACTIVEDIRECTORY ARE NOT LISTED IN ADMIN ROLE-FOLDER MAPPING
* Bug 10221061 CATALOG NOT DISPLAYED USING BI SERVER SECURITY W/ EXTERNAL TABLE AUTHENTICATION
* Bug 10367106 CANNOT CREATE DATA SET IF BI ANALYSIS HAS JAPANESE COLUMN NAME

Layout Tools (LAYOUTTOOL)
 
* Bug 9811428 CANNOT INSTALL BI PUBLISHER DESKTOP ON WINDOWS 7
* Bug 10036545 UNABLE TO UPLOAD OR VALIDATE RTF TEMPLATE WITH UNNAMED MERGEFIELD
* Bug 10037640 LOGIN SCREEN APPEARS AFTER INSTALL OF ANALYZER FOR EXCEL USING SSO
* Bug 11061157 HYPERLINK WITH DATA PARAMETERS IS NOT WORKING CORRECTLY BI PUBLISHER LAYOUT

Scheduler (SCHEDULE)

* Bug 9053770 CSV REPORT OUTPUT WHEN SENT VIA EMAIL HAS .DAT EXTENSION OR NO EXTENSION
* Bug 10052481 ETEXT REPORT FAILS WHEN RUN AS A SCHEDULED JOB
* Bug 11685035 OBIEE 11G : BI PUBLISHER WEBSERVICE CALL TO SCHEDULE A REPORT FAILS
* Bug 11776420 CURRENT PARAMETER VALUE IS NOT BEING DISPLAYED USING SCHEDULER
* Bug 12347367 SCHEDULE FAILS IF A REPORT HAS HIDDEN PARAMETER

Templates (TEMPLATES)

* Bug 9571670 ER: EXCEL TEMPLATE TO SUPPORT XSLT LOGIC AND XSL CUSTOM EXTENTIONS
* Bug 9706624 FONT MAPPING FOR PDF TEMPLATES IS NOT WORKING FOR CZECH CHARACTERS
* Bug 10072475 ER: PARAMTERS INCLUDED IN PRINT HEADER FOR EXCEL EXTRACTS
* Bug 10118898 BI PUBLISHER TEMPLATE VIEWER ADDS UNEXPECTED BLANK PAGES IN FIXED SIZE TEMPLATE
* Bug 10139027 RTFPROCESSOR THROW EXCEPTION
* Bug 10143841 ER: PARAGRAPH-ALIGNMENT LOST WHEN BLOCK IN A LIST AND OUTPUT-FORMAT IS RTF
* Bug 10143943 ER: PARAGRAPH-PROPERTIES ARE LOST WHEN PARAGRAPH IS IN A LIST
* Bug 10303133 ER: BI PUBLISHER TABLE IS NOT GETTING CENTERED WHEN OUTPUT IS HTML
* Bug 10304256 BULLETS AND NUMBERING DO NOT WORK TOGETHER

Web Server (WEBSERVER)

* Bug 7420229 QUERY FROM BI PUBLISHER REPORTS APPEARS TO MISS/SKIP THE CACHE FOR LIST OF VALUE
* Bug 9669973 ER: NEED TO SUPPORT PRE-PROCESSING XML WITH XSL FOR EXCEL TEMPLATE
* Bug 10337868 TAB DELIMITER DOES NOT WORK FOR A CSV OUTPUT
* Bug 11670678 RUNNING CLOCK INDICATOR ( HOURGLASS ) DOES NOT SHOW UP FOR HTML OUTPUT
* Bug 11679262 SYSDATE SYNTAX {$SYSDATE()$} NOT WORKING FOR DEFAULT VALUE IN REPORT PARAMETERS
* Bug 11718291 DATE PICKER OF DATE PARAMETER IN A REPORT HIDES BEHIND THE PDF OUTPUT IN IE8

E-Business Suite – XDO (XEBS)

* Bug 9747198 WATERMARK IN ARABIC IN PDF APPEARS FROM LEFT TO RIGHT – SHOULD BE RIGHT TO LEFT
* Bug 9836706 INCORRECT NUMBER FORMAT FOR CARRY FORWARD CALCULATION
* Bug 9860192 CONVERSION TO PDF FORMAT FAILS WITH ERROR – FOR INPUT STRING: "4901001241"
* Bug 10321578 PERFORMANCE ISSUE WHEN USING PDF TEMPLATE

References

NOTE:1322357.1 – How To Upgrade Oracle BI Publisher 11.1.1.3.0 to 11.1.1.5.0 ?
NOTE:1329825.1 – List of Bug Fixes Included In OBIEE 11.1.1.5.0

Troubleshoting Error: unable to get file lock, will retry …

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I ran into this error the first time I restarted Weblogic on one of my installs, the only reference that I was able to find is the error description below:


BEA-141281

Info: unable to get file lock, will retry …

Description

This message indicates that WLS can not get file lock because other process still holds the lock. W LS will try again before timeout.

Cause

This is an information-level message only.

Action

If WLS fails to start due to unable to get file lock, then lock files need to be removed manually before restart WLS.

The funny thing is that it tells you to remove the locks but doesn’t provide their location, if you are running OBIEE 11g you can remove AdminServer.lok from:

d:\oracle\fmw\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\AdminServer\tmp

If you are not using Weblogic in the context of Oracle Busines Intelligence you can do a file search for any lok files under your middleware home (d:\oracle\fmw).

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Fixing device references after importing a Linux guest in Oracle Virtual Box

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I’ve run into issues with Oracle VirtualBox Virtual Appliances not being able to boot after being imported into a new host. I have a base openSUSE 11.3 image that I use to build all my App and DB servers. This post documents some steps I now take when exporting my base VM to minimize the pain of getting my new guests up and running:

First identify how physical partitions and devices are mapped to logical device names by listing the contents of /dev/disk/by-id:
$ ls -l
ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VB4c05ce37-15844d37 -> ../../sda
ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VB4c05ce37-15844d37-part1 -> ../../sda1
ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VB4c05ce37-15844d37-part2 -> ../../sda2
ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VB4c05ce37-15844d37-part3 -> ../../sda3
scsi-SATA_VBOX_HARDDISK_VB4c05ce37-15844d37 -> ../../sda
scsi-SATA_VBOX_HARDDISK_VB4c05ce37-15844d37-part1 -> ../../sda1
scsi-SATA_VBOX_HARDDISK_VB4c05ce37-15844d37-part2 -> ../../sda2
scsi-SATA_VBOX_HARDDISK_VB4c05ce37-15844d37-part3 -> ../../sda3

 

Also note the current mount points by listing the contents of your /etc/fstab file
$ cat /etc/fstab
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VB4c05ce37-15844d37-part1      swap
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VB4c05ce37-15844d37-part2      /
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VB4c05ce37-15844d37-part3      /home

 

Steps to fix disk mappings on an oracle virtual box virtual machine / appliance after you import it:
  1. Boot your SUSE virtual machine and click on escape when the startup options screen comes up:
  2. Confirm you want to exit the graphical mode if asked
  3. When the GRUB boot options screen comes up select your default boot mode and press the letter “e”to edit this entry
  4. Using the notes from the original virtual machine you exported replace the current “root” device reference with your boot partition (the one mounted at “/”)
  5. You can optionally correct any additional device references in this line
  6. Once you are done with your changes press ENTER to exit this screen and then the letter “b” to boot
  7. To permanently fix this issue you will need to replace the physical device IDs in the /etc/fstab file (ie. map /dev/sda1 instead of the physical device ID to mount point /)
  8. You also will need to permanently correct the startup entries in your /boot/grub/grub.conf file by repeating the string replacements you performed in step four.

Summary:
After reading this post you should be better prepared to smoothly export and import Linux virtual machines from your Oracle Virtual Box servers by being ready to correct any disk device reference issues in fstab and grub.conf

Questions and Comments: Please use the comment form on this post to send us your questions and comments, we look forward to hearing from you!

Default Web Catalog Path in OBIEE 11g

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One thing to have in mind when familiarizing with Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition’s new 11g version is the default location for the Web Cat should be something like the PATH below:

$ORACLE_INSTANCE/bifoundation/OracleBIPresentationServicesComponent/coreapplication_obips$INST_NUM/catalog/<webcat_directory>

You can read the post “Environment variables to simplify your life – OBIEE 11g System Administrator Edition” to help you in simplifying the administration of your OBIEE 11g environments.
Summary:
This post should guide users new to Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition version 11g familiarize themselves with changes in directory structure and answer questions such as:
  • Where is the OBIEE 11g web catalog located?
  • How can I see my 11g BI Publisher reports from the OBIEE Analysis and Dashboards front end? What is the correct path for my BI Publisher repository if I want it to integrate with the OBIEE front-end?
  • Where are report and dashboards located after the 11g upgrade wizard process is completed?

Questions and Comments: Please use the comment form on this post to send us your questions and comments, we look forward to hearing from you!

Installing the Oracle Business Intelligence 11g (11.1.1.5) Client Tools

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Overview

This is a brief installation guide for those currently working on their 11.1.1.5 OBIEE installation. Please post commnents if you have any questions or run into issues installing OBIEE 11g, we will try to fix them and can document their resolution for future reference.

Pre-requisites

Installation

  • Unzip the files in your local disk and double click the biee_client_install.exe file to start the installation wizard.

  • Verify the installation directory and click Next.

  • Specify the location where you want the program shortcuts created, in my case I chose a new program group from where I can copy shortcuts and paste them into my quick launch toolbar.

  • Click Install on the summary screen to actually begin the process.

  • Once the installation is complete you can see the client tool shortcuts in your new program group.

Other posts that might be of your interest are:

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Posted in Business Intelligence OBIEE by idelatorre. No Comments

Materialized View Maintenance – Part I: Guidelines

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I have been working with a lot of materialized views in our PeopleSoft Campus Solutions Warehouse lately and let me tell you, they can be a pain some times. Before I go into technical details here are some best practices that we have developed in our environment for data that is loaded once nightly:

  1. Do not use the ON COMMIT refresh method, it’s better to use REFRESH COMPLETE and  ON DEMAND or something like NEXT TRUNC(SYSDATE+1) + (1/24), this is generally applicable to most data warehouses with no real time data streams.
  2. If data warehouse users create contention for your MView refresh it is advisable to schedule these processes to occur while the database is unavailable to them, in our case that is during the maintenance window right after the warehouse comes online after backup.
  3. As with other physical database objects it is advisable to separate indices from the base data, the easiest way to do so is using a different oracle tablespace to host them.
  4. Make sure to create a BITMAP index for each surrogate key column in your view to leverage oracle star joins when query rewrite is enabled.

It is important to note that these materialized views are being used as helper tables to  determine the most recent surrogate key values for each dimension entity and the datasets are fairly small, we are testing partitioning some of this data but haven’t come up with an optimal partitioning method so that we can reap the benefits of partition elimination to the degree we would like.

Check out the Puget Sound Oracle User Group page for the pacific northwest for a deeper look at Materialized Views and DBMS_MVIEW.

OBIEE Repository Reporting

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I made a nice discovery today when trying to extract a list of the physical table aliases under the Global Dimensions physical display folder in my PeopleSoft EPM Fusion Intelligence repository. After several frustrating attempts to use the query repository dialog I discovered that I the appropriate filters are automatically populated if I right click the physical display folder and select “Display Related > Physical Table”. Once I got this figured out I was able to export the list of tables to a CSV file that I could manipulate and format with excel. Here’s a picture to help you find the dialog:

How to get a list of objects contained in a physical display folder

How to get a list of objects contained in a physical display folder

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Posted in Fusion Intelligence OBIEE Tips by idelatorre. No Comments

OBIEE Logical Table vs Logical Table Sources – Best Practice

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The difference between Logical Tables, Logical Table Sources (LTS) and the physical tables that compose a Logical Table Source, here are some basic guidelines that have helped me get this concept to seat more clearly in my mind.

businesmodellayer-logical-table LT LTS

BMM Layer - Logical Table and LTS

Logical Tables like organization in the picture on the left are used to create drill down paths or dimensions like Dim_Organizaition.

Usually when you drag and drop a column from a table that is not currently being used in your logical table, the physical table containing such column gets added as a new Logical Table Source (LTS) such as UofA on the image on your left. This most usually is not the result you should be aiming for, in general, when a the column you are adding to a Logical Table comes from the same system of record you have been using you should just rename the LTS to reflect the name of the system of record in the same fashion we renamed ours to UofA and then go edit the sources for this LTS.

The confusion often stems from having what I would call “Logical Table Source” Sources (LTSS). The image below depicts them for UofA, you can acces this dialog by double clicking any LTS.

BMM - Logical Table Source Properties and LTSS

BMM - Logical Table Source Properties and LTSS

Physical Table FRS_GL_ACCOUNTS is a “Logica Table Source”  Source (LTSS) for Logical Table Source UofA. The rationale again is that UofA represents a system of record (source) that brings in information from more than one physical table to build our organization logical table.

If you still have questions add comments to this post and let’s get the discussion started :)

OBIEE 10g Administration – useful linux environment variables

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I have been working a lot on content migration and service configuration of our linux-based OBIEE servers lately. One thing that has definitively helped me a lot is that I took some time to define these linux environment variables on the linux account’s ~/.bash_profile file:

OBI_HOME=<your path to the OracleBI folder>  #this helps me navigate really quick to my OracleBI folder (ie. OBI_HOME=/some/really/long/path/OracleBI)
export OBI_HOME

OBI_DATA=<your path to the OracleBIData folder>  #this helps me navigate really quick to my OracleBIData folder (ie. OBI_DATA=/some/really/long/path/OracleBIData)
export OBI_DATA

OBI_REP=<your path to the repository folder>  #this helps me navigate really quick to my OBIEE repository folder (ie. OBI_REP=$OBI_HOME/server/Repository)
export OBI_REP

OBI_CAT=<your path to the presentation server catalogs folder>  #this helps me navigate really quick to my OBIEE presentation server catalogs folder (ie. OBI_CAT=$OBI_DATA/web/catalog/)
export OBI_CAT

Now I can move to my repository folder from anywhere in the file system by just typing:

$ cd $OBI_REP

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Posted in OBIEE Tips UNIX/Linux by idelatorre. No Comments

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