I'd like to Sh*t-Bag Exalytics, but...

Reading the sales literature for Exalytics you'd be forgiven for thinking your business data problems were a thing of the past. That's what good sales literature is for, so nothing new there. Imagining every user an analyst though, as the demo-app video claims, sounds like a business nightmare!


Exalytics goes some way to addressing the GUI shortfall that has been increasingly obvious in the Oracle Business Intelligence product suite. Nimbler organizations have been using similar visualizations for a little while now.


That Oracle uses such a powerful machine to accomplish these new visualizations is an indication they either couldn't, or they couldn't be bothered to, re-architect the core software components to cram them onto a much smaller hardware footprint.


One suspects its a bit of both, but falling hardware costs and a vertically integrated hardware business mean this kind of BI solution was a 'no-brainer' for Oracle. Plug it all together, chuck it all onto a big machine and watch it run fast.


At least one long-standing enterprise-level competitor claims to have re-architected its business intelligence software for analysis at the terabyte (billion+ records) level. It lacks the functionality users will come to expect from business intelligence at this level and the message is unclear when this will be achieved.


The Exalytics solution price-wise, however, is likely to be outside the budget of all, but the largest organizations. Absent hundreds of millions of rows of data to plug in, this is probably not a solution for your business. Of course, Oracle could pull the proverbial 'Pricing Rabbit Out of the Hat'; leaving all, but the specialist business intelligence products in the dust (?).


With Exalytics infront of you, however, its easy to convince YOURSELF you're an expert analyst; since its bigger and faster it must be better and more accurate! Its certainly bigger and faster...


Accuracy in analysis still comes from understanding your data set!


Anyways, call just in asking when I can implement the next Exalytics machine, so I better go (just kidding...)


DR. OBI

Compare Items Using Dashboard Pages

Ideas for blog entries using OBI EE come up all the time and I should really post them straight away, but something work-related usually gets in the way ;-)

On a lunch break I was reading Stephen Few's blog entry about OECD visualizations. I don't always agree with him, but his writing is interesting; always encouraging readers to strive for high standards!

Now OBI can't display flowers yet, but it was the 'interactive comparison' that got me thinking. Hmmm, how can I achieve something similar with a dashboard? Let's get the most out of what we have in OBI EE, here's the steps:

1. Create a new dashboard page with multiple sections and columns (e.g. 'Compare Items')

• layout relates to how you want to compare the request contents (see example below)
• one section for the 'Compare Prompt', remaining sections are for the request(s) being compared

From DR. OBI

2. Create a page prompt for the dashboard page with a single column holding a list of numbers. You could use:

    SELECT CASE WHEN 1=0 THEN "Table"."Column" ELSE 0 END FROM "Subject Area"
    UNION
    SELECT CASE WHEN 1=0 THEN "Table"."Column" ELSE 1 END FROM "Subject Area"
    UNION
    SELECT CASE WHEN 1=0 THEN "Table"."Column" ELSE 2 END FROM "Subject Area"
    UNION
    SELECT CASE WHEN 1=0 THEN "Table"."Column" ELSE 3 END FROM "Subject Area"
    etc...
3. Add a presentation variable for the column (e.g. dp_comp).
4. Uncheck 'All Choices', Save, then add the prompt to your new dashboard page.

From DR. OBI

5. Create a new request with the layout you need. You'll be comparing items in one request with others, consider adding some dynamic elements for more interest (e.g. view selector, pivot page prompt).
6. In the request, create a filter that directly references your @{dp_comp} presentation variable:

    - add ANY column as a filter criteria
    - select the 'Filter Options' then 'Edit Column Formula'
    - replace this column with your presentation variable reference @{dp_comp}

7. Return to the 'Filter Options', then 'Edit Filter...'. Set filter criteria @{dp_comp} >= 1 (see below). Save the request.
8. Repeat steps 5-7 for each new comparison request, changing the value in the filter each time. I've created 5:

    - filter criteria @{dp_comp} >= 2
    - filter criteria @{dp_comp} >= 3
    - filter criteria @{dp_comp} >= 4
    - filter criteria @{dp_comp} = 5

From DR. OBI

Running these requests directly will give an error, don't worry about it... head back over to the dashboard page from step 1.

9. Add each new comparison request to one of the sections previously created. I've done this from left-to-right, but the order doesn't matter here.
10. Set the 'Guided Navigation...' for each request section:

    - Reference Source Request = Yes
    - Source Request = reference to request in section
    - Show Section = If request returns rows

11. Save the dashboard page layout.
12. Select a value from the page prompt and the same number of 'comparison' sections appear.
N.B. The usual limitations with 'Guided Navigation...' and large result sets apply. Be cautious with the size of your requests.

Give your OBI EE Request the Stephen Few Treatment...

Stephen Few has a couple of great books on visual display of quantitative information. Use these principles when you're building your requests.

1. Take this...

From DR. OBI

2. Then turn it into this...

From DR. OBI

DB Functions 'Evaluate' and 'Evaluate Aggr' Bypass Cache

If super-fast performance using cache is your goal, the DB functions 'Evaluate' and 'Evaluate Aggr' will cause a request to bypass any OBI Server Cache. Look for an alternative that will populate your cache instead.

DR. OBI Open Letter Content Reminder

Dear Readers,

just a reminder of the ONLY content you'll find this blog:

• useful tips for getting the most from OBI EE front-end components
• descriptions are brief (you'll find a lot of wordy solutions out there!)
• a working knowledge of OBI EE is anticipated or
• at heart a desire to get more from your implementation
• references to fellow bloggers and colleagues highlight (in my opinion) good quality technical solutions or approaches

If you find the solutions helpful, I'm glad. To the best of my knowledge, blog posts do not repeat content found on other blogs!

All the best,

DR. OBI

Theory: Single Dashboard Prompt, Multiple Subject Areas

Frequently the requirment pops up to provide results from more than one subject area, using a single dashboard prompt.

From DR. OBI

OBI EE doesn't handle this situation directly, so the 'mid-request' concept can be used.

From DR. OBI

The steps briefly are...

1. Create dashboard prompt using subject area 1, including required columns.
2. Create a 2nd (mid) request listing columns and data returned from the prompt in Step 1.
3. Filter columns using 'Is Prompted' option. 
4. Create the 3rd and 4th requests, from subject areas 1 and 2 respectively, then make sure these requests are based on the results of the request in Step 2.

 A worked example in a future post...

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