OBIEE 11g New features (compared to 10g)

Apart from major architectural differences, OBIEE 11g has several new features that were not available in 10g.

Some of the key features include:

• Supports creating hierarchy objects in Subject Area
• Export to xml or export to tab delimited/ and power point
• 11g lets variable have multiple values
• 11g RPD cannot be without a password
• 11g supports ragged hierarchies
• Column selector in 11g can be defined on multiple columns, compared to just one column in 10g.

Key Terminology Changes

In 11g, the following terminology changes have been made:

• iBots have been renamed to agents (also known as intelligent agents)
  
• Requests (or reports) have been renamed to analyses, and the term reports now refers to BI Publisher reports
  
• Presentation columns have been renamed to attribute columns, and a new column type, hierarchical column, is introduced
  
• Charts have been renamed to graphs
  
• Security terminology and architecture has changed.

The user interface has undergone major improvements in several areas, including a new Home page and redesigned editors and panes.

• You can use a "selection step" to limit data for columns by specifying the criteria for a set of members
• Drill in data (expanding a member, without impacting rest of the report)
• Sorting in 11g is now enabled by default. Sorts can be applied to members, measures, and rows in views such as tables, pivot tables, graphs, and maps
• In a pivot table, you can easily drag and drop columns to various edges, to rearrange the display to suit your needs
• Graphs and gauges come with new feature of section sliders.
• Map view is a new view type that presents data in spatial form
• We can also create master-detail relationships among certain view types
• We can create calculated items to perform mathematical operations on members. In 10g, we could create a calculated item for an attribute column. In 11g, we can create a calculated item for the members of an attribute column or of a hierarchical column
• 11g allows us to work with multiple subject areas in same report. In addition to the primary subject area that you select when you create a new analysis, filter, or dashboard prompt, you can include additional subject areas that are related to the primary subject area with which to work

 Interaction with Other Oracle Products

• Oracle BI Publisher is a fully integrated member of the Oracle BI EE 11g by default. All of the BI Publisher functionality appears seamlessly within the Oracle BI EE application, and all of the reports and related objects are created within Oracle BI EE and saved to the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog
• Oracle Hyperion Smart View is available for download from the Oracle BI EE Home page
• Interface with MS Office is enhanced, including an additional functionality to download to CSV. In 10g, there was an option to download data, but it was only 'Tab delimited', not Comma seperated.

SQL Functions for Time Series Calculations and Level-Based Measures

The following new and revised SQL functions enable you to create time series calculations and level-based measures:

• PERIODROLLING is a new function that computes the sum of a measure over the period starting x units of time and ending y units of time from the current time.
  
• AGGREGATE AT is a new function that aggregates columns based on the level or levels specified.
  
• AGO is a time series aggregation function that calculates the aggregated value from the current time back to a specified time period. In this release, the time_level argument is optional, and there are additional syntax changes. This function was called PERIODAGO in the previous release.
  
• TODATE is a time series aggregation function that aggregates a measure attribute from the beginning of a specified time period to the currently displayed time. The syntax for this function has changed in this release. This function was called PERIODTODATE in the previous release.

Enhanced database function usage capability

OBIEE 11g allows calling EVALUATE, EVALUATE_AGGR, and EVALUATE_PREDICATE function for advanced calculations.

Enhancements to the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog

The Oracle BI Presentation Catalog is a powerful, underlying storage directory-based system that contains the objects (dashboards, scorecards, prompts, and KPIs for example) that you create. If you use BI Publisher, then the catalog also contains BI Publisher data and objects (data models and schedules, for example). Using the catalog, you can:

• Perform basic tasks such as creating, deleting, and copying objects and folders.
  
• Perform object-specific tasks (for example, modifying settings using the associated editor, or creating and assigning an agent).
  
• Find objects by performing a search.

In addition to these tasks, administrators can:

• Access the root folder that contains system-wide object and user data.
  
• Specify permissions that determine the folders and objects that users can view.
  
• Create folders.
  
• Work with properties such as changing the ownership of a folder or viewing the creation date of an object.
  
• Archive the entire catalog, folders, or objects to unzip them in another directory location.

Actions

You can create actions that navigate to related content or that invoke operations, functions, or processes in external systems. You can include actions in analyses, dashboard pages, agents, scorecard objectives, scorecard initiatives, and KPIs