OBIEE 11g Catalog Manager Extract Report

Last year I posted an article about Catalog manager export in 10g version, below it the link for anyone's reference.

http://obiee911.blogspot.com/2012/05/how-to-find-rpd-column-usage-in-bi.html


There was an issue in this export in 10g, i.e. export would sometime insert uneven number of 'Tabs' as seperation for columns. This would mess up when opening the export in excel, as columns would get misaligned and make analysis difficult.

Looks like Oracle has made some fixes to handle this in 11g. I saw option to make export excel compatible:

After using this option, I have so far not faced any issue of misalignment, hopefully the issue is resolved for good!!. This is a big achievement according to me, as it helps us developers as well as business analysits for mapping the columns usage in the reports and dashboards.

The catalog manager report extract provides a list of presentation columns used in the reports, and similar report created from RPD admin tool, can provide mapping from presentation layer all the way to physical column name. This is a big help for Subject Area any clean up excercises or when making a decision on column changes which impacts multiple dashboards.

For your info, I tried this on OBIEE 11.1.1.6.6 version.



OBIEE 11g query appears to be not working

I noticed queries generated in OBIEE 11g seems to have following line as part of the database query

select distinct 0 as c1 

I am not sure why BI adds this, but for long time I though my report is having issue becuse of this line in the query. After lot of research, I found actual issue to be something else, but the above line always seem to appear even in working queries. Not sure why and whats the use of it??

Achieved OBIEE 11g Foundation Suite Implementation Certification? What next?

Oracle's OBIEE certification path has four different exams, all leading to independent certifications. Oracle's exam 1Z0-591 is the key exam to become Oracle 11g certified implementation specialist. It just has one exam that will get the certification required. The screen shot below shows the basic details of this exam:

The above page can be accesed by clicking here (follow this link two times, it only works the second time from what I have noticed)

Once this is cleared, Oracle provides three other complementary certifications, which will add value to any one looking to get more out of the certifications:

1. First is the  "Oracle Database 11g Data Warehousing Essentials" ; Exam Number: 1Z0-515;

Above page can be accessed by clicking here

This really requires working on database side, data mining and Exalytics. It complements OBIEE 11g exam# 1Z0-591. Both #591 and #515 are independent certifications. Note: passing score for this exam is 78%, which is a lot more than 63% for #591.

2. Next exam is "Oracle Business Intelligence Applications 7 for CRM Essentials"; Exam number 1Z0-524

 Above page can be accessed by clicking here

This exam includes BI Apps components, i.e. out of the box mappings, DAC, RPD etc and required knowledge of CRM BI Apps.

3. Next is the "Oracle Business Intelligence Applications 7 for ERP Essentials"; exam number 1Z0-525

Above page can be accessed by clicking here

This exam is some overlap in topics with #524, as it also includes BI Apps. But this one focuses on eBusiness Suite side of BI Apps.

Depending of what you are working on currently, any of these complimentary exams can be given without any specific exam order, as they are all independent certifications. Hope this information helps.

OBIEE 11g Navigation to other reports does not pass all prompt / attribute values

I created a summary and a detail report in 11g. When I was clicking on a number in summary, it was navigating to the detail, but it did not pass the prompts for Year and month that was selected in summary. I cheked the detail report, the year and month filters were present.

After much deliberation, I found the issue in the way I was creating the prompt. In 11g, we have the option of selecting columns from multiple subject areas in the prompt, and I was using this to add same fields using icon below:

When you are in select columns dialog box, the green icon at the top allows you to select different subject area, following by letting you add columns from that SA. That works good, but the problem is that syntax of column in summary report and here in drill report will now be different, which will make drill down/navigation not to pass values to target.

To avoid this, start with subject area that has all the fields from where drill down needs to pass values, then add columns from other SA. Hope this helps.

Open World Registration is open!!!

I just got my Oracle OpenWorld 2013 registration confirmed!!! Im really excited about it. Here is the link if anyone is interested :

http://www.oracle.com/openworld/register/packages/index.html#tab

OBIEE 11.1.1.7.1 released?

On OTN's download page, we see Oracle Business Intelligence Applications 11.1.1.7.1. Its a bit confusing. The version series is from OBIEE platform while the name is from OBIA. The last available applications version was 7.9.6.4.

When I click on 'All Supported Platforms", it shows the break down. The platform version is 11.1.1.7.0 while BI Apps is 11.1.1.7.1. So looks like version series jumped from 7.9.6.4 to 11.1.1.7.1 ?

Im not sure if we should expect OBIEE 11.1.1.7.2 version for platform or 11.1.1.7.1 just as a catch up platform version.