Tag Archives: Oracle
Announcing OBI Remote Training
Since the release of OBIEE 12c in 2015, we have received countless inquiries about how we would be offering our training. Our customers are familiar with our ability to provide on-site private training for a team and we are well known for hosting training classes in our offices in the UK and the US. But what most people aren’t aware of is that we now offer OBI remote training.
Our public training schedule offers a variety of courses monthly, some of which are offered exclusively as remote classes. And for any one of our public classes that is hosted in our U.S. offices, we also offer a limited number of seats to remote attendees. What does this mean for you? This means you have options!
One of our goals here at Rittman Mead is to provide unhindered access to the great wealth of information our team has accumulated through their extensive real-world experience. Now we've translated this goal into more accessible training. We understand budgets can be tight and travel may not always be an option for you or your team, but we don’t want that to be the reason you can’t attend our training.
In mid-2015 we started testing our ability to deliver remote training. Our main concern as we began testing was whether we’d be able to deliver the same value to our customers in a digital classroom that we've traditionally been able to deliver in a physical classroom. Our fear was that when you lost the face-to-face interaction between the instructor and students, you would also lose some of the rhythm and chemistry of the training, and, consequently, our students would feel less engaged. Other more technical concerns were on our minds, ranging from sound and video quality to connectivity. Much to our surprise and satisfaction, however, our concerns quickly dissolved as, time after time, we were able to deliver the training without issue.
So after plenty of testing, we are pleased to offer remote training as a regular option in our training schedule.
We are aware that remote training (or online training) has been around for some time—we are not claiming to be innovators in the ways of online learning—but we feel that the platform for online learning has finally reached a level that is in line with the quality we demand for our training.
In fact, we have consistently received high marks from customers who have attended our remote training, solidifying our confidence that it does in fact live up to our standards. We invite you to check out our training options. Whether it be on-site training (public or private) or remote training, rest assured that you will be receiving expert-level training from Rittman Mead’s best.
For a full list of our scheduled trainings, see our US or UK calendars.
Connecting Oracle Data Visualization Desktop to OBIEE
Recently at Rittman Mead we have been asked a lot of questions surrounding Oracle’s new Data Visualization Desktop tool and how it integrates with OBIEE. Rather than referring people to the Oracle docs on DVD, I decided to share with you my experience connecting to an OBIEE 12c instance and take you through some of the things I learned through the process.
In a previous blog, I went though database connections with Data Visualization Desktop and how to create reports using data pulled directly from the database. Connecting to DVD to OBIEE is largely the same process, but allows the user to pull in data at pre-existing report level. I decided to use our 12c ChitChat demo server as the OBIEE source and created some sample reports in answers to test out with DVD.
From the DVD Data Sources page, clicking "Create New Data Source" brings up a selection pane with the option to select “From Oracle Applications.”
Clicking this option brings up a connection screen with options to enter a connection name, URL (location of the reports you want to pull in as a source), username, and password respectively. This seems like a pretty straightforward process. Reading the Oracle docs on connectivity to OBIEE with DVD say to navigate to the web catalog, select the folder containing the analysis you want to use as a source, and then copy and paste the URL from your browser into the URL connection in DVD. However, using this method will cause the connection to fail.
To get Data Visualization Desktop to connect properly, you have to use the URL that you would normally use to log into OBIEE analytics with the proper username and password.
Once connected, the web catalog folders are displayed.
From here, you can navigate to the analyses you want to use for data sources.
Selecting the analysis you want to use as your data source is the same process as selecting schemas and tables from a database source. Once the selection is made, a new screen is displayed with all of the tables and columns that were used for the analysis within OBIEE.
From here you can specify each column as an attribute or measure column and change the aggregation for your measures to something other than what was imported with the analysis.
Clicking "Add to Project" loads all the data into DVD under Data Elements and is displayed on the right hand side just like subject area contents in OBIEE.
The objective of pulling data in from existing analyses is described by Oracle as revisualization. Keep in mind that Data Visualization Desktop is meant to be a discovery tool and not so much a day-to-day report generator.
The original report was a pivot table with Revenue and Order information for geographical, product and time series dimensions. Let’s say that I just wanted to look at the revenue for all cities located in the Americas by a specific brand for the year 2012.
Dragging in the appropriate columns and adding filters took seconds and the data loaded almost instantaneously. I changed the view to horizontal bar and added a desc sort to Revenue and this was my result:
Notice how the revenue for San Fransisco is much higher than any of the other states. Let’s say I want to get a closer look at all the other states without seeing the revenue data for San Fransisco. I could create a new filter for City and exclude San Fransisco from the list or I could just create a filter range for Revenue. Choosing the latter gave me the option of moving a slider to change my revenue value distribution and showed me the results in real time. Pretty cool, right?
Taking one report and loading it in can open up a wide range of data discovery opportunities but what if there are multiple reports I want to pull data from? You can do this and combine the data together in DVD as long as the two reports contain columns to join the two together.
Going back to my OBIEE connection, there are two reports I created on the demo server that both contain customer data.
By pulling in both the Customer Information and Number of Customer Orders Per Year report, Data Visualization Desktop creates two separate data sources which show up under Data Elements.
Inspecting one of the data sources shows the match between the two is made on both Customer Number and Customer Name columns.
Note: It is possible to make your own column matches manually using the Add Another Match feature.
By using two data sets from two different reports, you can blend the data together to discover trends, show outliers and view the data together without touching the database or having to create new reports within OBIEE.
The ability to connect directly to OBIEE with Data Visualization Desktop and pull in data from individual analyses is a very powerful feature that makes DVD’s that much greater. Combining data from multiple analyses blend them together internally creates some exciting data discovery possibilities for users with existing OBIEE implementations.
Oracle’s New Data Visualization Desktop
A recent addition to the Oracle lineup of visualization tools is the Oracle Data Visualization Desktop. Described by Oracle as a “single user desktop application that provides Oracle Data Visualization functionality to business users,” ODVD is an easy-to-install data visualization tool for Windows 7, 8 or 10 that packs some very powerful features.
I recently had a chance to sit down and explore ODVD and wanted to share some of my first impressions.
At its core, ODVD is a stand-alone version of Oracle’s DVCS. If you are at all familiar with Visual Analyzer, you will feel right at home.
Installation was a breeze on my Windows 10 VM and only took about 5 minutes and required no additional software or plugins for the standard VA functionality.
After installation, launching ODVD is as easy as clicking on the desktop icon like any other stand-alone application.
After the ODV startup, I was presented with a home screen which contains a search field for finding projects, a list of user folders and a main window to select individual visualizations that have been created.
Clicking on the hamburger 
icon in the top left corner brings up a menu where I can choose to start Visual Analyzer with the last data source selected, select new Data Sources or create a new VA Project.
I chose to create a new VA project and selected the sample data from Oracle (the sample data is an optional install chosen during the ODVD install process). Creating a dashboard was a fairly straightforward process. Following Visual Analyzer’s functionality of dragging and dropping columns, I was able to put together a simple sales and profit dashboard in a few minutes.
While creating my dashboard, I noticed that Oracle has included some new visualization types. You can now choose Scatter (Cat.), Stacked Scatter (Cat.), Donut or Sunburst visualizations.
One other feature that Oracle added to ODV is the ability to insert images onto the dashboards. You can choose to upload your own image or link to a URL to pull images from the web.
I uploaded an image and changed the canvas layout to freeform, which allowed me to move the image anywhere on the dashboard. By adjusting the transparency it is possible to have the image underlay the entire dashboard and still be able to see the visualizations. This example is pretty extreme, and in a real world scenario, caution should be used as to not obstruct the visualizations.
Next I decided to try to connect to my Oracle 12c sample database to pull in some new data to work with. Selecting “Create New Datasource” from the menu prompted me with three options: create from a file, from an existing app or from a database.
Clicking on the “From Database” option, I was presented with a connection screen.
On this screen I discovered one of the most impressive things about ODVD. Clicking on “Database Type” reveals a dropdown menu which you can choose from a variety of database formats, including Spark, Hive and Mongo DB, among others.
That’s awesome.
Because I already had 12c DB installed, I selected the Oracle Database Type and entered all my connection information.
Once a connection to the database is made, it shows up in the available connections list. Clicking on my sample database brought up a list of available schemas to choose from. In this case, I chose the sample HR schema which then brings up a list of tables available to add as data sources for visualizations.
I chose to add EMPLOYEES, JOBS and LOCATIONS and then started a new VA project. The HR tables now show up in the list of available data sources.
I selected EMPLOYEES and JOBS and, within seconds, was able to create a simple table showing a list of employee names, their job titles, salaries and commission percentages.
As you can see, adding new data sources is quick and easy and allows users to explore their data and create meaningful visualizations from that data in a very short amount of time.
Another feature is the Advanced Analytics portion of Oracle Data Visualization Desktop. This feature, which uses R, gives users the ability to do things like highlight outliers or show trend lines with a click of a button.
This feature does require an optional install located within the ODV application folder. The install process proved once again to be very quick and easy and completed in about 5 minutes.
After the installation was complete, I created a new VA project. Choosing the sample data provided by Oracle for ODV, I created a quick scatter chart and then, by right clicking anywhere on the visualization, clicked “Add Outliers.”
As you can see, outliers and non-outliers are easily distinguishable by the color key that ODVD assigned automatically.
Next, I wanted to see how if I could change some of the colors in my visualization. ODVD allows you to do this under the visualization menu.
As with OBIEE, entering specific hex values is supported as well as selecting from pre-made color pallets is possible with ODVD.
Using the same right-click functionality that I used for adding outliers, I was able to additionally add a polynomial trend line to show a gains and losses.
Next, I decided to see if I could export this data and import it into Excel. Choosing export from the visualization menu, I was able to easily export the data as a .CSV and upload it into Excel.
Overall, Oracle Data Visualization Desktop is a very impressive new addition to the to the DVCS lineup. The ability to collect data from multiple sources, its native adaptors for a variety of popular databases, and the ability to manipulate visualizations to convey the data in creative ways make it a strong contender against Tableau and Wave. It requires no remote server infrastructure and is a solid business solution for users Oracle Data Visualization functionality in a small and easily accessible package.
I feel as though I have just cracked the surface of everything this tool can do. Check back for future blogs and articles as we at Rittman Mead continue to explore the possibilities of ODV. The future of data visualization may be closer than we think.
If you would like more information about Visual Analyzer or the Oracle Cloud Service, see this blog post by Mark Rittman.
If you would like to watch the official Tech Demo of ODV, you can find it here.
Rittman Mead also offers in depth professional training courses for OBIEE 12c and Visual Analyzer.
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Contemplating Upgrading to OBIEE 12c?
Where You Are Now
OBIEE 12c has been out for some time, and it seems like most folks are delaying upgrading to OBIEE 12c until the very last minute. Or at least until Oracle decides to put out another major version change of OBIEE, which is understandable. You’ve already spent time and money and devoted hundreds of resource hours to system monitoring, maintenance, testing, and development. Maybe you’ve invested in staff training to try to maximize your ROI in your existing OBIEE purchase. And now, after all this time and effort, you and your team have finally gotten things just right. Your BI engine is humming along, user adoption and stickiness are up, and you don’t have a lot of dead objects clogging up the Web Catalog. Your report hacks and work-arounds have been worked and reworked to become sustainable and maintainable business solutions. Everyone is getting what they want.
Sure, this scenario is part fantasy, but it doesn’t mean that as a BI team lead or member, you’re not always working toward this end. It would be nice to think that the people designing the tools with which we do this work understood the daily challenges and processes we must undergo in order to maintain the precarious homeostasis of our BI ecosystems. That’s where Rittman Mead comes in. If you’re considering upgrading to OBIEE 12c, or are even curious, keep reading. We’re here to help.
So Why Upgrade
Let’s get right down to it. Shoot over here and here to check out what our very own Mark Rittman had to say about the good, the bad, and the ugly of 12c. Our Silvia Rauton did a piece on lots of the nuts and bolts of 12c’s new front-end features. They’re all worth a read. Upgrading to OBIEE 12c offers many exciting new features that shouldn’t be ignored.
How Rittman Mead Can Help
We understand what it is to be presented with so many project challenges. Do you really want to risk the potential perils and pitfalls presented by upgrading to OBIEE 12c? We work both harder and smarter to make this stuff look good. And we get the most out of strategy and delivery via a number of in-house tools designed to keep your OBIEE deployment in tip top shape.
Maybe you want to make sure all your Catalog and RPD content gets ported over without issue? Instead of spending hours on testing every dashboard, report, and other catalog content post-migration, we’ve got the Automated Regression Testing package in our tool belt. We deploy this series of proprietary scripts and dashboards to ensure that everything will work just the way it was, if not better, from one version to the next.
Maybe you’d like to make sure your system will fire on all cylinders or you’d like to proactively monitor your OBIEE implementation. For that we’ve got the Performance Analytics Dashboards, built on the open source ELK stack to give you live, active monitoring of critical BI system stats and the underlying database and OS.
On top of these tools, we’ve got the strategies and processes in place to not only guarantee the success of your upgrade, but to ensure that you and your team remain active and involved in the process.
What to Expect
You might be wondering what kinds of issues you can expect to experience during upgrading to OBIEE 12c (which is to say, nothing’s going to break, right?). Are you going to have to go through a big training curve? Does upgrading to OBIEE 12c mean you’re going to experience considerable resource downtime as your team, or an even an outside company, manages this process? To answer this question, I’m reminded of a quote from the movie Fight Club: “Choose your level of involvement.”
While we always prefer to work alongside your BI or IT team to facilitate the upgrade process, we also know that resource time is valuable and that your crew can’t stop what they’re doing until things wraps up. We often find that the more clients are engaged with the process, however, the easier the hand-off is because clients better understand best practices, and IT and BI teams are more empowered for the future.
Learning More about OBIEE 12c
But if you’re like many organizations, maybe you have to stay more hands off and get training after the upgrade is complete. Check out the link here to look over the agenda of our OBIEE 12c Bootcamp training course. Like our hugely popular 11g course, this program is five days of back-to-front instruction taught via a selection of seminars and hands-on labs, designed to impart most everything your team will need to know to continue or begin their successful BI practice.
What we often find is that, in addition to being a thorough and informative course, the Bootcamp is a great way to bring together teams or team members, often dispersed among different offices, under one roof to gain common understanding about how each person plays an important role as a member of the BI process. Whether they handle the ETL, data modeling, or report development, everyone can benefit from what often evolves from a training session into some impromptu team building.
Feel Empowered
If you’re still on the fence about whether or not to upgrade, as I said before, you’re not alone. There are lots of things you need to consider, and rightfully so. You might be thinking, “What does this mean for extra work on the plates of my resources? How can I ensure the success of my project? Is it worth it to do it now, or should I wait for the next release?” Whatever you may be mulling over, we’ve been there, know how to answer the questions, and have some neat tools in our utility belt to move the process along. In the end, I hope to have presented you with some bits to aid you in making a decision about upgrading to OBIEE 12c, or at least the impetus to start thinking about it.
If you’d like any more information or just want to talk more about the ins and outs of what an upgrade might entail, send over an email or give us a call.
The post Contemplating Upgrading to OBIEE 12c? appeared first on Rittman Mead Consulting.
Oracle Data Integrator Security Profile Switching for Oracle BI Applications
Our engineers developed a straightforward script that we've open sourced which will allow other Oracle BI teams to remove this bit of complication from a trivial, albeit necessary, task.
The post Oracle Data Integrator Security Profile Switching for Oracle BI Applications appeared first on Art of Business Intelligence Blog.
