Long back i implemented “Act As”(proxy) in OBIEE 10g.

Since these days it was working fine and able to see list of users in drop-down of Act As.

Suddenly, it stopped me showing users but provision to enter username in a field(editbox).

I’ve to enter usrenames manually in editbox rather selecting from drop-down.

For sure this is an issue.

After having couple of trails towards issue i found that this is because of MaxValues configurations in instanceconfig.xml

While configuring instanceconfig during Act As implementation we add following tags to isntanceconfig

<LogonParam>
 <TemplateMessageName>LogonParamSQLTemplate</TemplateMessageName>
 <MaxValues>500</MaxValues>
</LogonParam>

I set MaxValues to 500 and now target user list for proxy are exceeded 500(queried against database table storing information about proxy, target user info).

So, i found that this issue we will face when list of users are exceeded then the configured values.

Solution is: increase the number for MaxValues

–

Regards,

Kishore Guggilla

I found a common issue in OBIEE 11g while consistency check, all presentation objects are set with no access permissions initially, if rpd is created newly in 11g.

We can go ahead for each object properties then change it’s permissions to Read, but this is manual and time consuming process.

I’ve a tip for this, but may have better & proper solution than this. I’ll definitely get back if I found as such, till the time we can use this as temporary solution which has no issues..

1.       Copy (Ctrl + C) entire Subject Area from presentation layer to any editor, which is UDML content..

2.       Now, find this text: PRIVILEGES ( NONE)

3.       Replace above text with: PRIVILEGES ( READ)

4.       Now, Copy entire content then paste it back to presentation layer.

Note: Above operation will override the existing subject area with permissions turned to be Read.

With the above approach in a single-shot we can suppress the consistency warnings related to permissions issue.

–

Regards,

Kishore Guggilla

Today i have a requirement to change(increase/decrease) width of drop down controls from Pivot Pages, Column filter prompts, dashboard prompts.. etc.

Generally, drop down width will be controlled by the maximum width of values in drop-down.
If you want to set the width to be static and fixed one, then go for this approach:

I must be thankful to my colleague Sravanthi Nuthi for helping me here..

Here we go..

1. Go and edit the views.css file properties located at:

•    <BI_HOME>:\OracleBI\web\app\res\s_oracle10\b_mozilla_4\views.css
•    <BI_HOME>:\OracleBI\oc4j_bi\j2ee\home\applications\analytics\analytics\res\s_oracle10\b_mozilla_4\views.css

2. locate this code:

SELECT {
font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 8pt;
}

3. Edit above property to:

SELECT {
width: 120px;  /* Add this property and set width to desired value */
font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 8pt;
}

4. Restart OC4J/web server service where analytics is hosting..

Note: This change will affect all across bi environment.

–
Regards,
Kishore Guggilla.

Today we discuss how 11g is different/same as it’s earlier version, i.e. 10g.

The release 10g and release 11g security models differ in the following ways:

• Defining users and groups – In Oracle Business Intelligence release 10g users and groups could be defined within a repository file using Oracle BI Administration Tool. In Oracle Business Intelligence release 11g users and groups can no longer be defined within a repository. The Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Upgrade Assistant migrates users and groups from a release 10g repository into the embedded LDAP server in a release 11g installation.

• Defining security policies – In Oracle Business Intelligence release 10g security policies in the web catalog and repository could be defined to reference groups within a directory. In Oracle Business Intelligence release 11g a level of indirection is introduced whereby security policies are defined in terms of Application Roles, which are in turn are mapped to users and groups in a directory. This indirection allows an Oracle Business Intelligence release 11g system to be deployed without changes to the corporate directory and eases movement of artifacts between development, test and production environments.

• Use of the Administrator user – In an Oracle Business Intelligence release 10g installation, a special user named Administrator has full administrative permissions and is also used to establish trust between processes within that installation. In Oracle Business Intelligence release 11g there is no special significance to the name Administrator and there can be one or more users who are authorized to undertake different sets of administrative functions. In Oracle Business Intelligence release 11g the identity used to establish trust between processes in an installation is configurable and independent.

• Repository encryption – in Oracle Business Intelligence release 10g certain sensitive elements within a repository are encrypted. In Oracle Business Intelligence release 11g the entire repository is encrypted using a key derived from a user supplied password.

The following aspects of the Oracle Business Intelligence release 10g security model remain in release 11g:

• Oracle BI Server Initialization Blocks – Oracle BI Server in release 11g continues to support the use of initialization blocks for authentication and authorization. In release 10g Oracle BI Server falls back to use initialization blocks if a matching user cannot be found in the repository. In release 11g Oracle Business Intelligence falls back to use initialization blocks if the user cannot be authenticated by the installation’s configured authentication provider.

• Presentation Catalog Groups – Oracle Business Intelligence release 11g continues to support the definition of catalog groups within the Presentation Catalog. These groups are only visible within Oracle BI Presentation Services. Oracle recommends that Oracle BI Presentation Catalog groups be used for backward compatibility only and that Application Roles be used instead for new installations.

• SA System Subject Area – Oracle Business Intelligence release 11g supports the use of SA System Subject Area, in combination with Oracle BI Server initialization blocks, to access user, group and profile information stored in database tables.

Ref: 11g Documentation..

Hope it’s helpful information for you..!!

–

Regards,

Kishore Guggilla.

Hope all of you know how to define/use Request variable from Dashboard prompt…

Recently i found one question on OTN.

Requirement is: Show/Pass selected value from drop-down in Dashboard Section heading..

This is quiet easy if prompt is defined with presentation variable, but problem here is: prompt is defined with Request Variable.

Problem with Request Variable is:

Usually, Request variable is session variable defined in rpd and will be override with selected prompt value in front end. Real problem here is: regardless of selected value from the dashboard prompt, it always shows the default value of session variable initialized while creating the variable…

And, this is the way we pass session variable in Section Heading..

@{biServer.variables['NQ_SESSION.var_PVar']}

Work Around is:

I assume Request variable is: var_PVar.

Here are the steps involved to achieve it.

1. Create another prompt with same functionality of main prompt

2. But, this time assign a presentation variable to the prompt, say: var_P.

Note: This prompt should be added to separate Section in Edit Dashboard..

3. Now, call presentation variable directly into Section Heading as shown..

4. Now, hide newly created prompt. Here is the way to hide the prompt..

Hope it’s clear..

Regards,

Kishore Guggilla.

There is a way to hide the dashboard prompts in OBIEE.

But, need to have a separate section containing this prompt.. that’s reason i made my article title as: prompt/Section

Here is the way..

1. Edit Dashboard, go to Properties of Section > Format Section..

2. Expand Custom CSS Style Options (HTML Only) then select Use Custom CSS Style check box… and write the following code as shown:

display:none;

It’s more effective then collapsible option..

And, you may ask what is the use of this. Because, when it’s not useful just get rid of it from dashboard..

But, i used it Here… I guess, now it has got credit.

Regards,

Kishore Guggilla.

Usually, for requirement like: measure, year ago measure want to show.. we’ll go for 2 measures. One is: Measure and YearAgoMeasure calculated through time-series.

This blog entry also avoid to create other column for calculating year ago measure..

Here is the procedure:

I’m assuming you have Year dashboard Prompt, assigned with presentation variable: var_Year

1. Create a filter on year column in this way:

2. And filter should be like this:

3.  go to Pivot then arrange columns in this fashion and view Results:

You’ll be noticed that results are giving current/(selected year from prompt) and previous year values ..

Note: Apply descending order on Year column..

You may not like the labels showing year values. Instead of that, you may need to see the labels like: Current and Prior..

This can be done by writing following condition in Year Fx :

CASE WHEN Time.”Fiscal Year” = @{var_Year} then ‘Current’ when Time.”Fiscal Year” = @{var_Year}-1 then ‘Prior’ END

Hope it’ll helpful to you..

Limitation with this approach is: we’re using Advanced filter, which will not appear dynamically changing years in filters view (if you add filter view to compound layout)

–

Regards,

Kishore Guggilla.

Calendar View in OBIEE with Year selection.

Here is the Pivot Layout, you can see the columns used ..

Don’t forget to set an aggregation rule to Max or Min (not sum) for Day Number column there in Measure block of Pivot.

Calendar Week is the column which treat Sunday to Saturday as one week from day starting of year, but not like 1 to 7 is one week, 8 to 15 is 2nd week…

Here is the output:

Applications are like:

Enable a drill report on the day number column to know the transactions for that date..

(it’s not straight forward.. but, possible. If i get time, i’ll come up with an article about that.. )

Please propose other applications on this, i’ll appreciate it ..

–

Regards,

Kishore Guggilla.

I thought of blog this long back.. Unfortunately, forgot about it. But these days i’m frequently seeing this question in OTN Forums..

Here is the workaround i provided:

http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=4300685

I’m providing just link this time. When i get i’ll re-write/edit this article with content.

–

Regards,

Kishore Guggilla.

first of all thanks to forum friends..

Most awaiting OBIEE 11g software is available on oracle site.

Here we go..!!

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-enterprise-edition/downloads/bus-intelligence-11g-165436.html

All the best.. !!!