Initialization blocks are used to initialize dynamic repository variables, system session variables, and nonsystem session variables.

The rank measure is numbered from 1. The highest sales amount will be ranked 1.

Note 1: OBIEE offers two calculation types for measure in the repository:

logical

physical

You can define calculations in either of the following ways:

* Before the aggregation, in the logical table source.

* After the aggregation, in a logical column derived from two other logical columns. For example: sum(col A) * sum(col B)

Note 2: A measure column is a column unlike the baseline column that has a default aggregation rule defined in the Aggregation tab of the Logical Column dialog in the repository.

Measure columns always calculate the aggregation with which they are defined.

Measures need to be defined in a logical fact. Any column with an aggregation rule is a measure.

CurrentMonth can be calculated by a sql statement.

Note:

REPOSITORY VARIABLE(DYNAMIC)

· Initialized when BI server is started

· Assigned value dynamically based on the result of a query

· Value is dependent of the sql provided in Initialization Block

Create a dynamic variable and provide a Name and Default Initializer.Create a new initialization block by clicking on the New button in the above screen.

Provide Intialization Block variable Name

Click on “Edit Data Source” button and provide the sql to be used for the variable, e.g.

select lower(sys_context('USERENV','SESSION_USER'))||

'@'||

lower(sys_context('USERENV','DB_NAME'))

from dual;

Users in Oracle BI Answers can create queries that span multiple subject areas, as long as the subject areas correspond to the same business model.

Level-based Hierarchy

Level-based hierarchy is the first type of hierarchy in OBIEE.

Consists of an ordered set of two or more levels. For example, a Time hierarchy might have three levels for Year, Quarter, and Month. Level-based hierarchies can also contain parent-child relationships.

Dimension hierarchy levels allow :

* to perform aggregate navigation,

* to configure level-based measure calculations,

* users from Dashboard and Answers to drill down from one parent to a child level.

Special type of level-based dimension are supported:

* Unbalanced (or ragged) and Skip-level hierarchy

* time dimension to provides special functionality for modeling time series data.

The Catalog Manager workspace enables you to view and work with catalog objects. It displays the following folders for an open catalog:

The shared folder— Contains content that is shared among catalog users. This includes the preconfigured dashboards and analyses that are distributed with prebuilt applications, and other objects such as shared filters.

The system folder — Contains administrative elements of Presentation Services. Some of these elements are distributed with the product, and others are configured by you as the administrator, such as privileges. Avoid modifying any files in this folder. Presentation Services uses these files internally and modifying them might cause unexpected results.

The users folder — Contains content that catalog users with the appropriate permissions have saved to their personal folders, such as individual analyses.

An action link is a link to an action that you have embedded in an analysis, dashboard page, scorecard objective, scorecard initiative, or KPI that, when clicked, runs an associated action.

The relationship is defined at the model and mapping layer.

Note:

At the highest level, an OBIEE Metadata Repository includes three layers of information:

1.

First, a Physical layer is defined. The metadata layer identifies the source data.

2.Second, a Business Model and Mapping layer is defined. This metadata layer organizes the physical layer into logical categories and records the appropriate metadata for access to the source data.

3.Finally, the Presentation layer is defined. This metadata layer exposes the business model entities for end-user access.

It is a best practice to create aliases for all tables. Aliases are created in the Physical Layer of the repository. Some of the benefits of using aliases are given below:

(A) * An alias is used to avoid circular joins and to configure self joins.

* You can create a join relationship which is different than the actual foreign key relationship in the database. This helps in defining relationships to meet business model criteria.

* Aliases can function in numerous ways to define business model e.g. a table can act both as a dimension and a fact using aliases.

(B) * You can rename aliases to make physical and business model easier to understand.

A data warehouse is a database used for reporting and data analysis. It is a central repository of data which is created by integrating data from multiple disparate sources. Data warehouses store current as well as historical data and are commonly used for creating trending reports for senior management reporting such as annual and quarterly comparisons.

Note 1: There are four types of variables that you can use:

Session

Repository

Presentation

Request

Note 2: Session Variables

A session variable is a variable that is initialized at login time for each user. When a user begins a session, the Oracle BI Server creates a new instance of a session variable and initializes it.

There are as many instances of a session variable as there are active sessions on the Oracle BI Server. Each instance of a session variable could be initialized to a different value.

There are two types of session variables:

System — A session variable that the Oracle BI Server and Oracle BI Presentation Services use for specific purposes.

System session variables have reserved names that cannot be used for other kinds of variables (such as static or dynamic repository variables and non-system session variables).

Non-system — A system variable that the administrator creates and names. For example, the administrator might create a SalesRegion non-system variable that initializes the name of a user's sales region.

The administrator creates non-system session variables using the Oracle BI Administration Tool.

The Oracle BI Presentation Services Administration page provides the Manage Map Data link. This link displays the Manage Map Data page, where you can manage the logical and display versions of the data from various physical data sources. This defines the layers that content designers use when creating map views. The data that is available for managing maps and data is stored in Oracle Database as part of MapViewer.

Using this page, you provide:

* (A) Logical names to prevent any existing BI column mappings and map analyses from breaking because of changes to the physical data or to the data source.

* Display names so that the geographic data is meaningful to end users.

Note: Administering Maps Using Administration Pages

For (C) –layers, see 3-7 below.

For (D) –import images, see 11-12 below.

To administer maps using Administration pages:

Sign in to Oracle Business Intelligence.

In the global header, click Administration.

Click the Manage Map Data link to display the Manage Map Data page.

Click the Layers tab.

Click the Import Layers button to display the Import Layers dialog.

In the dialog, select the connection and the layers that are needed for zooming and drilling. (This tab is not prepopulated by other selections on the Administration pages. You can use any layers or images with any map.)

Click OK when you have finished selecting layers that are appropriate for the subject area with which you are working.

Back on the Layers tab, select a layer, then click the Edit Layer button to display the Edit Layer dialog in which you associate layers with attribute columns so that you can display BI data in the map view.

Click OK when you have finished editing the layer.

You use this tab to associate layers with BI data. If you use the City column in multiple subject areas, then you must associate it with a layer for each subject area.

Click the Background Maps tab, then click the Import Background Maps button to display the Import Background Maps dialog.

In the dialog, select the connection and the main maps to use.

The connection that you select for the main map can be different from the connection for the layers or images.

Click OK when you have finished selecting main maps.

Back on the Background Maps tab, select a map, then click the Edit Background Map button to display the Edit Background Map dialog in which you name the map and specify the order of layers and their zoom levels.

Click OK when you have finished editing the map.

Optionally, click the Images tab, then click the Import Images button to display the Import Images dialog. You can import images if you plan to use them as a format on maps.

In the dialog, select the connection and the images to use.

Click OK when you have finished selecting images.

Click Back when you have finished working with the Administration page. Your changes are saved automatically.

The Essbase cube looks just like any other relational star schema in my Presentation Layer, however when it is queried Oracle BI Server will issue MDX queries against a multi-dimensional data source, rather than an SQL query against a relational star schema.

With the advent of 11G, MapViewer is installed as part of Oracle BI Enterprise Edition and deployed in the same domain as Oracle BI EE on the Web application server.

Before content designers can create map views, in the Manage map Data Administration page, the metadata must be configured:

* layers (theme) and map (zoom level)

* the mapping between Oracle BI EE data and spatial data

Oracle BI Cluster Server Components

* Oracle Business Intelligence Cluster Controller: The Cluster Controller determines which BI Server works in the cluster. It monitors the operation of servers in the cluster. The Cluster Controller is deployed in active-passive mode.

* Clustered BI Servers: The BI Cluster Server feature supports up to 16 BI Servers in a network domain to act as a single server. BI Servers in the cluster share requests from multiple Oracle BI clients.

* Master BI Server: A clustered Oracle Business Intelligence Server is designated as the Master BI Server. The Oracle Business Intelligence Administration Tool connects to the master BI Server for online repository changes.

* Cluster Manager: The Cluster Manager is available in the Administration Tool when a repository is opened in online mode. The Cluster Manager enables Oracle BI Server clustered instances.

Ragged Hierarchies are hierarchies where some routes down the hierarchy are longer than others; for example, you may have an organizational hierarchy for salespeople where the overall boss has two assistant managers, one of them works on their own and another has three sales managers under them; some of those sales manager may have sales staff under them, and some sales staff may have trainees under them.

In a standard OBIEE implementation, we generally want to purge and re-build the cache after every ETL (extract, transform, and load) run.

Open up the Administration tool, go to Manage then variables.

See screenshot below.

Then follow this picture to create a new Initialization Block.

Name your Initialization block init_block_test.

BI EE uses the ADM driver to extract the data from HFM.

Note: HFM (Hyperion Financial Management)

Example:

I EE connects to HFM through JavaHost. So, the setup for configuring the connectivity is to basically make the EPM environment variables available for access to BI EE. Before making the changes, there are a couple of things to be aware of

1. Ensure that DCOM is enabled on the BI Server machine. This is needed for HFM client to work/connect properly with HFM Server.

2. Ensure that HFM Client is installed.

The above assumes EPM 11.1.2.x version. If you are on Hyperion 9.3.3, then you need to have the ADM drivers installed manually. All of this is documented clearly. So, rather than re-iterating that i will just point to the link here. Ensure that you follow all the steps mentioned in the docs else you will have issues in the connectivity. Once all the pre-requisite steps are done, we start off with the metadata import process.

Pull the table and column definition into the physical layer

Use the OBIEE “import metadata” wizard to pull the table and column definition into

the physical layer. The wizard is used so that all of the column definitions do not need to

be manually added into the physical layer.

Figure:

Note: The physical layer is the layer of the Logical Business Model where you define the physical data model of your data source. It contains information about the physical data sources.

OBIEE - Grain (Level of summarization)

Grain definition in the context of OBIEE.

The following list describes the different grains in navigating a query:

* Aggregation grain. The grain of the aggregate source of from a level based metrics

* Query grain. The grain of the request.

* Time Series grain. The grain at which the time series function aggregation is requested.

* Storage grain. The query in the example can be computed from daily sales or from monthly sales, or from quarterly sales.

Note:

The aggregation grain is defined in the content tab of the logical table source.

When the query grain match the aggregation grain of a logical table source, this one is used to create the physical query.

You should use a logical column (not physical). In fact,in the Explanation of the exam, it displays a logical column.

Metadata Repository Builder's Guide

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E21764_01/bi.1111/e10540/toc.htm

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E21764_01/bi.1111/e10540.pdf

Setting an Implicit Fact Column in the Subject Area

For each subject area in the Presentation layer, you can set an implicit fact column. The

implicit fact column is added to a query when it contains columns from two or more

dimension tables and no measures. The column is not visible in the results. It is used

to specify a default join path between dimension tables when there are several possible

alternatives or contexts.

A: OBIEE 11g is centred on WebLogic Server as the underlying application server architecture.

B: If you want to scale out this infrastructure, you would typically run the OBIEE 11g installer on a second server, and instead of choosing to do a new install, you’d choose to instead scale out the existing BI domain.

C: OBIEE Clustering – Approach of Oracle BI Server Load balancing/Failover

Enterprise Install: This installation type assumes some familiarity with Oracle Business

Intelligence. All software components are downloaded onto one

computer. You can accept the default configuration settings or use

your own. You use this installation type when you have an

established Oracle WebLogic domain, and you want to extend it to

the Oracle Business Intelligence application. This install option is

typically used for more advanced deployments with multiple users,

such as to scale out a deployment on additional computers.

C: OBIEE Caching and Cache Seeding

Cache is a component that improves performance by transparently storing data such that future requests for the same criteria can be served much faster. Like other application cache is not virtual memory in OBIEE. In OBIEE cache will be stored as files on the Hard Disk of the OBIEE Server in the form of files. By Default caching is enabled in the OBIEE server configuration.

For time-consuming Dashboard Pages, we can use the concept of cache seeding in OBIEE, this can be configured as a scheduled job that will ensure that the data is cached and readily available as and when the user runs the dashboard.