A Conditional, Data-Driven Action Link

The initial release of this functionality was seen as a positive step towards tighter integration of the Siebel and Analytics applications. Since then, many versions onward the functionality has moved on little and there are still limitations which continue to frustrate developers.

The 'so-called' increased usability of action links available in v7.8.x onwards is buggy and doesn't provide the same 'mouse-over' information when choosing the custom data format route (accessed via the 'Data Format' tab for the column in the request); so personally, I prefer the custom data format. The syntax can take a little getting used to, but is straightforward to manipulate once you understand the components.

Current limitations aside (such as the inabilty to target child applets in Siebel), a little more intelligence can be added at the request level to make your action links conditional, based on the data you return in your request.

This might be performed using a CASE statement, but more complex functions could provide a range of results to use for your action links. For example column A contains your data, column B your conditional action link. The basic function syntax for column B would be as follows:

CASE Column A
WHEN = 1 THEN 'Action Link 1'
WHEN = 2 THEN 'Action Link 2'
ELSE 'Action Link 3'
END

So you have your basic conditional navigation here, but its important to get the syntax right for each action link created. Ultimately you want this to resolve correctly for the custom data format.

With a standard action link, normally 3 elements are provided in the custom data format: View, Applet and Row Id. In this case, you will provide all 3 elements as one string from column B and amend the data format slightly.

The string will need to be correctly 'escaped' for both Analytics to recognise it as a string, but also for it to resolve correctly using the javascript function NQSWENav, referenced when creating action links.

- Char(39) : SQL escape character for single quotes
- || : double pipes used by analytics here to concatenate strings
- , : commas separate the 3 arguments normally used in action links

Char(39)||'Order Entry - Line Items View (Sales)'||Char(39)||','||Char(39)||'Order Entry - Order Form Applet'||Char(39)||','||Char(39)||Order."Row Id" ||Char(39)

Notice you're adding 2 single quotes each time, the 1st one will be removed by the analytics server leaving the second one when using the javascript function. Add this string after the 'THEN' portion of your CASE statement. For each different condition in the CASE statement add the action link functionality using this syntax replacing the view, applet and row id arguments each time.

Your statement will probably looks something like this:

CASE Column A
WHEN = 1 THEN Char(39)||'Order Entry - Line Items View (Sales)'||Char(39)||','||Char(39)||'Order Entry - Order Form Applet'||Char(39)||','||Char(39)||Order."Row Id" ||Char(39)
WHEN = 2 THEN Char(39)||'All Service Request across Organizations'||Char(39)||','||Char(39)||'Service Request List Applet'||Char(39)||','||Char(39)||"Service Request"."Row ID"||Char(39)
ELSE Char(39)||'All Activity List View'||Char(39)||','||Char(39)||'Activity List Applet - Basic - No Toggle'||Char(39)||','||Char(39)||Activity."Activity Id"||Char(39)
END

Now that you've got your CASE statement, open the 'Format Column' portion of the request and go to the 'Data Format' tab. Make sure the 'Override Default Data Format' is checked and select 'Custom Data Format' from 'Treat Text As' drop-down list. In the 'Custom Text Format' add the following syntax:

@[html]"<a href=\"javascript:NQSWENav("@"); \">"More..."</a>"

- @ : refers to the contents of the column
- NQSWENav : the javascript function used to navigate to the Siebel application

It is recommended not to display the column contents, in this case it will be quite long, rather provide a meaningful link prompt (e.g. 'More...', 'Link...'), but this is entirely personal preference.

Look at the results of the request to check you've got the syntax right, then run it from your integrated application (Siebel/Analytics) to see those action links in action.

N.B. For those new to action links, it is the Row Id column from the base table which is required (not any other identifier) for action links to work correcly.

I give in

Well Mr Brown, you finally got your way. I have just taken delivery of a new car to get to the office, and I bought the smallest cheapest, funniest little thing you can get.

see

35 quid to tax, cheap insurance and runs forever on a tank of petrol. I cant say that I did it to be green, I just can't afford Mr Brown fuel taxes every day.

Well done - you win. Til I shut down business in the UK and move to Switzerland!!

Is that It?

They say that technology happens in waves. They being Gartner and the like.

You get early adopters, then rapid growth in popularity, a peak of excitment then a long decline. Drawn on a digram, representing, say, adoption, it's like a big wave.

Well, the OBIEE wave formed and a whole bunch of consulting firms have got there surfboards out. But has the wave already crashed onto the beach?

I tend to use the job market as an indicator of the projects and skills in demand.

Five years ago when we started our Analytics consultancy, there were 1-2 new jobs per week advertised for Siebel Analytics consultants (pre-runner to OBIEE). That grew over the next couple of years to approx 6 real jobs per day. Although there would be 20 adverts, lots were agencies fishing for CV's, others were two agencies with the same job. We knew most of the projects in the UK, as there were not that many. As the market grew so did our business, life was very busy.

The reason for our success was getting trained people onboard. This cost a fortune, as Siebel controlled the training closely, charged high prices, and refused to allow others to publish training material.

Then along came Oracle and bought Siebel, renaming the product and heavily marketing OBI (EE and others).

At first this killed the market off. Uncertainty over Oracle intentions, and re-organisations in the salesforce meant that new sales were low and new projects went to other products.

Momentum was returned to the Oracle Business Intelligence set of products and the wave got going again. Six months ago there were dozens of jobs on the internet and companies were snapping up OBIEE.

I also look at the competition in the marketplace. When we started the business there were two companies in the UK who offered Siebel Analytics consulting, us and Innoveer. Slowly this increased, but mainly in mainland Europe. The UK market was too small and specialised for major investment. Customer Systems, Rossett Stone, Abbusys, ClearPeaks, and a bunch of offshore other companies set about the our market. These were good small companies, run by hard working specialist who know the Siebel product well and added the Analytics skills. I know all these people having worked, with, for and in competition with, on dozens of projects. These people invested a great deal in the hope of a growing market - they joined the curve on the way up!

When Oracle finally got it's act together they completly opened the market up. Publishing deals were allowed, other companies could run training (Including us), the software was made freely available for development, marketing activity went through the roof -the last UKOUG Business Intelligence conference was wall to wall Oracle presentations (I hope we get some variety tomorrow).

This led to an enormous influx of consultancies suddenly interested in the OBI product set. Competition became fierce, but we kept winnning work based upon REAL experience, and due to the fact we stick to what we know, OBIEE and Siebel Analytics Applications. Rates droppped and every independent consultant was putting Oracle BI on their CV. Desperate for experience they were killing the normal rates for contractors and undermning the credibility of the product.

(There are still dozens of high profile firms out there pretending to be experts in OBIEE - ask them how many real projects they have done)

Then along came a market confidence knock.

Due to a credit crunch, fuel prices, or whatever, the floor dropped out of the market. Search today on Jobserve for OBIEE jobs and ONE comes back. It pays really bad and has been open for months, and is in Edinburgh (not too bad in the summer). Search for Siebel Analytics and you get 2 jobs, in Switzerland and France.

I have a good network with the other independent experienced Analytics consultants based in the UK. They are manily working overseas in Europe (thankfully a good Euro-GBP rate at the moment). I know of several individuals that are looking, and will be available soon. Is there an over supply of Analytics /OBIEE experts?

There are a couple of roles that have not been advertised recently but one is not paying enough for a an expert with the level of experience they need, and the other will probably be filled by the available consultants on the market without the need to advertise.

So, has the wave crashed on the beach??

One theory is that projects are on hold or cancelled.

One factor may be reduced Oracle sales (have to wait and see on that one).

I think a huge factor is the type of customer that would normally implement OBIEE. They're big, normally very big. OBI can be expensive to buy (unless you go for the cheaper packages) and be expensive to implement. Maybe the budgets are tight this year, but these companies normally have large outsourcing deals with the major IT/Consulting firms - IBM, Accenture, CSC, TCS, HP, CapGemini, Deloitte, etc, and most of these firms are begining to compete on price - get the work offshore and charge peanuts. Until now the skills have been in short supply. I have worked for every one of the above, filling a gap in their knowledge. But now they have set-up their Indian operations and the skills are getting there (not as good as ours abviously!). My last project manager at CSC has been sent to India to manage the operation.

So my conclusion is that the number of projects are down, the number of consultants available are up, and the offshore model is beginning to bite.

Time to stop surfing and get the Kite board out!!

Long Time no see...

Nearly four weeks in the Carribean really slows you down. You get used to the slow pace of life. Breakfast at the marina cafe takes until lunchtime, Lunch takes hours, and dinner takes all night. Sailing at 5 miles per hour from glorious beach to fabulous snorkling bay is a steady, casual affair, best done one hand on the wheel and a cool beer in the other.

Just as well really, because if I was in a hurry then downloading and installing the Oracle BI software would be driving me mad. I am on day three of night and day downloading. I have a fast broadband and a new laptop, but I have dozens of large files to get, unzip and install.

I started by getting VMware, installing a 50GB virtual machine, then setting up Windows Server 2003, including the updates, then downloading all the relevent Oracle files. There are hundreds of them. Database installs, BI platform (OBIEE, informatica, BI Publisher), EBS files, samples, and BI Apps. I'm mainly interested in the 7.9.5 Analytics for CRM plus HRM and Financials analytics. I'm not even sure if I will bother with the Essbase stuff.

One of the reasons for setting up a whole environment is for a client presentation next week, but the other is that there are rumours that the HR BI Apps repositories are in need of some improvement. This doesn't surprise me if it's true, we have had lots of interesting days with the CRM Analytics, but I would have thought that Oracle have had enough time to get these 'pre-packaged' apps sorted out. Trouble is, they still seem to be unsure what to do about ODI vs Informatica (and what about OWB). At the last UKOUG conference the product development people still had no clear direction on this.

I'm beginning to think that there is rooom for some competition on the pre-built Apps front. Question is, how much effort should I put into this, and should we try an Open Source model?
Then there is the choice of subject. Marketing and Forecasting needs some pre-built work (two clients I know wanted it), but now maybe HR.

Mind you, it'll be a few weeks before I get round to anything. Maybe I should jst start the downloads and head back to the beach!

Let me know what you think of the pre-built ETL, DAC and rpd's.

BI Conference Afternoon session

Hold that last thought. Apparently Excel is central to BI!

The roadmap for BI (including Hyperion) was actually very good at keeping me awake after lunch.

The 11g features of OBIEE are good, and should be out before May next year. There were hundreds of updates and improvements, which I will write about tomorrow when I have had time to digest them (and my dessert).

The conference was a sell out, with a huge number of end user companies, but what was interesting was the companies which were not there. No Big integrators - no IBM, o Accenture, no TCS, no EDS. and no Agencies. There were the usual small integrator, Eclectic, SolStone, Majendi, RittmanMead, etc. This just underlined my view that the little guys have all the knowledge, experience and capability and yet the big guys have the marketing clout.


For me it was a great success. I went with three objectives

1. Find out where the Analytics Applications are going
2. Find out what developments are being made in the OBIEE platform
3. Get on the beta program for 11g

The answer is that Informatica is still fully part of the Applications, as is DAC (for now). Development is being concentrated on the new Analytics.

The OBIEE platform is getting better and better and the new flash graphs are a bit of fun.

I have the email of the guy for the beta program :)

I also learnt more about the Data Mining tool. Something I will learn more about I think.

I will be off on Holiday for three weeks. Sailing around the Caribbean.

See you when I get back.

Hot news from th BI conference

Firstly, Lunch at the conference is excellent. Well done Radisson!

Secondly, Frank says that we should ditch Excel for BI, it's destructive!

Most importantly. Oracle now has true data mining capability. I've seen it here and it works. If you thought SAS was the only solution, think again.

BTW, Informatica and DAC are still going strng. They do have plans to have ODI run in parallel but nothing concrete out there yet.

more as I find out.

I'm off to get some pud

And Ross joins in

I have just noticed that Ross Goodman at Ecelectic is blogging, so I'll add him to the blogroll.

http://www.rossgoodman.com/2008/02/28/modelling-change-in-your-dimensions/

Not really my thing.. but ..

Just to show you I can be nice!.

A note from a friendly agent.

PLEASE CAN YOU HELP ME??? xxx

I am looking for an Application Developer (Middleware) consultant for a highly prestigious Dutch client based in The Netherlands. You will be working as a software specialist for customer, where Application Support is the main focus. Middleware and Applications as Oracle Application Server, Apache Tomcat, Oracle Portal Server, Siebel and Oracle E-Business Suite are the basic items that need to be supported on day to day bases. This will vary from incident-resolving to security, health checks and problem analysis until performance and tuning. In the role as a software specialist professional you work with a variety of people and skills in a team where you all support and back-up each other in case of escalation and where the pro-active job is to prevent these incidents and escalations. Adding value by developing tools of automation is highly appreciated. I am looking for someone who has strong in Oracle application server, Oracle E-Business and UNIX. You will be working in a large team of about 8 consultants where there will be an opportunity to learn new skills and techniques. Dutch speaking role -
please send CV for full details and immediate interviews.
Kind Regards
Jill Jill Lund
Senior Recruitment Consultant
Best People Ltd

Rate Card

I keep meaning to put the rate card on the Majendi website.

If anyone is interested this is what we charge. (all in GBP)


Senior Consultant - 800 plus expenses
Consultant - 750 (expenses included in home country, add on for Europe)
Junior Consultant- 250 plus expenses


What are the levels?

Senior Consultants have 4 years of Analytics / OBIEE expereince. They have at least 6 projects implementing new or upgrading systems. They can lead the reporting part of any Siebel Implementation and take personal responsibity to ensure the client is happy with the deployment. They will also have other skills, e.g. unix.

Consultants are qualified from Oracle University and have worked alongside the Senior consultants on large projects. They have been working on at least 3 projects and demonstrated a high skill level to the seniors.

Junior consultants are qualified from Oracle University but have only worked ont he internal Majendi project. They are not sent out alone, but always in an assisting role with a senior.

Where are we based?

UK -London
UK -Manchester
UK - Glasgow

Germany - Munich
Switzerland - Geneva

South Africa - All

We need more staff, more freelance consultants, and more partners with related skillsets, e.g. Senior Siebel experts, eBusiness Experts, etc.

What Projects do we work on?

The bigger the better. Leading Pharmaceuticals, National Telecoms providers, Military, National Transport Carriers, Global FMCG, National Postal Companies, Power Generator Providers, Very large Banks, Electronics manufacturers and many smaller companies and government organisations too.
Every single customer of ours will provide a positive reference.

Do we negotiate? Never. There is more work than we can shake a stick at. Maybe we should charge more.

If you are freelancing, make sure you are paid your worth. If not, come to Majendi. We are not an agency. Agencies have an important role in matching people to projects too, and we work with the best of them, e.g. SCOM, Aston Carter. We are specialist consultancy that knows OBIEE, and how companies can implement it.

More Groups Please

I have had lots of new members sign up to my OBIEE group on linked in, most of which have some relationship with the product.

I am rejecting anyone who is an agency recruiter or just a professional networker.

The next step will be to develop the OBI portal which will provide resources for OBIEE professionals. This is planned for mid March.

If you haven't joined us please go to http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/43109/526A0219C124


The main reason for networking is so that we can share useful information. It is amazing how many projects I have worked on where I needed staff and they come via an agency and yet i could have employeed people directly, for more money!! Use your network. If you are looking for OBIEE work just get in touch. I wont spread your details around, but I may know of a project that you may be suitable for. Do not leave your current job to go contracting without giving me a call. I can help. You know who you are!!


On the subject of groups, I think I should join the following groups

IOUG (International Oracle User Group)
OAUG (Oracle Applications User Group)
Oracle BIWA SIG
Oracle BI Network

If you have the link please send it on.

Need a loopback Adapter

This took me ages to find

If you need to install Oracle database on a Vista Machine then this may help.

1) start device manager
2) right-click top node
3) add legacy hardware
4) select Netwrok Adaptor
5) select Microsoft6) select Loopback adapter

This was from an original post at

http://davedotnet.blogspot.com/2006/06/installing-loopback-adaptor-in-windows.html

Also useful was

http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2004/07/06/174576.aspx

Execute

Probably already covered elsewhere, but I had this lying around from my book notes (Many Thanks to ed Higgins)

These are the executables you can find in the bin directory.

Nb. Siebel support recommends the following executables are not used without prior knowledge or consulting technical support first.

JobManager.exe

Previously known as Analytics Scheduler, nothing much has changed, the Job Manager is used to schedule iBots for Oracle delivers and provides an interface to check progress of batches and records details of failures, it can also be used to schedule scripted jobs including triggering workflows in integrated applications, writing data to the database and triggering statistics updates in the database.

Prior to using the Job Manager, the user needs to run SAJOBS.oracle.sql from C:\OracleBI\server\Schema, this creates the tables for the scheduler, alternative versions are provided for most major databases.
Next one must create an entry in TNSNAMES.ora for the Data Source Name, launch the Job Manager from the Programs menu or Administration and add the connection details in Scheduler Configuration, for non-Oracle databases use windows ODBC and create a DSN.


nQcmd.exe

This command line tool executes SQL script on the database and can be used for Cache Seeding operations, it is not recommended that it be used directly as these jobs can be run through Job Manager, it is also recommended by Oracle that remote access tools such as TELNET or remote desktop are disabled on the server running presentation services as direct access to nQcmd.exe constitutes a security risk.

nQLogviewer.exe

nQLogViewer.exe is a utility and part of the analytics installation and resides in the 'Analytics install dir'/Bin directory. It's essentially a parsing tool that allows you to extract info from the NQQuery.log.

The particulars of the utility are:------------
Command: nQLogViewer -u -f -o

-s -r

where:
= Analytics user
= NQQuery.log to examine

= File to send results to
= ID of user logon session (unique per user logon/logoff session)
= ID of specific request from an Analytics Web Client sessionNQQuery.log

excerpt:+++administrator: 100: 101: ----2002/05/31 10:53:03 timestampExample to see only those entries under session ID 100:nQLogViewer -f c:\nquire\Log\NQQuery.log -o c:\nquire\Log\NQQuery_session100.log -s 100

nQQueryStatsFormatter.exe

No longer used in Oracle BI

NQSChangePassword.exe

This utility allows the changing of analytics user passwords from the command line.

NQSServer.exe

This is the Analytics Server process and must be running for analytics to function, it appears as a service in Windows (Siebel Analytics Server or Oracle BI Server), and is controlled by the Server Manager process in a UNIX environment.

NQSShutDown.exe

The executable can be called in a Unix script and stops the Analytics/BI server.

I'm not convinced these are still valid in the OBIEE world but are for Analytics 7.x

OC4J as a Service

Following the last post on stopping oc4j from automatic running, you may want to run oc4j as a service, so that is can be added to a batch file that starts all the analytics services.


So, to Run OC4J as a windows service

If you want to run oc4j as a windows service download the open source tool named JavaService.exe from http://javaservice.objectweb.org/ which can create Windows Services for Java Programs, adjust and execute the following command:
javaservice -install "Oracle BI: OC4J Service" "D:\jdk1.5.0_09\jre\bin\client\jvm.dll" -XX:MaxPermSize=128m -Xmx512m "-Djava.class.path=d:\OracleBI\oc4j_bi\j2ee\home\oc4j.jar" -start oracle.oc4j.loader.boot.BootStrap -description "Oracle BI Oc4J Service"

Now you can add to your 'net start' commands batch file.

Credit to Andreass in the Majendi team for this.

UPDATE: Venkat has also blogged on this subject, including some screen shots.

Auto running OC4J

I kept meaning to do a brief note on the issue of OC4J automatcally running when you start windows. I'm sure you all know how to stop it, but just on case check out

http://knowledge.ciber.nl/weblog/?p=84

And another thing

You wait ages for a blog to come along, then three turn up at once.



I just had to mention the WHOPPING great rpd that I had to investigate the other day.



It was 50 MB.

Supplied by Oracle as part of the 7.9 Applications install.

It's not that it takes ages to load and edit in the Admin tool, it's just a nightmare to figure out which bits belong to which Licence option. I need to write some UDML scripts to deal with the different packs. Maybe one of you lot already have some to send me :)

Is the future here already?

Have a look at the Oracle whitepaper on OBIEE and SOA. It's the future you can read about while getting on with maintaining your 7.7 Siebel reporting (Actuate) system.

http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/rittman-biee-soa.html?rssid=rss_otn_articles


Don't let people tell you otherwise - Oracle Business Intelligence is the future - what? including OWB? are you mad. You wait, when Larry gets back from his next sailing trip someone will have written some SAS like functions - or maybe just bought SAS!!!

So are Informatica getting ready to be bought out. The rumours have started and speculation is rife. Just imagine what will happen if someone else buys Informatica and oracle have to re-write all those ETL applcations. Come to think about it, that's not a bad idea. Maybe this time they will do better.

Aaaargh

Thanks Bill. Thanks for the new windows system. not.

I bought a new laptop last week, it's a Vostro 1700 from Dell. Very good spec, loads of memory, fast cpu etc, but also including Vista.

I went to install my copy of OBIEE and it refused, so it's not backwards compatable. So I tried the latest version 10.1.3.3.2 (download biee_windows_x86_101332_disk1) and it installed fine, except it didn't recognise my IIS, so i only got the oc4j.

Opening up the paint dashboard all looked fine so I prepared some data for a demo to my latest client. I created the demo data in Excell and Access, modified the paint rpd to include the new data. The demo was in an auditorium full of managers! (gulp)

Off to the site I went on a train from Copenhagen (at 5am!!). The journey was three hours so I thought I would walk through the steps I was going to give in the presentation. Opening the dashboard was fine, then clicking on the Answers link I was asked to log in again. Loggin in again I was then presented with a screen saying that I was not logged in!!
Clicking on the Admin link gave the same issue. In fact almost every link required you to log in again.


With 20 minutes to go before the presentation I had re-installed the software twice, searched google, IT Toolbox and the forums, and pulled out most of my hair.
Finally I gave up, thinking that if I ran for it I could just get back to the train before they realised I was gone :)

Luckily I still had the install disks for 10.1.3.2 and I borrowed someones laptop with XP on. I Installed the system and fired up OBI EE with 30 seconds to spare.

The presentatin went ahead without any problems.

Phew!

PS

Why Bother?

My next rant will be about Networking, Client Credit, Being in business, and Project Managment. Watch this space.

Happy New Year? ummm, we'll see.

A few random thoughts for OBIEE and life at the keyboard...

A few years ago we used to write javascript to refresh the screen, based upon an input value. In APEX we can put some code into the header " meta http-equiv="refresh" content="60"", so I thought why not put it in an OBIEE report. The issue is where? Has anyone had a go at this?

I saw this the other day from Ahmad Alkhmous

Restricting the Number of Rows returned in a request:-
Click on the filter icon on any column in answers
Click on Advanced-> Convert filter to SQL
Write "Rcount(1)< N" ... N is the number of rows you want to see

Whats this then?
http://www.oracle.com/technology/oramag/oracle/05-mar/o25xmlex.html

Not OBIEE but could help

Top 10 keyboard Shortcuts in Windows
CTRL N.................New window
CTRL Z.................Undo
CTRL Y.................Redo
ALT F4.................Close current application (if all are closed, will present shut down options)
WINDOWS D..............Show desktop (also WINDOWS M = minimise all)
CTRL A.................Select all
CTRL F.................Find
CTRL C.................Copy
CTRL V.................Paste
ALT TAB................Switch between windows
and a bonus one..
SHIFT F3...............(Word only) Toggle selected text between caps and lower case

A bit of fun..
I love this paper plane throwing game. Enjoy! http://flightsimx.archive.amnesia.com.au/


Want to keep the kids amused?

Word Searches
http://puzzlemaker.school.discovery.com/WordSearchSetupForm.html



If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?


Adrian

"Living in America"

If that's you, and you know your rpd from armpit, then please get in touch. I may be able to put you in touch with some projects that need OBIEE consultants.

I recently commented that Finance departments can start considering how OBIEE can replace/ compliment their MS Access systems. In response to a question on this I replied with the following:

"A little background - I have been implementing MS Access systems for 10 years, and I think they are great. The speed to deliver, the power of the analysis, the very useful VBA make a great product for Finance departments. I came across OBIEE (in previous forms) 5 years ago and found that it solved the big problem of Access databases being restricted to a local team. Using them across the world was very difficult. We needed to report in Australia and USA using European data.

OBIEE can be very quick to develop in (if your IT and project team will let you) you can create reports based upon a standard definitions (i.e. measures created in the rpd), and you do not have to extract massive volumes out of one database to be able to combine with another - we had to put CRM data next to HR data, next to Finance data.

Any good product can be badly implemented, and IT departments can hold you back from doing the quick data analysis you need to do for your job, so using Access gives you freedom to develop what you want when you want - YOU are in control. Treat OBIEE in the same way. Get the IT dept to set up the infrastructure, YOU control the rpd and the reporting.

Best of all - you can put OBIEE on top of Access - best of both worlds."

Quiet Christmas

I had a few emails, texts and calls today from people who are available for work. Good Siebel Analytics / OBIEE consultants who may be having an extended xmas holiday!

If you have a need for someone for short or long term please get in touch and I'll forward their details on.

You may have noticed me being busy on LinkedIn recently. I have managed to build a good network of OBIEE consultants, and even started a group specifically for Oracle Business Intelligence consultants. This should benefit us all when it comes to project requirements.
Go to http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/43109/526A0219C124 and I'll add you in (I only add in OBI consultants and related workers).

I have also been busy on the Oracle OBIEE forum, reading the issues that people have. It annoys me when someone clearly hasn't read the manual or even tried to find the answer to something before posting a request.

Each day I always check out Venkats postings on his blog. He has a great job - he just gets to play with OBIEE all day and write about the new stuff.

Talking of new stuff, the new functionality in 10.1.3.3.xyz, which allows you to call Oracle functions will be a greta boost for the product. Up until now I have seriously wondered by you need a BLOB in an Analytics but now we get to put pictures from a database in you reports.

I was sceptical about the time series functions, particularly as they were causing some people problems, but I have now converted over completely and so far so good. Let me know what you think.

Have you noticed that when you use the functions editor you now get something more useful when you add the function - it actually now tells you what arguments it requires instead of <>. I tended to copy the contents of the edit box into TextPad but may start using the editor more now.

I notice there are more and more companies that are offering OBIEE and Siebel Analytics consultancy. Those of us that were using the product over 4 years ago are seeing others trying to muscle in. All I can say is How much do you really know?? There are so many stories at conference from clients that say their implementation failed due to the integrator not having the right skills. We ALL need to make sure the product is not undermined by consultants who frankly do not have a clue. If you are in a pitch to a client sell your real experience and don't let beginners run your project.

I am still building the OBIEE information website, if you would like to have a listing just let me know.

That's all for now Folks!

Trimming

One little 'feature' of OBIEE keeps popping up in my projects - Automatic Trimming.
If you have a field with data, or calculated field, that has a trailing space in then OBIEE can remove the space for you.
This can lead to some issues, particularly when drilling down.Lets say you have a report with :

DimA Top Level Fact 1.
ABC 123

and the true value of DimA is 'ABC ' - note the space
The value displayed in the report is ABC, clicking on the value will start the drill down, using a filter of 'WHERE DIMA = ABC'
Of course NO data is returned.

The solution is to either make sure none of the data has trailing spaces or add the TRIM function. TRIM ( BOTH ' ' FROM DIMA) will do the trick.

TO_CHAR

I noticed this first when using the TO_CHAR function.If you to_char a date into month name (usually using OBIEE Function MONTHNAME) then the answer you get back is always 9 characters, which means AUGUST has three trailing spaces.You therefore have to trim the answer.

Hide

Airport lounge again.

Why do people think that business travel is glamorous?



ANYway, I'm bored enough to finally figure out how people are hiding their contacts in LinkedIn. There is a setting you can change in the profile, but I'll let you find out how.

The big question is why you would hide your contacts.

The whole point of LinkedIn is to NETWORK, make contact with people in your business area and share information, ideas, recruit, learn.

I suspect it the recruit thing that puts people off. I do know that recruitment agencies will use the system to their advantage, but surely it is to your advantage too - you get to find out about roles.

Anyway, feel free to browse through my contacts, and if you see someone you may need - a fellow OBIEE consultant maybe - then get in touch with them.

Complete Blogger

Like all good bloggers I am finally able to sit in an airport lounge and write something about my day.

I'm off to a client in the North so am flying out of Southampton.
I may go to the pub tonight and may have a dinner with someone.

Whilst there, I will work on some issues with OBIEE 10.1.3.3.

There.
done it.

I am now a complete blogger !!!

New LinkedIn Group

If you are using the Networking tool LinkedIn, I have created a group for Oracle Business Intellegence professionals. Look out for the group on my profile, and join in if you think it is appropriate for you.
I will connect anyone who is working in OBIEE, Siebel Analytics, Oracle Business Intelgence (such as OWB).

http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/43109/526A0219C124

OBI EE Consultants Needed

The OBIEE world is still going strong and demand is high. We need a couple more consultants - one experienced contractor for a project in Germany where we are the technical leaders, and one junior (on a decent salary).

If you are ready for a new project/consultancy then do get in touch.

Remembrance Day petition

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/remembermonday/

A petition has been launched requesting a new public holiday falling on the Monday after Rembrance Sunday in November each year.

To be known as the National Remembrance Holiday, it's purpose is threefold:

1. To emphasise the remembrance of those servicemen and women who have given, and continue to give, their lives for Britain.
2. To remind people of the importance of protecting our Nation and what it stands for.
3. To break that 3 month period between the August Public Holiday and Christmas when there are currently no long weekends, especially as the UK has fewer public holidays than most European Countries.

If you are in agreement, please sign up to the petition
- it only takes a few moments - and it would be great if you were minded to forward the link to other people as well.


Thank you for your time.

Using Catalog Manager

If you want to have a consistent Header or Footer on each page of your dashboards then you can add the default settings to your custom messages file and all NEW reports will have the same settings. You can edit these settings per page afterwards. However, if you have built loads of pages on various dashboards and the Business Analyst comes along and says, 'oh I forgot to say we need a confidentiallity clause at the bottom of each page' you smile through gritted teeth and are faced with a large task of opening each page and editing the print formatting. If you have lots of formats to make this can take some time. The alternative is to dig into the Catalog manager and edit the xml for each page directly. This takes half the time to go through each page. Open the Catalog Manager and navigate to the _portals folder.







Now select the properties for the page (make sure you don't pick the dashboard layout).























Edit the page xml.





The trick here is not to write your own xml!! Copy the xml from one you set up manually in the dashboard editor.

Here I copied in a message about the system being restricted and a nice green message!

The tag added is saw:pageProps

notice saw:pageHeader show="false" / and saw:showFooter showondashboard="true" show="true"

simple really.

UI Messages

The most popular customisation for OBIEE is the colour scheme, which you will know is done by Skin/Schema.
This is great but you then come to change the wording and it is not done by skin/schema.
You can update the file uimessages.xml to change the links on the menu, so for example Dashboards could be replaced with 'Sailing' and the link can be changed (in the controlmessages.xml file), but this covers all skins being presented. On of the forum responses recently suggested that the javascript can be altered on a skin by skin basis but I can't find any reference to the messages being presented. I'll keep looking but if you know send a quick reply :)

The normal method for updating messages is to create an entry in your custom messages file, but htis requires you to know which message table the message relates to. This would be fine but this area is not fully documented (in the public domain at least:).

I'll experiment and let you know if I can find the relevent massage table setting to use. In the meantime this type of message customisation has to take place in the original files (which you hopfully have a backup of!)

New Version of OBIEE

Version 10.1.3.3.3.1..3.1.1.2..3.1..3. of OBI Enterprise Edition is now released.

It's got some new stuff in.

How exciting!

Ex-Oracle

NOT quite sure why it exists, but I just found a forum for ex-Oracle employees. Probably useful for networking with people who left to earn a decent wage contracting.
It was listed in the LinkedIn groups section.
Have a look at http://www.ex-oracle.org/html/index.php

Act as

Nicholas De Brabanter has a good article on this.

http://www.be-ice.eu/2007/10/04/how-enabling-and-configuring-the-obiee-proxy-act-as-functionality

I found this link the other day. It lists the average rate for OBI consultants in the USA.

http://www.hotgigs.com/rates/skill/Oracle-Business-Intelligence-hourly-consultant-bill-rates/

At 137 dollars for an average consultant and on a straight conversion these look slightly lower than the UK, but the cost of living over there is lower.

Foreign Travel

So lets recap....


Ireland - Two OBI/Analytics required
Amsterdam - One senior OBIEE
Midlands - One OBIEE expert
France - 2 month contract for Siebel Analytics
London - Training x 2

then along comes Australia !!!! Anyone fancy going to Sydney for the winter?

Where's my suitcase.

Seriously, there is more work than I can handle, but rates are still tight. If you fancy trying out contracting then get in touch and I'll point you in the right direction

- Adrian
adrian.ward@majendi.com