Guidelines for a Tableau Guided Evaluation:

1.      Download the Tableau Software from our website and connect to data, http://www.tableausoftware.com/products/trial?os=windowsn  (Subject Matter Experts will author analysis assets related to their specific use case)

2.      Meet with the Tableau Team to review your data sets and learn/review best practices to consume them in Tableau.

3.      Utilize the free training materials to get started (On Demand on Request)

4.      Build your first Tableau workbooks and publish them to Tableau Server or Tableau Online.

5.      Meet with a Tableau product expert to go through Q&A, and assistance with the Tableau Workbooks you have built. (I can arrange for this hour to be onsite or over the phone)

6.      Affirmation:  Give the user community access to the Tableau Workbooks along with a simple questionnaire to affirm or negate value in the solution. (This is not required, but can be a great way to affirm the need or lack thereof on spending money for the solution.)

Community Forum, http://community.tableausoftware.com/welcome

What's new in the latest Power BI Desktop update? August 2018 Update (2.61.5192.321)

Hi All,

Power BI Server Reports ... Now, with THEMES!!!

...With Report Themes you can apply a color theme to your entire report, such as corporate colors, seasonal coloring, or any other color theme you might want to apply. When you apply a Report Theme, all visuals in your report use the colors from your selected theme (a few exceptions apply, described later in this article).

Here are the new features Clickhere

OBIEE 11g Configuration and Log Files Location and Scripts Locations

In this post, we are going to see where the log files in OBIEE 11g reside.

In OBIEE 11g, we have got Enterprise Manager Console, where we can check log files but we can still see these files in OBIEE install directory.

1. NQSConfig.INI and logconfig.xml

\OBI11G\instances\instance1\config\OracleBIServerComponent\coreapplication_obis1

2. instanceconfig.xml

\instances\instance1\config\OracleBIPresentationServicesComponent\coreapplication_obips1

3. ClusterConfig.xml
ccslogging.xml

\instances\instance1\config\OracleBIApplication\coreapplication

4. instanceconfig.xml (Second instanceconfig.xml dedicated file for BI Scheduler)
\instances\instance1\config\OracleBISchedulerComponent\coreapplication_obisch1

5. config.xml and logging_config.xml
\instances\instance1\config\OracleBIJavaHostComponent\coreapplication_obijh1

6. bridgeconfig.properties (For BI Persentation services Plug-in)

\OBI11G\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\config\fmwconfig\biinstances\coreapplication

7. opmn.xml (OPMN Config file)
/OBI11G/instance/instance1/config/OPMN/opmn/opmn.xml
(It contains the PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH values for the system components and the port number for OPMN and optional SSL configuration.)

8. boot.properties
/OBI11G/user_projects/domains/bifoundation_domain/servers/[managed_server]/security

Script Files

1. startNodeManager.sh
(Must be started to allow Managed Server to be started from Weblogic console)
/OBI11G/wlserver_10.3/server/bin/startNodeManager.sh

2. opmnctl(Command line tool to start BI services)

/OBI11G/instance/instance1/bin
— OPMN can be used to automatically start BI on a Linux system. To do that following commands must be included in opmn startup script:

/OBI11G/instance/instance1/bin ./opmnctl startall

3. startWebLogic.sh(Script to start Weblogic server)

/OBI11G/user_projects/domains/bifoundation_domain/bin.

./startManagedWebLogic.sh
/OBI11G/user_projects/domains/bifoundation_domain/bin

To start Managed Server – But this typically can be started from Webogic Console after weblogic server is in running mode.

./startManagedWebLogic.sh bi_server1 http://administration_server_host_name:7001

Log Files:

1. Admin Server (Or weblogic server issues)
\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\AdminServer\logs

2. Managed Server
\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\bi_server1\logs\

3. BI Server
\OBI11G\instance\instance1\diagnostics\logs\OracleBIServerComponent\coreapplication_obis1

4. BI Persentation Server:
\OBI11G\instance\instance1\diagnostics\logs\OracleBIPresentationServicesComponent\coreapplication_obips1

WebLogic Server Log Locations in OBIEE 11g

BI Managed Server:

OBIEE_HOME\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\bi_server1\logs

bi_server1.log – For any issues related to bi_server1

Admin Server:

OBIEE_HOME\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\AdminServer\logs

AdminServer.log – For any issues related to AdminServer

Starting and Stopping OBIEE

Note that in your environment, some paths and locations of files may be different because your system may have been configured differently from the examples in the following sections.

Starting OBIEE

1. Sign onto the Linux server using the non-privileged username (for example, Imran).
2. Start the node manager.
1. cd /u01/app/oracle/product/fmw/wlserver_10.3/server/bin
2. nohup ./startNodeManager.sh &
3. Start OHS (skip this step for non-SSO systems).
1. cd /u01/app/oracle/product/fmw/Oracle_WT1/instances/instance2/bin
2. ./opmnctl startall
3. Verify startup using command ./opmnctl status
4. Start the WebLogic administration server.
1. cd /u01/app/oracle/product/fmw/user_projects/domains/bifoundation_domain/bin
2. nohup ./startWebLogic.sh &
5. Start OBIEE server using WebLogic Server Admin Console.
1. Login into the WebLogic Server Admin Console using the WebLogic administrator username.
2. In the Domain Structure pane on the left, expand Environment.
3. Under Environment, select Servers.
4. In the Summary of Servers pane, select the Control tab.
5. Click the checkbox next to bi_server1, and click the Start button.
6. Watch bi_server1 until it starts (usually around 2-3 minutes).
6. Start opmnctl processes.
1. cd /u01/app/oracle/product/fmw/instances/instance1/bin
2. ./opmnctl startall
3. Verify startup using command ./opmnctl status. Repeat until all processes show status of Alive.
4. If any process fails to start, try command ./opmnctl restartproc

Stopping OBIEE

1. Sign onto the Linux server using the non-privileged username (for example, oemora).
2. Stop opmnctl processes.
1. cd /u01/app/oracle/product/fmw/instances/instance1/bin
2. ./opmnctl stopall
3. Stop OBIEE server using WebLogic Server Admin Console.
1. Login into the WebLogic Server Admin Console using the WebLogic administrator username.
2. In the Domain Structure pane on the left, expand Environment.
3. Under Environment, select Servers.
4. In the Summary of Servers pane, select the Control tab.
5. Click the checkbox next to bi_server1, and click the Shutdown button.
6. Watch bi_server1 until it shuts down (usually less than a minute).
4. Stop the WebLogic administration server.
1. cd /u01/app/oracle/product/fmw/user_projects/domains/bifoundation_domain/bin
2. ./stopWebLogic.sh
5. Stop OHS (skip this step for non-SSO systems).
1. cd /u01/app/oracle/product/fmw/Oracle_WT1/instances/instance2/bin
2. ./opmnctl stopall

Good Luck...

OBIEE 12c is released - Its all about new features and more

OBIEE 12c is released. This version is another major release from Oracle after OBIEE 10g , 11g and now 12c. This version has many improvements, Enhancements, and advanced new features in installation, migration, analyses and dashboards, Oracle BI Mobile, Oracle BI Publisher, metadata repository development, system administration, integration and API, and localization.

Download link: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-enterprise-edition/downloads/business-intelligence-2717951.html

Documentation: http://docs.oracle.com/middleware/1221/biee/index.html

Highlights:

New Features in Presentation Services:

1. Visual Analyzer: A brand new powerful visualization application in OBIEE Suite. VA provides greater flexibility to Rapidly create rich analyses through drag-and-drop configuration of new visual grammar. Using VA we can build the reports from the sources OBIEE repository and also from external content.
2. New Heat Matrix view type to represent the two-dimensional data. This is well suited for analyzing large amounts of data and identifying outliers.
3. Views Enhancements: New context menu (Right Click) on all graphs & other views to sort, drill.
4. New Data Format properties “Scale for % (x 100)”: Specify whether to multiply data by a 100 to display it as a percentage when setting the properties of a column

New Features in BI Server:

1. Logical Level Sequence Numbers for Time Dimensions for faster time series calculations. And to improve the query time.
2. DISPLAY, SORTKEY Syntax Supported in the SQL ORDER BY Expression
3. Oracle Database FAN & Connection Failover Supported by Oracle BI Server
4. Generate Fragmented Aggregates in Aggregate Persistence
5. Following New Command Line utilities are added
6. Download Repository
7. Upload Repository
8. List Connection Pool
9. Update Connection Pool
10. Rename Application Role
11. Delete Application Role
12. Rename Users
13. Delete Users
14. List Repository Variables
15. Update Repository Variables

New Features in Administration:

Installation: Much faster and straight forward. And mostly, the configurations & folders directories are simple and clean.

NO more OPMN, all services including OBI System & Java services are managed by WebLogic.

Migrating from OBIEE 11g to 12c: We can migrate the Oracle BI 11g metadata to 12c is a two step process, and is carried out by using the BI Migration Script (migration-tool.sh). The catalog and WebLogic Security configurations needs to be reconfigured/migrated like in OBIEE 11g.

BAR (BI Archive file): A new archive format which contains OBIEE Catalog, RPD and Security packaged in one file. The file will be created in current environment and imported in Target environment. The BAR file creation process has following options while creating it.

export all: To export everything including users and data sources are the same between two systems.

export without user folder content: Migrating the Catalog without the User’s Folders.

export without connection pool credentials: Migrating the upgraded RPD from one environment to another without connection Pool information. When Imported the BAR in Target environment, The RPD will be updated the new changed by not changing the Target System Connection Pool Information.

Syntax:

Creating the BAR File from Current Environment: 

exportServiceInstance(domainHome, serviceInstanceKey, workDir, exportDir, applicationName=None, applicationDesc=None, applicationVersion=None, includeCatalogRuntimeInfo=false, includeCredentials=None)

Importing the BAR file in Target environment:

importServiceInstance(domainHome, serviceInstanceKey, barfile)

New Features in Security:

BISystemUser and BISystem Removed, No need to have BISystemUser in LDAP. The system user concept is now deemed “virtual” and is represented by the credential oracle.bi.system/system.user, for which the values are securely randomly generated by the Configuration Assistant.
User GUIDs Removed: user GUIDs have been removed to make administration easier. GUIDs are replaced with user names. There is no longer any need to refresh GUIDs as part of lifecycle operations
Database Security Store: Policy & Credential store is configured in database instead of the file System-jazn & etc.
Easier SSL Configuration: Configuring SSL is much easier than earlier versions.
Overall this is a great release after OBIEE 11g from Oracle. Best version to start exploring and do great analysis.


Stay tuned for more interesting articles on OBIEE 12c here.

Thanks
Imran Rahman

Rounding on Hours and Minutes In OBIEE 11g.

I am trying to get round problem of the timestamp diff field giving incorrect rounding on hours and minutes. OBIEE won't provide any fucntions to resolve (hrs.minutes.seconds.

I used time stamp diff minutes and want to take total minutes and divide by 60, to get hours, so 70 mins would be 1.16' hours. Answers always rounds up, so this would become 2 hours. Is there a way of getting results to 2 decimal places.

1 st Attemp: TIMESTAMPDIFF(SQL_TSI_MINUTE,"Execution Plan Run"."Execution Plan Start Time" , "Execution Plan Run"."Execution Plan End Time")/60.000000000001

2 nd attempt: ROUND(cast(TIMESTAMPDIFF(SQL_TSI_MINUTE,"Execution Plan Run"."Execution Plan Start Time" , "Execution Plan Run"."Execution Plan End Time")/60 as real),3)

 3 rd attempt: TIMESTAMPDIFF(SQL_TSI_MINUTE,"Execution Plan Run"."Execution Plan Start Time" , "Execution Plan Run"."Execution Plan End Time")/cast(60 as real)

Nothing is working out... then I tried in SQL Developer, somethiing like this:

 SELECT TIME_IN_MIN,TRUNC(TIME_IN_MIN/60)||'HR'||' '||(TIME_IN_MIN - TRUNC(TIME_IN_MIN/60)*60)||'MINS' AS HR_MINS FROM TESTTIME;

In OBIEE  >column propeties >edit properties fx> enter below sql

cast(cast(TRUNCATE(TIMESTAMPDIFF(SQL_TSI_MINUTE,"Execution Plan Run"."Execution Plan Start Time" , "Execution Plan Run"."Execution Plan End Time")/60, 0) as int) as char) || ' HR ' || cast(cast(TIMESTAMPDIFF(SQL_TSI_MINUTE,"Execution Plan Run"."Execution Plan Start Time" , "Execution Plan Run"."Execution Plan End Time") - (TRUNCATE(TIMESTAMPDIFF(SQL_TSI_MINUTE,"Execution Plan Run"."Execution Plan Start Time" , "Execution Plan Run"."Execution Plan End Time")/60, 0) * 60) as int)as char) || ' Min'

Note: As i mentioned earlier there is no report functionality in the front end to achive easily by using functions.This query will resolve the issue like rounding in OBIEE application.