Default Dashboard OBIEE

How to set a the default dashboard for an user in Oracle BI Enterprise Edition is an frequendly asked question.

In the administration tool create the variable PORTALPATH and give this variable the value of the Dashboard path
.

The value of this variable look like this: /shared/quaesto/_portal/quaesto rapportages

IT-eye » Subtemplates in BI-publisher

One of the great options of BI-publisher is using subtemplates. Here IT-eye » Subtemplates in BI-publisher you can find the article I wrote.

OBIEE (10.1.3) and multiple presentation services (WINDOWS)

One of the issues with the Oracle BI environment is how to create multiple presentation services. One of the reason why customers want this is for installing one machine with multiple environments ie. DEV en ACC. The documentation of the OBIEE suite is mentions that the above question can be done, but not in detail!

This article shows in detail how to create multiple OBIEE presentation environments on a Windows machine. The steps we have to do for creating a second (or more) presentation services are the following:
1.- Deploy a new version of de application analytics;
2. - Create a new catalog;
3. - Change/create configuration files;
4. - Create startup files.

Ad 1
Deploying a new instance of the analytics application can be done from the Entripise Manager (http://server_name:9704/em).
1. - Click on the deploy button and choose the correct archive.
2. - Click on next (step 2 - applicaton attributes) and a new deployment plan will be created. Now you are on the second step and you can enter a new application name. In this case I call the application analytics_test. Also change the context_root into analytics_test.
3. - Click again on the next-button (step 3 - deployment settings), leave all the values as is and click on the deploy button.

After these three steps the new presentation service (analytics_test) is available. For this presentation service we want to create a new catalog.

Ad 2
Copying the original catalog into another directory is how to create the new catalog. Copy the directory OracleBIData\web\catalog to OracleBIData\web\catalog_test. Now the new catalog-directory is ready to use and should be entered in the configuration file ( instanceconfig.xml).

Ad 3
Now we have created the new presentation service and the catalog for this service we have to change/create the configuration files. The default configuration file (instanceconfig.xml) tells us which listener-port, catalog and which presentation service will be used.
1. - Make a copy of the original instanceconfig.xml en name this file instanceconfig_9710.xml. Also make a second copy of the original file and name this file instanceconfig_9712.xml
2. - Set the DSN to the correct repository. In this example I use the repository paint with DSN-name analyticsweb_paint. Change the default repository to paint.rpd.
3. - Change the listener port in file instanceconfig_9710.xml into 9710. Also change the listener port in file instanceconfig_9712.xml into 9712.
4. - Change the catalogpath in instanceconfig_9710.xml into %SADATADIR%/web/catalog/paint. Also change the catalogpath in instanceconfig_9712.xml into
%SADATADIR%/web/catalog_test/paint.
5. - Edit %SAROOTDIR%\oc4j_bi\j2ee\home\applications\analytics_test\analytics\WEB-INF\web.xml file to make this deployment point to another instance of your presentation service. Search for oracle.bi.presentation.sawserver.port and change the param-value into 9712.

After creating the new configuration files we can start the presentation services.

Ad 4
To start the new presentation services we create two shortcuts. These shortcuts have the targets:
- sawserver.exe -c %SADATADIR%\web\config\instanceconfig_9710.xml
- sawserver.exe -c %SADATADIR%\web\config\instanceconfig_9712.xml

Starting the instances opens a DOS-box with a running presentation service. After the presentation services are started we can login and type the following url in your webbrowser:
- http://server_name:9704/analytics
- http://server_name:9704/analytics_test



Both the presentation services refere to one repository file (paint.rpd) but you now have the ability to create different reports, dashboards etc in different presentation services.

Narrative view

A very often heard question of customers is: Can we add explanatory text into an report defined in OBI EE. The answer is yes and the report-view you need to use is narrative.

By defining variables in the administrator tool and using them in an Answer-report you can add explanatory text that is stored in any database.

Repository variables can be assigned in 2 ways. One is assigned a value directly to the variable and the other is via Initialization Blocks.

This example has an variable which is based on a Initilization block.





If we want to add some explanatory text to an Answer report we can use the narrative view. In this narrative view we can use the just created variable. In order to access this Repository variable from Answers you need the following syntax:

@{biServer.variables['variablename']}

@{biServer.variables['var_country']}

Disable My Dashboard

Disabeling a users dashboard (my dashboard) is an option in the OBI EE tool that you want to set. Searching through all the OBIEE documentatian this is a hard job.

If you want to disable the "My Dashboard" option for an user you should logon as an Administrator. Go to settings, administration and click on the activity "Manage Privileges". Find the privilege "Personal Storage (My Folders and My Dashboard)" in the Catalog categorie. By clicking the Presntation Server Administrator you can grant/revoke an user from his/her dashboard.

OBI EE LDAP issue

I have a customer who wants his OBIEE security arranged through an LDAP server. When I create a connection to the LDAP-server (windows domain (ADSI) ) and I test the connection everything works fine. After that I would like to import the user from the LDAP-server, but I receive the error 53014 (Not supported for Active Directory Services).

Searching the above message on the internet did not gave me any suggestions, so I tried to create another sollution. In stead of using the windows domain LDAP-server I made a connection with OID. This works fine and importing the users from OID works fine also.

I do not want to import the users from OID into Oracle BI Server but only want to check during logon if the combination of the username/password is correct. Now I want to grant a report on my dashboard to a user that is listed in OID. I have searched in all the OBIEE documentation and several websites but I cannot find any suggestions.

Any suggestions where I can grant a report to an user that is listed in the OID?