OBIEE 11g deployments on 64 bit environments must use "Software-Only" install method

After a couple of failed troubleshooting attempts on an issue with the new graphics engine not rendering charts on some of my client’s dashboards, Oracle Support has made me aware that customers deploying OBIEE 11g on 64 bit environments should use the “Software-only” install method instead of going through with the Enterprise install method.

As you can see in the picture below I myself used the Enterprise install on my Oracle Virtual Box / SUSE Linux virtual machine.

OBIEE 11g deployments on 64 bit environments must use “Software-Only” install method

I will work on a new virtual machine install over the weekend using the software-only method. Look for an update soon, in the mean time check out the release notes with the information about 64 bit support.

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E14571_01/doc.1111/e14770/biee.htm#CHDIHIE

DVT Graphs in OBI EE

Just like in OBI 10g; especially BI Publisher, not all charts available in the code base were made available via the front-end wizards. So, I was curious if there are other charts available in OBI 11g as well. If so, how can I leverage them if at all.

The graphic engine for the BI 11g components including BI Publisher is DVT (Data Visualization Tools).

DVT has available the following graph types:

Area	Bar
Bubble	Combo
Funnel	Horizontal bar
Line	Pareto
Pie	Radar
Scatter	Stock

Of these, only Stock graphs appear to be not available through the OBI EE 11g front-end for analyses.

Examples of additional vertical bar graphs not included in the OBIEE 11g wizard include many of Dual-Y and Split Dual-Y. However, they are included in the BI Publisher wizard as seen from the screen shot here.

The Floating Stacked Bar graph is available in ADF DVT, but is not available in either wizard.  I will state it is possible to create a floating bar graph, but it requires some tricks to be applied in OBI EE.

Let’s continue deeper and look at the sub-types available in DVT for each graph type and identify which can be created in OBI EE 11g.

DVT Graph Type	DVT Sub-Type	Description	In OBI
Area	Vertical ABS	An absolute area graph	Y
	Vertical ABS Split 2Y	An absolute area graph with split dual-Y axis	N
	Vertical Percent	A percent area graph	Y
	Vertical Stack	A stacked area graph	Y
	Vertical Stack Split 2 Y	A stacked area graph with split dual-Y axis	N
Bar Horizontal Bar	Vertical Cluster	Clustered bar graph that has a vertical orientation	Y
Vertical Cluster Split 2Y	Clustered, split dual-Y bar graph that is vertical	N
	Vertical Cluster 2Y	Clustered, dual-Y bar graph that is vertical	N
	Vertical Float Stack	Floating stacked bar graph that is vertical	N
	Vertical Percent	Percent bar graph that is vertical	N
	Vertical Stack	Stacked bar graph that is vertical	Y
	Vertical Stack Split 2Y	Stacked, split dual-Y bar graph that is vertical	N
	Vertical Stack 2Y	Stacked, dual-Y bar graph that is vertical	N
	Horizontal Cluster	Clustered bar graph that has a Horizontal orientation	Y
	Horizontal Cluster Split 2Y	Clustered, split dual-Y bar graph that is Horizontal	N
	Horizontal Cluster 2Y	Clustered, dual-Y bar graph that is Horizontal	N
	Horizontal Percent	Percent bar graph that is Horizontal	N
	Horizontal Stack	Stacked bar graph that is Horizontal	Y
	Horizontal Stack Split 2Y	Stacked, split dual-Y bar graph that is Horizontal	N
	Horizontal Stack 2Y	Stacked, dual-Y bar graph that is Horizontal	N
Bubble	Bubble	Bubble graph	Y
	Bubble 2Y	Dual-Y bubble graph	N
Combo	Combination Vertical ABS	Absolute vertical combination graph	Y
	Combination Vertical ABS 2Y	Absolute 2Y vertical combination graph	Y
Funnel	Funnel	Funnel Chart	Y
Line	Vertical ABS	Absolute line graph	Y
	Vertical ABS 2Y	Absolute, dual-Y line graph	N
	Vertical ABS Split 2Y	Absolute, split dual-Y line graph	N
	Vertical Percent	Percent line graph	N
	Vertical Stack	Stacked line graph	N
	Vertical Stack 2Y	Stacked, dual-Y line graph	N
	Vertical Stack Split 2Y	Stacked, split dual-Y line graph	N
Pareto	Pareto	Pareto graph	Y
Pie	Pie	Pie graph	Y
	Pie Bar	Pie-Bar graph	N
	Pie Multi	Multiple pie graph	Y
	Ring	Ring graph	N
	Ring Bar	Ring-Bar graph	N
	Ring Multi	Multiple Ring graph	N
Radar	Radar Line	Radar graph	Y
Scatter	Polar	Polar graph	N
	Scatter	Scatter graph	Y
	Scatter 2Y	Dual-Y scatter graph	N
Stock	Stock Candle	Candle open-close stock graph	N
	Stock Candle Volume	Candle open-close stock with volume	N
	Stock HILO Close	High-low-close stock graph	N
	Stock HILO Close Volume	High-low-close stock graph with volume	N
	Stock OHLC Candle	Candle open-high-low-close stock graph	N
	Stock OHLC Candle Volume	Candle open-high-low-close stock graph with volume	N
	Stack Open HILO Close	Open-high-low-close stock graph	N
	Stock Volume	Open-high-low-close stock graph with volume	N

You may not find all the sub-types marked with ‘Y’ in the list of graph types through OBI EE as they are listed here. In some cases, you need to modify the properties of the base graph to achieve the desired sub-type.

It makes sense that some of the unavailable sub-types would not exist in an analytical tool like OBI EE, but does that mean I cannot leverage them if I have the data and need? I will look at ways it may be possible to leverage some of these “unavailable” sub-types within OBI EE in future entries.

DVT does include other graphical components besides Graphs which are also leveraged within OBI EE 11g. Some of which are included as other types of analysis views; Gauges, Pivot Tables, Maps. Gantt Charts are also available in DVT, but it kind of makes sense they would not be available in OBI EE.

I am going to close this entry with the following tidbits of information between some differences from 10g to 11g charting.

How Has the Behavior of Charts Created in Previous Releases Changed?

Note the following changes in the behavior of charts (known as graphs in this release) that were created in previous releases:

· In this release for a pareto graph, the vertical axis 2 ranges from 0% to 100%. Therefore, you cannot change the abbreviation that is used for scale and data labels, (for example, you cannot change it to Million(m)). You also cannot override the default numeric format in which data labels are currently displayed.

· In this release for a scatter graph, unlike in previous releases, the scatter graph does not require at least one attribute column on the Group By axis.

· In this release for a stacked vertical bar graph and a stacked horizontal bar graph, the order of stacking is the reverse of the order in previous releases.

· In this release for a gauge, the ranges must be continuous (for example, range1: 1-200, range2: 200-400, and range3: 400-500). In previous releases, ranges that were not continuous were allowed (for example, range1: 0-200, range2: 400-500, and range3: 200-400).

· In this release, the logarithmic scale behaves in the following ways:

o If you specify the scale limits, then the scale limits for the logarithmic scale must be powers of 10 only. If the number that you specify is not an exact power of 10, then the power of 10 closest to the number that you specify is used.

o If you let the system determine the scale, then the lower limit changes dynamically based on the measure used.

In previous releases, the logarithmic scale behaved in the following ways:

o If you specified the scale limits, then the scale limits for the logarithmic scale were numbers fully divisible by 10. If the number that you specified was not divisible by 10, then the number closest to the number that you specified that was fully divisible by 10 was used.

o If you let the system determine the scale, then the lower limit always started at 1 and the upper limit changed based on the measures used.

Working with Users in the Repository File

For OBIEE 11g, User definitions and group membership are created and maintained in the identity store. The permission grants for a user are derived by determining what groups they are a member of, and then determining which application roles those groups are mapped to in the policy store. Additional permissions can be inherited by nature of the application role hierarchy.

Information maintained in the identity and policy stores is often needed during repository development. To facilitate this development, a copy of objects that have properties specific to metadata is kept in the repository file and can be viewed using the Administration Tool. For example, user information is added to the Administration Tool copy after a data filter, or object permission, or query limit is generated.

Information displayed in the Administration Tool is not in real time and any user, group, or application changes made in the identity and policy stores cannot be seen when working offline. The contents of this copy are updated whenever BI Server is restarted.

To add user attributes used by the repository:

1. Open a repository in the Administration Tool.

2. Display the Security Manager by selecting Manage then Identity.

3. Select BI Repository and double-click the user name from Users Tab located in the right pane.

4. If you want to log queries for this user in the query log, change the query logging level to 1 or 2.

5. Click OK.

6. To modify permissions for the user, open the Users dialog by double-clicking the user icon you want to modify. If you click Object Permissions, you can change permissions for Presentation objects, Marketing objects, and Connection Pool.

7. You can grant rights to the user individually, through application roles, or a combination of the two. To grant membership in an application role, select as many as you want the user to be a part of in the Application Role Membership portion of the dialog.

8. To specify database logon IDs for one or more databases, type the appropriate user names and passwords for the user in the Logons tab of the User dialog.

If a user specifies database-specific logon IDs in the DSN used to connect to BI Server, the logon IDs in the DSN are used if the administrative user has configured a connection pool with no default database-specific logon ID and password. For information about configuring the connection pools to support database-specific logon IDs, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Metadata Repository Builder’s Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.

9. Set up any query permissions for the user. For more information, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Metadata Repository Builder’s Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition for more information.

What Good are Selection Steps? Aren’t they just filters?

When I first saw selection steps in OBIEE 11g, I thought what are these for? I started playing with them and found some nice uses for them, which can save development time and deliver results easier than what was required in OBIEE 10g.

Let’s take an example of where I want to look at 3 years of information which is based on top products (> $1,000,000) for 2008; so that, I can see how these products are doing in recent years. I want to achieve results like the following:

Let’s look at how we can accomplish this using OBIEE 10g. I don’t have a 10g environment that looks at the same data set; so, I will use the 11g environment and go through what would be done in 10g to achieve the same results.

So, my first step would be to find the list of Products from 2008 that meet the $1,000,000 mark. So, creating a report with the appropriate filters will return the product list I need.

Sure enough, I get the same 6 products as displayed in the result set I am trying to obtain.

I will just save that report as “Top Selling Product List for 2008”.

Now, I need to get my 3 years of data by Product for this same list of Products. So, I start by creating a new report and filtering for the 3 years I want.

Verifying the results

Now I need to filter my new report using the product list by adding a filter based on the results of the first report.

Checking the results with this new filtering applied, we see we get the results we are trying to achieve.

So, we are able to achieve the results we want using a 10g reporting approach which requires multiple reports and special filtering.

Now, let’s see if “Selection Steps” makes the process simpler for us and if we are still able to achieve the same results.

Again we start with a new report and filter for the 3 years of information we want.

As before, we see we get the full list of products for the 3 years.

Now we will add a selection step instead of changing the report filters in the criteria tab. We select to add a New Step under Products and choose the “Apply a Condition” option.

We define the properties of our new step to match the requirements we were initially provided; you can see the properties we selected in the highlighted areas.

Clicking “OK” to accept our new step, we see we obtain the exact results we are trying to achieve.

Through the use of selection steps, we were able to create a somewhat complex 10g report simpler and faster in 11g.

As you probably noticed, there were 2 other options available to us when we decided to use selection steps which makes this an even more versatile tool in our report development.

Log Files in OBIEE 11g

It is always good to know where to find troubleshooting information.  With OBIEE 10g, most developers knew where to look for the log files which hopefully provided the information necessary to solve a problem.  What about with 11g?  Where are they and how can they be accessed?

You can check the different log files in the Oracle Business Intelligence (OBIEE).  The right way to check them is using the Enterprise Manager (EM) Console page.

EM Console. Login to the URL http://server.domain:7001/em and navigate to:
Farm_bifoundation_domain-> Business Intelligence-> coreapplications-> Dagnostics-> Log Messages

You will find the available files:

• Presentation Services Log
• Server Log
• Scheduler Log
• JavaHost Log
• Cluster Controller Log
• Action Services Log
• Security Services Log
• Administrator Services Log

However, you can also review them directly on the hard disk. 

The log files for OBIEE components are under <OBIEE_HOME>/instances/instance1/diagnostics/logs.  Specific log files and their location is defined in the following table:

Log	Location
Installation log	<OBIEE_HOME>/logs
nqquery log	<OBIEE_HOME>/instances/instance1/diagnostics/logs/OracleBIServerComponent/coreapplication_obis1
nqserver log	<OBIEE_HOME>/instances/instance1/diagnostics/logs/OracleBIServerComponent/coreapplication_obis1
servername_NQSAdminTool log	<OBIEE_HOME>/instances/instance1/diagnostics/logs/OracleBIServerComponent/coreapplication_obis1
servername_NQSUDMLExec log	<OBIEE_HOME>/instances/instance1/diagnostics/logs/OracleBIServerComponent/coreapplication_obis1
servername_obieerpdmigrateutil log (Migration log)	<OBIEE_HOME>/instances/instance1/diagnostics/logs/OracleBIServerComponent/coreapplication_obis1
sawlog0 log (presentation)	<OBIEE_HOME>/instances/instance1/diagnostics/logs/OracleBIPresentationServicesComponent/coreapplication_obips1
jh log (Java Host)	<OBIEE_HOME>/instances/instance1/diagnostics/logs/OracleBIJavaHostComponent\coreapplication_obijh
webcatupgrade log (Web Catalog Upgrade)	<OBIEE_HOME>/instances/instance1/diagnostics/logs/OracleBIPresentationServicesComponent/coreapplication_obips1
nqscheduler log (Agents)	<OBIEE_HOME>/instances/instance1/diagnostics/logsOracleBISchedulerComponent/coreapplication_obisch1
nqcluster log	<OBIEE_HOME>/instances/instance1/diagnostics/logs/OracleBIClusterControllerComponent\coreapplication_obiccs1
ODBC log	<OBIEE_HOME>/instances/instance1/diagnostics/logs/OracleBIODBCComponent/coreapplication_obips1
opmn log	<OBIEE_HOME>/instances/instance1/diagnostics/logs/OPMN/opmn
debug log	<OBIEE_HOME>/instances/instance1/diagnostics/logs/OPMN/opmn
logquery log	<OBIEE_HOME>/instances/instance1/diagnostics/logs/OPMN/opmn
service log	<OBIEE_HOME>/instances/instance1/diagnostics/logs/OPMN/opmn
opmn out	<OBIEE_HOME>/instances/instance1/diagnostics/logs/OPMN/opmn
Upgrade Assistant log	<OBIEE_HOME>Oracle_BI1/upgrade/logs

As can be seen in the table above, the normal logs that were known and used in 10g do exist in 11g as well.  11g just includes a number of new logs.

Using OAM and OVD in OBI EE 11g

A client I was working with had a situation with their OBI 11g (11.1.1.3) installation around their security authentication implementation.

They have 2 LDAPs; an Oracle Internet Directory (OID) LDAP for internal users and Active Directory (AD) for external users. Both LDAPs were mapped into Oracle Virtual Directory (OVD) with Oracle Access Manager (OAM). They needed a configuration which would allow both groups to be authenticated seamlessly. The internal users were not having a problem, but the external users were not getting authenticated.

The resolution to the problem highlights changes made to Oracle’s API for LDAP authentication support that is either not documented or unclear in the documentation. As you start working with clients and OBI 11g, I am sure there will be others using AD and OAM for authentication.

Oracle’s documentation shows that OAM is supported as an authenticator. According to Oracle Product Development (OPD), there was a change to the API for 11g where this is not accurate and there are no plans to change it. OAM could be used prior to the 11g release for WebLogic Fusion Middleware

What client ended up doing was to use OVD and OAM Asserter to handle the AD integration. OID has a default unique variable called orclguid. Although OBI itself does not use this variable, there are other aspects of the API that do look for it. In the OVD AD adapter, the client added a dummy orclguid variable and mapped the AD samaccoutname to it. This worked for them because there were no duplications between internal and external users. OPD stated this would work but that OVD has a unique guid variable and what could have been done was assign the unique variable value from each LDAP server to this OVD variable and achieve the same result without having to create the dummy entry.

With the LDAP servers mapped into the WebLogic Fusion Middleware, any value that is mapped; email, displayname, groups, etc., can now be retrieved from the LDAP servers and leveraged in OBI.

Here is a url to a blog which details the integration the client used.

http://idmconcepts.blogspot.com/2010/10/configuring-ovd-as-user-identity-store.html

Presentation Component, obips1, Will Not Start

I recently had to upgrade my WebLogic Server where my OBI EE 11g instance is running due to some additional software I installed. If you were not aware, the version delivered with 11.1.1.3 is WLS 10.3.3 and I needed 10.3.4. I had installed the upgrade WLS patch without a problem, but then my Presentation Component would not start. After checking the logs, I found that I had an Authentication issue even though I changed no user IDs or passwords. After a little reserach, I found where changing the LDAP servers could result in the GUIDs held in the LDAP servers to be out-of-sync when the LDAP servers are changed and I basically changed my LDAP server upon upgrading WLS. I was able to find a solution where the GUIDs stored in the BI Presentation Catalog or RPD can be resynchronized as follows:

To refresh the user GUIDs:

This task requires that you manually edit the configuration files to instruct Oracle BI Server and Oracle BI Presentation Server to refresh the GUIDs on restart. Once completed, you will edit these files to remove the modification. For information about where to locate Oracle Business Intelligence configuration files, see the section that describes where configuration files are located, in Oracle Fusion Middleware System Administrator’s Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition .

Note:

Refreshing the GUIDs requires that you stop and restart the System components from the command line and not Fusion Middleware Control. This includes the Administration Server and Managed Servers. After the Administration Server is stopped, you cannot start it from Fusion Middleware Control as it is not available during this time.

1. Open the NQSConfig.INI file for editing. For more information, see “Where are Configuration Files Located?” in Oracle Fusion Middleware System Administrator’s Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition .

2. Locate the setting FMW_UPDATE_ROLE_AND_USER_REF_GUIDS = NO and change its value to YES.

3. Modify the instanceconfig.xml file to instruct Oracle BI Presentation Server to refresh GUIDs on restart. Edit the file to add the last line in the following instruction.

4. <ps:Catalog xmlns:ps=”oracle.bi.presentation.services/config/v1.1”>

5. <ps:UpgradeAndExit>false</ps:UpgradeAndExit>

6. <ps:UpdateAccountGUIDs>UpdateAndExit<ps:UpdateAccountGUIDs>

7. From a terminal window, stop and restart the managed processes using the opmnctl parameters stopall and startall. You can use the parameter status to verify process status throughout.

The following components are involved: Oracle BI Presentation Server, Oracle BI Server, Oracle BI Scheduler, Oracle BI Cluster Controller, and Oracle BI JavaHost.

For information about using opmnctl commands, see “Using the OPMN command line to Start and Stop Oracle Business Intelligence System Components” in Oracle Fusion Middleware System Administrator’s Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition .

8. Edit the NQSConfig.INI file to reset the FMW_UPDATE_ROLE_AND_USER_REF_GUIDS = YES to NO and restart the Oracle BI Servers.

9. Remove, set to none, or comment out the line (see UpgradeAndExit in the following example) added to the instanceconfig.xml file (that instructs Oracle BI Presentation Server to refresh GUIDs on restart).

10. <ps:Catalog xmlns:ps=”oracle.bi.presentation.services/config/v1.1”>

11. <ps:UpgradeAndExit>false</ps:UpgradeAndExit>

12. <ps:UpdateAccountGUIDs>none<ps:UpdateAccountGUIDs>

13. Restart the Presentation Server for the instanceconfig.xml file that was updated.

14. Make sure Oracle WebLogic Server and the system components are also running, if they are not running, restart them.

Best practice is to update the user GUIDs after changing the directory server used as the data source for the authentication provider. If the same user name exists in both directory servers (original and new), the original user GUID may conflict with the user GUID contained in new directory server. A refresh forces the system to reference the user GUID contained in the new directory server. Authentication errors may result if the GUIDs are not refreshed and the system detects a mismatch for the user GUID.

Where Did My Filters Go

Recently, a co-worker was working with a union analysis in OBI EE 11g and cam across a situation they did not see before. They thought it may be a bug in 11g and asked me to take a look at it.

So, I started out by making my own union analysis. I created the 1st part of the union and added a filter.

I then clicked on the icon to create the 2nd half of the union and added a separate filter to it.

Clicked on results and everything looked fine.

Now is where the issue came in.

I clicked back to the criteria tab to edit the filters and the filters were not visible.

After a little looking around, I found the icon in the upper left which allows the filter pane to be either hidden or visible. Clicking on this did show me the filter pane again and I was able to edit the filters.

This behavior is different from 10g where just clicking on a union member allows me to see and edit the filters.

Working with the Master-Detail Report Feature of OBI 11g (pt 2)

In previous part of this series, I stepped through how to configure a Master-Detail report link when using the same analysis criteria to create the master and detail views. However, what if we want to create a totally independent detail view based on different criteria. Can we link the Master view from 1 analysis to the Detail view of another analysis?

Let’s see.

We will the Master view we created previously; so, we need to first create a new, independent Detail view and set our Event channel, the Event channel we used previously was MDS2.

Our event channel on our master view is driven by the “Per Name Qtr” so we need this column on our new detail view so that it can accept and act on the value being passed.

We will use a pie chart view for our detail view. With the view created, we can now set the Event channel through the view’s property window. We are using the slider again for the Quarter to make it easy to see the change.

With our new detail view created and configured to listen on the same channel as our master view we will add the view to our dashboard and check out if it works as we hope.

So, we have now shown that the detail view of a Master-Detail link does not need to come from the same report criteria as the master view.

I did come across an issue when using Master-Detail links and setting up a detail view to listen on the event channel, but configuring the layout of the detail view to not allow it to respond correctly. For example, I added a tabular view to my Master-Detail dashboard but placed the Qtr column in the “section” area of the layout. The report displayed all 4 quarters when I issued the event and my other detail views responded as expected. However when I tried issuing a subsequent event, none of the detail reports would respond. For the tabular view to respond correctly to an event, the column accepting the event must be placed in the “page” area of the view layout.

Here is a table containing specifics about views being used as detail views.

Types of Detail Views	Placement of Event Column
Graph	Prompt or Section area
Funnel graph	Prompt or Section area
Gauge	Prompt or Section area
Table	Page prompt area
Pivot Table	Page prompt area

Working with the Master-Detail Report Feature of OBI 11g (pt 3)

The final installment of this series will look at configuring detail views to listen to multiple event channels.

My first step will be to create a new Master View analysis. I am going to create a simple tabular view as my second master view including the Qtr column I have used previously for my data event driver. I have set the Channel name to MDS3 in the same way I configure my first master view.

I have saved that analysis and now want to edit 1 of my detail views to listen on this channel as well as the MDS2 channel it is currently listening on.

Just a side note: If you have been following this series, you will notice the view names have changed as well as the view layout on the dashboard page from my previous posts. I have renamed my views and reorganized them on the dashboard to make things a little clearer. Other than the changes I have outlined here, the other views remain unchanged.

So, the detail view I decided to modify is the second one I created which has the pie chart. Opening the pie chart view in the editor window and opening the properties for it, I have added my new channel to the event channel. Notice the channels are separated by a comma. With that change made, I then save this analysis.

Adding the new Master view to my dashboard page, I am ready to test this new functionality.

Clicking on the 2008 Q2 cell from my first master view, both detail views respond with the Qtr column slider moving appropriately.

I now click on the 2008 Q3 cell on my second master view, on the detail pie chart view does respond as expected with the Qtr slider moving to the appropriate value while the other detail view remains unchanged.

Thus we can see that a detail view can listen to multiple events from different master views.

There is actually more to learn and do with Master-Detail links but that is a different discussion as it involves extending OBI with some custom code. I will leave that for a later time.