querying across multiple subject areas in obiee 11g

One of the best improvements in obiee 11g Answers is the ability to create a query across multiple subject areas.

In 10g you were constrained to the intersect/union/minus operators which made life very difficult if you just wanted a simple report aggregating two measures from different subject areas across a common dimension. These operators are still there in 11g, but we also have a much more user friendly way of querying.

The steps are:

• Start by creating a normal Answers request in a single subject area.
•  In the subject areas pane there is an icon with a green plus on it ("Add / Remove Subject Areas")
• Select the sujbect area/s you're interested in
• Choose a common dimension from either subject area and measures from the relevant source

 If you add dimensions that are particular to a subject area, then the measure that is not relevant will return  null - the same as in obiee 10g if these facts and dimensiolns were in a single presentation folder.

This new feature should be understood before the planning of the presentation folder layout - it opens up new possibilities for organisation by allowing cleaner more succinct subject areas without compromising functionality.

ago function in obiee 11g answers

One thing that I'm really pleased about in OBIEE 11g the ability to use time series analysis functions in Answers. In 10g this was reserved for the repository tool, which meant that the number and type of ago functions needed to be well defined by the business which isn't generally the case given there are practically limitless combinations.

The syntax of the the ago function as documentation in Answers is:
AGO(expr, time_level, offset)

However, as with the administration tool, there is a overloaded version of AGO:
AGO(expr, offset)

which uses the grain of the Answers query as the level.

As an example using Sample Sales lite the function AGO("Base Facts"."Target Revenue",1) gives the revenue one time period ago. If the report is at the year level then that will of course be one year ago:

What I don't like about the feature is that there is no way to select the time level - this is really user unfriendly and not at all intuitive. It seems rather half done.

If like me you tried the dimesnion and got the error nQSError: 27037, the syntax is to use the time hiearchy level:

AGO("Base Facts"."Revenue", "Time"."Time Hierarchy"."Year", 1)

Note the time hierarchy needs to be exposed to the presentation layer.

This way you can have a report at say quarter level and compare the revenue of a year ago quarter by quarter:

Uninstalling OBIEE 11g

Given the various issues with installing obiee, chances are at some point you'll wish to do a very careful uninstall. The sequence of uninstalling each component is not immediately obvious, but there is a sequence provided in the documentation:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E14571_01/bi.1111/e10539/c5_deinstall.htm#CIHBIJFA

It's fairly straightforward, but assumes that you had a successful install in the first place which can cause problems if not.

If you run the OUI from the start menu you may find it tries to locate java from a temp folder and throws the error "the java runtime environment was not found at ...". If this is the case then run from the command line as per the documentation using the jreLoc parameter:

setup.exe -deinstall -jreLoc full_path_of_jre_or_jdk

obiee 11g installation requirements

The OBIEE 11g installation requirements can be a bit hard to find - a series of links through the documentation leads you to here:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/html/E18558_01/fusion_requirements.htm#BGBBDBBH

From the above link:

"... the recommended hardware and system configuration requirements for an Oracle Business Intelligence installation on Linux and 32-bit Windows operating systems is:

• Disk Space: 20GB or more
  
• Available Memory: 4GB or more
  
• Temp Space: 950MB or more
  
• Swap Space: 3GB or more
  
• CPU: dual-core Pentium, 1.5GHz or greater"
  
  
  
  

Installing OBIEE 11g

Here are a handful of guides on installing OBIEE 11g:

http://oraclebi.blogspot.com/2010/08/installing-obiee-11g.html
A basic step by step through the installer screens using linux.

http://www.skurabigroup.com/blog/?p=676
http://www.skurabigroup.com/blog/?p=700
http://www.skurabigroup.com/blog/?p=719
A three part series using Windows 2003 on VM Ware. Worth reading for the "lessons learnt" section - could save a few hours being wasted.


http://www.oraclenerd.com/2010/08/obiee-11g-install-part-i.html
Actually how not to install obiee 11g - 1.5GB RAM is a bad start.

http://www.rittmanmead.com/2010/08/14/obiee-11gr1-installation-and-initial-configuration/
Another step by step through the installer screens.


http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E14571_01/bi.1111/e10539/toc.htm
Real men don't normally read manuals, but it might be worth it in this case.