Variable names starting with numbers

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The long weekend gave me the chance to finally write a blog post. I will try my best to be more frequent with posting new content.

This blog is going to be short one. We had multiple projects running and we had to design a way why which each project can easily identify their variables. We decided to name our session variables after our short project codes.

My project code was "1ADM" and OBIEE didn't like it when I used the varaibles whose names started with numbers.

OBIEE 11G RPD bypass using Private Variable Columns

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We had a requirement where the user wanted to be able to get into the tool and change his formula and also wanted the change to be reflected across all his reports. Changing the formula in each report was a lot of effort and hence not practical.

This blog talks about a 6 possible ways to handle this requirement and introduces the concept of Private Variable Columns.

OBIEE 11G: Setting multiple values to Presentation Variables through goURL and conditional filtering

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I am writing this blog after a loooooong gap and I can tell you that it is worth the wait. In this blog, we discuss about the process of setting multiple values to a presentation variable through goURL. This blog also introduces the concept of CONDITIONAL FILTERING in OBIEE.

The neo-MUD tunnel for OBIEE 11g automated RPD deployment

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Ok call me a geek for writing this blog on new year's eve, I dont care :-P. I can tell you that this blog is totally worth it. 
We know that EM can be used for deployment but we had a requirement to maintain an automated log every time a deployment is done with mandatory comments from the developer and link the deployment to a backed up RPD so that we can keep a track of the changes been done to the RPD and revert back if necessary.
I developed the  Multi User DEPLOYMENT (not Development) tunnel a.k.a neo-MUD tunnel utility to meet this requirement. We will talk about the process to implement the neo-MUD tunnel in this blog.

OBIEE 11g: Outer join in the Physical Layer now possible

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We know that we can perform outer joins in OBIEE in the Logical Layer. The problem with this mechanism is that it is not possible for one logical table sources (LTS) to join to a fact by an inner join and the other to join to the fact by an outer join. Let us try to solve this problem here.

Issue in using EJB Actions in OBIEE 11.1.1.9

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This blog is less about a solution and more about an information.

If you have written an EJB that uses a obiee report saved in the catalog as an arguement and you are trying to invoke this EJB using Actions in OBIEE 11.1.1.9 then you might get the following error.

Migrating application roles in OBIEE 11g

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My last article talked about a maintenance and hassle free mechanism to implement security. The article moved the security architecture to roles created in EM. The next logical step is to move the roles from one environment to another because lets face it, manually creating roles is a lot of effort.

Maintenance free security implementation in OBIEE 11g

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This blog talks about a hassle free mechanism of OBIEE security implementation with almost zero overhead.
We will first look at the data level security implementation and then extend it to object level security.

Toggling the database in OBIEE 11g at runtime

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We have a replication and the primary database server. Replicating the data takes some time so the replication server is usually a few mins behind the primary server. The requirement for one of the report was to get the data from the primary server if the replication is lagging by over 1 min. This blog talks about a method to implement this business use case.

Oracle VM file sharing with Windows host

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This article talks about the process to share files between Oracle VM and windows host.

Using Internet Explorer to customize OBIEE 11g UI

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We recently had a requirement that the button sizes in OBIEE had to be increased. The reasoning was that the users of some of these reports are old and they hate smaller sized buttons. Now we know the properties of buttons such as the size are set in the css files which together form the skin. While it is possible to copy the skin and then edit the desired property, it is a long process.
This blog talks about a shortcut to achieve the objective.

OBIEE Hack: Putting prompts in file names

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Users often have the requirement to have the selected prompt values suffixed to the name of the exported file.
This blog talks about a hack to achieve this in OBIEE. 

Understanding OBIEE RPD - Chapter 1

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The most skilled task in the world of Oracle Business Intelligence is to design and code the RPD. While we are all aware of the general concepts of Business models, logical tables, joins and hierarchies, the RPD is essentially a query generating tool. The query generated by the tool depends on a sound understanding of the business model and data warehousing concepts. The most trickiest part of RPD development is to ensure that OBIEE generates a tuned physical query. I wish to write a series of articles that show the impact of coding something in the RPD on the Physical query and would hence enable the developers to find out the best things to do from a performance stand point. Please note that this article does not recommend one query over the other as the efficiency of the query will depend on the data structures themselves. The intention of this blog is to study the impact of changing the RPD on the Physical SQL.

This is the first article in this series and we will be talking about the scenario where we pull columns from 2 different physical sources and 1 common dimension in the same analysis.

Making OBIEE 11g Evaluate function dynamic

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We know that we can use the evaluate function to call any function stored on the database and pass arguments to it. What if we have a requirement to use different database functions for the same column based on different selections made by the user.
This article talks about a method to handle this requirement.

OBIEE 11g query tracking mechanism

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We had a requirement of tracking a query fired from OBIEE. This was to help us find out the Analysis that consume the most database resources.
It is possible that some user might be selecting a huge date range resulting in the problem at the database. So the trouble in this case might be the filters put by the user and not the Analysis itself.

Installing OBIEE 11g Client tool on Windows 8

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OBIEE 11g client tool is not certified with Windows 8. 
The certification matrix for OBIEE version 11.1.1.7.0+ is in the following location and it does not include Windows 8. 

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi/bi-11gr1certmatrix-ps6-1928219.xls

It means that installing OBIEE 11g client on Windows 8 is not supported by Oracle. I got a mail from Oracle to explicitly call it out.

This blog talks about a way to to install admin tool on Windows 8 machine.

OBIEE 11g dashboard pages outside of a dashboard

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We had a strange requirement. The user did not want the dashboard to be published and he hated the fact that he had to expand the dashboard to see the pages in it.

Since the requirement is strange so will be the solution.

3 way switch in OBIEE 11g

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While we all know about using conditions on sections in a dashboard, and while we all have used presentation variables to show or hide a report using these conditions, this blog talks about a process to use conditions on sections to implement a 3 way decision rather than just a boolean (true/false) decision.

Seperating numbers from characters in OBIEE 11g

We had a requirement in which the a column had either pure numbers such as 123 or pure alphabets such as QWED. The requirement was to display 'Y' in a column if the value was a number and display 'N' if it was a character string.

Easy method to create BIP 11g reports on top of OBIEE dashboards

This blog talks about a quick way to create BIP reports on top of OBIEE dashboards.