Data Security in Oracle BI Apps

I am describing how data security works in Oracle BI Apps.

Oracle BI Applications 7.9.5 is out

Oracle BI Applications 7.9.5 is released early this month. Here is a quick summary of the features introduced in this release and where you can get more information about it.

A good OBIEE web demo from New York City’s City Wide Performance Reporting

New York City now enables the public to monitor the city’s performance by making the OBIEE based dashboard and report online.

Here is the link to their CPR (City Wide Performance Reporting) site : http://www.nyc.gov/html/ops/cpr/html/home/home.shtml

Bitmap Index – when to use it?

I will cover how Bitmap index work, when to use it and how to use it in this article.

How does it work?

The bitmap index stores the column values in bits. Each bit represents a single value. For example, the gender column has two possible values: Male and Female. three bit will be used in the bitmap to capture the index on the gender column. A good example can be seen in reference 1. So the more distinct value is, the more space is required to store the bitmap.

Internally, the database engine, like Oracle, uses a map function to converts the bit location to the distinct value. (See reference #2) Many bitmap indexes can be used together since database can merge it, so this can improve the response time. (See Reference #3 for the example of merging the index on Marital Status and Region)

When to use it?

BI Applications and Embedded BI, Part 4

This is my 4th post about the embedded BI. The key is that a OBIEE and OBIA warehouse based solution is embeddable to the OLTP system as long as the OLTP system can provide the basic support.

In this article, I will discuss one of the key enabling technology – integrated authentication.

Your questions about OBIEE or OBIA

Some people left me messages in my MeeboMe. If you have questions about Oracle BI Suite Enterprise Edition and Oracle BI Applictions. Here are the links to the public discussion forums:

Oracle BI Suite Enterprise Edition

Oracle BI Applications

BI Applications and Embedded BI, Part 2

This is a topic I wrote in six month ago. In the Part I of this series of articles, I mentioned that a warehouse like architecture is required in a heterogeneous environment. I want to elaborate more about this. In the future posts, I will also describe the integration technology I learned for supporting the embedded BI.

UDML in Oracle BI Server

I recently learned a way to retrieve and manipulate the Oracle BI repository file without using the Admin Tool. Although they are not officially documented and supported, they are extensively used by many savvy users. You can see the following screen shot to get the idea on how to retrieve the repository definition in a text format.

Oracle BI Applications version 7.9.3 is now available on OTN

It is great to hear that Oracle BI Applications version 7.9.3 is now available on Oracle Technology Network for download. – Oracle Business Intelligence (10.1.3.X) download web site.

The technical note 676: Summary of Enhancements and New Features in Oracle Business Intelligence Applications Version 7.9.3 is also available on supportweb.siebel.com. The highlights of the key features introduced in this release are as follows:

BI Applications and Embedded BI, Part 1

I now also create my blog entries on blogs.oracle.com/dylanwan. This is actually the first entry in my blog in the blogs.oracle.com. I want to choose a topic related to what I learned lately.

Oracle BI Applications is build on top of the platform from the Oracle BI Enterprise Edition. The dashboard and report components can be seamlessly embedded into Oracle Applications, like how it is integrated with Siebel application. However, it is also a very typical data warehouse architecture.

An evaluation of Oracle BI Enterprise Edition from Intelligent Enterprise

A good article from Intelligent Enterprise about the Oracle BI Enterprise Edition – Put to the test: Oracle BI Enterprise Edition.

Here is the part I feel worth highlight:

Oracle Business Intelligence EE 10.1.3.2 (MAUI) Tutorial

Oracle.com provides a very good tutorial for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 10g:

Oracle Business Intelligence EE 10.1.3.2 (MAUI) Documentation Library

This is the link to public available Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition Version 10.1.3.2 Documentation Library.

Aging Reports and DSO (Daily Sales Outstanding)

Account Receivables aging report and Daily Sales Outstanding are two metrics commonly seen in the Financial Analytics for measuring the performance of the Account Receivables, Credit Management, and Collection departments. Here are how they are calculated, who the users are, and how they may affect the business decisions.

Oracle Business Intelligence EE 10.1.3.2 (MAUI) Available in eDelivery

Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 10.1.3.2 (the Maui release) is now available in edelivery.oracle.com for downloading for evaluation purpose.

What does Forrester say about Oracle Data Integrator (Sunopsis)?

“Sunopsis’ ability to connect a wide variety of data sources and targets will allow Oracle to address the heterogeneous data management environments its enterprise architect customers must contend with.

This acquisition could be a big win for the Siebel, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards customers who, following the acquisitions by Oracle, find themselves smack in the middle of a perhaps unwanted Oracle-dominated ecosystem.”

Please read the entire paper here:

Install Siebel Analytics – Step by Step Installtion Screenshots

Note added on Jun 21, 2007:  The  Siebel Analytcis is now called Oracle BI Applications.  The latest version is 7.9.x which can be installed on top of Oracle BI EE10.1.3.2.   Please go to the following link from Oracle to get the step by step instruction:

How to handle Slowly Changing Dimensions (SCDs) in data model design?

There are multiple methods to handle the slowly changing dimensions. Which technique to use depends on your business requirements. The choice among these three methods are not a technical design decision since their behaviors are different.

Type One: Overwite the old data with new data

Using this method, you do not store the histoy. For example, that say each customer can

Why do I need to use DAC from Oracle BI?

Data Warehouse Application Console (DAC) works together with Informatica to acomplish the ETL for pre-packaged BI applications.

Here are what happen behind the scene:

Why Oracle BI EE?

Oracle BI Enterprise Edition is a product Oracle acquired along with its Siebel acquisition. This 2003 press release told the background that it comes from an earlier acquisition of nQuire by Siebel. It explains why you should use Oracle BI Enterprise Edition…

…it could aggregate data from multiple sources without requiring middleware.

Another interesting eWeek article – Siebel makes BI Platform Move:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_zdewk/is_200310/ai_ziff109233