Saturday, November 18, 2017

OAC Essbase & DV Hit Play



Have to say that I am really liking the OAC DV and the custom Plug-Ins that you can easily download and drag and drop the zip file!


I mentioned a few of them in my prior post with the Tree Viz and the Row Expander


This is another custom plug-in that is really fun to use, Dim Player

Again, a few
Easy Prep Steps:

  • Navigate using your favorite browser to -> https://www.oracle.com/solutions/business-analytics/data-visualization/library.html
  • Click the 'Plug-ins' tab
  • Find the Plug-in that you are interested in adding to your set of visualizations
  • Download the Zip file







Here are a few tips to make sure that you are able to properly use this plug-in

You need to have a Dimension with the Dimension Type = Time (required)





Years dimension is shown with a clock 🕒




Start creating your Project, select your dataset(source), visualization.. add measure(s) etc.

Next you want to navigate on the left menu column and click the vertical bar icon for Visualizations.





Scroll to find your next viz to add, in this case DimPlayer, drag it onto your canvas






The magic of this plug-in is that it uses the Time tagged dimension as the Play Axis




In my MLB cube, I have the Years dimension, drag the desired Generation in as the PlayAxis





But we are not ready. We need to ensure a few more items.

Open the 'menu' of this newly added viz.




Click/check ' Use as Filter'





You also have the ability to change the speed of the refresh rate of the viz, just use the interval and key-in +/- the # of seconds you would prefer.




You are now ready to Just.Hit.Play

All of the MLB Homeruns hit over time in approx. 1min!








Sunday, November 5, 2017

OAC Data Viz & BI + New DBX v12.2.1.1.108

It has not been that long since the Halloween  👻  💀  🎃  holiday season.
So let's have a little trick or treat spirit to this blog post shall we.

And in that spirit, we will only be getting tips and treats and less on the tricks. 🍬 🍭 🍫

Let's begin.

As per one of my prior posts, I was able to 'connect' OAC DV/BI to OAC -Essbase and the amazingly fun Major League Baseball cube (And Yes I owe a few of you a copy of the Oracle Cube Designer for Excel model)

🍬  Fun Fact: the format for these Workbooks is called DBX format (Structured Excel)



🍭  It is also worth mentioning that there is also a New version of the Cube Designer Extension available to download and install; 12.2.1.1.108 Build 117

There are a few updates to note in this version:

  • Member Formula validation
  • Hierarchy Viewer Duplicate Member Outline Support
  • Transform Data enhancements


Moving on. OAC DV/BI

I will be using the MLB STATS cube that I created to share my examples.

I noticed that there are a number of Visualizations already available, nice, but there are also more Plug-ins that can be easily download/uploaded for your use as well.

Easy Prep Steps:

  1. Navigate using your favorite browser to -> https://www.oracle.com/solutions/business-analytics/data-visualization/library.html
  2. Click the 'Plug-ins' tab
  3. Find the Plug-in that you are interested in adding to your set of visualizations
  4. Download the Zip file

🍫  Next Steps within OAC DV/BI:



Login ;) -> http://<your IP address>/va/?pageid=home

Click 'Console'


Click 'Custom Plugins'


Either 'Upload Custom Plugin' or drag-and-drop the downloaded zip file into OAC



Time to create your New Project and add one of these newly added Custom Plugins



One of the ones that I recently got feedback "That is REALLY cool!" was the use of the 'Collapsible TreeViz' Plugin.



This Plugin does NOT require a #Measure! Take a look.

This example was for the MLB World Series matchup between the Dodgers and the Astros.
Looks like the list of Teams aligned to the Active Franchises of the Dodgers is 9 and the Astros is 3.




This in my opinion IS REALLY COOL!
Wonder what it would look like against DRM?!?! I might need to create that as a Data Source.


Another Custom Plugin that I added was 'RowExpander'



There are times in DV that I want to see my data easily in an expandable Tree View (Hierarchy). My dataset is naturally 'built' that way in Essbase. And I want an easy way to navigate my dataset accordingly.

To simplify my example, I filtered the data to only include Players that Last Names begin with 'AA'.























Notice that there is a 'carrot-arrow' symbol '>' next to each row member that is available for expansion. This makes me feel a little nostalgic and creating HFR reports .. checking the checkbox to 'Allow Expansion'. Maybe it is just me and the good ole days of learning to use it, and, well .. since it has stood the test of time of it's look and feel of 1997 .. But I would like to have HFR available in OAC to create highly structured and formatted reports, books and even batches, that is, at least for Essbase, Planning, or other EPM datasources created in OAC. One can only hope, although, HFR is now only Web version supported and no more desktop client installer (HFR desktop client install, you were my nemesis! Hope you rode off into the sunset of product installers well my friend). I digress.

So, for me the Player above with 755 Career Homeruns is obvious. Do you know who this MLB Player is?


Another Fun Fact in closing this post.
In order to see my Viz/analysis via Smart View, I needed to create Reports using the Classic OBIEE  Designer.

Only then was I able to create a Smart View connection, see the repository and add these objects into Office (Excel, PowerPoint, Word).



Until next time. Stay safe while using OAC. Your Alias Table(s) might not be  👻   😞   🙁  👻