Smart View 11.1.2.5.800 released!

And so it is mid-June .. and we now have Smart View version 11.1.2.5.800 as stated released in GA!

per the documentation here are the listed new features a part of this release and the hyperlinks to go directly to the documentation for each

• New Features in This Release
• New Essbase Expense Type Option
• Display Varying Attributes in Ad Hoc Grids
• Support for MDX Calculations for Aggregate Storage Databases
• New View Properties Button in Oracle BI EE Ribbon
• Enhanced Move Formatting Behavior
• Perform a Health Check On Your System

Let's take a look at one of the new features ...

Perform a Health Check On Your System (for Smart View settings, Options, etc.)

I really like this feature being added!

So many times as a new user (new Smart View installation), a power user, an administrator, there are a number of settings that are or are not set by default.

Glad that there is now an easy way to be able to see the commonly asked settings all in 1 place to be able to update and/or edit-provide yourself.

This setting is found on the Main Smart View tab within the "? Help" dropdown menu as menu item

named "Health Check"

Click on the menu item and you will see a Health Check diagnosis msg box that shows the Details as information, properties, settings, options are set on your local machine

If you click on the "Recommended Settings" button on the bottom of the msg box the health check will provide another dialog box. In my case, this is a brand new VM .. as my prior VM melted, so none of the Timeout settings have been updated.

This time, no Google searching required or digging up the regedit file .. just 2-button clicks and the settings were updated! I didn't need to know the hex values, etc.

Click "YES"

And with that .. I think this feature might cause 1 of my prior blog posts to become deprecated!!!

Thanks to the Oracle Smart View product management and development teams for implementing the suggestion :)

Side Note:

We heard, were told, and saw slides at KSCOPE18 during the EPM Sunday Symposium session that Smart View and Office 365 support will be coming at some point CY2018 as well as Mac support!!!

Smart View Release 11.1.2.5.720 & More

Happy to see another version of the Smart View for Office Add-in release! 11.1.2.5.720

You can go and download the patch set update PSU 26783864 here

And the Readme as well.

Documentation: Oracle Smart View for Office Documentation Release 11.1.2.5.720

There are a number of New Features added in this release, very exciting!

Take a look at the list:

• Improved MDX and Smart Query Management
• Cascade from Multiple Dimensions
• Business Rule Template Support
• New and Enhanced VBA Functions
• HsGetValue Accepts Additional Data Types
• Streamlined Extension Update Process
• New Option for Displaying or Suppressing Floating Toolbar in Forms
• Updated Look and Feel for User Preferences Dialog Box
• New Essbase Option for Preserving Comments and Unknown Members

Based on the first update, and specifically about Smart Query, I am going to have to go back to the post that I have had pending as a draft for a long long time ..

But at the moment, what does this update look like?

This give you a better way to manage all queries, modify, rename, run, etc.

Cascade Members from Multiple Dimensions

When selecting multiple members for a single dimension in the POV, now when you decide to cascade the report, a new dialog box appears kindly asking not only about the 'multi-members' but also the additional dimensions!! :)

I would be careful with this option,
you can see from the info stat that the number of sheets going to be cascaded for this is 3

This slight modification is going to cascade 36!!

After I clicked okay, my Windows machine was going haywire to say the least. There was flashing, cursor jitter, scroll bar shaking, the Excel window was '(Not Responding)' and turned black. There is good news. The queries all finally finished running and the workbook updated all 36 new query sheets and added them to the workbook.

HsGetValue Accepts Additional Data Types

This was something that as I was using the Cube Designer found interesting. I could create the Smart Lists from the wizard/workbook, create and load them into the cube, but not be able to easily validate that the lists looked as desired.

[HsGetValue] - {syntax to be updated here}

New Essbase Option for Preserving Comments and Unknown Members

Unknown members and comments for OAC users.
Also note that this option is found in the Smart View / Options / Member Options tab (Not the Data Options tab)

Extension Update Process has been streamlined!!

Now when you go into Smart View / Options / Extensions a new dialog box
appears when you click the hyperlink "⚠️  Check for Updates, New Installs, and Uninstalls"

This is great! Now that I have established a connection I can use that or any other connections/locations to find updates. Select and click 'Get Updates'

In real time you will see the job running the check for updates, etc. the location used to check.

Once complete, you can close the window and see in the Extension list if there is indeed an update available.

Like these Smart View Extension 11.1.2.5.720 updates:

Oracle Journals

OracleBI EE!

Smart Query




Detailed blog posts to follow!

Since it has been snowing now for a few days here where I live,
I think it is appropriate to say officially that #WinterIsHere!

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  👻   😞   🙁  👻

PSA - Microsoft Add-Ins Don't Load

- PSA -

This is a Public Service Announcement to all of you with Add-Ins in Microsoft Office products. More specifically 2016 and Add-Ins that don't or will not load when opening the program application (Excel, Word, etc).

It came to my attention that the add-in utility SV ++ that is available on this blog was not loading for some users 
- thank you Kyle B. & Peter.

Seems that there was an update issued by Microsoft. It was a security related patch and the fix can be found here but the curious part is that this was issued over a year ago, and then there was another update about 6-months ago. So, not really sure why no impact then .. and now all of a sudden. But no worries, hope this fixes the issue now if you run into it.

Below is the way to solve the issue per the superuser blog:

"With this update, we changed the behavior of Excel so that it will not load certain file types (including .xlam) when they are untrusted. The easiest workaround is to find the add-in that is causing you trouble, right-clicking on it in Windows Explorer, and checking Unblock"

"An easier approach is to simply place the add-in in a Trusted Location (in Excel, go to File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings > Trusted Locations), such as the following folder, and load it from there:
C:\Users\%USER NAME%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel\XLSTART"

Hope this PSA helps if you run into the issue.


Again, to learn more, you can visit here

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