eAlliance Enable OBIEE Answers

7/31/2019 eAlliance Enable OBIEE Answers

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Oracle Business Intelligence

Answers User Training

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Contents

Table of Contents

Contents .................................................................................................................... 1Prerequisites ............................................................................................................... 3Business Intelligence Overview ......................................................................................... 3Oracle BI Architecture .................................................................................................... 4Reasons for using Oracle BI Tools ....................................................................................... 5Data Warehousing ......................................................................................................... 5Oracle BI Answers ......................................................................................................... 8Summary .................................................................................................................. 69Thank You ................................................................................................................. 70


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Purpose

This Guide shows you how to use the Oracle BI Answers and Dashboards to createAnswers requests and configure Dashboards with those requests, which enable the endusers to obtain, view, and analyse data.It also gives you a brief overview of Oracle BI Architecture and Tools.

Duration

8 Hours

Sections Covered in this PresentationThe following topics are covered in this presentation:

Prerequisites Business Intelligence Overview Oracle BI Architecture Data Warehousing

o Dimension modelingo Star Schema

Reasons for using Oracle BI Tools Oracle BI Answers Summary


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Prerequisites

- Access to the OBIEE Admin Tool on the OBIEE server machine on companyDomain or Amazon Instance.

- Access to OBIEE Answers and Dashboards on OBIEE server machine oncompany Domain or Amazon Instance Dashboards.

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Business Intelligence Overview

What Is Business Analytics or Business Intelligence?

In the information age, corporations have at their disposal massive amounts ofdata collected in transactional systems (they could be different disconnectedsystems). These systems are designed for the efficient selection, storage, andretrieval of data, and are essential for businesses to keep track of their affairs.

However, the challenge is in deriving answers to business questions from theavailable data. This wealth of data can yield critical information about a business,so that decision makers at all levels can respond quickly to changes in thebusiness climate.

Aggregating data into levels at which patterns can emerge, ordering levels intohierarchies to support drilling down and up through the levels, and using analyticfunctions (such as lag, moving total and year-to-date) are among the techniques

used to transform data into information. This information - commonly calledbusiness intelligence can provide a significant edge in an increasinglycompetitive marketplace.

Getting Answers with Business Intelligence

Business intelligence provides the Data and Tools users need to answer questionsthat are important to running the part of the business for which they are responsible.

Determine if the business is on track. Identify where things are going wrong. Monitor and take corrective actions. Spot trends.

Examples: Show me the most effective promotions Show me customers most likely to switch Show me products that are not profitable Compare sales this quarter with sales a year ago


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Show me sales for each district by month

The information and tools help users delve into the data in a meaningful way so thatthey can answer important business questions, determine causes of good and badperformance, analyze trends, and so on.

BI provides answers to basic questions such as: "What are my top five products?" "How do my sales this year compare with sales last year?" "What is the three-month moving average of my sales?

BI can also answer more probing analytical questions such as: "Why are sales down in this region?" "What can we predict for sales next quarter?"

"What factors can we alter to improve the sales forecast?" "How will our margins improve if we run this promotion?

Oracle BI Architecture

Oracle Business Intelligence Tools

Oracle Business Intelligence (Oracle BI) is a comprehensive and integrated suiteof analytic tools designed to bring greater business visibility and insight to thebroadest audience of users, allowing any user in an organization to have Web-

based, self-service access to up-to-the-moment, relevant, and actionableintelligence. Oracle BI consists of several products that can be used together orindependently.

This course focuses on the following key components of Oracle BI : Oracle BI Answers Oracle BI Interactive Dashboards

Oracle BI Architecture


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Reasons for using Oracle BI Tools

Scalable Flexible Reporting Customized Reporting Ease of exporting data User friendly Allows a user to query relational databases, without knowing SQL Reduced reporting development cycle = time and cost savings for Businesses

Data Warehousing

Brings together Data from many sources- Transactional- Analytical

Organizes Data for Analytical Processing- Reduce joins: Reduce the number of tables and relationships.- De-normalize data: Duplicate and flatten data structures.

Employs Star Schemas


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- Simplify relationships between tables.

Dimensional Modelling (process of organizing data for analytical systems)

Technique for logically organizing business data in a way that helps end usersunderstand it easily

Data is separated into facts and dimensions. Users view facts in any combination of the dimensions.

Allows users to answer Show me X by Y by Z type questions Example: Show me sales by product by month.

Star Schema

A star schema is a dimensional schema with a single fact table that has foreign keyrelationships with one or more dimension tables.

Dimension tables have a one-to-many relationship with a fact table. The central table in a star schema = fact table. It stores the numerical measurements of

a business. The outer tables = dimension tables. They provide detailed information about the facts.


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Sales Fact table with dimension tables:

In other words, fact tables contain the information businesses want to track to conducttheir analysis of the business.

Examples of fact measures: Dollar values for Sales

Units sold Number of units Ordered Number of units Shipped.


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Oracle BI Answers

Oracle BI Answers: Overview

Oracle BI Answers provides end users with true ad hoc query and analysiscapability. It is a pure Web-based environment that is designed for users who wantto create new analyses from scratch or modify and change existing analyses thatappear on a dashboard page.

Oracle BI Answers enables you to interact with a logical view of the information andeasily create charts, pivot tables, reports, gauges, and dashboards, all of which areinteractive and drillable and can be saved, shared, modified, formatted, orembedded in your personalized dashboard or on the enterprise portal.

Oracle BI Answers: Login

To access Oracle BI Answers, use the following link:http://ec2-50-16-114-196.compute-1.amazonaws.com:9704/analytics

Log in with your username and passwordNOTE: Right now all will use Administrator/Administrator credentials.

You will be taken to Answers start page
http://ec2-50-16-114-196.compute-1.amazonaws.com:9704/analyticshttp://ec2-50-16-114-196.compute-1.amazonaws.com:9704/analyticshttp://ec2-50-16-114-196.compute-1.amazonaws.com:9704/analytics


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Oracle BI Answers: Start Page

The Answers start page is the first page you see when you open Oracle BI Answers. The start page provides access to Subject Areas and saved content (Answers

Requests, Filters, Prompts etc). What you see in Answers depends on the permissions granted to your User ID.

Oracle BI Answers: Selecting a Subject Area

You begin by choosing a Subject Area, such as Marketing, Sales, Finance orInventory. In the above figure we have 2 subject areas:- Sample Sales- Sample Sales Reduced

When you click a Subject Area in the workspace to create a request, the selections

pane changes to show the columns and filters for that subject area that you caninclude in a request, and the workspace displays the tabs for working with requests.

Click on the Sample Sales Reduced Subject Area, you will get the AnswersWorkspace as shown below:

Oracle BI Answers: Answers Workspace (and creating a request or Report)

Saved Content

(Answers Requests)

Subject Areas (Finance, Sales etc)


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The Subject Area for the request appears in the selection pane (on left), togetherwith its Columns. Columns are typically organized into folders

The Answers workspace (on right) displays the following tabs for working with arequest:

Criteria: Provides access to the columns selected for the request, andbuttons to select the most common view types

Results: Enables you to work with the results of the request Prompts: Enables you to create prompts to filter the request Advanced: Enables advanced users to work with the XML and logical SQL for

the request

Note: (Alternate way to create new request)

Click the New Request button located at the top upper-right corner of theworkspace and select the required Subject Area

Select the Sample Sales Reduced Subject Area and proceed.

Answers Workspace

Selections Pane


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Expand the folders and click the column names that you want to add to the request:

In this example, the Sample Sales Reduced subject area contains Six folders:Time, Customer, Products, Other Dimensions, Facts Revenue, Facts Other

Add four columns to the request:- Year from Time Dimension- Customer Type form Customer Dimension- Revenue from Facts Revenue Fact

As you select these columns, Oracle BI Answers builds a query called as logicalSQL, because it expresses the logical content of the request.

This query is sent to Oracle BI Server, which interprets it and creates subsequentphysical queries to the underlying data sources where the data is stored.

The results are returned to the BI Server which in turn returns it to you for analysisand interpretation.

Changing the column order for a request: Place the cursor on the column anddrag the it to the desired position and release as shown below:

The Year column is now on 2nd position:


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NOTE: Bring the Year column back to 1st position.

Displaying request results:

Click the Resultstab or the Display Results button (in Criteria Page) to view

the results. By default, display is in a Compound Layout format which consists of a Title

view and a Table view.


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Changing the results layout: Use the View drop-down, the Add View link, or toolbarbuttons to select from a variety of views as shown below:


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Saving the request: Requests are saved in folders and folders are either Personalor Shared. For saving a request, click on the Save Icon on the top right corner asshown below:

In the Save request Window, choose the location to save your Request.


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We will create a folder called Training and save the request in it. So click the

Create Folder button on top as shown:

In the Pop up that appears, type Training and click OK:


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Enter the desired name for the report. We will name it as Revenue by CustomerType. Also give any description as required:


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Click OK. The request is now saved at this location:My Folders -> Training

The top-level personal folder is called My Folders. Every user with a uniqueusername has a folder called My Folders.


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When a request is saved in one of the Personal folders, only the owner can access

it. When it is saved in a Shared Folder, any user with permission to access thatfolder can access it.

Oracle BI Answers: Viewing a saved request

Saved requests are saved in the Presentation Catalog and are displayed in foldersin the Catalog tab in the Selection Pane on the Answers start page as shownbelow:

To open the previously saved request, click on My Folders and then on TrainingFolder. You will see the list of requests in this folder.


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Click on Modify Criteria link of the request you wish to Modify (in our example, it

is Revenue by Customer Type). The request will open in the Selection Pane of Answers as shown:

Oracle BI Answers: Modifying request criteria

Use the column buttons as shown below to modify the request Criteria:

The Column Properties button enables you to edit the format for acolumn, such as the table and column headings, the number of decimal places,the alignment, and so on.


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The Edit Formula button also enables you to change the table and column

headings as well as any formula that was applied to the column. The Add Filter button enables you to create a filter for the column. The Remove Column button deletes the column from the request.

The Order By button specifies the order in which results should bereturned, ascending or descending. You can order results by more than onecolumn.

Oracle BI Answers: Column Properties - Modifying Column Style

Click the Column Properties button for a column to open the Column Propertiesdialog box

Click the Style tab: Set desired settings and click OK.

Oracle BI Answers: Column Properties - Modifying Column Format

Click the Column Format tab of the Column Properties dialog box Set desired settings and click OK.


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NOTE: You can control drill down to next level values, and navigation to otherrequests etc from here using the Column Heading/Value Interaction sections.

Oracle BI Answers: Column Properties - Modifying Column Data Format

Click the Data Format tab of the Column Properties dialog box Set desired settings and click OK.


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Oracle BI Answers: Column Properties - Modifying Column Conditional Format

Click the Conditional Format tab of the Column Properties dialog box Set desired settings and click OK.NOTE: This will be covered in detail in subsequent exercises.


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Oracle BI Answers: Edit Formula - Modifying Column Formula

Click the Edit Formula button for a column to open the Edit Column Formuladialog box as shown below.

Select Column Formula tab:


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Click the Function button in the Column Formula tab to open the Function dialogbox


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Set desired settings and click OK.

Oracle BI Answers: Using Filters in Requests

A filter is used to limit the results that appear when a request is run. Click the Add Filter button for a column to open the Create/Edit Filter dialog box:


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Click on All Choices link in the right pane as sown above. It will display all theavailable values for Year in the box below as shown:

Select 2008 by clicking on it. It will be added to the Value text box on left as shownbelow:


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A column filter consists of the following elements:o A column to filtero

An operator that determines how the value is appliedo One or more values to use when applying the filter

The filter is translated into a WHERE clause in the SQL SELECT statement thatis issued to Oracle Business Intelligence Server.

Multiple Filters can be grouped together (a capability called parentheticalfiltering) to create complex filters.

Click OK after setting the desired filters. The filter appears on the Criteria page below the columns as shown below:


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Click Display Results button to view the results.

Note that the results of the request are filtered by Year = 2008:


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Oracle BI Answers: Customizing Report Title

To customize the report title, In the Results Tab, click on Edit View button of the TitleView:

You will see the Edit Title Page:


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Here, uncheck the Display Saved Name check box. Enter the custom Title: Revenueby Customer Type (Current Year).

In the Logo text box, enter fmap:Images/report_salesVolume.jpg

NOTE: Other such icons are located at:\web\app\res\s_oracle10\images\

In the Subtitle text box, enter 2008 as shown below:


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Click OK button. You will be taken to the Compound layout view and will be able tosee the new title as shown:

Oracle BI Answers: Report Drill down

You will be able to drill down on a column if it is a level in the Dimension Hierarchy(This is covered in the OBIEE Administration Tool tutorial).NOTE: Here both Year and Customer Type columns are levels in a Time andCustomer Hierarchies respectively (as seen by the clickable links on the columnvalues)


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If you drill down on such a column value on the Results page, your results will

include the next level column in the Dimensional Hierarchy and are automaticallyfiltered to include only the results for the selected value. Drill down Example

Drill on Type2 value (Customer Type column) for 2008:

The report shows the next level in Customers dimension i.e. Customer Namealong with the other columns in the report:


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NOTE: When you drill down on a column in a report, it automatically adds the next levelcolumn to the report and also adds the filter (by that column value) to the request.

So if you go back to the Criteria Tab, you will see the additional column and Filter:


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So before saving the report, make sure to delete the column (Customer Name) and

filter Customer Type is equal to / is in Type 2 from the report.

Save the report again. While saving, you will be prompted saying An item with thegiven name already exists in the selected older. Do you wish to replace it?Click on Yes.

Oracle BI Answers: Hiding a column

Add one more column Brand from the Product Dimensions as shown:


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Click on the Column Properties button of the Year Column and select Column FormatTab:


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Check mark the Hide checkbox as shown above and click OK. Click on the Results

tab. You will see the report with Year column hidden:

NOTE: Reset the settings to show the Year column back again.

Oracle BI Answers: Sorting results by a/multiple column/s

To sort the results of this report in Descending order of Revenue, Go back to theCriteriaTab and click on the Order by button on the Revenue column. It shows OrderAscending:


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meaning that the report will be sorted by Ascending order of Revenue. Click on thebutton once more and it shows Order Descending:

Meaning that the report will be sorted by Descending order of Revenue as shown (on

clicking Results tab):

Now if you want to sort first by Brand and then by Revenue, follow these steps:- Go back to Criteria tab- Remove the sorting on the Revenue column (by clicking on the

Sort by button once more)


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- Click once on the Sort by button on Brand Column and click twice

on the Sort by button on Revenue column. You will get this:

NOTE: It means Sort first by Brand (Ascending) and then by Revenue (indicated by #2)(Descending) order. See the results form Results tab:


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Save the report.

BI Answers: Example 1(Adding a Ticker View to the report)

We will be adding a Ticker View to the same request (Revenue by Customer Type) fromthe previous example.

In the Results tab, click Add View -> Ticker as shown:

The following Layout is displayed:


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NOTE: This is the default layout and the data values are shown one row at atime vertically. You can format the data to get the desired output using html tagshere.

As an example, set the following values:o Some beginning text (some custom text)o Row separator (line break)o Column separator (2 white spaces)o Background color (grey)


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Click OK to save the View. The report is displayed as follows with the Ticker View added:

NOTE: This is the Compound layout, (where you can include or exclude the variousviews in your request)


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Save the request.

BI Answers: Example 2Arranging/Including/Excluding/Deleting a view from a request

NOTE: To remove the Ticker view form the Compound layout, click on the DeleteView button on the top right ofthat view:


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NOTE: The Ticker view will be deleted from the Compound layout view, but will still bethere in the request. You can verify this by clicking on the Add View link as shown:


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IMP: You see a small green circle in front of Ticker. It means that Ticker View exists for

this request (even though we have not added it to the Compound layout).

So to include any of the existing views to the Compound layout, click Add View ->.

If you want to completely delete, any view, go to the view layout by clicking the viewdrop down list and selecting the required view as shown:(here select the Ticker view as we want to open its layout)

Once in the layout, click on the Duplicate, specialize or delete the current view buttonon the top title bar as shown:


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Here if you select Delete View option, the view will be permanently deleted from thisrequest.

NOTE: For now leave the view as it is.

Save the report.

BI Answers: Example 3Editing an existing filter

We will edit the existing filter in the previous report (Revenue by Customer Type).Click on the Filter Options on the filter that you want to edit:


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Then click on the Edit Filter menu option there. You will get the Create/Edit Filter

window as shown:

Click on All Choices and select 2007 from right pane to add one more filter value onthe left pane as shown below:

Click OK. The filter will be modified to filter by 2007 and 2008.

Save the request.

BI Answers: Example 4(Adding a Chart View to the report)

In the Results tab, click Add View -> Chart as shown:


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You will get the following Chart layout window (it will have some settings by default):

Modify the settings as below (and click Redraw button). You will see the Chart changeto the below layout:


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NOTE: Settings are:- Include Measure Labels (here it is Brand which is shown in the

legend)- Year is on X Axis- Brand is on Measure Label- Revenue is on Y Axis

So the graph shows Revenue by Year by BrandNOTE: We have excluded Customer Type column from the Chart.

Click OK in the layout. The Chart has been added to the Compound layout as shown:


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Save the request.

BI Answers: Example 5(Adding another Chart View (Pie Chart) to the report)

In the Results tab, click Add View -> Chart. In the Layout window select thefollowing settings for the Chart (Pie Chart):

Settings selected are:Graph: PieType: 3DMeasure Label: Show as LegendYear: Measure LabelRevenue: Show on Pie


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NOTE: The name of the View is Chart:2 (since we already have another Chart in therequest). Each new view of the same kind will be numbered in this way.

Now if you include Brand also in the Measure Label, the Pie is split by Brand and Year

as shown below:


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Click OK to add to Compound Layout as shown below:

Save the request.

BI Answers: Example 6(Adding a Narrative View to the report)


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In the Results tab click Add View > Narrative:

The blank layout is displayed. Enter the values as shown below and click OK.


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NOTE the settings:o @2 indicates the column at the 2nd position in the report etco [b] [/b] is the syntax for making text boldo [br/] is the syntax for line breako Contains HTML Markup indicates that you can use more html tags here in

the various sections as per you requirement for formatting the output onthe report (Font Style, Color, background color etc).

Click OK. The report is displayed as follows with the Narrative View added:


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Save the request.

BI Answers Example 7(Adding a Pivot View to the report)

NOTE: First remove all views except Tabular and Title views form the CompoundLayout.

Add one more measure to the report (Billed Qty) as shown below:

In the Results tab click Add View > Pivot Table:


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You will get the following layout:

NOTE:- By default Measure Labels are on Columns.


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- The measures are displayed at the intersection of the rows and

columns.

You can pivot the results the way you want. For example drag the Brand column toColumns section. The pivot will look like this:

Or Customer Type in Rows and Year and Brand on Columns and Measure labels on

Rows:


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You can exclude any column from the Pivot Table by simply dragging it to the ExcludedSection on the top Right as shown:


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Click OK to add it to Compound Layout.

Save the request.

BI Answers Example 8(Adding Conditional Formatting to a column in the report)

Note: First remove all views from the report except Title and Table.

Go to the Criteria Tab. To add Conditional formatting to the Revenue column, open the Column

Properties dialog by clicking the Column Properties icon of the Revenuecolumn.

Select the Conditional Format tab and click Add Condition:


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Select Revenue column from the menu as shown above and you will get

Create/Edit Filter window:


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In the Operator, select is greater than Enter 50,000 in Value field as shown:

Click OK to close this dialog The Edit Format dialog appears as shown below:


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Click on Image as shown above The Graphics Dialog pops up and in that click on the traffic light icon and check

the green traffic light icon as shown below:


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Click OK in both the dialog boxes to close them.

The condition is added (with the specified format in this case, an image) for thecolumn as shown below:

Repeat the same procedure by clicking Add Condition button again to add thefollowing three conditions for the Revenue column:


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Click OK to close the dialog

Click the Results tab. The report will show conditional formatting as below:

.

.

.

NOTE: Depending on the values for Revenue column, it will display the appropriatetraffic icon next to the Revenue values.NOTE2: Other conditional formatting options are changing Background color of cell,fore-color of the font etc.

Save the request.

BI Answers Example 9(Adding a Column Selector to the Request)


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Remove all views from the compound layout except Table and Title.

In the Results tab, select Add View -> Column Selector

The Column Selection Layout window appears Select the Include Selector option in Column 2, which is Brand:

In the Answers selection pane on the left, click the following columns to make

them available in the Column Selector: Product Type, Market and CustomerSegment:


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The Column Selector in the Results pane should look like this:

Click OK. The Column Selector view will be added to the Compound Layoutas shown:


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Drag the Column Selector view above the Table View:

Note that when Brand is selected in the Column Selector, the Pivot Tabledisplays values for Brand.

When you select Market from the Column Selector, the report replaces Brandcolumn with Market as shown below:

Save the request.


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BI Answers Example 10(Adding a View Selector to the Request)

View Selectors allow users to quickly navigate between different views of theirqueries.

Remove all views from the Compound layout except Title and Tabular Views. In the Results tab, select Add View -> View Selector:

The following layout is displayed. Here, select Pivot Table and Chart in the Available Views list on the left, using

Ctrl+Click to select multiple views. Click the Move Right icon to add them to theViews Included list on the right.

Enter Select View in the caption text field as shown:


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Click OK to go back to Compound Layout. Delete the Pivot Table view form the compound layout. Now Pivot table is selected by default in the drop down list, so you see the Pivot

View of the report as shown:


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Select Chart in the drop down list, and you get the Chart view of the report:

Save the request.

Oracle BI Answers: Summary

Provides answers to business questions. Allows you to explore and interact with information. Allows you to present and visualize information using charts, pivot tables, Gauges

etc. Allows you to save, organize, and share the results. Allows you to build requests that you can integrate with other content in Oracle BI

Interactive Dashboards.

Summary

This course covered Identify and describe fundamental Oracle Business Intelligence terms and concepts


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Identify and describe components of the Oracle Business Intelligence architecture

Use the BI Answers to create Ad hoc requests

Thank You

Thank you for joining us today in this Oracle Business Intelligence User Training

eAlliance Enable OBIEE Answers

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