Custom Skins Not Appearing after BI Composer setup

Have you faced a weird issue of custom skins getting disappeared after enabling BI Composer as your analysis editor?

After enabling Wizard (BI Composer) and navigating to BI Composer application, you would not face the issue. But after saving the report in BI Composer, when you navigate back to OBIEE Home page, all custom skins will stop appearing and show only error images as below. 




This seems a bug with current OBIEE release (11.1.1.7+). Solution to this problem is to change custom resource path in InstanceConfig file as shown below. 

After changes, just restart OBIEE services and clear browser cache. You would see regular portal screens even after enabling BI Composer option.

Cheers. 

"JAVA.LANG.NULLPOINTEREXCEPTION" when Adding Users to Application Roles in Enterprise Manager

Hi All,

Recently I faced an issue while adding AD users to specific application role in EM. Even though, users are present in AD and listed in users list in weblogic console, application was throwing error as shown below. Searching for the user with search string in Display Name section, returns the user without Principal name and throws java.lang.nul pointer exception. 

After spending lots of time on finding out the root cause, I finally got a breakthrough. Issue started appearing only after recent upgrade from 11.1.1.6+ to 11.1.1.7 release. So, when I searched in Oracle documents, I found that, certain attributes which are added in security provided configurations are no longer valid.



If you have configured below attributes in Security / Security Provider Configuration under Identity Store Configuration, this is not required in 11.1.1.7+ releases !!

•  user.login.attr
•  username.attr

So, remove those variables, follow below mentioned steps (Doc ID 1570390.1)

1. Log in to Enterprise Manager.
2. Click on WebLogic Domain.
3. Click on bifoundation_domain.
4. Click on the WeblLogic Domain drop down menu.
5. Click on Security / Security Provider Configuration menut item.
6. In the resulting page, remove the following variables then click the 'Configure' button to save the changes:
   •  user.login.attr
   •  username.attr
7. Restart WebLogic Server.
8. Restart the OBIEE services.

You are good to go. ;)

Cheers..

Working with BI Composer

In last post, I explained about installing & configuration of BI Composer. (Installing BI Composer)

Lets concentrate on exploring the features of BI Composer.

BI Composer component is available in modes : 

• Regular Mode -
• Accessible Mode - Accessible mode has same feautures except it is optimized for screen reading mode.
• Also, need to enable "Access to BI Composer" priviledge from the Admin/Manage Priviledges.

Example of BI Composer screen features :

Lets create a simple analysis using available options.

A. Click on New Analysis and select Subject Area (Sample Sales Lite). As we chose "wizard option" earlier from My Account, OBIEE will directly jump to BI Composer screen. First screen is displayed above.

B. Select Columns : In this step, you first select the columns that should be included in analysis.

Also, we can specify :

• Specify column interactions
• Specify/Edit a column formula
• Rename a colum

For Example, I have selected Product, Year, Company, Actual Unit Price, Avg Order Size, # of Orders. We can specify Drill and rename the column name from this step. Column Formula can also be changed as shown below.

C. Select Views : In this step, we will choose the views (Table/Pivot or/and Graphs) which can be added to the analysis. 

D. Edit Table - This option will provide options to change the properties of the Table view.

For example we can add following :

• Create prompts/Sections
• Use a column to create a section of the analysis
• Exclude certain columns from the tabular view.
• You can also preview the results.
• Arranging of the columns can be done only from the left pane properties.

E. Edit Graph : Similar to Edit Table, this option will provide options to edit the graph which is selected earlier.  Following options are avaialable.

Create prompts/Sections

Use a column to create a section of the analysis

Exclude certain columns from the tabular view. 

You can also preview the results.

Arranging of the columns can be done only from the left pane properties.

Change the Chart Sub Type (Ex. changing Horizontal -> Vertical,Stake bar)

F. Sort and Filter — In this step you apply sorting and filters to the views.
Sorting can be applied on the selected columns only, while you can add additional column for filtering the analysis. You can also add "Saved Filter" for this option.

G.Highlight — In this step you apply conditional formatting to the tabular view.

H. Save - Save the report in the new folder/existing folder.

I. View the Analysis -  Navigate to Catalog folder and view the analysis.

BI Composer is a new concept and I believe, this feature will be enhanced significantly in future releases. Still, it is powerful for the end user's analysis who do not want to get into the complexity of Answers development.

cheers..

BI Composer Installation & Setup

BI Composer is a simple-to-use wizard that allows you to quickly and easily create,

edit, or view analyses without the complexities of the "Analysis editor". 

BI Composer tool reminds of "Query Studio" of Cognos 8 Suites. This is mainly designed for Adhoc analysis where end users wants to develop queries/analysis on-the-fly.

Main Components of BI Composer are :

■ On the Top, Buttons for each step in the wizard.

■ On the left are the Catalog tab and the Subject Areas tab.

■ To the right of the tabs is the panel area, where the components for each step are

displayed.

■ To the far right are the Back, Next, Finish, and Cancel buttons.

  

We will cover all the steps in next blog, "Working with BI Composer". Lets focus on the installation/configuration first.

There are two basis steps required for the installation.

1. Extend the Oracle WebLogic Server domain to include the BI Composer application and the BI Composer run-time implementation shared libraries

2. Configuring the instanceconfig.xml file on the installed computer and on any scaled-out computers

Steps :-

A. Stop/Shutdown the server. (Including weblogic/OPMN)

B. Start the Oracle Fusion Middleware Configuration Wizard from Command/Unix located at

cd MW_HOME\wlserver_10.3\common\bin\config.exe

This will open up a new window for extending weblogic domain.

C. Select the Extend an existing WebLogic domain radio button

D. Select a WebLogic Domain Directory and Click Next.

MWHOME/user_projects/domains/bifoundation_domain

 

E. In the Select Extension Source page select the Extend my domain using an existing extension template radio button.

F. Click Browse and then select the oracle.bicomposer_template_11.1.1.jar file in the
following location: 

MWHOME/BI_HOME/common/templates/applications/oracle.bicomposer_tem plate_11.1.1.jar/ 

G.  Click Next -> Next -> Next -> Next -> Next. You don't need to specify/check any options from the list of Data sources/Test/Optional Configurations.

H. Click Done when Process is completed.

I. Add BI Composer Element in InstanceConfig.xml.

<ServerInstance>

.......

<BIComposer>

<Enabled>true</Enabled>

</BIComposer>

.......
</ServerInstance>

J. Start the server ( Admin/Managed/OPMN).

K. BI Composer is now available in Oracle Business Intelligence.


L. Login to OBIEE Application. Go to My Account and click on Wizard(limited functionality) under Analysis Editor option. 

M. Now Edit the Analysis/Create a New Analysis, which will open BI Composer screen for quick analysis.

In next blog, we will discuss about basic features of BI Composer.

Cheers..