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- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Oracle Hyperion Interactive Reporting is one of the many products in the Oracle Enterprise Performance Management software suite, an industry-leading business intelligence software package. The primary focus of the Interactive Reporting product is to provide strong relational querying and data analysis capabilities. It also provides the capability to disseminate information throughout an enterprise. There is a very steep learning curve for most users of this tool.This book examines the power of the Interactive Reporting Web Client software, focusing on the key features of each section of the product. The author's experience in developing and supporting Interactive Reporting users is very well documented in this book. The goal is to educate you on every useful feature of the product, enabling you to gather information from various sources and process it to produce meaningful results that help you to spot problems and analyze trends necessary for business decisions.The book starts with a quick introduction to the product interface and the EPM Workspace, with explanation of importing and provisioning. It then takes you through each section from building a query and data model to building graphical displays of the data in a logical sequence. The report sections and interactive dashboards are also discussed at length. The book also covers advanced features of the product and provides you with the information necessary to build the foundation for creating complex queries and computations using the product.
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Seitenzahl: 253
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010
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Table of Contents
The Business Analyst's Guide to Oracle Hyperion Interactive Reporting 11
Edward J. Cody
The Business Analyst's Guide to Oracle Hyperion Interactive Reporting 11
Copyright © 2010 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: September 2010
Production Reference: 1010910
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
32 Lincoln Road
Olton
Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.
ISBN 978-1-849680-36-3
www.packtpub.com
Cover Image by Tina Negus (<[email protected]>)
Credits
Author
Edward J. Cody
Reviewer
Robert J. Fronzaglia
Acquisition Editor
James Lumsden
Development Editor
Dhwani Devater
Technical Editor
Arun Nadar
Indexer
Monica Ajmera Mehta
Editorial Team Leader
Mithun Sehgal
Project Team Leader
Lata Basantani
Project Coordinator
Srimoyee Ghoshal
Proofreaders
Arani Roy
Conrad Sardinha
Production Coordinator
Kruthika Bangera
Cover Work
Kruthika Bangera
About the Author
Edward J. Cody is accomplished Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence consultant with over seven years of experience with Hyperion products. Mr. Cody was a speaker at Oracle OpenWorld 2008 on Essbase, and he has spoken at local user groups on ETL software. His experience with Interactive Reporting began with Brio v6 and has continued through the most recent version. He also has extensive experience with Essbase and Financial Reporting.
Mr. Cody has consulted both private and Government organizations throughout his career. He has a Bachelor of Science in Systems Engineering from the George Washington University, School of Engineering and Applied Science, and he has a Master of Science in the Management of Information Technology from the University of Virginia, McIntire School of Commerce. His experience includes leading large Data Warehouse and Oracle Hyperion Business Intelligence projects, and he is currently leading an assessment of a major data warehouse and business intelligence initiative. He is well know for his efforts to aid clients in realizing their investment in business intelligence and a data warehouse through building well designed systems, leveraging automation, and reducing BI complexity.
Mr. Cody has designed training programs on the software and decided to author a book on Oracle Hyperion Interactive Reporting after exposure to user feedback on the complexity of learning the product. He identified that an introductory user guidebook on using the essential features of the software would be beneficial to all software users.
Acknowledgement
I would first like to start by thanking all of you who purchased this book. I hope that you find it a good resource to aid you in your use with the product. I would also like to thank my parents (Ed & Cathy), brother (David), and all of my family and friends for working around my schedule as I wrote this book. I really appreciate your patience and understanding.
I would like to thank all of my managers, peers, and employees that have supported me throughout my career. I would especially like to thank Dan Miller for providing me the opportunity to work in this field. His efforts and the efforts of many others have helped me develop as a professional throughout my career.
I must thank Bob Griesemer, author of the Oracle Warehouse Builder 11g: Getting Started, for setting me up with the opportunity to work with Packt Publishing. Bob is a good friend, colleague, and technical expert. His book is a great resource for all those interested in learning about Data Warehousing. I would also like to thank Bob Fronzaglia, the book's reviewer, for his contributions to the material. Bob has been a long time mentor and friend, and I thank him for his efforts.
I must also thank James Lumsden and all of those at Packt Publishing for their efforts with the book. The team has worked tirelessly with me to produce a quality product and I thank them for all of their time and efforts.
About the Reviewer
Robert J. Fronzaglia is an Operations Research Analysts in the Office of the Secretary Director (OSD), Cost Analysis and Program Evaluation. He is responsible for managing the Department of Defense (DoD) Resources Data Warehouse that contains DoD strategic resource data for budgeting, programming, acquisition, force structure, and manpower.
Before joining OSD, Mr. Fronzaglia was a consultant with MPRI and AT&T Government Solutions where he provided analysis, data warehousing, and Activity-Based Costing support for various DoD organizations. Prior to that, he served in the U.S. Army for over 20 years as both a Field Artillery officer and Comptroller. He served in staff, instructor, and command assignments in Europe, Southwest Asia, and the U.S. His military decorations include the Legion of Merit and Bronze Star.
Mr. Fronzaglia holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Management from Gannon University, and a Masters in Business Administration from Syracuse University. Academic honors include being selected for the Beta Gamma Sigma National Honor Society for Scholastic Achievement and for Who's Who in American Universities and Colleges.
Preface
The Oracle Hyperion Interactive reporting product is a highly customizable and powerful business intelligence software product. The software is one of the many products in the Oracle Business Intelligence software suite, an industry-leading business intelligence solution. The product provides users with advanced business intelligence capabilities to efficiently and effectively query, analyze, and disseminate information throughout an enterprise.
Users gain access to the product through the web-based Workspace, the central location for interacting and managing content across all of the Oracle Hyperion products. The tool has two user components, a zero-footprint client and a web client plug-in for web browsers. While the zero-footprint client has many benefits, users typically prefer the Web Client plug-in due to its easy-to-use, flexibility, and robust functionality.
This book examines the power of the Interactive Reporting Web Client software, focusing on the key features of each section of the product. The book starts with a quick introduction to the product interface and the EPM Workspace, with explanation of navigating, importing, and provisioning. It then takes you through a chapter on each section of the product from building a query to building graphical dashboard displays. Reports, Tables, Pivots, and Charts are discussed at length, and an overview of more advanced features including Computed Items, Custom SQL, and Scripting are also included. The book also provides in-depth information on developer topics including building Data Models, creating Meta Topics, and integrating multiple queries into a table in a Report to educate the user on how to identify, build, and modify these advanced features of the product.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Welcome to Oracle Hyperion Interactive Reporting provides the business analyst with an overview of Interactive Reporting and EPM Workspace.
Chapter 2, The Query provides the tools necessary to effectively build and manage queries from a data model, including building request items, creating filters, and sorting.
Chapter 3, The Data Model provides the knowledge to create and edit a data model, including the ability to modify Joins, manage Meta Topics, combine data from multiple queries, and import external content.
Chapter 4, Advanced Querying and Filtering provides the knowledge to implement advanced querying and filtering techniques to enhance reporting and to decrease manual efforts.
Chapter 5, Results and Tables provides the knowledge to perform analysis in a Results and Table section on the data returned from a query.
Chapter 6, Pivots provide a very effective method to summarize and analyze a dataset, providing the ability to quickly modify, compute, and rearrange data while easily repopulating the dataset with new data.
Chapter 7, Charts provide the ability to graphically model data in a variety of different Chart formats including creating and configuring Charts, analyzing Chart content, and methods for exporting and printing.
Chapter 8, Reports provide an overview of a Report, including the knowledge to create and configure Reports as well as analyze content and integrate data across datasets.
Chapter 9, Dashboards provides the tools to create professional executive level dashboards, including an overview of dashboard objects and leveraging custom scripting to add dashboard interactivity.
What you need for this book
This book was written using a standard deployment of Oracle EPM 11.1.1.3. The sections and techniques in this book are primarily version independent, where almost all of the functionality demonstrated will exist in previous versions of the product. References are made to some of the new features in Interactive Reporting 11, especially in the area of charting and dashboards as features have progressed throughout the new versions. The Sales and Cost model examples used throughout the book are from the Oracle 11g Database sample schemas.
Who this book is for
The target audience of this book is the novice to advanced Oracle Hyperion Interactive reporting user. The book focuses on providing an understanding of the product, acclimating users to the software and providing an in-depth understanding on how to easily leverage the powerful functionality of the software.
Permissions
Security can be set to documents in the Oracle Hyperion Workspace to prevent the user from accessing certain features of the product, including creating custom data models, editing queries, and saving and importing documents. This book is written with full access to all of the features of the product. References are made to permissions in certain sections. Contact your system administration resources for more information on your deployment if you cannot access certain features of the product in your environment.
Multidimensional queries
Oracle Hyperion Interactive Reporting provides the capability to query against a multidimensional data source. Since multidimensional queries are less frequently deployed in Interactive Reporting, the focus of this book is on the relational querying and analysis capabilities of the product. More information on multidimensional queries can be found in the product documentation.
Additional resources
There are many helpful online resources to learn more about Interactive Reporting, including three very common and useful references. The first is the Oracle Business Intelligence 11g documentation, which contains the developer references for Interactive Reporting. The second is the "Tips and Tricks Cookbook", Mark Ostroff, a useful guide containing many Interactive Reporting tips, tricks, and advanced techniques. Both the Oracle documentation and the cookbook can be found on the Oracle website or through a simple web search. Finally Toolbox.com (http://it.toolbox.com), a commonly used website by developers, contains Hyperion and Brio knowledge groups providing the ability to search for answers and post questions to a large user community.
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Chapter 1. Oracle Hyperion Interactive Reporting
Welcome to Oracle Hyperion Interactive Reporting! Interactive Reporting is an extremely robust and powerful business intelligence tool providing ad-hoc querying, data analysis, dashboards, and other reporting capabilities. Business analysts access the software through the EPM Workspace, a central location for viewing and managing content across all of the Hyperion products. The product is extremely flexible and provides analysts with the ability to quickly analyze data and produce deliverables. The software provides a consistent platform for managing content, where documents can be customized, saved, and shared across an organization. The focus of this chapter is to provide an overview of the Interactive Reporting Web Client and EPM Workspace, providing the business analyst with the skills necessary to work with the tool on a daily basis.
The content in this chapter covers:
The Interactive Reporting document: The BQY
When working with Interactive Reporting, it is hard to escape the term BQY. BQY or BrioQuery, is the extension given to all Interactive Reporting document files. Developers create BQY files using the Workspace, Interactive Reporting Web Client, or Interactive Reporting Studio—a developer tool used to create and manage BQY documents outside of the EPM Workspace.
The EPM Workspace
The EPM Workspace is similar to a portal, where all Oracle Hyperion applications, reports, and other files can be accessed and integrated using a shared security model. The Workspace is accessible through the web browser and contains a filesystem and other gadgets including personal pages and content subscription. Interactive Reporting is one of the many products that integrate with the Workspace, providing users a central location to save, share, and publish content.
Navigating the EPM Workspace
To navigate the Workspace, a user account must be created and provisioned with the necessary privileges to the Workspace and the Interactive Reporting components. After the user account is created, users can access the Workspace using a web browser.
Note
Each environment may be configured differently and have different login methods and start pages configured. However, this book provides examples based on the default product configuration.
The following screenshot shows the default login page for the EPM Workspace in version 11. Once the user enters the assigned username and password, the default home page appears. Other configurations may be configured to use external authentication methods, where the user will bypass the initial login screen and start at the default start page for their configuration.
The default home page shown in the following screenshot is new to the Workspace in version 11. The new home page feature allows users to add Quick Links, browse recently opened documents, and view custom created Workspace pages.
If the desired content is not listed on the main home page, the Explorer can be accessed by clicking on the Explore image on the toolbar at the top of the page, allowing users to browse for content in the Workspace filesystem similar to Windows Explorer. The Explore window, shown in the following screenshot, opens to a page with two frames showing a folder structure on the left for navigating the file structure and the contents of the current folder on the right for managing and executing items. The main parent folder in the file system is called the Root folder and other files and folders can be added under the Root folder as desired. If there is a need to return to the previous page, the user can click on the HomePage tab at the bottom-left of the page. As additional items are opened in the Workspace, additional tabs are created at the bottom of the screen. The user can navigate through the different items opened by using the tabs across the bottom of the Workspace window. If desired, these tabs can be closed by right-clicking on the tab and selecting Close.
After navigating to the desired folder, the user can open the documents of interest. Files from different applications are designated with two unique identifiers in the Explore window. The first identifier is the image that is shown to the left of the name, and the second identifier is the object Type. The documents shown in the previous screenshot are Interactive Reporting documents and can be opened using the HTML viewer or the Interactive Reporting Web Client. Selecting the HTML option will render the document in a new tab, while opening the document in the Interactive Reporting Web Client will open the document in a new browser window.
Installing the Interactive Reporting Web Client
The Interactive Reporting Web Client software must be installed to open documents in the Web Client. This installation is a plug-in to the browser, where the browser will activate the Web Client software when an Interactive Reporting file is initiated. The installation will automatically execute upon opening the Interactive Reporting document in a browser without the Web Client installed, or the installation can be manually executed by accessing the Tools | Install | Interactive Reporting Web Client item as shown in the following screenshot:
Once the installation is initiated, a window appears with the ability to customize the installation by checking/unchecking options. The default installation will install all of the components of the tool and is recommended:
The installation will commence after clicking on the Next button on the configuration menu and will continue through the completion of the installation, signified by the following window:
Opening documents in the Workspace
Interactive Reporting documents are opened by double-clicking on the document in the Workspace or by highlighting and right-clicking the document, highlighting Open As, and selecting either HTML or Interactive Reporting Web Client from the menu as shown in the following screenshot.
When the document is double-clicked, the default configuration method for opening the document is invoked by Interactive Reporting. Initially the software is configured to use the HTML viewer as the default, but the default preference can easily be changed by modifying the Default Open Format of the document in the Interactive Reporting preferences of the Workspace. The main Preferences window is opened by accessing the File menu and selecting the Preferences menu item, as shown in the following screenshot. Once the Preferences window is open, the Default Open Format is found under the Interactive Reporting tab on the left menu of the window. To change the default format from HTML to the Interactive Reporting Web Client, click on the drop-down arrow, select the Interactive Reporting Web Client item, and then click on the OK button on the Preferences window. In addition to the file open format, other preferences can be modified in this window to address changing formats for date, time, and currency.
Opening documents from the local machine
Interactive Reporting documents can be saved and opened from the local machine by opening the document using the web browser with Web Client installed. To open the document from the local machine, highlight and right-click on the Interactive Reporting file and select Open With from the menu that appears. If the web browser of choice is not listed, select Choose Program from the list. Browse the window, select the web browser with the plug-in installed, and check the checkbox at the bottom to Always use the selected program to open this kind of file in order to always open the Interactive Reporting document in the selected web browser. Then select OK in the window to open the Interactive Reporting document with the web browser.
The web browser will open and the Web Client will load the document into the viewing window. If offline mode is not turned on, the document will open a window to authenticate with the Workspace. If no connection can be established with the Workspace, only the data sections will be visible when the document is opened. If the connection can be established and the file saved to the desktop still exists in the Workspace, then the document will load with proper permissions to the file and the document can be processed as if it was opened from the Workspace. If the file is not located in the Workspace, then the file can be imported by the user if the user has import permissions. Instructions for importing are found in the importing section of this chapter.
The Web Client interface
Understanding the Web Client interface is crucial to being proficient in the product. The different sections of the software contain a variety of different options, but the location of where to find and utilize these options is the same across the tool. Knowledge of the interface and how to leverage the features of each section is key to unlock the full potential of the product.
The sections of an Interactive Reporting document are the different objects in the software used to aid in querying, analyzing, or displaying information. There are seven types of unique sections. The specifics of each section will be addressed in the following chapters:
The following screenshot displays the Interactive Reporting Web Client window open to the Query section. The arrows shown in the screenshot highlight each of the different features and toolbars of the product. These different features and toolbars can be toggled on and off using the View menu:
The Section Catalogue
The Section Catalogue, displayed on the left of the previous screenshot, contains two windows for navigating and editing sections. The Sections window displays the different sections in the document, and the Elements window is used to add content to a section. Both windows are used commonly when building documents and performing analysis.
Menus
The Interactive Reporting Web Client Menus are similar to a typical menu structure seen in most Windows-based applications. Interactive Reporting contains a standard set of menus and each section also contains menus specific to a section. The details of the section-specific menu items will be discussed in each respective chapter. The following menu items are consistent between all product sections:
