Monday, October 31, 2016

Data Visualization Desktop (DVD) 12.2.2 - New and Custom (SDK) visualization

I want to talk about the new visualization options in DVD 12.2.2.0 and about adding custom visualizations to DVD. The one thing I want to remind myself is the location:  C:\Users\YOUR_USER_NAME\AppData\Local\DVDesktop where to place the plugins. I will get back to this later.


New visualization types

You can see a good YouTube video here about the new visualization types.

I marked the new visualizations here:


Lets see them.

List and Timeline.
The list lets you get a list of values. In my case I selected Year and Month. and changed the layout in properties to horizontal. After turning on the "Use as filter" option I described here, any click on list values filter the other visualizations, in this case the timeline.
The timeline shows event on a timeline. So only dates and date dimensions can be there at the Category (Time).

For timeline we can control the time axis using properties, but I guess most of us will just use the zoom in / out buttons and drag the line left and right.

Tree and Sankey:
Here is a Tree (left) and Sankey (right) visualization of "Product Category" and "Product Sub Category" with Color by "Profit" and Size by "Sales". Both Color and Size must be measures.



Circular Network, Network and Chord diagram

Here is the relations between "Product Category" and "Customer Segment" based on Color by "Profit" and Size by "Sales".Both Color and Size must be measures. Using Circular Network (left) and Chord diagram (right).

Here is Network visualization of the same:

Parallel Coordinates

Here is Parallel Coordinates of relations between "Product Category" and "Customer Segment" and "Quantity Ordered" with line color by "Profit":




Custom Visualizations


In the new DVD there is an option of custom visualizations. We can create new visualizations using the SDK. Serious people can see the YouTube video here, read the documentation here or see tutorial here. I'm sure I will do it when I grow up (or have to), but at the moment I wanted to use custom visualization someone else prepared.

Like the ones marked here:




You can see a video about available plugins here.
Plugins can be found at the public store.
(Or actually, if you want the full path: 
If you look at the DVD community space here, there is a link from there to samples here. The actual link is at the middle of the screen and points to the public store, here.)
At the moment you can find the following plugin visualizations there:
Now we come to the point, that forced me to write this blog. WHERE to put the zip files after I download them? It took me several annoying minutes to find.
All we have to do is place the zip files, as they are (no need to unzip) at the following location on your PC: C:\Users\YOUR_USER_NAME\AppData\Local\DVDesktop.
Since "YOUR_USER_NAME" is probably not your user name on the computer, you should replace it with the actual one.
Once the zip files are there, restart DVD and the new visualizations are ready to use.


Here are few examples:

Calendar Heatmap (naturally has to do with calendars and dates): Here profit by Order date:


Boxplot, that is good for data scientist to see the statistical distribution of the data:


Circle Pack, in this case Profit with Circles by Product Sub Categories, colored by Customer Segment.


Candle Sticks, Oracle stock behavior, 2008-2012. The bottom graph is a scrolling bar for the 2 upper.  


Sunday, October 30, 2016

Data Visualization Desktop (DVD) 12.2.2 - Master Detail (Use as Filter)

In the blog Oracle Underground BI & Dataviz there is a nice post about Oracle DV - New filtering options in Oracle DVD 12.2.2. I want to talk a little more about the master detail option we can see there.

Lets create a project with the default "Sample order lines".
For example, I'll take "Product Category", "Order Year" and "Profit" and use default visualization (mark the columns with Ctrl and drag them to the right):
the result is:

 Next I'll add 2 more default visualizations of "Product sub category", one with "# of Orders" and the other with "Profit". Then right click and sort each of them:
 The result is:
Did you notice the new filter option of DVD 12.2.2 for each visualization? 
I can drag columns here, but I don't (look Ma, no hands).
What I'm doing instead is going to the top visualization, the one I want to be Master here, and in the menu:
 mark the "Use as Filter" option:

That is all I have to do. Now the top visualization attributes are automatically added to the visualization filter in the 2 other visualizations (after I click something).
We can see the change in the background of the Master visualization and the label:
Each click does the master detail reaction:
Before:

After one click:
 
After marking 2 (I prefer Ctrl Click):
Very nice and easy to use.

You want to stop Master - Detail effect without unchecking the "Use as Filter" option? Click on empty space of the master visualization.



Now if you are a malicious type and delete the filters in one or both of the bottom visualizations, it wouldn't help. They will return after each click in the master visualization. Only turning off the "Use as Filter" option will make them disappear.

What is possible is doing some temporary checking. For example:

I clicked on (category Technology & year 2014)

In the # of orders visualization I can remove the "Product Category" from the filter

The change will only influence the # of orders visualization


Another click on master will revive the filters - I clicked on (category Technology & year 2015)

    

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

New DVD (Data Visialization Desktop) 12.2.2.0.0 is available

Data Visualization Desktop (12.2.2.0.0) is available here for few days now.


How come everything is released when I'm on holiday?

 

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

OBIEE 12.2.1.0.161018 is available

OBIEE 12.2.1.0 bundle patch was released a week ago, as described by
Business Analytics - Proactive Support here
The patch 24695761 download is here.

This is a critical patch update.
With it 12.2.1.1 client should be used (download is here).


This is the list of bugs resolved:

21094127    ADD FUSE CUSTOM.CSS APP STYLES TO ALTA
21127173    BI DEINSTALL THROWS EXCEPTIONS WHILE LAUNCHING DEINSTALLER IN COMMAND LINE
21158035    12C VA MASHUP DATASET INSPECT DIALOG TO INCLUDE PERMISSIONS TAB
21419316    QA:HGRID CAUSE&EFFECT AND STV WITH MANY COLS DON'T DISPLAY PROPERLY AS          WATCHLIST
21438772    Fix for Bug 21438772
21527677    12C:BI: INSTRUCTION FOR ENTERING THE DOMAIN NAME NEEDS TO BE CHANGED
21529377    MDS XML INVALIDDATATYPEVALUEEXCEPTION, MESSAGE:ID 'MERROR' IS NOT UNIQUE
21658348    UNABLE TO FIND MAPPING.XML IN ALL UTIL LOGS IN ADMINTOOL CLIENT
21766161    Fix for Bug 21766161
21766173    Fix for Bug 21766173

OBIEE 12.2.1.2.0 is available

The latest release of OBI, 12.2.1.2.0 is available at oracle.com here.
It's available as usual for Windows, Linux, Solaris on Sparc, Solaris on x86, IBM AIX and HP UX Itanium.
The documentation is here
This is the get started link.

In the great blog of Oracle Underground BI & Dataviz (http://oracledataviz.blogspot.com), the post "Upgrade OBIEE in your SampleApp V607 to 12.2.1.2" gives us everything:

1. How to upgrade, the Oracle way (there is an alternative at RittmaMead here).
2. What is OK to delete at the old home, to save space (actually, I didn't try that yet).
3. How to configure 2 new features:
    a. Lightweight SSO that uses VA sign on
    b. .dva import/export.

Regarding the Lightweight SSO, a quick reminder to myself:
If I had the OBI 12.2.1.1.0 installed at C:/oracle/Middleware/Oracle_Home, and the OBI 12.2.1.2.0 is now at C:/oracle/Middleware/Oracle_Home12212.
wlst script is at C:\oracle\Middleware\Oracle_Home12212\oracle_common\common\bin. Run wlst. There run the script to run is: enableBISingleSignOn('C:/oracle/Middleware/Oracle_Home/user_projects/domains/bi','/bi-security-login/logout?redirect=/va').

After the restart, when I login this is the screen (The VA one):

If you are Arabic/Hebrew UI user, this has impact.

If not happy with the SSO the following disables it:
disableBISingleSignOn('C:/oracle/Middleware/Oracle_Home/user_projects/domains/bi')