Following are new features in OBIEE 11.1.1.7 as appears in the documents.
Before we start, my personal opinions:
1. Oracle is doing additional integration steps towards the "one big Oracle BI": Better integration between Dashboards and BI Publisher, better integration with Hyperion tools (Essbase tools in OBIEE installation, Smart View integration) and initial steps of integrating Endeca (search in catalog using Endeca out of the box and BI Publisher working with Endeca as a source). The future seems interesting.
2. Oracle want to help the "dumb user": Default BI Composer working by default and wizards in Graphics.
3.The Multitanancy (described in the System Admin. Guide), is a big thing in the current tendency of cloud computers and Software as a Service.
4. All the features I wanted in prompts are added in this release.
5. If you can't beat them, join them... A big step for better work with Excel: Smart View, Dashboard export and real Excel export. (See here)
New Certified Data Sources:
- Apache Hive 0.9.x
- MySQL 5.5.14+
New versions of Data Sources:
- IBM DB2 10, IBM DB2 for z/OS 9.1 (and not only DB2 9.1, 9.5, 9.7 as
usual).
- Microsoft SQL Server 2008R2 (not only 2005, 2008)
- Aster Datadabase 5.0 (and not only 4.6.2)
From the Documentation we learn about many new features:
New installation Features:
- Installing
Oracle Business Intelligence on IBM WebSphere - Oracle
WebLogic Server is the primary platform for Oracle Fusion Middleware software
components. In this release, when you perform a Software Only install of Oracle
Business Intelligence you can select Oracle WebLogic Server or IBM WebSphere.
- Configuring
Oracle Essbase Suite when Installing Oracle Business Intelligence - Oracle
Essbase database provides multidimensional analysis, enabling rapid development
of custom analytic and enterprise performance management applications. In this
release, when you install Oracle Business Intelligence you can select to configure Oracle Essbase database and its
associated tools.
- Installing BI Composer - When performing a new 11.1.1.7 BI installation, BI Composer is
automatically installed and configured. (in previous 11 versions you needed to configure it.)
- Smart View - Starting
with Release 11.1.1.7, Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office is replaced by Oracle
Hyperion Smart View for Office (Smart View) as a comprehensive tool for accessing
and integrating Oracle Business Intelligence and Enterprise Performance Management
content from Microsoft Office products. Smart View provides a common Microsoft
Office interface designed for Oracle Business Intelligence and Oracle Enterprise
Performance Management.
New UI Features:
- Recommended Visualizations Feature for Creating
Views - In this release, when you create a view, you can choose a
recommended view type based on the data in your analysis and, optionally, what
you want to use it for (for example, to analyze trends). You can choose a
suggested "Best Visualization" as well as a "Recommended
Subtype". Or you can instead choose the "Recommended
Visualization" option, for which you specify your intent for the new view.
For example, will the view compare values, compare percentages, visualize
trends, or something else? From a list of suggested view types that is ordered
with the best option at the top, you can then choose your preferred view type.
- Breadcrumbs - Breadcrumbs have been added to help users understand their current
location within Oracle BI content and the path that they have used to navigate
Oracle BI content. Breadcrumbs display
at the bottom of the page, and users can click a breadcrumb or the breadcrumb
overflow button to navigate to a specific location on their breadcrumb trail.
- Enhancement to Dashboards - This release provides the following enhancements to dashboards:
- The
ability to create custom print layouts for high-fidelity printing of dashboard pages
(Using integration with BI Publisher).
- The
new default style is FusionFX.
- The
addition of the Freeze Column option to the Column Properties menu. This option
allows you to freeze a column at an edge (top or left) of a dashboard layout.
- The
addition of the following options that allow you to control the position and size
of columns and sections:
- Size option in the Additional Formatting Options area of the "Section Properties dialog" and the "Column Properties dialog"
- Page Size option in the "Dashboard
Properties dialog"
- The
ability to export an entire dashboard or a single dashboard page to Microsoft Excel
2007+ (I heard many request in that direction. See picture on the right).
- The
addition of options to replace an analysis on a dashboard and to return to a dashboard
from the Analysis editor:
- The Replace analysis in
<dashboard name> option
was added to the Save As dialog. This option displays when the user is viewing
a dashboard, clicks an embedded analysis' Analyze or Edit link, edits the analysis, and selects Save As to rename and save the analysis. The Replace analysis in <dashboard name> option allows the designer to choose to include the
modified analysis on the dashboard.
- The Return to <dashboard
name> option was added to the
Analysis editor. This option displays in the Analysis editor when the user is
viewing a dashboard and clicks an embedded analysis' Analyze or Edit link. The designer can click this option to easily
move from the Analysis editor to the dashboard.
- Enhancements to Graphs - In this release graphs have been enhanced in various ways.
- Waterfall graph. A waterfall graph lets you visualize how a value
increases or decreases sequentially and cumulatively. An initial value is
summed with subsequent values (both negative and positive changes or deltas) to
arrive at an end value, focusing your attention on how each measure contributes
to the whole.
- Stacked graph as a new subtype to the area graph. A stacked graph
is useful for comparing the proportional contributions within a category. A
stacked graph displays the relative value that each part contributes to the
whole.
- 100% stacked graph as subtypes to the bar graph and the area
graph. A 100% stacked graph, like the stacked graph subtype, lets you compare
the parts to the whole. But while the stacked graph shows cumulative total in
the units of the measure, the 100% stacked graph always shows units as
percentages of the total, and the axis scale is always zero to 100 percent.
- Zoom
to data range. This option lets the system evaluate the range of values on an axis,
and choose appropriate minimum and maximum values for the scale. This is useful
when graphing a set of large values that are all within a small percentage of each
other.
- Hide
sliders in graph views that listen to master-detail events. For graphs in master-detail
relationships, if you want to simplify the appearance of an analysis or
dashboard, you can hide the slider that is created to accommodate detail columns.
- Enhancements to Views - This release includes enhancements to various view types,
including those in the following list:
- A new
view type named performance tile. This view type displays a single aggregate
measure value in a manner that is both visually simple and prominent.
- Action
links in trellis views. In simple trellis views, action links can now be used on
inner graphs per unit, including the context of the outer edges. Action links
can also be used in legends and in axis labels. In advanced trellis views,
action links can be used in microcharts, where the microchart functions as a
single unit (such as an aggregate number), including the context of the outer
edges.
- For
map views:
- Vary the width of a line by measure to accentuate a feature.
- Link a map view as a detail in a master-detail relationship.
- Auto Correct option. A map view error can occur for various
reasons. If the issue appears to be related to missing layers, maps, or styles,
then it might be possible to correct the map by replacing the missing map view
components with similar items that exist in the spatial metadata.
- Legend and formatting highlighting.
- Null
suppression at view and analysis levels. You can set null suppression options at
the view level (which overrides the analysis level) for data views including: table,
pivot table, trellis (both simple and advanced), graph, gauge, and funnel views
when the entire row or column contains nulls.
- Ability
to include or exclude calculated items and groups at the view level for columns
and column headers. Specifically, two new options have been added: Include Custom Member and Exclude Custom Member. These interactions are available for tables, pivot tables, and
trellises.
- For
tables, pivot tables, and advanced trellises, the ability to:
- Specify the method to be used to browse data — either scrolling or
paging controls. For more information, see "Table Properties dialog: Style tab", "Pivot
Table Properties dialog" and "Trellis Properties dialog: General
tab".
- Row
count. If your table or pivot table view contains a grand total or subtotal on the
row edge, the display totals, that is the grand total and subtotals, are now included
in the Rows per Page count for content paging. In prior releases, if you
had the Rows per Page count set to 10 for example, the table or pivot
table would display more than 10 records if display totals were shown in the
view results.
- For
right-click interactions, the ability to specify whether the Hide Columns interaction is available at runtime.
- Enhancements to Prompts - This release includes enhancements to prompts, including those in
the following list:
- Enhancement to the SQL Results prompt option. If you are working
with double columns, you can now write the SQL statement so that filtering is
done on code values rather than display values.
- Enhancement to the prompt constraint option. The prompts
designer can now limit a column prompt value list by more than one column.
- Enhancements to the parameters for prompted links.
- New Menu Options for Exporting Views and Results - Excel 2007+ and Powerpoint 2007+ options for exporting views and results.
- Total Member Placement for Hierarchical Columns - This release includes an enhancement that allows placement of
total members on a hierarchy.
- Browse Catalog Search Results by Object Attributes - This release provides the capability to use full-text search to
find catalog objects and then filter the search results by attributes. This
search is available when the administrator integrates Oracle BI Enterprise
Edition with Oracle Endeca Server. After the full-text search results are
returned, the Catalog area displays a list of matching items, and the Search pane displays the
search results grouped by attribute (that is, Type, Name, Path, and Created
By).
- Navigate from the Total or Grand Total in a Table
or Pivot Table - If an analysis contains a total or grand total and the associated
attribute or hierarchical column contains an action link or a conditional
action link, the action link (or conditional action link) is applied to both
the column and the total or grand total.
- New BI Desktop Tools Available for Download - This release adds the following tools to the list of BI desktop
tools that are available for download:
- Oracle
Hyperion Smart View for Office
- Oracle
Hyperion Financial Reporting Studio (if Essbase is installed)
- Oracle
Essbase Studio Console (if Essbase is installed)
- Oracle
Essbase Administrative Services Console (if Essbase is installed)
- Enhancement to Favorites - This release provides the capability to organize your favorites
from the Category Tree area and the Selected Category area in the Manage
Favorites dialog. In previous releases, you could organize favorites from the
Category Tree area, only.
- Integration of Oracle BI EE with Oracle Enterprise
Performance Management System - With this release, Oracle BI EE is integrated with Enterprise
Performance Management Workspace.
New Features for Oracle
BI Mobile:
This section describes new features for Oracle BI EE 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.7). With this release, there is a brand-new
application to install from the Apple App Store.
This release provides end-user enhancements in the following
areas:
- Maximize views with double-tap gesture. With this new feature, you can access on your iPad
more data—even within dense dashboards—without the restrictions of the smaller
form factor. You expand an individual view by double-tapping on it. The individual view then displays within the full screen of the
iPad. This maximizing of views can be done on views accessed within a
dashboard, and also when viewing an analysis independent of a dashboard.
- New view and graph types (described above): Performance tiles, Waterfall graphs, 100% stacked graph as subtypes to the bar graph
and the area graph, Stacked graph as a new subtype to the area graph,Fixed headers.
- Changing
between landscape and portrait orientation while viewing Oracle BI content. See "Switching Screen Orientation Between Landscape and
Portrait."
- Breadcrumbs.
You can see the navigation
path you have taken while moving through the catalog as a trail of breadcrumbs (near the top of the screen by the Back arrow). In this way, you can see your current location and how you
got there, then decide whether to use the Back arrow to navigate in reverse,
or to use the Home icon to quickly return to the Home screen.
- Security
toolkit. The Oracle Business
Intelligence Mobile Security Toolkit provides the ability to generate a signed
version of the Oracle BI Mobile HD application. The toolkit includes the
instructions and necessary content to build this application making use of
Apple's Xcode and the IOS SDKs. The Oracle BI Mobile Security Toolkit will be
updated on a regular basis in order to synchronize with the Oracle BI Mobile HD
application available on the Apple App store.
- Viewing
of Oracle BI Publisher reports in dashboards. (Bug in previous version.)
New metadata repository features:
- Changing the Repository Password From the Command
Line -You can now change the repository password from the command line
using the obieerpdpwdchg utility.
- New Options to Enforce Consistent Versions in
Multiuser Development Environments - You can now add options to the multiuser development option file
to enforce Administration Tool, MUD protocol, and RPD version consistency among
MUD developers.
- New Utilities Available to Generate and Compare
Logical Column Type Information - You can use the Administration Tool utilities Generate Logical
Column Type Document and Compare Logical Column Types to generate a list of
logical column types, and then compare it with logical column types in a
subsequent version of the repository. You can also use the command-line utility
biservergentypexml to generate the list of logical column types.
- Additional Database Support for Cardinality
Estimates in Oracle BI Summary Advisor -The Prefer Optimizer Estimates feature, which improves performance by using cardinality
estimates during the Summary Advisor process, is now available for Microsoft
SQL Server and IBM DB2.
- Oracle BI Summary Advisor Measure Subset
Recommendations - Oracle BI Summary Advisor now recommends only aggregates that
contain specific measures that are both present in the analyzed query workload,
and that can optimize the query workload if aggregates are created.
- Model Check Manager Enhancements - Model Check Manager now runs parallel queries against the database
for better performance. In addition, you can now check models from the command
line using the validaterpd utility with the -L option.
- Access to Apache Hadoop Data Sources - Oracle BI EE now supports Apache Hadoop as a data source.
- Support for Multi-Source Session Variables - Oracle BI EE now supports session variables that can be populated
from multiple data sources and retain values from all source systems.
- NUMERIC Data Type Support for Oracle Database and
TimesTen - You can now change a configuration setting to enable NUMERIC data
type support for Oracle Database and TimesTen.
- Ability to Map Flex Object Changes Using the
biserverextender Utility - You can now use the biserverextender utility to import flex object changes from ADF data
sources and map them to the Business Model and Mapping layer and Presentation
layer.
- Support for Servlet Communication Between the
Oracle BI Server and Oracle OLAP - The Oracle BI Server now uses a servlet for communication with
Oracle OLAP data sources, rather than relying on the JavaHost service.
New Privileges - The
following new privileges were added to the Presentation Services Administration page:
- Access to Export
- User Population - Can List Application
Roles
- Access to Permissions Dialog
- Add to snapshot briefing book
- Download Entire Dashboard To Excel
- Download Single Dashboard Page To Excel
- Add/Edit Performance TileView
New system administration features:
- Support for Oracle Endeca Server - You can configure Oracle Endeca Server as a search engine for
full-text searching.
- Support for Multitenancy - You can configure Oracle BI EE so that it supports the use of
multiple tenants.
- Integration of Oracle BI EE with Essbase - Essbase functionality is closely integrated with Oracle BI EE.
- New Configuration Required for Performance Tiles - To specify the scaling factor that accompanies a number in a
performance tile view, you must manually edit the localedefinitions file, as
described in Section 15.2.1.5, "Specifying
the Scaling of Numbers in Performance Tiles."
- New Configuration Element for Dashboards - A new configuration setting is available to enable the ability to
export dashboard pages to Oracle BI Publisher.
- New Configuration Element and New Default Values
for Interactions in Views - A new configuration setting, InteractionPropertyHideColumns, is
available to specify the default setting for the Hide Columns option in the Analysis Properties dialog: Interactions tab. In
addition, only InteractionPropertyDrill,InteractionPropertyInclExclColumns,
InteractionPropertyMoveColumns, and InteractionPropertySortColumns are set to
true by default.
Calling the Oracle Business Intelligence Metadata
Web Service Asynchronously
The Oracle Business Intelligence Metadata Web Service provides
asynchronous and synchronous calls to Oracle BI Server stored procedures. You
use these procedures to obtain information about the metadata and to modify the
metadata.
New features for report designers in Oracle BI Publisher:
- Connect Directly to Oracle BIEE Subject Areas to Create Reports -
- You can now create BI Publisher reports that use a direct connection
to an Oracle BI server subject area without having to build an additional data
model in BI Publisher!!!
- Excel Template Builder Enhancements - The Excel Template Builder now supports automatic insertion of
fields and repeating groups removing the requirement to manually assign defined
names to cells. You can also connect directly to the BI Publisher server to
download sample data, create new reports in the catalog, and upload templates
from your Excel session.
- Layout Editor Enhancements -Enhancements
added to the layout editor are:
- Time series axis formatting
- Hide axis option
- Independent axis formatting
- Enhanced Create Report Guide -The Create Report guide is
enhanced to assist report designers with the process of creating a report from
selecting the data model to configuring the report layout.
- PDF to PCL Conversion for
Embedding PCL Commands in RTF Templates
- BI Publisher now provides a
PDF to PCL converter. Using this utility, you can embed PCL commands in an RTF
template and, after generating PDF output, the delivery manager converts the
PDF to PCL before sending it to the printer to enable support for PCL printers.
This feature is provided to support check printing.
- Support for PDF 1.7
Specification
- In versions of BI Publisher
earlier than 11.1.1.7, the PDF utilities required that all PDF input documents
be PDF version 1.4. Starting with this release users can pass PDF documents of
later versions to the BI Publisher PDF utilities. The instructions in Chapter 7,
"Creating PDF Templates" have been revised, removing
this requirement.
New features for administrators in Oracle BI Publisher:
- Integration with Oracle Endeca - BI Publisher now supports integration with Oracle Endeca as a data
source for reports.
- PDF to PCL Converter - BI Publisher now provides a PDF to PCL converter to enable the
printing of PDF output to a PCL printer. This enables the embedding of PCL
commands in RTF templates that are executed by the printer when the document is
printed. For example, the ability to switch to a specific font cartridge.
- Support for Private Data Sources - Data model developers can now create and manage private JDBC and
OLAP data source connections for use in SQL or MDX data sets without having to
depend on Administrators. However, Administrator users can still view, modify,
and delete private data source connections, as well as extend access to other
users.
New features for data model developers in Oracle BI
Publisher:
- MDX Query Builder - You can now use the MDX Query Builder to build a MDX query by
selecting OLAP cube dimension members for Column, Row, Page, & slicer (for
Point of View) axes. This feature enables you to build member selections in the
MDX query by using specific members, relations such as children and
descendants, and layers such as levels and generations.
- Support for Local XML File Data Source - You can now use a locally stored XML or shared XML file as data
source for data sets. This file can then be refreshed on demand from the data
model definition.
- Support for CSV File as a Data Source -You can now use a locally stored CSV or shared CSV file as data
source for data sets. This file can then be refreshed on demand from the data
model definition.
- Support for Endeca as a Data Source -You can now use Endeca as a data source.
- Support for Private Data Sources - You can now use private JDBC or ODBC data source connections to
create a data set with a BI Publisher data model.
- Enhancements for Sample Data Usability - You can now view and save data model results on the new View tab
without browser dependencies. These improvements are intended to make working
with sample data in BI Publisher easier and more consistent.
New features for report consumers in Oracle BI Publisher:
- Enhancements to Event-Driven Schedules - Now when you define an event-driven schedule, you can also set a
retry interval to have BI Publisher automatically re-execute the trigger to
test for the condition to run the report. Two new fields have been added to support
this feature: Retry Limit and Pause Time.
Using these fields you can define the number of times for BI Publisher tocheck the condition and the time interval to wait between
attempts.
- New Parameter Type: Flexfields (for Oracle E-Business Suite Users) - For Oracle E-Business Suite users, support for the flexfield
parameter type has been added in this release. BI Publisher's report viewer can
now integrate with flexfield definitions in Oracle E-Business Suite to enable
you to select flexfield segment value ranges to pass to your report.
