OBIEE Blog

Good morning all,
I’m sorry I’ve disappeared. There’re many changes coming soon. Please stay posted.
It seems as OBIEE 11g didn’t disappoint – it’s too early for me to post my impressions, since I’m still learning about new features and interface. And it doesn’t seem as it’s going to be available for download very soon. (though compared with 3 year wait it might be worth it). Stay in touch.

Just waiting for July 7th – release of OBIEE 11g in London…
Hopefully, it won’t disappoint.

There is a NULL value in the Multi Select Prompt. When this blank value is selected with other selections from the prompt, the prompt either blanks out or the results of the report returns all values of the field instead of filtering only for the selected criteria.

Cause
The cause of the issue is to have a NULL value (it comes from the datawarehouse) as an option in the multi-select prompt because when is selected, in the textbox this symbol ” appears as the selected option and the filter does not work.

It was tested inhouse adding NULL values in the dimension and fact tables of a business model.
Solution

There are four options to resolve this issue:

1.- Validate if NULL values are relevant for the bussiness analysis (for some reason in the datawarehouse NULL values were stored). If they are not, you have to delete them in Dimensions and Fact tables.

2.- Change the physical table type in your rpd in all tables you have NULL values and use a SELECT like this:

SELECT LOGIN, RESP
FROM NQ_LOGIN_GROUP
WHERE NOT LOGIN IS NULL

Doing this, you only have NON-NULL values in your Multi-select prompt.

3.- Replace the NULL value with a new name like UNSPECIFIED in ALL tables you which are related.

4.- Log an enhancement request to review that multi-select prompts works with NULL values.

Customer decided to apply the third option, change the NULL values by a value like UNSPECIFIED. They couldn’t delete the NULL values so that was the best option for them.

Also I’ve already logged an enhancement request to review that multi-select prompts works with NULL values or display an error or warning message.

I’ve found the following items to be very interesting as I’m very much interested in running OBIEE in a cloud.
Question someone asked on OS:
Q:How to cluster OBIEE that is installed on two virtual machines?
And their response was:
A:It is not currently possible to use Virtual machine names for OBIEE within a Cluster. The following Enhancement Request exists:
BUG#7576055
VIRTUAL MACHINE NAME FOR CLUSTERED OBI SERVER

This one is interesting, because it’s not just applicable to headers, but to some other elements that may contain HTML:
Q:Is it possible to add HTML code into a Column Header in OBIEE?

A:In order to render HTML in OBIEE (i.e. Answers, Dashboards, etc) please ensure you have set the following parameter “HardenXSS” to FALSE in the instanceconfig.xml file.

Example:


[ServerInstance]
[HardenXSS]false[/HardenXSS]
[/ServerInstance]

Last one is related to using external methods to get in to OBIEE.

Goal
1) Customer has a JSP and java application running on web sphere application server which uses OAM for single-sign-on.
2) In the same JSP application they have embeded a report which gets the data from OBIEE webservices. The actual report is deployed on OBIEE presentation server and uses OAM for authentication. When the user logs in to java application and clicks on the page which invokes a report from OBIEE customer doesn’t want to prompt for authentication again.
3) Customer does not see any OBIEE login webservices which takes as input parameter the authentication token or cookie generated in JSP application.
A:
There is currently no mechanism within the OBI Web Services to use Single Sign-on (SSO).

There are some methods that may assist further with customer requirement (i.e. impersonate() Method and impersonateex() Method). These methods should allow the users to logon and impersonate another user when customer only have the Administrators Login and Password.

However, these methods are not SSO as customer would still need to provide a username and password for the SOAP client (i.e. Administrator/Administrator) from within their J2EE application.

In order to overcome the fact the OBI Web Services does not use SSO, customer may want to install a new Presentation Server. The dedicated Presentation Server can then have the SSO disabled and can be used solely for the WEB Services application and nothing else.

I wonder what are security implications of such arrangement.

Have a good day!

I wish I was there …

I’m very happy that BI Forum 2010 is going well. It seems as all BI consulting gurus and those wishing to join their rank are having a blast – just read their Twitter feed Bi Forum tweeter feed.

I want to make a point to attend next year. Unfortunately, due to some passport-visa circumstances beyond my control (hint – New Schengen visa rules which invalidates passports issued more than 10 years ago – even if they’re still valid) , it’s not possible for me to travel to Europe until I replace my passport. Unfortunately, I’m not the only one affected by this – I know that there’re many people from India in the US (issued passports with 20 year validity) who are not able to travel to Europe due to new Schengen rules, and for them, it’s burdensome to travel to India, since they have to get the new passport at the same place where it was issued.

My warm greetings to everyone. I hope I can make it to DC this year for Kaleidoscope.