Some OBIEE Answers limitations

CONCAT function
September 29, 2008
OBIEE Caching
September 30, 2008

Even though, I believe that OBIEE Answers is a very fine piece of software, sometimes, I’m annoyed about certain OBIEE bugs and quirks.  Here’re some of my favorites (least favorite OBIEE Answers limitations).

1. You can not use prompts on a calculated column in answers.  Workaround: you can create this calculated column in the rpd in the business layer and than add that field to the presentation layer. This also adheres to best practices (put as many metrics as you can to Business Model Mapping layer).

2. When a prompt is created based on an SQL Condition (in “Show” “Sql Results” Option), if a filter is applied when this Prompt is used the condition created originally is lost. This is most likely an OBIEE bug and I’m not aware of any workarounds.

3. Inability to display the beginning date and the end-date in the report based on the operator “between”, because with this operator, you can’t define a presentation variable. In this case, the Between Date Prompt isn’t working properly and is a known OBIEE Answers bug. The workaround is to  create a second report. This will have the date column used by the report, only twice. For the first date column, change the column formula to min(date) and for the second date column change the column formula to max(date). Then use a narrative view something like ‘Report for period beginning @1 and ending @2′.

4. In Answers, when creating a filter, you sometimes see an incorrect behavior in the Edit Filter popup where the wrong values are loaded for a column. This behavior occurs when clicking the ‘All Choices’ link in the filter popup, for a column and then cancelling it. When you then navigate to another column to create a filter and select ‘All Choices’ you get the dropdown values for the previous column being loaded. No workaround, however, you can refresh the same filter again to get correct dropdown values.

5. Download Data and Download to Excel work differently. OBIEE is downloading all the columns present in Report Crieteria page of Answers part (even if they’re not included in the Dashboard). The workaround is to use Download to Excel.

9 Comments

  1. Rathina says:

    I Think we can use 8 maximum Between filters can be applied in a column..Pl check this

  2. Andriy Yakushyn says:

    Hi Rathina,
    I think you might be right on that one! I’m going to check this and get back to you. Thank you for your comment.

  3. vamsi says:

    In pivot table, it would be nice to have a feature to hide/show calculated columns based on condition.

  4. Riyaz Ali says:

    Hi,
    I want the data to look like this:
    Direct 2009 2009 2009 2009

    1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3

    50% 40% 30% 30% 40% 50% 20% 20% 20% 100% 100% 100%

    Can this be done? Thanks.

  5. Akash says:

    Which version r u using for the 1st bug..?
    I am able to create prompt on calculated column..I dont think this is a bug in obiee.

  6. kotha says:

    Were you able to figure out if there is a way to hide/show calculated columns based on condition???
    Thanks

  7. Parag says:

    Hi Gurus,

    I have an issue with the date prompt. I am using between operator on calander Prompt and the requirment is that when I select any date from first dropdown the to column will get restricted for the next seven days only.

    Your help is required.

    Thanks in Advance
    Parag Bhargava
    e_mail : paragbhargava29@gmail.com

  8. satish says:

    how can i combine two bars in a graph into one and total bar should show independent values with different colours?

  9. chandra says:

    Hi, How can we perform unit testing on dashboards and reports in answers.Who will check the logic and result in the reports(I mean unit testers or SIT’s).

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