OBIEE Blog

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Good morning.

Today I want to discuss the multi-select prompt below. You should recognize this one easily – since most of you work with this quite frequently. Ta-da:

OBIEE multi-select

What’s wrong with it, can you ask me?

Well, the major one – I and many of the clients complained about when I worked for them – believe that it’s counter-intuitive to drag from right to the left. At least in Western culture (USA, Europe, Latin America), it’s been accepted that information is read from left to right. I won’t get into much details, but in most software that I use on a daily basis, such functionality works the other way than implemented in OBIEE – you drag from left to right. This is the biggest issue, which I hope Oracle’s developers would fix in 11g (if they don’t, I know it’s not their fault).

Second problem, you need to click Go button in order to get results. In this age of web 2.0, AJAX, etc. – it would be relatively easy to start outputting results once you start typing. I agree, this isn’t a bug per se, rather an interface issues. However, users now need to spend more time in the multi-select  – instead of going straight to the data.

Third issue, 1-column positioning of data in the select window. There’s so much white space, that it could be spent better. I don’t think quality software should leave doubts in its user interface. There’s no doubt that it’s not a show stopper, but again, those little things might attribute to better acceptance by potential clients.

Finally, OK and cancel buttons should be positioned in the center. I’m not claiming to be a design and usability expert, but I observed people spending time trying to figure out what to do next, or worse, clicking on Cancel – subconsciously.

OBIEE’s Multi-select has been a source of frustration, anger, and complains from my users.

I always addressed this as a training issue, and I still hope for a fix.

P.S. while writing this I thought – “Is it possible to re-work the box?”…technically, that shouldn’t be difficult – script responsible for it is here: res/b_mozilla/prompts/gfpmultiselect.js  By some java-script re-arranging – it should be possible to “reverse” boxes. Problem with that is it would constitute a major code change and loss of Oracle support, and possibly infringing on the license.

Just by looking at script – it seems as nothing have changed since 2002. Also, it would be nice to have a feature of designing own UI (such as using skins, templates, radio-buttons, other interface elements).

Hello everyone.

I just realized that this post is inspired by Venkat.

I’m finally posting a solution to the problem I’ve identified a while ago related to a specific Pivot Table View. I think the final outcome should look something like this image:

To get this result – I’ve used the “New calculated column” menu on the pivot table (circled in red):

OBIEE pivot table menu

Then, what you really need to have in the Columns is the most granular level column (sounds redundant – in this case it’s a Date column). I used Excel to quickly generate formulas, such as this for Q1.  It’s really easy to generate these formulas below. I hope it’s pretty self-explaining – you add things up in a granular level – this way you can combine things – that you wouldn’t be able to combine otherwise:

’1/1/2007′+’1/2/2007′+’1/3/2007′+’1/4/2007′+’1/5/2007′+’1/6/2007′+’1/7/2007′+’1/8/2007′+’1/9/2007′+’1/10/2007′+’1/11/2007′+’1/12/2007′+’1/13/2007′+’1/14/2007′+’1/15/2007′+’1/16/2007′+’1/17/2007′+’1/18/2007′+’1/19/2007′+’1/20/2007′+’1/21/2007′+’1/22/2007′+’1/23/2007′+’1/24/2007′+’1/25/2007′+’1/26/2007′+’1/27/2007′+’1/28/2007′+’1/29/2007′+’1/30/2007′+’1/31/2007′+’2/1/2007′+’2/2/2007′+’2/3/2007′+’2/4/2007′+’2/5/2007′+’2/6/2007′+’2/7/2007′+’2/8/2007′+’2/9/2007′+’2/10/2007′+’2/11/2007′+’2/12/2007′+’2/13/2007′+’2/14/2007′+’2/15/2007′+’2/16/2007′+’2/17/2007′+’2/18/2007′+’2/19/2007′+’2/20/2007′+’2/21/2007′+’2/22/2007′+’2/23/2007′+’2/24/2007′+’2/25/2007′+’2/26/2007′+’2/27/2007′+’2/28/2007′+’3/1/2007′+’3/2/2007′+’3/3/2007′+’3/4/2007′+’3/5/2007′+’3/6/2007′+’3/7/2007′+’3/8/2007′+’3/9/2007′+’3/10/2007′+’3/11/2007′+’3/12/2007′+’3/13/2007′+’3/14/2007′+’3/15/2007′+’3/16/2007′+’3/17/2007′+’3/18/2007′+’3/19/2007′+’3/20/2007′+’3/21/2007′+’3/22/2007′+’3/23/2007′+’3/24/2007′+’3/25/2007′+’3/26/2007′+’3/27/2007′+’3/28/2007′+’3/29/2007′+’3/30/2007′+’3/31/2007′

Calculated item OBIEE

The same logic works for Q2,3,4. For individual dates, it would be the same idea:

And for months, it’s the same logic:

To sum up  – by using the “calculated item” feature of pivot table view – you can create reports with mixed granularity on them. The pros are that you’ll be able to support legacy views (in some instances it’s absolutely critical to mimic existing view). The cons are that it involves some manual entry / data manipulation and that it’s not very flexible (I couldn’t find out how to use variables in this example).

Last thing – it seems as first column gets added on the left and the consequent ones to the right – keep this in mind while designing this view – since I’ve noticed you can’t really manipulate with the locations of the calculated columns.

One thing that’s making the serious IT consulting field less desirable for a lot of people is the constant need for learning new things. Learning by reading blogs, studying new documentation, and constantly experimenting with new features. nQuire / Siebel Analytics / OBIEE has evolved into a very complex product – and clients often expect one person to be proficient in everything, starting from ETL and ending with BI Publisher. I know several people who’re indeed masters in all products, and they could probably complete a BI project single-handedly (from planning to execution, from ETL specs to data modelling, from OBIEE repository design to front-end customizations). However, such knowledge doesn’t come for free. These people put a lot of extra time into learning new things as well as polishing their existing ones. In the end, it pays off, because they can commend higher rates and it’s what they love – it’s something they can be passionate about.

I haven’t written much lately for several reasons – the major one – dealing with the new project, getting into loop of things. Second one, I’m having much fun reading some new blogs (to which I will definitely link once I find some time). Third, it has something to do with being in New York in the fall. It’s a magnificent city, but it’s very demanding – sometimes I feel it’s taking all my energy. Last reason, it’s more and more difficult to come up with new posts.

Have a good week-end! Stay well! (don’t catch a cold like I did)

I saw this post on OTN and decided to take a look:

“I need to create a prototype for the following Pivot Table. I’m putting a view as I would see in Answers.
————-|9/1/2009|9/2/2009|9/3/2009|MTD|Q1|Q2|Q3|Q4|YTD
________ |_______________________________________________
Customer |Some metric (for example Income $)

I’ve been unable to come up with a way to do this in Answers without creating additional columns (such as Income YTD, Income MTD, Income Today, Income Yesterday, etc.). Even with that, I can’t figure out what’s the best way of arranging pivot columns in Answers to create this report. Does Answers allow for mixed granularity like this in pivot?”

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“The question was how to transpose various hierarchiecal levels on x-axis? Not homgenous, but different ones. For example, if I dragged columns “Year” and “Qtr” to the Columns section in Pivot I get the following:
2009
—-
q1|q2|q3|q4

What I want is to have it liks this:
2009|q1|q2|q3|q4

It seems as it’s not possible right now. But I’ll be glad if you can correct me”

Someone suggested that this wasn’t possible. Original author suggested using only tab “Measure labels” in Columns. Call appropriate metrics as Q1,Q2,Q3, etc. (use filter for them) – and use them in measures section.”

However, I thought there should be another solution. I’ve contacted metalink and was told that this wasn’t a technical, but implementation issue and as such services of Oracle Services’ were necessary.

So far, i wasn’t able to come up with anything better than using custom columns. This method isn’t ideal – since it’s very cumbersome to implement and would fail relatively easy.

Main challenge is hiding some values in Pivotal columns without affecting aggregate’s total.

I’d welcome any suggestions, since I can’t throw this out of my mind.

I found an interesting bug in metalink. I wish there were more specifics as to how complex the report was. I just had a similar Assertion error yesterday which I tried to solve by increasing STACK size. However, it seems as it’s possible to crash BI server with longer reports.

When a custom report is executed on Windows the following error is received: -

Error Codes: OPR4ONWY:U9IM8TAC:OI2DL65P
State: HY000. Code: 10058. [NQODBC] [SQL_STATE: HY000] [nQSError: 10058] A general error has occurred. [nQSError: 46036] Internal Assertion: Condition FALSE, file .\NQThreads\SUGThread.cpp, line 515. (HY000)

However, on Linux the OBI Server crashes with this typical Stack Trace from the Core file generated: -

0 0xb427f9b2 in samem_details_800::ThreadAllocator<0>::Allocate
(this=0x86fcd00, Index=2) at threadallocator.cpp:443
443 { (gdb) bt
#0 0xb427f9b2 in samem_details_800::ThreadAllocator<0>::Allocate
(this=0x86fcd00, Index=2) at threadallocator.cpp:443 @ #1 0xb42784df in samem_details_800::ThreadAllocator<0>::allocate
(this=0x86fcd00, nBytes=20, nIndex=2,
pFile=0xb4a171dc “thirdpartysource/STLport-4.5/src/nqnodealloc.cpp”,
nLine=10) at threadallocator.cpp:966
#2 0xb4286098 in samem_details_800::Manager::Allocate (this=0xb429cac0, @ Bytes=20,
pFile=0xb4a171dc “thirdpartysource/STLport-4.5/src/nqnodealloc.cpp”,
nLine=10) at manager.cpp:469
#3 0xb4283dae in samem_800_allocate_dbg (Bytes=20, pFile=0xb4a171dc @ “thirdpartysource/STLport-4.5/src/nqnodealloc.cpp”, nLine=10)
at memoryallocator.cpp:160
#4 0xb49fbfb8 in NQNodeAlloc::allocate (__n=20) at @ thirdpartysource/STLport-4.5/src/nqnodealloc.cpp:10
#5 0xb721a1f3 in _SASSTL::allocator<_SASSTL::_Rb_tree_node
>::allocate (this=0x87f7bac, __n=1)
at thirdparty/include/stlport/stl/_alloc.h:372
#6 0xb721a02e in
_SASSTL::_STLP_alloc_proxy<_SASSTL::_Rb_tree_node*,
_SASSTL::_Rb_tree_node,
_SASSTL::allocator<_SASSTL::_Rb_tree_node > >::allocate @ (this=0x87f7bac, __n=1)
at thirdparty/include/stlport/stl/_alloc.h:514
#7 0xb72198c6 in _SASSTL::_Rb_tree, _SASSTL::less, @ _SASSTL::allocator >::_M_create_node (this=0x87f7bac, @ __x=@0xb0e23264)
at thirdparty/include/stlport/stl/_tree.h:243
#8 0xb673169d in _SASSTL::_Rb_tree, _SASSTL::less, @ _SASSTL::allocator >::_M_insert (this=0x87f7bac, __x_=0×0, @ __y_=0x8d895b8, __v=@0xb0e23264, __w_=0×0)
at thirdparty/include/stlport/stl/_tree.c:366
#9 0xb6730c6d in _SASSTL::_Rb_tree, _SASSTL::less, @ _SASSTL::allocator >::insert_unique (this=0x87f7bac, @ __v=@0xb0e23264)
at thirdparty/include/stlport/stl/_tree.c:412
#10 0xb6730499 in _SASSTL::set, _SASSTL::allocator >::insert @ (
this=0x87f7bac, __x=@0xb0e23264) at
thirdparty/include/stlport/stl/_set.h:137
#11 0xb672fe6b in RqNode::AddRqNodePtr (this=0x87f7b88, pRqNodePtr=0x8d999e8)
at server/Query/Optimizer/Request/Src/SQORRqNode.cpp:432
#12 0xb672e34e in SmartRqNodePtr (this=0x8d999e8, rhs=@0x8d995a0) at @ server/Query/Optimizer/Request/Src/SQORRqNode.cpp:55
#13 0xb66a7d17 in RqDerivedColumnReference (this=0x8d999b8, rhs=@0x8d99570, @ bNewIDs=false, bDeepCopy=true)
at server/Query/Optimizer/Request/Src/SQORRqExpr.cpp:1418
#14 0xb66a8898 in RqDerivedColumnReference::DeepCopy (this=0x8d99570, @ bNewIDs=false)
at server/Query/Optimizer/Request/Src/SQORRqExpr.cpp:1525
#15 0xb672e748 in RqNode (this=0x8d977b0, rhs=@0x8d97368, bNewIDs=false, @ bDeepCopy=true)
at server/Query/Optimizer/Request/Src/SQORRqNode.cpp:146
#16 0xb66a0d3c in RqExpr::RqExpr$base () at @ server/include/Query/Optimizer/Request/SQORRqNode.h:77
#17 0xb66d0f68 in RqExprCond::RqExprCond$base () at @ server/include/Query/Optimizer/Request/SQORRqList.h:33
#18 0xb66d6c58 in RqExprCondIsNull (this=0x8d977b0, rhs=@0x8d97368, @ bNewIDs=false, bDeepCopy=true)
at server/Query/Optimizer/Request/Src/SQORRqExprCond.cpp:1299
#19 0xb66d6e88 in RqExprCondIsNull::DeepCopy (this=0x8d97368, bNewIDs=false)
at server/Query/Optimizer/Request/Src/SQORRqExprCond.cpp:1342
#20 0xb672e748 in RqNode (this=0x8d8f878, rhs=@0x8d8f430, bNewIDs=false, @ bDeepCopy=true)
at server/Query/Optimizer/Request/Src/SQORRqNode.cpp:146
Cause
It appears that due to the complexity of the Expressions in the Answer Columns of the custom Report, the Expression Builder makes several recursive calls which eventually increases the Stack Size of the Thread until it reaches its maximum and it throws an Asertion Error.

On a Windows environment we have a check of the ‘LowStackCheck’ parameter which is not present in Linux and therefore it crashes the OBI Server giving a ‘sigsegv’ error.
Solution

Currently, there is no solution. The workaround is to re-design the report so that the Expressions are less complicated (e.g. Creating Measures that sum up at various combinations of Dimension Levels that allows the Users to avoid creating the complex Formulas in Answers and performs well)

This looks like a major change in the code is required to fix this type of behavior and therefore we will not be able to fix this until at least our 11.x release.