One of the things that I’d like Oracle to improve is the Analytics error messages (both in the Repository and in the Answers). Sometimes, they’re just too broad – for example – Internal Assertion Error 46036 – which could mean anything: from corrupted RPD after transitioning or upgrading to logical levels not being set correctly in the hierarchy levels. Next set of errors that people have problems with is the installation errors – usually those aren’t very descriptive as well, however, with time you sort of learn to distinguish those. Third problem is the debugging .cpp errors appearing in the RPD or Answers (such as – which should have been caught by system and a human-error message to appear – such as “.cpp, line 506
This application has requested to terminate the runtime in an unusual way”. Overall, troubleshooting OBIEE is a logical step-by-step process well-described in their Oracle Business Intelligence Troubleshooting Guide, however, by making error messages human-friendlier -they’d make OBIEE consultants job easier.
Would you like to change/remove the “Powered by Oracle†image link in OBIEE Answers/Dashboards. The file (“siebelbug.gifâ€) path is known, but which *.css file does it exist in?
1. Open OracleBI\web\msgdb\l_en\messages\productmessages.xml file.
2. Search for the fmap:siebelbug.gif line on this file
3. Replace it for fmap:empty.gif and save it.
4. Restart Oracle BI Server and Oracle BI Presentation Server Services in order to apply this changes. Or if you are already logged in the application, prior to stop and start both services, you can click on Settings > Administration. On the Administration window opened, click on Reload Files and Metadata. Wait a few seconds, then go back and access the Download Link. The changes will be applied there.
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 “betweenâ€, 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.