OBIEE Blog

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!

Hello,

I’m back after being busy with some really interesting issues at work.  I found a minute and I’d like to post few items.

First of all – the question “In OBI, How to move System Wide default settings from one environment to another?” comes up a lot – here’s an official response that I found on the knowledge base:

System wide default settings cannot be moved from one environment to another by design. The recommended way to move any other changes is to perform an Archive and then an unarchive. But, this method does not work for System wide default settings

The following Bug has been logged to make this feature available in the future releases:
BUG 8271294 – ARCHIVING AND UNARCHIVING DOES NOT STORE SYSTEM WIDE DEFAULTS

So now you know what to tell your project manager.

Second item I found interesting is:

“How to reduce the space between multiple pivot tables placed side by side?”

1. Provided that s_oracle10 is in use; backup the following files before editing them
- C:\OracleBI\web\app\res\s_oracle10\b_mozilla_4\views.css
- C:\OracleBI\oc4j_bi\j2ee\home\applications\analytics\analytics\res\s_oracle10\b_mozilla_4\views.css

2. Set the following section in both files above:
.PTSectsTable

There is currently no way to make a query use a specific connection pool. The following bug has been raised to address this requirement- As you are already aware, current workaround is to have separate database defined in physical layer :

Bug 9392303 – FIRST CONNECTION POOL CHOSEN BY DEFAULT FOR ALL QUERIES

Customers requirement :

They have a new application that need connect to mutiple database, so under
physical layer root have two connection pool.
So under Database in physical layer 1st connection pool points to an oracle
instance and second connection pool points to a different oracle instance.
When we run report in answers, the connection information is always taken
from the 1st connection pool by default – hence we get table cannot be found
ora error. Reason being the table exists in the database instance referenced
in the 2nd connection pool.
When we do view data in RPD , the results return fine – this is because while
clicking on view data, we explicitly have to select the connection pool.
While creating the logical table/column, we only specify the database name
and the schema name and the table name- no place to provide connection pool
info – hence the server chooses the 1st one by default.
Need a way to fix this – current workaround suggested is to have multiple
database created in physical layer.

When trying to install Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition, v. 10.1.3.4.0 for Microsoft Windows in Windows XP and getting the following error message.

“Oracle Business Intelligence is not supported on this Windows version. Oracle Business Intelligence is only supported on Windows XP x86, Windows 2003 x86, Windows 2003 AMD64, Windows 2003 EM64T, Windows Vista x86, Windows Vista AMD64, Windows Vista EM64T, and Windows 2000 x86.”

Installer uses systeminfo.exe command to get information on the architecture of the machine. If this command will cause any error, then there is a need to check and fix that error first.

Run the following command and see if any errors. In our case we had the following error.

The command systeminfo.exe is run from command line.

***
C:>\windows\system32\systeminfo.exe

Error:-

Back with error for Network Card
Information???????..Error:Provider Load failures.

***********

Since installer use the same command to get information on the architecture of the machine. In this case because of the above error installer was not able to drive the machine detail and as a result installation failed.

The errors from the above command systeminfo.exe (if any) needs to be fixed first.  In our case after we fixed the Network Card issue, installation went fine.

Happy New Year! It’s been a busy time, however, I’m back with some new posts. I wish the readers the best of the best of the best I wish that your repository always stays consistent, that your physical layer is a true star, and your users never have problems with BI Answers.  I’ve digged up a few things that might be interesting:

Issue 1

Duplicate records are being eliminated from the Answers request results, when the desired results would be to include all rows, including duplicates.

The duplicate rows can have both the same case or different case.  Setting the case sensitivity parameter has no impact.

Example:

One row may be:
Dinner

Another row may be:
dinner or Dinner

The second row is not included in the Answers results.  Running the same SQL directly on the server does return all rows, including duplicates.  Analytic server is removing the duplicates.

Cause

Analytic Server issues the distinct clause.

Solution

Include the table key column in the request.  Hide the column so it is not actually seen in the request results.  This will make each row unique and thus each row, including what would be considered duplicate, is included in the results.

=======

Item 2

How to configure External Db Authentication that supports OBIS Impersonation (i.e. Delivers, BI Publisher)

Solution

To implement external DB authentication (i.e., authentication via a user/pw record in a database), you should NOT use AUTHENTICATION_TYPE = DATABASE. Instead, define it exactly like the Siebel Integrated setup in SiebelAnalytics.rpd’s/EnterpriseBusinessAnalytics.rpd’s Authentication init block. That is:
Use the default NQS Authentication type in NQSConfig.ini by commenting out all authentication types.
Define a separate physical database in the rpd which has a connection pool configured to hit the external database used which has the defined OBI users.
Enable Shared logon for this connection pool; set User name to :USER and Password to ASSWORD.
Only the connection pool configuration is required for this physical database – no table/column objects are required.
Define an Authentication Session initialization block to set the session system security variable ‘USER’ to be used for OBIS External DB Authentication.
Point the initialization block to the connection pool defined in step 2.
Use an initialization string like “Select ‘:USER’ from external_table WHERE USERID=’:USER’.
Define the ‘Edit Data Target’ to use system security variable ‘USER’ – this will make this initialization block the defacto OBIS authentication init block.
Define all connection pools used for backend data access to use ‘Shared logon’ with an explicit database user/password with at least read access to all backend tables.
This configuration supports OBIS Impersonation (i.e. Delivers). Database Authentication will be done via the connection pool defined in the Authentication init block. The user / password entered in an OBIPS client browser session will be passed to OBIS via the :USER / ASSWORD system session variables. These values will then be passed to the database for user validation – if a database session is established using this user/password combo, the user will be considered authenticated to OBI.

Also, it does not require all OBI users to be defined in the rpd. In fact, remove all the OBI users from the rpd that will be authenticated via a database user entry. If you require OBIS Group Security assignments for users, you should use a separate external table (either existing or new) that stores the user-to-OBIS group associations, and make the associations via a session initialization block. Again, similar to the SiebelAnalytics.rpd’s/EnterpriseBusinessAnalytics.rpd’s Autherization initialization block.