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The OP Administrative UI

The OP Administrative UI is a browser-based user interface that permits the OP administrator (a Java programmer or DBA) to manage RE Farms and REs, schedule and deploy packages, and otherwise manage OP.

Bring up the OP Administrative UI by typing the following in the URL field of your browser:

http://<hostname-oracle9i>/OP/Admin/

where <hostname-oracle9i> is the name of the system on which Oracle 9i and the OP components associated with the database are installed.

Note that the URL is case-sensitive.

The first page that appears is the login page, which welcomes you to Oracle9iAS Personalization.

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Login Page

Enter user name and password for the MOR schema (a valid user name and password were established during OP installation; if you don't know what they are, ask your DBA).

• After entering a valid user name and password, click Log in, which brings up the OP Administrative home page.

Home Page

The Home page welcomes you and briefly describes the product. At the left are links to common tasks, such as create new farm, create package, schedule a build, etc. They are listed in the order you would follow in executing the tasks. To the right is a brief status of recent events (builds, deployments, and reports).

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Browse the pages to get familiar with their structure and content. Click the tabs to see what's what and what's where. The tabs are Home, Farms, Packages, Schedules, Reports, and Log. The tab pages organize OP administrative tasks.

Farms Page

The Farms page lists the current recommendation engine farms. Use the Farms page to create, delete, and in general manage recommendation engine farms.

The Farms page gives access to recommendation engines, which you add to a farm. Adding a recommendation engine to a farm means specifying the RE's database connection details. These details were established during the installation of the database.

An RE must have a connection to the MTR. If there is no pre-existing MTR connection, you create one. This also requires information established during installation and configuration of the database.

Packages Page

The Packages page lists current packages. Use this page to create, delete, and manage packages.

An OP package contains all the information needed for building predictive models, which includes the general settings for the package, information about its connection to the MTR, and settings specified for the package's build (which includes settings for building the model(s)).

To create a package, click Create Package. This brings up the first of three pages that guide you through creating a package:

• The first page, Create Package, prompts you for a name and description of the package and asks you to specify the MTR connection. If there is no MTR connection, you must create one. Click Options (upper right), and go to MTR database connections.

• The second page, Specify Build Settings, prompts you for the build settings, which include
  • Recommendation performance: This is a trade-off between accuracy and speed.

  • New products: Specify whether you want OP to use a proxy for new products. There must be proxy information in the MTR to use this option.

  • Choose what time-stamped session data to use: Use data from any dates, including data with no dates; a rolling window of the past x number of days, or between specified dates.

• The third page, Confirm Settings, summarizes and confirms the settings you have specified.

The Confirm Settings page also gives you the option of going directly to scheduling a build for the package.

Schedules Page

Click the Schedules tab and note the three kinds of events that are scheduled: Builds, deployments, and reports. The Schedules tab opens by default to the Build Schedule page.

Build Schedule

Use this page to create, edit, delete, and in general manage the building of a package, that is, the creation of predictive models and other information needed to make recommendations.

To create a new build schedule, click Create Build Schedule. The Create Build Schedule page gives you the following options:

• Build the package as soon as possible.

• Build the package at a future time that you specify, and with the frequency you specify.

This page also gives you the option of going directly to scheduling deployment of the package.

Deployment Schedule

Use this page to create, edit, delete, and in general manage deployment schedules.

Deploying a package means copying it to every RE on a given RE Farm. Multiple REs with the same package can share the load.To create a new deployment schedule, click Create Deployment Schedule. The Create Deployment Schedule page gives you the following options:

• Deploy the package every time it is built.

• Deploy the package as soon as possible.

• Deploy the package at a future time that you specify, and with the frequency you specify.

Report Schedule

Use this page to create and manage report schedules.

To schedule a report, click Create report schedule.

The Create Report Schedule page gives you the following options:

• General settings: Specify the RE Farm, the report type, the email address of the person who should receive notification, and any notes you may wish to make.

• Data selection: Use data from any dates; a rolling window of the past x number of days, or between specified dates.

• Schedule: Run the report as soon as possible or schedule the run for a specified date with specified frequency.

The Create Report Schedule page also lets you do the following:

• To update or look at the details of a report schedule, click its Edit icon.

• To delete a scheduled report, select it and click Delete.

• To stop a scheduled report that is running, select it and click Stop.

Note: You cannot edit or delete a scheduled report while it is running or canceling; it must be idle.

Reports Page

Use this page to monitor reports. There are three types of reports:

• Visitor-to-customer conversion: Reports the number of anonymous visitors who registered and became known customers within a user-specified time period.

  Specifically, it reports the number of unique visitor sessions, the number of unique customer sessions (sessions that had at least one purchase), and the conversion rate (number of customers divided by the number of visitors).

• Recommendation effectiveness: Reports, for a specified time period, the number of recommendation requests served by the system, the number of recommended items clicked, the number of recommended items bought, and the percentages of clicked and bought items.

• Cross-sold items: Reports, for a specified time period, the number of recommendation requests served by the system, the number of recommended items clicked, the number of recommended items bought, and the percentage of clicked and bought items.

Note: The MTR tables MTR_SESSION and MTR_RECOMMENDATION_DETAIL must be populated before a report can be generated.

Log Page

The event log allows you to monitor results of scheduled builds, deployments, and reports.

To view details of an item, click its Details icon. To delete one or more items, select the item(s) and click Delete.