Connecting to Multiple Oracle BI EE Data Sources

You connect to Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition data sources using private connections, as described in Creating Private Connections. To connect using shared connections, the shared connection information must be stored in a file, as described in "Accessing Shared Connections from an XML File" in the Oracle Smart View Installation and Configuration Guide.

Additionally, Oracle Smart View for Office supports multiple Oracle BI EE private connections on one Office worksheet, slide, or document.

For example, in one worksheet, you may insert two graphs from two different Oracle Business Intelligence catalogs and refresh the sheet. Each graph will be updated with the latest data from the two different servers.

See the Oracle Smart View for Office Readme for information about Oracle BI EE version support for multiple connections.

When connected to multiple Oracle BI EE servers:

  • Users can switch between those connections in the Smart View Panel and browse the respective catalogs.

  • Users can insert views from the different connections into the same Office document.

  • If View Designer is launched from the Smart View ribbon and no Oracle BI EE view is selected, then View Designer will be connected to the Oracle BI EE server that was last used.

  • If Paste is invoked from the Smart View ribbon to paste content from Oracle Business Intelligence Answers, the paste action will use the Oracle BI EE connection that was last used.

  • When refreshing a document containing views from different connections, the views will be refreshed against the servers from which they were inserted.

  • There can be only one Excel pivot table view per Excel worksheet. Additionally, Excel pivot table views are always inserted onto a new worksheet. This is the expected behavior, whether you are working with a single data source connection or with multiple connections.

To connect to multiple Oracle BI EE private connections:

  1. From Smart View Home or from the menu displayed when you click the arrow next to Smart View Home button, click Private Connections
  2. In the Private Connections panel, select a connection from the drop-down menu and, in Connect to Data Source, enter your user name and password for the data source.

    Assume you have inserted a view from the Oracle BI EE catalog. Continue with step 3

  3. Move the cursor to a different part of the worksheet, slide, or document.
  4. In the Private Connections panel, select a different connection from the drop-down menu.
  5. In Connect to Data Source, enter your user name and password for the second data source.

    You can now insert a view from the newly-connected data source into the Office document

  6. Repeat step 3 through step 5 for any other data sources to which you want to connect.