Creating the Business Model and Mapping Layer

After creating all of the elements of the Physical layer, you can drag tables or columns from the Physical layer to a business model in the Business Model and Mapping layer to create logical objects in the metadata.

This section contains the following topics:

• Creating Business Models

• Automatically Creating Business Model Objects

• Automatically Creating Business Model Objects for Multidimensional Data Sources

• Duplicating a Business Model and Subject Area

Creating Business Models

The Business Model and Mapping layer of the Administration Tool can contain one or more business models.

A business model contains the business model definitions and the mappings from logical to physical tables for the business model.

When you work in a repository in offline mode, remember to save your repository from time to time. You can save a repository in offline mode even though the business models may be inconsistent.

1. In the Administration Tool, right-click in the Business Model and Mapping layer below any existing objects.
2. Select the option New Business Model from the shortcut menu.
3. Specify a name for the business model.
4. New business models are disabled by default. If you want to make the corresponding Presentation layer available for queries, deselect Disabled.

   Note:

   The business model should be consistent before you deselect this option.

5. Optionally, type a description of the business model.
6. Click OK.

After you create a business model, you can create business model objects by dragging and dropping objects from the Physical layer.

Automatically Creating Business Model Objects

To automatically map objects in the Business Model and Mapping layer to sources in the Physical layer, you can drag and drop Physical layer objects to a particular business model in the logical layer.

When you drag a physical table to the Business Model and Mapping layer, a corresponding logical table is created. For each physical column in the table, a corresponding logical column is created. If you drag multiple tables at once, a logical join is created for each physical join, but only the first time the tables are dragged onto a new business model.

Automatically Creating Business Model Objects for Multidimensional Data Sources

Setting up objects in the Business Model and Mapping layer for multidimensional data sources is similar to setting up logical layer objects for a relational data source.

When creating the business model layer, you can drag and drop the Physical layer cube to the logical layer. Oracle Business Intelligence automatically creates a fully configured and consistent business model that retains all metrics, attributes and dimensions.

For Essbase data sources, Oracle recommends creating a separate business model for each Essbase cube by dragging each cube individually to the Business Model and Mapping layer.

Duplicating a Business Model and Subject Area

Learn how to make copies of a selected business model and assign new names to the copy.

You can select a business model and its corresponding subject area, make a copy, and assign new names to the duplicate objects.

Note:

Aliases are not copied.

1. In the Administration Tool with the repository open, right-click a business model, and select Duplicate with Subject Area.
2. In the Copy Business Model and Subject Area dialog, select the business model and corresponding subject area you want to copy.
3. Specify new names for the business model and subject area in the appropriate name fields, and then click OK.

   The copied business model appears in the Business Model and Mapping layer, and the copied subject area appears in the Presentation layer.