| Oracle® Retail Analytics Release Notes Release14.1 |
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Release Notes
Release14.1
E58933-01
December 2014
This document highlights the major changes for Release 14.1 of Oracle Retail Analytics.
The Oracle Retail Analytics family of products delivers a powerful, flexible, mobile-enabled solution for retailers who want to leverage data-driven insight to improve business performance. It is a comprehensive Analytics solution that empowers users to determine:
What is happening - In addition to leveraging dozens of prepackaged dashboards, retailers can define Key Performance Indicators and deliver Alerts when values exceed a specified tolerance.
Why it is happening - Retail Analytics facilitates multiple avenues of root cause analysis. Within a dashboard, users can drill down to the desired level of data granularity with ease. Guided Navigation can be configured to direct users through a series of pertinent dashboards based on common scenarios and industry practices. Ad-hoc dashboards can be created by leveraging hundreds of prepackaged metrics.
How to respond - Retail Analytics can be configured to include links to transactional systems to facilitate corrective action.
Oracle Retail Analytics is a modular software product; customers can license modules separately to best fit their analytical and reporting needs. The mandatory base module is Oracle Retail Merchandising Analytics. Oracle Retail Customer Analytics is an optional additional module.
Oracle Retail Analytics leverages the latest Oracle technologies. Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) is used to extract, load, and transform data from source systems. Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (BI EE) is the web-based, mobile-enabled user interface for reporting and analysis.
The following is a summary of some notable Oracle Retail Analytics features. For more details, see the Oracle Retail Analytics User Guide and the Oracle Retail Analytics Implementation Guide.
Automated installation
Robust data model
The Oracle Retail Analytics data model is based on Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) Applications and extended to support a retailer's business intelligence data needs. It is designed to maximize performance with Oracle Data Integrator and Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.
Prepackaged, high-performance integration
Retail Analytics provides packaged integration with select Oracle Retail source systems through Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) modules for extract, load, transform and aggregation processing. Parallel processing capabilities are built-in to ensure high performance, and batch shell scripts are provided for easy use with batch scheduler tools.
See the Oracle Retail Analytics Installation Guide for specifics on supported integration.
Flexible aggregation
Retail Analytics provides a flexible aggregation framework that can be easily customized during implementation to achieve an aggregation strategy that best satisfies batch and reporting performance requirements.
Dashboards and rich, high-performance metadata
Retail Analytics is packaged with roughly 70 dashboards, 2000 metrics and 550 attributes.
Retail Analytics metadata is built to optimize reporting performance, and it provides the following subject areas (catalogs) in the same Oracle BI instance:
Retail Merchandising Analytics As-Was (historical)
Retail Merchandising Analytics As-Is (current)
Retail Merchandising Analytics Point in Time
Retail Customer Analytics As-Was (historical)
Retail Customer Analytics As-Is (current)
Retail Customer Analytics Point in Time
Retail Customer Analytics Data Mining
For more information, see the Oracle Retail Analytics User Guide.
Support for multiple currencies
Retail Analytics supports up to five different currencies. Based on user selections, metrics are calculated accordingly.
Support for multiple languages
Retail Analytics supports data for 18 different languages. The user interface is also translated into 18 languages.
Role based security
Retail Analytics is packaged with sample user roles which leverage the Oracle BI EE security framework to manage dashboard and report access.
Flexibility and extensibility
Retail Analytics ETL and reporting logic can be easily customized and extended to fit retailer-specific needs.
The following are summaries of the functionality included in this release. Retail Analytics provides wide breadth of data to enable detailed analysis of retail management and operations.
For more details on the functional areas included in Oracle Retail Analytics, see the Oracle Retail Analytics User Guide.
Inventory position
Inventory receipts
Markdowns
Market basket affinity
Net cost
Net profit
Planning
Pricing
Promotion actual
Promotion baseline
Promotion budget
Sales (including wholesale)
Sales forecast
Sales packs
Sales promotion
Sales promotion forecast
Stock ledger
Supplier compliance
Supplier invoices
Trial and repeat
Unit cost
Franchise
Customer Order Demand
Customer Order Fulfillment
Customer Order Status
Customer Order Payment (tender)
Market
See the Oracle Retail Analytics Installation Guide, Release 14.1 for information about the following:
Hardware and software requirements
Oracle Retail application software compatibility
The following are functional enhancements for Oracle Retail Analytics Release14.1.
Retail Analytics 14.1 includes three role-based Weekly Business Review dashboards that analyze a retailer's financial performance by comparing current values against strategic objectives, last year, and plan:
Key Performance Indicators
Sales Performance
Department Analysis
For more information, see the Oracle Retail Analytics User Guide.
The following are technical enhancements for Oracle Retail Analytics Release 14.1.
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Note: The list below announces the addition of Oracle Retail support for the technology described. See the Installation Guide requirements section for critical information, such as whether the enhancement below replaces previous versions or is supported in addition to already existing versions. |
Retail Analytics 14.1 includes a new Universal Adapters framework that allows existing RA staging tables to be populated by any source system, provided the data is presented in the specified file format. The framework dynamically adapts to changes in RA staging table structures and can be executed within ODI designer or via a wrapper shell script.
For more information, see the Oracle Retail Analytics Implementation Guide.
Retail Analytics 14.1 includes a new Aggregation Framework which simplifies the population of custom aggregate tables that use the standard Retail Analytics merchandise hierarchy. Retailers can populate a configuration table with the pertinent source, target, primary key and aggregate-type information. The framework then leverages existing mandatory RA aggregate tables and dynamically generates logic to populate the custom aggregate.
For more information, see the Oracle Retail Analytics Implementation Guide.
Oracle Retail Analytics 14.1 is supported for use with the following database server:
Oracle Database Enterprise Edition 12cR1 (12.1.0.1.4)
The following are integration enhancements for Oracle Retail Analytics Release 14.1.
Retail Analytics 14.1 extracts and loads Inventory Adjustments from Oracle Retail Merchandising System (RMS), allowing users to analyze actions that affect inventory levels and valuation. Examples of these actions include shrinkage, damage, theft and store use.
For more information, see the Oracle Retail Analytics Implementation Guide.
Retail Analytics 14.1 extracts and loads Inventory Transfers from Oracle Retail Merchandising System (RMS), allowing users to determine if transfers are being leveraged effectively, for example to avoid out of stocks and increase sales.
For more information, see the Oracle Retail Analytics Implementation Guide.
Retail Analytics 14.1 extracts and loads Return to Vendor transactions from Oracle Retail Merchandising System (RMS), allowing users to analyze the amount of merchandise being returned and the associated reason, for example damaged goods or surplus delivery.
For more information, see the Oracle Retail Analytics Implementation Guide.
The following are known issues in Oracle Retail Analytics Release 14.1.
Table 1
| Known Issue/Defect | Defect Number |
|---|---|
|
Universal Adapter Script (uafsde.ksh) fails with generic error when no input parameters are specified. This issue is currently in development. |
19796625 |
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Reducing number of threads for RA fact extract programs can cause duplicate data loading. When users lower the maximum thread number in the C_ODI_PARAM table for an RA fact extract job, the job cannot truncate a partition whose HIGH_VALUE is between the previous maximum thread number and the new maximum thread number. This causes previous-day data to remain in the staging table and be aggregated redundantly. A workaround exists for this issue: users can manually truncate affected partitions for any facts where the maximum thread number has been lowered. This issue is currently in development. |
20125579 |
For more information, see the following documents in the Oracle Retail Analytics Release 14.1 documentation set:
Oracle Retail Analytics Data Model
Oracle Retail Analytics Installation Guide
Oracle Retail Analytics Operations Guide
Oracle Retail Analytics User Guide
Oracle Retail Analytics Implementation Guide
Oracle Retail Analytics Security Guide
The following documents are available through My Oracle Support. Access My Oracle Support at the following URL:
https://support.oracle.com
Retailers should use this short checklist early in the Retail Analytics implementation planning phase. It allows Retailers to ask key questions when selecting a skilled Retail Analytics Integrator. It assists Integrators when posing key questions to Retailers during requirements definition. Lastly, it provides considerations for implementation planning. Once completed, it should be used to set expectations among all parties and saved for future reference.
The following document is available on the My Oracle Support Web site. Access My Oracle Support at the following URL:
https://support.oracle.com
Online training is available to Oracle supported customers at product release. These online courses provide release-specific product knowledge that enables your functional and technical teams to plan, implement and/or upgrade and support Oracle Retail applications effectively and efficiently.
For information about Oracle's commitment to accessibility, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program website at http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=docacc.
Access to Oracle Support
Oracle customers that have purchased support have access to electronic support through My Oracle Support. For information, visit http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=info or visit http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=trs if you are hearing impaired.
Oracle® Retail Analytics Release Notes, 14.1
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Value-Added Reseller (VAR) Language
Oracle Retail VAR Applications
The following restrictions and provisions only apply to the programs referred to in this section and licensed to you. You acknowledge that the programs may contain third party software (VAR applications) licensed to Oracle. Depending upon your product and its version number, the VAR applications may include:
(i) the MicroStrategy Components developed and licensed by MicroStrategy Services Corporation (MicroStrategy) of McLean, Virginia to Oracle and imbedded in the MicroStrategy for Oracle Retail Data Warehouse and MicroStrategy for Oracle Retail Planning & Optimization applications.
(ii) the Wavelink component developed and licensed by Wavelink Corporation (Wavelink) of Kirkland, Washington, to Oracle and imbedded in Oracle Retail Mobile Store Inventory Management.
(iii) the software component known as Access Via™ licensed by Access Via of Seattle, Washington, and imbedded in Oracle Retail Signs and Oracle Retail Labels and Tags.
(iv) the software component known as Adobe Flex™ licensed by Adobe Systems Incorporated of San Jose, California, and imbedded in Oracle Retail Promotion Planning & Optimization application.
You acknowledge and confirm that Oracle grants you use of only the object code of the VAR Applications. Oracle will not deliver source code to the VAR Applications to you. Notwithstanding any other term or condition of the agreement and this ordering document, you shall not cause or permit alteration of any VAR Applications. For purposes of this section, "alteration" refers to all alterations, translations, upgrades, enhancements, customizations or modifications of all or any portion of the VAR Applications including all reconfigurations, reassembly or reverse assembly, re-engineering or reverse engineering and recompilations or reverse compilations of the VAR Applications or any derivatives of the VAR Applications. You acknowledge that it shall be a breach of the agreement to utilize the relationship, and/or confidential information of the VAR Applications for purposes of competitive discovery.
The VAR Applications contain trade secrets of Oracle and Oracle's licensors and Customer shall not attempt, cause, or permit the alteration, decompilation, reverse engineering, disassembly or other reduction of the VAR Applications to a human perceivable form. Oracle reserves the right to replace, with functional equivalent software, any of the VAR Applications in future releases of the applicable program.
