Introspection is a method of inspecting a physical data source for metadata elements. When you perform introspection, structural information that exists in the data source is inspected to detect fact tables, dimension tables, hierarchies, aliases, and attributes. The metadata elements derived from introspection are then used to create cube schemas and, optionally, Essbase models.
You can perform introspection during the data source creation process. Or, you can perform introspection on an existing data source to “scrape” it for metadata elements.
Note: | Introspection is not supported for Oracle BI EE or text file data sources. |
When you perform introspection, the process analyzes the data source and detects and presents candidates for:
Fact tables
Dimension tables
Hierarchies
During the introspection process, you also can create a minischema.
The Introspection Wizard guides you through the process. The wizard allows you view the candidate selections and choose which items to keep. These topics describe the process: