You can query OBI Server Presentation Layer topics by connecting to the Oracle BI Server and using it as a “proxy” data source. OBI Server refers to the Oracle Business Intelligence Server component where the residing semantic layer uses ODBC for external communication. OBI Server includes multiple sources and optimized SQL generation processes regardless of the schema. Although OBI Server exposes itself as an ODBC data source, and uses ODBC/ODBC connectivity functions properly, there are restrictions including:
OBI Server is not a database.
OBI Server cannot handle complex SQL constructs. Derived Queries and correlated sub-queries are not supported.
Stored procedures are not supported.
Process Result to Table is not supported.
Retrieving the drill path from Oracle BI Server and applying it to pivots/charts is not supported.
OBI Server masks physical schema from all clients, and only exposes presentation layer topics. As a result, joins between Interactive Reporting and OBI presentation data model topics are mostly non-functional. By default the ‘Allow non joined Queries’ option in Advanced options is enabled, and the prompt “This query is not properly joined. Do you wish to continue?” is not launched for queries that connect to the OBI Server. This behavior is an exception specific to use of Oracle BI Server since Interactive Reporting assumes non-joined queries sent to Oracle BI Server produce a normal results sets.
Certain database functions may not be supported.
The first example shows the available presentation level tables:
The second example shows the available presentation level topics:
Queries to OBI Server generate SQL statements in the same way as standard queries to other data sources.
