Oracle Business Intelligence Beans Sample

Using the Local and Remote BI Beans Catalog

Overview

The Using the local and remote BI Beans Catalog sample demonstrates how to take folders and BI objects that you have created in your local Catalog of JDeveloper and copy them to a remote Catalog stored in an Oracle database. The sample walks through the steps for deploying your objects to a remote Catalog, which is typically done before deploying a BI Beans based application. This sample shows you how to:

  1. Browse the local Catalog.

  2. Copy objects to a remote Catalog.

  3. Create users in the remote Catalog.

  4. Run the BI Explorer.

  5. Set user privileges on remote Catalog folders.

The sample local Catalog that is provided contains a folder structure and collection of sample BI objects. The folder structure assumes that there is an application called Samples, two users, named BIBUSER and BIBUSER2, and a user group called SampleGroup. The sample Catalog is designed as an example of how an application might configure and use the BI Beans Catalog.

The sample folder structure follows the model of having folders for application-specific objects and folders for user-specific objects. You will notice there is a Samples folder under Applications. The idea is that the application would store objects that are accessible to all users here. Under the Users folder, each user has his or her own folder structure for each application that they have access to (in this case, just the Sample application).

At the lowest level of folders, the objects are organized by type. So, all calculations, reports (presentations), and so on, are stored together for easy reference.

Setup Requirements

If you have not already done so, you must perform several installation and configuration tasks, then open the workspace common\CommonWorkspace.jws under the samples directory within JDeveloper. All the necessary files for this sample can be found in the common.jpr project under the common.jws workspace.

Code Highlights

Since this sample is focused more on outlining a work flow for using BI Beans Catalog functionality, there are no specific code highlights. There are other samples demonstrating specific BI Beans Catalog functionality that you can incorporate into an application.

Using This Sample

Again, because this sample does not show a specific application or implement a specific bean, there isn't anything to actually run. This sample is geared for you to follow the steps below to familiarize yourself with the BI Beans Catalog. Think of it as a mini tutorial.

Browse the Local Catalog

To browse the local Catalog, simply navigating the tree structure under commonBIDesigner1. Once you navigate down to the object level, you can open or edit certain objects like reports (presentations).

Copy Objects to a Remote Catalog

Assuming that an application had been created that references these folder and objects, the next logical step is to copy the folders and objects from the local to a remote Catalog. Let's explore how easy it ease to copy the local objects to the remote Catalog. From within JDeveloper, do the following steps:

  1. In the System-Navigator pane, right-click commonBIDesigner1 under Project1.jpr, and choose Copy Objects to Remote Catalog.

  2. In the Copy Objects to Remote Catalog Wizard, read the introduction on the Welcome page and choose Next to continue.

  3. Now, you can either specify an existing connection or add a new connection. If you have an existing Catalog connection defined, select that connection and skip to Step 11.

  4. Choose New... to add a new connection.

  5. In the Connection Wizard, read the introduction on the Welcome page and choose Next to continue.

  6. Accept the default connection name (for example, CatalogConnection1) and connection type Oracle(JDBC). Choose Next.

  7. Enter Username and Password, and choose Next. Enter the BI Beans Catalog schema owner's credentials for the username and password. Use BIBCAT as the username and password for the default BIBCAT catalog on the database that you installed in Getting Started.
    Note: The username and password must be in uppercase.

  8. Enter thin for Driver type, enter host name, JDBC port, and SID for the database connection. Choose Next.

  9. Choose Test connection.

  10. Choose Finish if the connection is successful to close the Connection Wizard.

  11. Choose Next in the Copy Objects to Remote Catalog Wizard.

  12. On the Select Folders and Objects page, select the folder to be copied to. In this case, select SampleCatalog.

  13. Choose Finish to copy the objects.

  14. After the copying process has successfully completed, review the summary messages to ensure that there are no errors, and choose Close.

The local Catalog folders and objects are now in the remote Catalog as well.

Create Users in the Remote Catalog

The remote BI Beans Catalog supports folder-level security. Users need to be created in the BI Beans Catalog so that privileges can be set. Utility scripts are provided for manually creating and maintaining user communities for a BI Beans Catalog. These scripts are located in the bibeans_home/bin directory. This section walks through the process of using those scripts to create a couple of users, a group, and then of adding the users to the group.

Please refer the Help system in JDeveloper for more details on the various options for creating a user community for a BI Beans Catalog.

  1. Run SQLPlus from the bibeans_home/bin directory (where bibeans_home is the root directory of your BI Beans installation) and connect to the database where you installed the BI Beans Catalog schema (using the BI Beans Catalog schema owner). For example:

    sqlplus BIBCAT/BIBCAT@<service_name>

  2. Run the adduser script to create a new user named BIBUSER:

    SQL>@adduser
    Enter BIBUSER for the lightweight user name.

  3. Run the adduser script again to create a second user named BIBUSER2:

    SQL>@adduser
    Enter BIBUSER2 for the lightweight user name.

  4. Next, create a group by running the addgroup script.

    SQL>@addgroup
    Enter SampleGroup as the group name.

  5. Finally, add your users to SampleGroup by running the addusertogroup script.

    SQL>@addusertogroup
    Enter BIBUSER for the lightweight user name.
    Enter SampleGroup for the group name.

  6. Run addusertogroup again and add BIBUSER2.

  7. There are some additional scripts for verifying the above worked correctly. Experiment by running:

    SQL>@listusers
    SQL>@listgroups
    SQL>@listusersingroups

  8. Close SQLPlus

Run BI Explorer

BI Explorer is a utility provided in JDeveloper for browsing a remote Catalog. BI Explorer provides similar functionality to that of Windows Explorer. To run BI Explorer:

  1. From within JDeveloper with the common.jpr open, right-click commonBIDesigner1 and select Browse remote Catalog.

  2. From the Browser remote Catalog dialog, select the database connection for the BI Beans Catalog, and click OK.

BI Explorer appears in a new window. Notice the SampleCatalog folder that was just copied. You can explore this folder structure by drilling the tree control in the left pane. BI Explorer provides all the common functionality for creating folders, and for copying and deleting objects.

Set User Privileges on Remote Catalog Folders

Now that users have been created in the remote Catalog and we have BI Explorer running, you can set user privileges on folders in the remote BI Beans Catalog:

  1. In the left pane of the BI Explorer window, drill down on the SampleCatalog, then Users folders.

  2. Right click on the folder named BIBUSER, and select Properties.

  3. From the BIBUSER Properties dialog, click the Privilege tab.

  4. Click the Add button.

  5. From the Available list of the Add Users and Roles dialog select BIBUSER and BIBUSER2 and shuttle them over the Selected list.

  6. Click OK to close the Add Users and Roles dialog.

  7. Next we can change the privileges for these users by click the Privilege columns next to each user, a dropdown list of privileges appears.

  8. Give BIBUSER Full Control on this folder. Give BIBUSER2 Read access.

Now when either of these users try to access this folder, he or she will have the access capabilities based on their granted privileges. You can further set privileges on other folders as necessary.

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