Considerations for Saving Analytics and Reports
You can save analyses, dashboards, and reports in the business intelligence (BI) catalog. The catalog has a hierarchy of folders with My Folders and Shared Folders at the top, and folders like Custom under Shared Folders.
My Folders
Save your analytics and reports in My Folders for personal use. When you save a new analysis, dashboard, or report in this folder, it's available in My Folders in the Reports and Analyticswork area. But you can't view it in My Folders in the Reports and Analytics pane on any other work area. The only exception is when you create an analysis using the wizard in the Reports and Analytics pane, in which case the analysis is available in all work areas.
Shared Folders
Save your custom analytics and reports in Shared Folders so that they are available to others. You must save them in the Custom folder which has subfolders organized by product family. You can use the Projects subfolder for storing these custom analytics.
Edit only copies of your analytics and reports. Directly edit predefined analytics only when necessary and ensure that all references to the analysis or dashboard are functional.
When you create a copy of predefined reports using the Customize option, the folder structure and permissions are also copied.
Custom Folder
You must keep all custom objects in the Custom folder to:
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Ensure that customized versions of predefined analytics and reports aren't affected when patches are applied.
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Identify and locate custom objects in the Projects subfolder.
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Edit objects in the Custom folder without compromising security on the original objects.
When you copy an object into the Custom folder, the copied object inherits the permission settings of the Custom folder. Your administrator must reset the permissions on the object and the folder that it's present in.
What happens to modified analytics and reports when a release update is applied?
Updates don't affect the Custom folder or My Folder in the catalog. Anything saved there is preserved, including the analytics and reports you edited or created. But anything saved outside those folders, in the predefined catalog, is preserved only if the update doesn't include a new version of those BI objects.
If an update includes a new version of a predefined object that you edited outside the Custom folder, the changes you made are saved as a new object. The new version from the update overwrites the existing predefined object. And a copy of the existing object (with your edits) is automatically created in the same folder, with a new name that indicates it's a new version.
If the update includes a new version of both the predefined object and a folder in its file path, the new folder name, along with the new version of the object, overwrites the existing predefined folder and object. And a copy of the existing folder (along with your edited object) is automatically created. The folder is renamed to indicate that it's a new version, but your edited object isn't renamed.
If folders named backup_nnn are automatically created in the catalog due to conflicts, after reviewing and resolving any conflicts, Oracle recommends that you manually delete the backup folders from the catalog. You can contact your help desk to request an automated removal if you have many folders to delete.