Reporting Using Data from More than One Subject Area

You can create analyses that combine data from more than one subject area using three different methods. This section discusses these methods and how the results vary depending on which method you use.

Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence organizes reporting data elements such as dimensions and facts by business function in subject areas. Each subject area contains a collection of dimensional attributes and measures relating to the one-dimensional STAR model and grouped into individual folders. The term STAR refers to the semantic model where a single fact is joined to multiple dimensions.

You can combine results in reporting using one of the three following methods:

• Reporting that combines queries from multiple subject areas.

  • Using common (conformed) dimensions.

  • Using local and common (confirmed) dimensions.

• Reporting that uses set operations (Union or Union All for example) to combine more than one result set from the same or different subject areas.

• Reporting that uses logical SQL using the Advanced tab.

A Common dimension is a dimension that exists in all subject areas that are being joined in a report. For example, the Customer dimension is the common dimension for the Sales - CRM Pipeline and Marketing - CRM Leads subject areas.

A Local dimension is a dimension that is available in one or more of the subject areas, but is not available in all of the subject areas being joined. For example, Product is a local dimension for the Sales - CRM Pipeline subject area, and Activity is a local dimension for the CRM - CRM Activity Real Time subject area.