1. Getting Started with Your Partner Relationship Management Implementation
  2. Enable Partner Access to BI Content

Enable Partner Access to BI Content

Oracle Partner Relationship Management provides business intelligence analyses and KPIs. You must make these analytics accessible to partners before they can view them.

Typically, the Channel Operations Manager or Sales Administrator manages partner access to analytics.

Making analytics accessible to partners is a two-step process.

  1. First, move the intelligence content to a BI directory that's visible to partners.

  2. Next, add the intelligence content to sales user interface pages.

    Partners can't create and add their own analytics to sales pages.

Create Your Own BI Directories for Partner Content

Oracle Partner Relationship Management delivers business intelligence in a default location. However, partners can't access anything inside this default location. Instead, you must copy partner content to a directory you create, before adding the content to user interface pages. This ensures that whenever partners log in, they can search only the BI content made available to their specific role, such as Partner Sales Manager or Partner Sales Representative.

To create your own BI directories for partner content:

  1. Sign in to BI Answers as a user with the Channel Operations Manager external job role.

  2. Create your own directory under /Shared Folders/Custom/Customer Relationship Management. For example:

    /Shared Folders/Custom/Customer Relationship Management/Partner Admin

  3. Select this directory and, in the right pane, open the Permissions dialog by navigating More > Permissions.

  4. Add the Partner Administrator role and select Open (Read, Traverse) access to allow partner administrators to run this directory's reports from the partner pages.

  5. If the BI Consumer external job role is already assigned to this directory, then delete it.

  6. For each partner-related external job role, repeat these steps:

    1. Create a dedicated directory for each external job role (for example, Partner Sales Manager and Partner Sales Representative).

    2. Assign the role to your directory.

Hide Unnecessary Content from Partners

In the previous section, you created your own directories for partner content. Adding content to these directories makes that content available to your partners. At the same time, you want your partners to see only that BI content, nothing else. To achieve this, remove partner access from other directories for all partner external job roles.

OTBI delivers one or more of the following directories directly under /Shared Folders/Custom:

  • Customer Relationship Management

  • Financials

  • Functional Setup

  • Human Capital Management

  • Incentive Compensation

  • Procurement

  • Projects

  • Supply Chain Management

To remove partner access from these directories:

  1. Sign in to BI Answers as a user with the Channel Operations Manager external job role.

  2. Navigate to /Shared Folders/Custom.

  3. Select a directory (other than the Customer Relationship Management directory) and, in the right pane, open the Permissions dialog by navigating More > Permissions. For example:

    /Shared Folders/Custom/Financials

  4. In the Permissions dialog, add the role and select .

  5. Repeat steps 3 and 4:

    • For all objects (directories and reports) directly under the directory.

    • For all objects (directories and reports) under the Customer Relationship Management directory, except the partner-specific directories you previously created.

    Do not update the permissions for any objects other than those objects in /Shared Folders/Custom.

Make Content Available to Partners

In the previous two sections, you created partner-specific directories and you have hidden all other BI content from partners. Next, copy partner content to your new directories so that partners can access that content from the application UI.

Partner content is delivered in this location:

/Shared Folders/Sales/Embedded Content/

Follow these instructions to copy content to your new directories.

  1. Oracle-Provided Partner BI Content

    Partner reports that Oracle provides are placed here:

    /Shared Folders/Sales/Embedded Content/

    Partners can't access this directory.

    To make this content accessible to partners:

    1. Reports

      Copy the reports from the Embedded Content directory to your new directory. For example:

      /Shared Folders/Custom/Customer Relationship Management/Partner Sales Representative

      These reports are now accessible by partners.

      Note:

      If the report uses a saved filter, then you must move the saved filter as well. Then, edit the report to ensure that it uses the new saved filter, now located in your new directory.

    2. Dashboards

      A dashboard includes one or more components, such as reports, prompts, images, and so on. This requires some additional configuration when moving to your directory. For example, a dashboard can point to a report. This means that when you copy a dashboard to a Dashboards directory that you created, you should also copy the underlying reports.

      If a dashboard uses more than one item, such as reports and prompts and saved filters, then you must move all objects within the dashboard to the appropriate partner directory and add permissions.

      Let's look at an example:

      1. Copy the Stalled Opportunities for Partner Representative dashboard from /Shared Folders/Sales/Embedded Content/Partner Sales Representative/Dashboards to /Shared Folders/Custom/Customer Relationship Management/Partner Sales Representative/Dashboards.

      2. This dashboard points to the Stalled Opportunities for Partner Representative report, which is a hidden report (displayed after checking "Show Hidden Items" check box). Copy this report as well from /Shared Folders/Sales/Embedded Content/Partner Sales Representative to /Shared Folders/Custom/Customer Relationship Management/Partner Sales Representative.

      3. Next, in your Dashboard directory, edit the dashboard so that the dashboard points to the report in partner directory you created.

        1. On the dashboard, delete the existing Drill To: Stalled Opportunities for Partner Representative from section 1.

        2. Expand the Catalog section from the bottom left.

        3. Pull the hidden report from /Shared Folders/Custom/Customer Relationship Management/ Partner Sales Representative.

        4. Save the dashboard.

          The dashboard is now configured to point to the report which is also in the directory that partners have access to.

      Note:

      Remember to add partner roles to both the dashboard and its corresponding reports, so that partners can access and run all reports on the dashboard.

  2. Customer-Defined Partner BI Content

    In BI Answers, the Channel Operations Manager has access to a predefined set of subject areas, which can be used to create your own analytics, such as dashboards and reports, for partners.

    The Channel Operations Manager can create this BI content and place it in the respective partner directory. For example:

    /Shared Folders/Custom/Customer Relationship Management/Partner Sales Manager

Add Content to Partner Pages

Once you have moved partner BI content to directories that are accessible to partners, you can add that content to partner pages.

When partners sign in, they can access this content.

Related Topics