Defining an OBIEE Business Area

Oracle recommends developing an OBIEE Business Area in the following order:

1. Create the Business Area; see Creating a Business Area. Special information for OBIEE Business Areas:

   • Name. The Business Area name is displayed in OBIEE Answers as the Subject Area. The name must be unique among Business Areas using the same service location. If it is not unique, when you install the Business Area you receive an error message with the location of the previously installed Business Area with the same name.

     Note:

     Do not change the name of a previously installed Business Area. This will cause problems with the .rpd file.

   • OBIEE Service Location Name. Select the value for the computer with the Presentation Server you want this Business Area to use, if more than one is available in your company.

2. Add Table Descriptors and map them to the Table instances that contain the data you want to make available in OBIEE; see Defining Table Descriptors.

   Note:

   To enable the OBIEE repository to query the source Table instances that the Oracle LSH OBIEE Business Area uses, set the SAS Library Name of the mapped Table Descriptor to $REPINIT. See Defining Table Descriptors.

3. If you want to add joins and hierarchies in Oracle LSH, do so now; see Defining Joins and Defining Business Area Hierarchies. See About OBIEE Business Areas.

   Note:

   Do not explicitly create a Source Code definition. The Source Code is automatically created when you install the Business Area. Its name is determined by the value of the Details attribute in the Deploy service defined for the service location you selected.

4. Install the Business Area to create the initial .rpd file. Install it again if you make changes in Oracle LSH before working in the OBIEE Administration Tool. The system generates a new .rpd file with your changes.

   Note:

   Customization in the OBIEE Administration Tool is optional.

5. Click Launch IDE to open the OBIEE Administration Tool. When prompted for a repository password, enter blank and continue. Work on the .rpd file in this tool, using the OBIEE user documentation.

   If you make structural changes in the OBIEE Administration Tool—changes to tables, joins, or hierarchies—you must make the same changes in Oracle LSH so that the .rpd file is always synchronized with the Business Area definition. Otherwise you will not be able to use the new structures in OBIEE. For example, if you add a column to a table in OBIEE but do not add the column in the Business Area Table Descriptor and map it to a column in its Table instance, you will not be able to see the data in the column in OBIEE.

6. When you are finished making changes, upload the .rpd file to the Business Area:

   1. In the Source Code tab, click the link to the Source Code definition.

   2. Click Browse.... The .rpd file is generally stored on the C drive, in the CdrWork folder. The full path of the repository file looks like this:

      Drive:\CdrWork\LSH_database_username\OBIEE_BA_Domain_name\OBIEE_BA_Application_Area_name\OBIEE_BA_Work_Area_name\OBIEE_BA_name\OBIEE_BA_version_number\

      Note:

      Oracle LSH supports uploading zipped .rpd files. However, you must give the .zip file exactly the same name as the .rpd file; for example, test.zip must contain test.rpd.

   3. Click Apply.

7. Install the Business Area. The system creates a new version of the Source Code definition that contains the newly uploaded file and deploys the file to the repository folder path defined on the Oracle BI Server, merging it into the master .rpd file.

   Note:

   If an .rpd file does not appear in the Source Code tab after installation, check the Jobs subtab. If the Execution Status is Pending Logon or Obtain Service, there is a problem with the Distributed Processing (DP) Server on the BI Server computer.

8. After the installation completes, follow the steps in Deploying the Repository File to make the Business Area available to users.