1. Managing Metadata Repositories for Oracle Analytics Server
  2. Build Your Metadata Repository
  3. Set Up and Use the Multiuser Development Environment
  4. Set Up Projects

Set Up Projects

Projects are the central enabler of metadata management.

A project consists of a discretely-defined subset of the repository metadata, in the form of groups of logical stars with associated metadata. A project has the following characteristics:

  • Is largely defined by logical fact tables in the applicable business model

  • Automatically adds related logical dimension tables and other metadata during extract

  • Can have one-to-many logical fact tables

For projects that are just beginning, the best practice is to begin with a repository containing all the necessary physical table and join definitions. In this repository, you create a logical fact table as a placeholder in the Business Model and Mapping layer and a subject area as a placeholder in the Presentation layer. As you add business model and subject area metadata, new projects based on individual subject areas and logical facts can be created.

Follow these guidelines when setting up projects:

  • Only one person at a time can create projects in a master repository.

  • Don't delete projects unless they're no longer under active development.

  • Choose your project name carefully when creating a project. Don't rename projects.

  • Use care when removing objects from projects to avoid problems with repository extract/check-out.

This section contains the following topics:

About Projects

Projects can consist of Presentation layer subject areas and their associated business model logical facts, dimensions, groups, users, variables, and initialization blocks.

You can create projects so that developers can work on projects in their area of responsibility. The primary reason to create projects is to support multiuser development. During the development process, you can split up the work (metadata) between different teams within your company by extracting the metadata into projects so that each project group can access a different part of the metadata.

You might want to create projects for licensing reasons. Before releasing a new software version, you might want to ensure that only the metadata that's relevant to the licensed application is in a project and that everything is consistent and complete. You add only the fact tables that are relevant to the application. Project extractions are fact table-centric to ensure that project extracts are consistent, and to make licensing manageable.

Create Projects

A project can represent a subject area or a subset of logical fact tables related to the selected subject area. The Model Administration Tool automatically adds the related business model and Physical layer objects to the project.

You can use the same object in multiple projects. You can choose to group facts by business model or you can select a business model or a set of logical fact tables that are part of a business model to use in a project. You need to explicitly add Presentation layer objects to your project.

Although the project definition doesn't include Physical layer objects, these objects are determined and extracted through the project definition.

After you create projects, they become part of the metadata and are available to multiple developers who need to perform development tasks on the same master repository. When defined this way, projects become a consistent repository after a developer checks out the projects and saves them as a new repository file.

In your project, it's more common to select Group Facts By Subject Area.

You can include objects in your project that aren't referenced such as variables and initialization blocks that are directly referenced by other extracted objects. You can add the top node for each object type, for example, Variables, then selectively remove individual objects.

  • If you're using initialization blocks for authentication, include any necessary initialization blocks.

  • You can include repository variables or other objects that aren't yet referenced by other objects, but that you might want to use in future repository development.

  • You can include users and application roles as part of your data access security settings.

If you don't see the set of subject areas you expect after the project is created, edit the project to explicitly add the subject areas you need.

  1. In the Model Administration Tool, choose File, select Open, and then select Offline.
  2. In the Open dialog, select the repository that you want to make available for multiuser development, then click OK. Provide the repository password, then click OK again.
  3. Select Manage, then select Projects.
  4. In the Project Manager dialog, in the right pane, right-click and then select New Project.
  5. In the Project dialog, in Name, type a name for the project.
  6. In Group Facts By, select Business Model, or Subject Area.
  7. Perform one or more of the following steps to add fact tables to your project:
    • Under the Group Facts By area, select a subject area or business model, and then click Add.
    • Expand the subject areas or business models and select one or more logical fact tables, then click Add.
  8. Optional: Click Remove to remove fact tables from the project.
  9. Optional: Add any application roles, users, variables, initialization blocks, or lookup tables needed for the project.
  10. Select the Presentation layer objects to include in your project and click Add.
  11. Click OK.