This section provides terminology that is used with Oracle BI Enterprise Edition.
The documentation for Oracle BI Enterprise Edition uses various terms when describing its features and functionality. It is important that you have a good understanding of these terms.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| action | An action enables you to navigate to related content or a web page. You can include actions in analyses and dashboard pages. For example, you can use an action in the Brand Revenue analysis to enable sales consultants to navigate to an Opportunity Detail web site. |
| action link | An action link enables you to embed a link to an action in an analysis or dashboard page, that, when clicked, runs an associated action. For example, you can embed an action link in the Brand Revenue analysis to enable sales consultants to navigate to an Opportunity Detail web site. |
| analysis | An analysis provides answers to business questions by querying against your organization's data. Analyses enable you to explore and interact with information by visually presenting data in tables, graphs, pivot tables, and to save, organize, and share the results of analyses. For example, you can create a Brand Revenue analysis that shows data in views on a Sales Performance dashboard. You can share this analysis with co-workers, clients, and business partners. |
| application role | An application role comprises a set of privileges that determine what users can see and do in Oracle BI Enterprise Edition. In Oracle BI Enterprise Edition, you associate users or roles configured in your identity domain with one or more application roles. The users and roles inherit their privileges in Oracle BI Enterprise Edition from these application roles. |
| briefing book | You can store a static snapshot of dashboard pages or individual analyses in one or more briefing books. You can also configure a briefing book to refresh data when accessed. For example, as a sales representative, you can use a briefing book to collect a snapshot of a Sales Performance analysis each quarter. |
| calculated item | A calculated item shows you a calculation between members, which is represented as a single member. A calculated item is useful when you want to view and manipulate a set of members as a single entity. For example, as a sales analyst, you can create a member in the Fulfillment by Quarter analysis that shows the average revenue for the Game Station and Plasma Television members. |
| calculated measure | Calculated measures are columns in fact tables that are based on expressions. For example, a calculated measure called Unit Price might be based on the expression Revenue / Billed Units. |
| catalog | The catalog contains things that you or somebody else has defined and saved for future use (such as analyses and dashboards). You can search the catalog to find something that you want to work with or change. For example, you might want to edit an analysis in a shared folder in the catalog. |
| column | Similar to database columns, Oracle BI Enterprise Edition has the concept of a column. In Oracle BI Enterprise Edition, columns are used in different contexts. A column in an analysis is based on a column, a derived attribute, or a calculated measure.
In an analysis, columns indicate the pieces of data that you want the analysis to return. You can use columns, along with filters and selection steps, to determine what analyses contain. Columns have names that indicate to you the types of information that they contain. For example, you can use columns named Account and Contact to present information in an analysis. |
| dashboard | A dashboard shows information that is relevant to you and consists of one or more pages. Each page can present information in different ways, such as graphs, tables, and images. For example, as a sales representative, you can use a dashboard to see graphs of products sold in your territory. |
| derived attribute | Derived attributes are columns in dimension tables that are based on expressions. For example, a derived attribute called Full Address might combine information from the columns Street Address, City, State, and Postal Code. |
| dimension table | Dimension tables contain values that represent the business entities that you measure. A dimension table contains the columns that represent your dimensional attributes, such as places, offices, people, and products. For example, you might want to report dimensions such as Sales by Product Category for the Current Month. |
| fact table | Fact tables contain the numeric data that you use to measure business performance. A fact table contains numeric values such as revenue, number of units sold, and number of people hired. |
| filter | Filters are the criteria that you apply to attribute and measure columns to limit the results that are displayed when an analysis is run. You can create inline or named filters. When you save a filter inside an individual content object, that object is saved "inline." You can save filters, groups, and calculated items inline. In addition to saving these objects inline, you can create individual named filters in the catalog that you can reuse in any analysis, dashboard, or dashboard page.
For example, as a sales consultant, you can filter the results that are shown in an existing analysis to see revenue for only those brands for which you are responsible. |
| group | A group (also known as a "saved selection" in certain products) enables you to define the members of a column, as a list of members or a set of selection steps that generate a list of members. For example, as a sales analyst, you can review how much revenue was generated for mobile devices and compare that number to other product types. You can create a group called Mobile Devices for the Product column that includes Flip Phones and Smart Phones. |
| hierarchy | Hierarchies show relationships among groups of attribute columns in a dimension table. For example, days comprise months and months comprise quarters. Hierarchies enable drilling in analyses. |
| identity domain | The identity domain is the user information that provides authentication into Oracle BI Enterprise Edition. The identity domain also defines roles that groups of users can be members of. |
| join | Joins indicate relationships between one fact table and one dimension table. Every fact table must be joined to at least one dimension table, and the reverse. |
| level | Levels are components of hierarchies that either roll up or are rolled up from other levels. Hierarchies typically begin with a total level, then have child levels, working down to the lowest level. All levels, except the total level, must have at least one column. |
| measure | A measure is a column in a fact table that has an aggregation rule defined or is based on an expression that uses other measure columns. For example, you might want to measure business performance by Revenue and Units. Measures are calculated from data sources at query time. |
| Presentation Services | The collective term for features in Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition that enable you to present business intelligence data. These features include analyses, dashboards and a catalog to present the content. |
| prompt | Prompts are a type of filter that enable you to build and specify data values, or to choose specific data values to provide result sets for analyses included on a dashboard or dashboard page. A prompt expands or refines the existing dashboard and analysis filters. For example, you can use a prompt for Year to specify the year for which you want to see data in an analysis |
| selection step | As you specify which data members to include in an analysis, you create selections of data from the data source. Each selection specifies the criteria for a set of members for a particular column, such as Product or Geography, and consists of one or more steps. A step is where you specify an instruction that affects the selection, such as add Product members whose values contain the text "ABC." The order in which steps are performed affects the selection of data. Each of your steps acts incrementally on the results from previous steps, rather than acting on all the members for that column.
For example, you can create a step to specify criteria for a set of members in a Sales Office column, which contains the members "Boston", "New York", and "San Francisco." |
| table | Similar to database tables, Oracle BI Enterprise Edition has the concept of a table and uses it in various contexts.
When you model data, you create a dimension table or a fact table that includes source columns from one or more source tables. When you build an analysis, you can create a user-defined table view to display the data. |
| time dimension | Time dimensions enable time-series functions. These functions enable comparisons with previous time periods, enabling you to analyze data that spans multiple time periods.
A time dimension is a group of the following related model objects:
|
| variable | Variables dynamically calculate and store values so that you can use those values in expressions. You can use variables in column expressions or in data filters. |
| view | A view is a visualization that helps communicate an outcome. A view enables you to look at results of analyses in meaningful, intuitive ways. You can add a variety of views to the results, such as graphs and pivot tables, that enable drilling down to more detailed information, explanatory text, a list of filters that were used to limit the results, and more. For example, you can analyze trends for the Sales Forecast analysis by creating a trellis view. |