Working with Presentation Tables and Columns

Learn how to customize presentation tables and columns in these topics.

Presentation tables and presentation columns appear as folders and columns in Oracle BI Answers. You can customize presentation tables and presentation columns to help users craft queries based on their business needs.

This section contains the following topics:

Creating and Managing Presentation Tables

You can use presentation tables to organize columns into categories that make sense to the user community.

A presentation table can contain columns from one or more logical tables. The names and object properties of the presentation tables are independent of the logical table properties. Presentation tables are created automatically by dragging and dropping logical tables from the logical layer. A presentation table cannot have the same name as its parent subject area. For example, you cannot have a subject area called Customer that has a Customer table within it.

Use the Aliases tab to specify or delete aliases for this presentation table. See Creating Aliases (Synonyms) for Presentation Layer Objects.

See Setting Permissions for Presentation Layer Objects.

Select Custom display name to dynamically display a name based on a session variable and to edit the Translation Key field. Select Custom description to dynamically display a custom description based on a session variable. These options are used for localization purposes. When you externalize strings in the Presentation layer and run the Externalize Strings utility, the results contain the session variable information and the translation key. See Localizing Business Intelligence in System Administrator's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition .

Use the Child Presentation Tables tab to specify presentation tables that you want to show as nested folders in Oracle BI Answers and BI Composer. See Nesting Folders in and BI Composer and Controlling Presentation Object Visibility.

  1. In the Presentation layer, from a subject area, double-click a presentation table to open the Properties dialog.

    Aliases are created automatically whenever presentation objects are renamed, so that any queries using the original name do not break.

  2. (Optional) In the Properties dialog for the presentation table, in the General tab, change the name for the presentation table.
  3. Leave the Hide object if field blank, the default to show the object or click the Expression icon to specify a condition in the Expression Editor to Hide object if field.

    The expression hides the table if the condition is met making the table invisible in the Subject Area tree in Oracle BI Answers and BI Composer.

  4. (Optional) In the Columns tab, add, remove, edit, or reorder the presentation columns for the selected presentation table.
  5. In the Hierarchies tab, add, remove, edit, or reorder the presentation hierarchies for the selected presentation table.
  6. When you have completed your changes, click OK.

Reordering Presentation Layer Tables

Use this task to reorder a table or sort all tables in a subject area.

  1. In the Presentation layer, double-click a subject area.
  2. In the Subject Area dialog, click the Presentation Tables tab.
  3. In the Name list, select the table and use drag-and-drop to reposition the table, or click the Up and Down buttons to move a table.
  4. Click the Name column heading to sort all tables in alphanumeric order.
    The sort operation changes the order between ascending (A to Z) and descending ( Z to A) alphanumeric order.

About Presentation Columns

Presentation columns provide business intelligence data for display in web clients.

You can create presentation columns by dragging and dropping logical columns from the Oracle BI Administration Tool Business Model and Mapping (logical) layer to the Presentation layer. New columns added to presentation tables cannot use the same name or alias same name of an existing column.

You can drag and drop a column from a single logical table in the Business Model and Mapping layer onto multiple presentation tables. For example, you can create several presentation tables that contain different classes of measures such as one containing volume measures, one containing share measures, and one containing measures from a year ago.

You must enable the Edit presentation names in the Administration Tooloption before you can edit the presentation column's name. See Setting Administration Tool Options and Setting Permissions for Presentation Layer Objects.

You can use the Custom display name, Custom description, and Translation Key fields for localization purposes. When you externalize strings in the Presentation layer and run the Externalize Strings utility, the results contain the session variable information and the translation key. See Localizing Business Intelligence in System Administrator's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.

You can use the Custom display name and Custom description fields to propagate UI hints (labels and tooltips) from an ADF data source to display in Oracle BI Answers. See Propagating Labels and Tooltips from ADF Data Sources.

Aliases are created automatically whenever presentation objects are renamed, so that any queries using the original name do not break.

Changing the Presentation Column Name

The presentation column names, by default, are identical to the logical column names in the Business Model and Mapping layer. You can change the presentation column name.

  1. Open the Oracle BI Administration Tool.
  2. In the Presentation layer, double-click a presentation column to change.
  3. In the Presentation Column dialog, remove the check from the Use Logical Column Name field.
  4. Click Edit next to the Logical Column Name field.
  5. In the Logical Column dialog, in the Name field, type a new name to use for the Presentation Column.
  6. In the Logical Column dialog, implement other changes, and click OK.
  7. In the Presentation Column dialog, click Custom display name, and then click OK.

Reordering Presentation Columns

You can change the order of the columns in your presentation.

  1. Open the Oracle BI Administration Tool
  2. In the Presentation layer, right-click a presentation table and select Properties.
  3. Click the Columns tab.
  4. Select the column you want to reorder.
  5. Use drag-and-drop to reposition the column, or click the Up and Down buttons.
  6. Click OK.

Nesting Folders in Answers and BI Composer

You can designate child presentation tables using the Child Presentation Tables tab in the Presentation Table dialog.

Designate child presentation tables to give the appearance of nested folders in Answers and BI Composer. You can add multiple layers of nesting using this method.

The image shows how a designated child presentation table appears nested in Answers.

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Description of the illustration GUID-93284BEF-51C9-4E0D-A70F-5F8F0CE8997E-default.gif

The folders only appear to be nested - they are not actually nested in terms of drill-down, and the qualified names of the objects remain the same. In addition, the Presentation layer in the Administration Tool does not display the nesting; the nesting only appears in Answers and BI Composer. This feature only works for presentation tables, and not for other Presentation layer objects.

When you run a consistency check, the Consistency Check Manager detects any circularity in parent-child presentation table assignment. It also detects and reports project definitions that include child presentation tables without parent presentation tables.

In previous releases, repository developers could achieve one level of nesting by adding a hyphen at the beginning of a presentation table name, or by adding an arrow (->) at the beginning of the presentation table description. This method is now deprecated for this release and will be removed in a future release.

If you previously used hyphens at the beginning of presentation table names or arrows at the beginning of presentation table descriptions to achieve nesting, it is recommended that you run the Convert Presentation Folders utility to convert your metadata to the new structure. See Using the Convert Presentation Folders Utility.