You can alter objects in Catalog Manager in several ways.
This section provides the following information about working with objects:
In the Catalog page of Presentation Services, you can view folders and contents including hidden objects. You can create, rename, copy, move, and delete folders and contents. See Managing Objects in the Oracle BI Presentation Catalogin User's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.
Note:
Changes made in the Presentation layer of the Oracle BI Administration Tool can affect analyses and dashboards based on those tables and columns. You can use Catalog Manager to keep the catalog synchronized with these changes in the Presentation layer.You can search for objects in the catalog using the Search function.
For example, you might want to search for all objects that have a property with the value of "administrator."
When you search, you can limit the search by:
Case Sensitive — Select this check box to apply case sensitivity to the search criteria. The default value is unchecked.
Name — Limits the search to the names of objects.
Description — Limits the search to the Description property.
Property values — Limits the search to the values of properties.
Owner — Limits the search to the owners of objects.
XML — Limits the search to XML.
Object type — Searches for all types of objects or limits the search to a specific type of object that you specify (for example, analyses, filters, agents, dashboard prompts, dashboard pages).
Date — Limits the search to objects that were created on the dates that you specify or to objects that were last modified on the dates that you specify.
Use the following steps to search for an object.
You can copy and paste objects within a single catalog.
You can also copy objects from one catalog and paste them into another catalog.
You can execute and use copying and pasting in several ways.
Use the following tips as you copy and paste objects:
You can copy and paste objects using the following methods:
Menu options, as described in Copying and Pasting Objects Between Catalogs Using Menus.
Drag and drop, to copy objects between two catalogs and within the same catalog. Drag and drop always makes a copy of the dragged objects, even when performing a drag and drop within a single catalog.
Archive and unarchive, as described in Archiving and Unarchiving Using Catalog Manager. When you archive, you create a file that you can save for later use. The unarchiving process automatically overwrites any files without providing the opportunity to specify that certain files not be overwritten.
Catalogs are structured in hierarchical folders. When copying or merging objects, remember to also copy any objects that are associated with them, such as dashboard folders, shortcuts, and analyses. URL paths in external applications can be reestablished after a copy or merge operation if the entire folder path is not copied, for example, if added to the dashboard as a shortcut or text.
Most often, you can simply copy and paste objects as needed. If required, you can set advanced options that affect the objects that you are pasting. See Advanced Options for Pasting Objects.
The following procedure describes how to copy and paste objects between two catalogs using menu options.
If the two catalogs have the same name, then you might want to rename one of the catalogs before opening it to help distinguish between the two catalogs as you work. Both catalogs must be the same version 11.1.1 (or later).
You can set advanced options in the Preferences dialog for pasting objects that you have copied, as described in the following sections:
Caution:
You must set the advanced options in the Preferences dialog before you begin the copy and paste operation, for them to take effect.
The Preferences dialog contains a number of options in the Paste Overwrite area.
Options include:
Force — Pastes all files, overwriting even those that have the read-only attribute set.
All — Pastes all possible files, overwriting only those that do not have the read-only attribute set. (Default)
Old — Pastes all possible files, but does not overwrite any existing files unless they are older than the source.
None — Pastes all possible files, but does not overwrite any existing files.
Consider the following example of pasting with overwrite options set. Suppose that the /users/joe folder contains the following analyses:
Suppose that the /users/sue folder contains the following analyses, but no Analysis C
Suppose that Sue copies the A, B, and C Analyses from the /users/joe folder and pastes them to the /users/sue folder. If the Paste Overwrite option is set to:
None, then Sue keeps her A and B Analyses, and Joe's analyses are ignored. Sue gets a copy of Analysis C.
All, then Sue's A and B Analyses are overwritten with Joe's, and Sue gets a copy of Analysis C.
Old, then Sue keeps her A Analysis (Sue's A Analyses is not "old"), Sue's B Analysis gets overwritten by Joe's analysis (Sue's B Analysis was "old"), and Sue gets a copy of Analysis C.
The Preferences dialog contains a number of options in the Paste ACL area.
Options include:
Inherit — Inherits the object's permissions (ACL) from its new parent folder. (Default)
Preserve — Preserves the object's permissions (ACL) as it was in the original, mapping accounts as necessary.
Preserve Only Groups — Same as Preserve, but applies to group accounts and Application Roles, not to user accounts. This is for a development to production environment in which a customer might use the same groups (such as Sales and Marketing) in both development and production. However, the users in each group might be very different, such as TestUserA and TestAdminB in development and Steve and Sue in production.
Create — Preserves the object's permissions (ACL) as it was in the original, creating and mapping accounts as necessary, depending on the mode and type of owner, as described in the following list:
Online mode — In online mode, Catalog Manager is communicating with the back-end security server. Catalog Manager knows about the users and application roles from that server and can usually paste a copied object with the appropriate user name or role. While pasting objects, keep in mind that you might lack appropriate permissions to create accounts for certain objects.
Offline mode — In offline mode, Catalog Manager has no connection with the back-end security server, so it is unaware of users and application roles that are stored there, unless their names are available in the cache for the catalog. If the name of the user or role for a copied object is not available in the cache, then Catalog Manager cannot paste the copied object with that name or role. Instead, the pasted object inherits its owner from its new parent folder, which is similar to the Inherit option.
This feature is used in applications whose administrators create accounts in a staging area before moving the users to the production environment.
If you have the appropriate permissions, then you can select a newly pasted object and set ownership recursively to the appropriate user.
Consider the following example of pasting with ACL options set. Suppose that Steve owns the /users/steve/MyFavReport folder and has permissions (ACL) "all users can read/execute, steve has full control". Joe (who has some administration privileges) logs in and copies MyFavReport, pasting it to /users/sue (which is owned by "administrator", with permissions "admins have full control, sue has full control").
If Joe sets the Paste ACL option to:
Inherit, then the /users/sue/MyFavReport folder is owned by Joe with whatever permissions are set on the /users/sue folder (that is, "admins have full control, sue has full control").
Preserve, then the /users/sue/MyFavReport folder is owned by Joe with whatever permissions were set on the /users/steve/MyFavReport folder (that is, "all users can read/execute, steve has full control"). If Joe pastes in a second Catalog Manager and if "steve" does not exist in this Catalog, then the permissions for Steve are discarded. If "steve" exists but has a different user ID, then Steve's user ID is mapped to the new one.
Create in online mode, then the /users/sue/MyFavReport folder is owned by Joe with whatever permissions were set on the /users/steve/MyFavReport folder (that is, "all users can read/execute, Steve has full control"). If Joe pastes in a second Catalog Manager and if "steve" does not exist in this catalog, then the owner is inherited from the parent folder. (The Create option is deprecated in Release 11g as it applies only to Catalog groups.)
You can rename objects in the catalog.
This can be useful when you are migrating from a test environment to a production environment.
There are two ways to rename an object:
Rename without reference updates — Renames the object and preserves the references to the original name that other catalog objects might have.
Rename with reference updates — Renames the object and changes references that other objects might have to the new name (that is, original name references are not preserved). This feature is also known as Smart Rename. You can open the catalog in either offline or online mode. In offline mode, you can rename all objects. In online mode, you might be unable to rename certain objects, depending on your permissions.
Caution:
Keep the following points in mind when renaming objects:You cannot rename a user account in the catalog. If you rename a user's home directory, then you do not rename that user and you might see unexpected results.
The catalog contains several reserved names of objects. Rename only your own objects, not those that Presentation Services creates internally. For example, do not rename the _portal directory in your home directory, because then you cannot see "My Dashboard".
Use the following steps to rename an object without reference updates.
In Catalog Manager, open the catalog.
Navigate to the object to be renamed.
Right-click the object in the Name column and select Rename.
Type a new name for the object.
To rename an object with reference updates:
A progress bar in the lower-right corner of the window shows the progress of the reference updates.
You can work with object properties through the Catalog Manager.
Using the Properties option of Catalog Manager, you can:
Create, view, edit, and delete the properties of catalog objects.
Change attributes of catalog objects to hide them from display in Oracle Business Intelligence.
In Catalog Manager, open the catalog.
Navigate to the object.
Right-click the object in the Name column and select Properties.
Perform the necessary tasks:
If you have the appropriate permissions, then select the appropriate owner for the object in the Owner list.
The Owner list includes the name that you used to log in to Catalog Manager. You can use this list to select yourself as the owner of the object.
See Assigning Ownership of Objects in User's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition for information on taking ownership of objects.
To change the attribute of an object, select either Read-Only or Hidden, if appropriate. A hidden object is not visible in Oracle Business Intelligence.
Note:
The System option indicates that the object is maintained internally and should not be altered.
To create, edit, or delete a property, use the New, Edit, or Delete button as appropriate.
Note:
The New button is used to create a property. Use it only if instructed to do so by Oracle Support Services.Click OK.
You can select multiple objects and update their properties or permissions simultaneously. If any of the selected objects are a folder, then you can also apply those changes recursively to all the objects in that folder's tree structure.
For example, you can set all files in the /shared/DontTouch directory to be Read-Only. Right-click the DontTouch directory and select Properties. In the Properties dialog, select the Read-Only option, select the Apply Recursively option, and click OK. You can also select Apply Recursively to take ownership of an object and all its sub-objects.
Permissions are used to control access to catalog objects.
Note:
If you move a user or group from the Users and groups (Explicit Permissions) list to the Additional Users and Application Roles list, then the user or group privileges are reset to No Access. To move a user or group from one list to another, highlight it and click the right or left-arrow button, as appropriate.See Security Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition for more information about permissions and groups and users.
You can preview objects, such as analyses or prompts, from Catalog Manager in online mode. If you are going to preview objects from Catalog Manager, then you must identify the default browser in which to display these objects.
In Catalog Manager, from the Tools menu, select Preferences.
In the Select Web Browser to use for report previews field, select the browser that is the same one that you have set to be the default browser for your operating system. You can click the Browse button in which you can select the executable file for the appropriate browser.
Click OK.
To preview an object: