1 Introducing Oracle BI Scheduler

You use Oracle BI Scheduler and Job Manager to automate agents and jobs. For example, you might want to automatically deliver analyses, dashboards, briefing books, or alerts to BI users once per week, or automatically run a script once per day to load Oracle BI Server statistics into a database for analysis.

This chapter contains the following sections:

1.1 What is Oracle BI Scheduler?

Oracle BI Scheduler is a server that manages and schedules jobs. Oracle BI Scheduler supports two kinds of jobs:

  • Scripted jobs.

    Scripted jobs are configured and submitted using Job Manager. For example, a scripted job could periodically load the Oracle BI Server usage statistics into a back-end database. In this example Oracle BI Scheduler communicates with the BI Server. However, scripted jobs might not access the BI Server, for example by saving the output of an agent to a shared drive. Scripted jobs can also be configured through agents and actions.

    Oracle BI Scheduler supports jobs that are written in the Java programming language or in the VBScript and JScript scripting languages.

    Note:

    Scripting for agents and scripts that are defined by the Oracle BI Scheduler Job Manager are supported only under Windows platforms. The Java interfaces support all platforms.

  • Agents.

    Agents are configured and submitted for execution using Oracle BI Delivers. Agents deliver content to end users. Content can be analyses, dashboards, briefing books, or alerts. After delivering content, agents can also execute actions. Actions include Java actions, URL actions, Web service actions, and server script actions. Agents can also run other agents, creating chains of agents. Oracle BI Scheduler communicates with Oracle BI Presentation Services for unscripted jobs.

    Note:

    There are thus two different forms of custom Java that can be executed: Java scripted jobs run in their own right and Java actions run as part of an agent.

1.2 About Oracle BI Scheduler Server Components

Oracle BI Scheduler consists of the following components:

  • Oracle BI Scheduler Job Manager

  • Oracle BI Scheduler Service process: <Oracle_Home>/bin/obish<n>

  • Mail tab under the Configuration tab in Fusion Middleware Control

  • Command line job invocation tool:

    • Windows operating systems: saschinvoke.exe

    • UNIX operating systems: saschinvoke

1.3 Topics of Interest in Other Guides

Some topics that might be of interest to security administrators are covered in other guides. Table 1-1 lists these topics and indicates where to go for more information.