Topics
This chapter includes the following sections:
Dashboards provide personalized views of corporate and external information.
A dashboard consists of one or more pages.
Pages can display anything that you can access or open with a web browser, including the following:
The results of analyses
The results of an analysis is the output returned from the Oracle BI Server that matches the analysis criteria. It can be shown in various views, such as a table, graph, and gauge. Users can examine and analyze results, print as PDF or HTML, save as PDF, or export them to a spreadsheet.
Alerts from agents
Action links and action link menus
Images
Text
Views of folders in the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog
Links to web sites
Links to documents
Embedded content (such as web pages or documents)
Oracle BI Publisher reports
When you open a dashboard, the content of the dashboard is displayed in one or more dashboard pages. Dashboard pages are identified by tabs across the top of the dashboard. A toolbar at the top right contains buttons that let you:
Edit the dashboard, if you have the appropriate permissions and privileges. See What Is the Dashboard Builder?
Display various options for working with a Dashboard page, such as printing the current page. See Opening and Using Dashboards.
Typical Workflow for Building Dashboards
To start building dashboards, refer to the typical workflow described in the following list:
Create multiple analyses — Build analyses on which you can create views that you display on a dashboard.
Create a dashboard — Create a dashboard to display data from analysis.
Add content to a dashboard page — Add content to dashboard pages to display items such as views and prompts.
Add prompts to dashboard pages — Add prompts to dashboard pages to drive the content on the pages.
Add pages to a dashboard — Optionally add one or more pages to the dashboard to display the data in various ways.
Recall personal settings for dashboards — Create customizations that enable you to view pages in their current state or with your favorite choices already selected.
The ability to create dashboards is controlled by the Manage Dashboard privilege, which is managed by the administrator.
Dashboard editing, which is performed in the Dashboard builder, is allowed for users with the appropriate permissions and privileges to the dashboard and to objects that can be added to a dashboard page. See Assigning Permissions and Managing Presentation Services Privileges in Security Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.
The Dashboard builder lets you add dashboard pages to a dashboard and edit the pages in a dashboard. You can add objects to and control the layout of dashboard pages.
Pages contain the columns and sections that hold the content of a dashboard. Every dashboard has at least one page, which can be empty. Dashboard pages are identified by tabs across the top of the dashboard. Multiple pages are used to organize content. For example, you might have one page to store results from analyses that you refer to every day, another that contains links to the web sites of your suppliers, and one that links to your corporate intranet.
The objects that you can add to a dashboard page include:
Dashboard objects — Items that are used only in a dashboard. Examples of dashboard objects are sections to hold content, action links, and embedded content that is displayed in a frame in a dashboard.
Catalog objects — Objects that you or someone else has saved to the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog (for example, analyses, prompts, and so on) and for which you have the appropriate permissions.
In a dashboard, the results of an analysis can be shown in various views, such as a table, graph, and gauge. (The results of an analysis are the output that is returned from the Oracle BI Server that matches the analysis criteria.) Users can examine and analyze results, save or print them, or export them to a spreadsheet.
You can customize what dashboards look like in a variety of ways.
The look-and-feel of a dashboard is highly customizable and controlled by several attributes.
Skins — Skins define the visible graphic features and control the way that the Oracle BI EE user interface is displayed, such as background colors, corporate logos, and style sheets. Skins can be automatically assigned to users when they log on. Administrators can customize the default skin and create new skins.
Styles — Styles control the appearance of a dashboard and its various views. In other words styles control how the results are formatted for display, such as the color of text and links, the font and size of text, the borders in tables, and the colors and attributes of graphs.
Styles and skins are organized into folders that contain Cascading Style Sheets (files with a .css extension). Cascading style sheets provide control over any object within Oracle Business Intelligence. Administrators can customize style sheets and create new style sheets. You can override some elements in style sheets, such as table borders and text size, when you format results in the Results tab.
You can specify a style for a particular dashboard on the Dashboard Properties dialog in the General Properties area using the Styles list.
Cosmetic formatting — Cosmetic formatting affects the visual appearance of data in columns and hierarchy levels, views, and columns and sections on dashboard pages. See What is Cosmetic Formatting? and Applying Formatting to Dashboard Pages.
Oracle BI EE includes several styles, including ALTA.
This style provides a clean, consistent appearance across Oracle Business Intelligence products and presents crisp visual trends, such as light colors and small gradients and border sizes. See Customizing the Oracle BI Web User Interface in Security Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.
Note:
Oracle recommends using ALTA as a starting point, if you plan to create a new custom style.You can edit dashboards to which you have appropriate permissions and privileges.
You can add or delete dashboard pages, add content such as columns and sections, and edit properties and settings such as print options. For example, you can add content to a Sales Performance dashboard to track your team's progress by adding a Brand Revenue analysis from the catalog.
Set dashboard and dashboard page properties.
Specify settings for printing and exporting a dashboard page.
Set the report links for a dashboard page.
Specify whether to allow users to create personal saved customizations on the page.
Publish the page to a shared dashboard location so that you can share the page with others.
Set advanced page properties so that you can set the navigation parameters for the dashboard page or the dashboard.
You can add new pages to dashboards.
For example, you can first add a new dashboard page that contains regional sales data in a table and in a bar graph. Then, you can add another that contains links to various competitors' web sites.
After you add a new page, you can add content to it.
You can add new subpages to dashboards.
Adding subpages allows a second level of information to be presented to users. For example, you can first add a new dashboard page that contains regional sales data in a table and in a bar graph. Then, you can add a subpage that contains links to various competitors' web sites.
After you add a new subpage, you can add content to it.
Adding content to a dashboard provides a way for users to see a variety of data organized in a single place.
You can add the following content to dashboards:
Dashboard objects, including objects that let you lay out the content, such as columns and sections, as well as objects such as text, folders, action links, and so on.
Objects that you or someone else has saved to the presentation catalog and for which you have the appropriate permissions, such as analyses, prompts, and so on.
For example, you can add content to the newly created Sales Performance dashboard to track your team's progress. To do so, you can add a Brand Revenue analysis from the catalog.
Note:
Dashboard modification is reserved for users with the appropriate permissions and privileges.Adding a performance tile to a dashboard performs in the same manner as adding any other view, including prompt behavior. Drag and drop the analysis containing the performance tile view from the catalog into a column, save the dashboard, and run it to view the tile. To ensure that a group of performance tiles are tightly spaced, place each performance tile in a dashboard section or column and then assign a fixed size to the section or column to prevent the tiles from spreading out.
You can build your page layout in a dashboard by dragging and dropping.
When you drag and drop objects to the Page Layout area of the Dashboard builder, keep in mind the following:
As you drag an object in the Page Layout area, a blue bar is displayed to indicated the drop location relative to another object. When you hover over a valid target in which to drop the object, the border of the target container changes to orange.
When you drop an object that does not have a name to the Page Layout area, it is assigned a default name, such as Section 1, Link 1, and so on. You can rename some objects to assign meaningful, descriptive names.
When you hover the mouse pointer over an object that has been dropped to the Page Layout area, it is highlighted with an orange border and its toolbar is displayed.
Columns are used to align content, while sections within columns hold the actual content. If you drag and drop an object to an empty Page Layout area, or drag and drop an object to a column without first adding a section to hold it, then the proper containers for it are created automatically. For example, if you drag and drop a section to an empty Page Layout area, a column is created automatically. If you drag and drop an analysis, then both the column and section are created automatically.
When you drag and drop an analysis to the Page Layout area, the compound view is shown by default. If you want to show another view, then click the Properties button for the analysis, select Show View, and select the view that you want.
When you drag a second object to a section, you can drop it either horizontally or vertically within the section, which sets the layout for the section. Additional objects that you drag and drop have that layout. To change the layout after it has been set, you can use the Horizontal Layout and Vertical Layout buttons on the section toolbar.
Note:
Keep the system font small to ensure text from different sections lays out properly.If you drag a section from one column into another column, then any content in that section is also included.
You can set advanced page properties to specify incoming navigation parameters you want to set on the current dashboard page.
Setting advanced page properties enables you to control how parameters associated with the navigation actions are applied. For example, if a navigation link includes a prompt value, then you can choose the context of the incoming navigation link to be applied to all pages associated with a dashboard or limit the scope of the context of incoming navigation link to the landing page.
Oracle BI Publisher reports add configured analyses to dashboard pages.
This section describes how to add Oracle BI Publisher reports to dashboard pages. It contains the following topics:
Learn how Oracle BI Publisher reports and dashboard pages can be made to interact with each other.
This section contains the following topics:
View these topics to learn more about Oracle BI Publisher and Dashboard Pages.
This section contains the following topics:
For general information on BI Publisher, see Integration of Oracle BI EE with Oracle BI Publisher.
You can run, view, and interact with a BI Publisher report on a dashboard page.
When included on a dashboard page, the BI Publisher report can include a toolbar that can offer options for selecting a layout template, changing the BI Publisher report's output format, exporting the BI Publisher report, sending the BI Publisher report to an available destination (for example, printer, fax, email, or FTP), scheduling the BI Publisher report, and analyzing the data.
You can print briefing book or dashboard page that contains a BI Publisher report in limited formats.
If you plan to print a dashboard page that contains a BI Publisher report or to include the page in a briefing book, then you must keep the following points in mind:
If you print the briefing book as PDF and if the output format of the BI Publisher report is PDF, then the BI Publisher report is printed after the other objects on the page. If you print a dashboard page that contains a BI Publisher report as PDF, but the dashboard page is not part of a briefing book, then the BI Publisher report is not printed.
If you print the dashboard page or briefing book as MHTML, then the BI Publisher report is not printed.
Adding reports to dashboard pages allows the reports to be shared with other users.
You can add one or more existing reports to a dashboard page. The advantage is that you can share reports with other users and schedule the dashboard pages using agents. An agent sends the entire dashboard to the user, including all data pages that the report references.
When configuring an agent for a dashboard page that contains a BI Publisher report, ensure that the following criteria are met:
The output format of the BI Publisher report must be PDF.
The agent must be set to deliver PDF.
You can add reports to a dashboard page as embedded content and as a link. Embedded means that the report is displayed directly on the dashboard page. The link opens the report in BI Publisher within Oracle BI EE.
If you modify the report in BI Publisher and save your changes, then refresh the dashboard page to see the modifications.
Adding a report to a dashboard page makes the report easily accessible to users.
Reports consolidate information in a single place, and can help users navigate to information they may need.
You can use prompts to filter the results of embedded parameterized BI Publisher reports to show only results that match the prompt criteria.
When you can configure an embedded parameterized BI Publisher report to display online, the parameters display the appropriate values from either an analysis or a direct connection to a subject area. However, when you schedule that same report, the parameters from the analysis can't be passed, and the report displays default values from parameters for the analysis. For a direct connection with a scheduled report, the parameters are passed and the values are displayed correctly in the report.
The BI Publisher report can be either of the following:
A BI Publisher report that receives its data from an Oracle BI EE analysis. For this report, you must have the report columns to filter on set to Is Prompted in the analysis. This type of report supports the full range of prompt expressions.
A BI Publisher report that was created using a direct connection to a subject area. See Creating Reports Using a Direct Connection to a Subject Area in Report Designer's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher.
You can change the properties of a dashboard and its pages.
Specifically, you can:
Change the style (or appearance) and description of the dashboard.
Add hidden named prompts to the dashboard and to its pages.
Specify which links (Analyze, Edit, Refresh, Print, Export, Add to Briefing Book, and Copy) are to be included with analyses at the dashboard level. You can set these links at the dashboard page level and the analysis level, which override the links that you set at the dashboard level. See the Report Links dialog.
Rename, hide, reorder, set permissions for, and delete pages.
Specify which accounts can save shared customizations and which accounts can assign default customizations for pages, and set account permissions.
Specify whether the Add to Briefing Book option is to be included in the Page Options menu for pages.
Specify whether the execution of a dashboard page is to be delayed.
To change the properties of a dashboard and its pages:
Edit the dashboard.
Click the Tools button and select Dashboard Properties.
The Dashboard Properties dialog is displayed.
Make the property changes that you want and click OK.
Click the Save button.
You can change the properties of objects that have been added to a dashboard page from the Dashboard Objects pane and from the Catalog pane.
You change the properties by editing the dashboard.
You may want to delay the execution of dashboard pages for a variety of reasons, such as presenting data only when it is current or with user interaction.
You can delay the execution of dashboard pages, if allowed at your organization. This is helpful, for example, if you want to:
Enhance performance by generating queries only when actual data is needed
Allow end users to specify prompt values (rather than use default prompt values) before analyses content is displayed on a dashboard page
When the execution of a dashboard page is delayed, the actual content of analyses is not loaded. Instead:
A message is displayed at the top of the page, which indicates that the page is not fully loaded. It also instructs the end user to select prompt values and click Continue . Clicking Continue reloads the content on the page using the prompt values the end user specifies. If the end user does not specify any prompt values, then default prompt values are used.
Static information about the objects that were not loaded is displayed, including the object name, an icon representing the object view, the view name, and the object description (if available).
On the Page Options menu (displayed from the Page Options button on the Dashboard page toolbar), all options except the Edit Dashboard option, are disabled.
The Apply button on dashboard prompts is not displayed. Instead any prompt values will be applied automatically when the end user clicks the Continue button.
While the content of analyses is not loaded on the dashboard page, other objects (such as dashboard prompts, embedded content, text, and so on), are loaded.
Oracle BI EE remembers whether the execution of a page was delayed. When a user visits the same page again in the same context, it will load the entire page (rather than delay the execution), if the page had previously been loaded.
The administrator can control the display of the Prompt before Opening box. See Manually Changing Presentation Setting Defaults in System Administrator's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.
To delay the execution of a dashboard page:
The layout of a dashboard page can be specified for printing or exporting.
You can create custom layouts for printing and exporting dashboard pages, if allowed at your organization:
Custom print layouts allow your end users to produce high-quality printed dashboard content. See Printing Dashboard Pages.
Custom export layouts allow your end users to export dashboard content customized for Excel. See About Exporting Dashboards and Dashboard Pages.
See Creating Custom Layouts for Printing and Exporting Dashboard Pages.
When you create a custom layout:
The dashboard page is exported to BI Publisher and the following items are generated automatically:
A BI Publisher Report with a layout based on the exported dashboard layout
A data model to retrieve data for the dashboard page components
BI Publisher Report Editor opens in a new browser window with the autogenerated layout displayed as a thumbnail. The report editor allows you to edit or delete the layout, or add a new layout.
Once you have saved the custom layouts in BI Publisher, they are available for that dashboard page and appear in the Custom Print & Export Layouts area of the Print & Export Options dialog.
You then make the custom layouts that you have created available to end users (on the Print menu or Export to Excel menu of a dashboard page) by selecting them in the Custom Print & Export Layouts area of the Print & Export Options dialog.
You then make the custom layouts that you have created available to end users using the following options in the Custom Print & Export Layouts area of the Print & Export Options dialog:
PDF — Selecting this option makes the custom layout available in the Print menu of a dashboard page.
Excel — Selecting this option makes the custom layout available in the Export to Excel menu of a dashboard page.
The analysis and dashboard font size is in pixels while the Excel font size is in points. Therefore, when you export to Excel from an analysis or dashboard, the font size decreases to 75% of the analysis or dashboard font size.
In the Title, click Edit View.
To the right of the Title field, click Title.
In the Format Title page, deselect Wrap Text, and click OK.
If you delete the data model or the layout manually from the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog, then the associated BI Publisher report will no longer work and the custom layouts will no longer be available. If you delete an analysis, then the data model and layout will be available but will fail when run.
As you create custom layouts, be aware that some customizations and some views may not be supported in BI Publisher. Among some of the items that are not supported are hierarchical columns, performance tiles, map views, trellis views, and dashboard prompts. If an item is not supported, it will be removed from the layout and a message will be displayed as to the reason it is unsupported.
Custom print layouts support a limited set of items.
The following items are not supported in BI Publisher when using a custom print layout to print a dashboard page:
Column Selector views
Create Segment views
Create Target List views
Funnel graph views
Legend views
Logical SQL views
Map views
Narrative views
Performance Tile views
Ticker views
Trellis views, including microcharts
View Selector views
These types of gauge views:
Bulb
Vertical Bar
Horizontal Bar
These types of graph views:
Pie graphs with multiple measures; instead a separate pie is displayed for each measure
Time Series Line graphs
Scatter graphs
Waterfall graphs
These graph settings in the Graph Properties dialog:
In the General tab: Zoom and Scroll.
In the Style tab: conditional formatting settings.
In the Scale tab: all settings.
In the Titles and Labels tab, the following formatting settings:
Truncate in the Display Options tab of the Font Format Item dialog for the graph title and axis titles.
Treat Numbers As, Negative Format, and Use 1000's Separator in the Number Format tab of the Format Item dialog for vertical axis labels and data markers and Decimal Places in the Number Format tab of the Format Item dialog for vertical axis labels.
Label Orientation in the Display Options tab of the Format Item dialog for vertical axis labels and horizontal axis labels and Abbreviate in the Display Options tab of the Format Item dialog for vertical axis labels.
Hierarchical columns.
Dashboard column formatting.
Dashboard prompts.
Pivot table or table prompts.
Prompt edge on a view.
Dashboard columns that have been frozen.
You use the Freeze Column option in the Column Properties menu to freeze a column at an edge (top or left) of a dashboard layout.
A fixed size specified for a dashboard column or section.
You specify a fixed size by setting the Size option in the Additional Formatting Options area of the Section Properties dialog and the Column Properties dialog.
Fixed headers of rows and columns in a table or pivot table.
You specify fixed headers by selecting Fixed headers with scrolling content as the method to use to browse data. See the Style tab of the Table Properties dialog, the Pivot Table Properties dialog, and General tab of the Trellis Properties dialog.
The grouping functionality for bubble graphs (achieved by the Bubbles drop target), scatter graphs (achieved by the Points drop target), and pie graphs (achieved by the Pies drop target).
You also need to be aware of the following expected object behavior in BI Publisher: pivot tables are expanded.
You can create custom layouts for printing and exporting dashboard pages.
You can create one or more custom layouts for dashboard pages when they are printed or exported. See About Creating Custom Layouts for Printing and Exporting Dashboard Pages.
The administrator can control the display of the Custom Print & Export Layouts component. See Enabling the Ability to Export Dashboard Pages to Oracle BI Publisher in System Administrator's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.
You can edit, replace, or remove custom layouts that you have created.
For example, you might want to remove a custom print layout if the dashboard page to which the layout is associated has changed.
If you add an object that you later decide that you do not want, then you can delete it.
For example, you can delete last year's Brand Revenue analysis from the Sales Performance dashboard, to replace it with the current year's analysis.
Keep the following points in mind when deleting objects:
When you delete an object that contains other objects, such as a column or section, you also delete all objects in that container.
When you delete a column, other columns on the page might resize automatically to maintain column alignment.
For objects that are saved in the catalog, the object is deleted from the dashboard page only. It is not deleted from the catalog. Users with the appropriate permissions can edit the contents of the catalog. See Managing Objects in the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog.
You can delete subpages from dashboards.
Deleting a subpage from a dashboard removes the subpage and all of its content.
If you want to start over building a dashboard page or simply remove a dashboard page, you can delete it.
You can delete:
The current dashboard page
One or more dashboard pages from the Dashboard Properties dialog
You can delete the currently visible dashboard page.
As you are working on a dashboard page, you can delete it.
You can delete one or more than one dashboard pages at a time.
Dashboards can be saved with alternate names and in multiple locations.
You can save a dashboard:
By another name
The new name for the dashboard must not exist in the destination folder, otherwise, the save operation fails.
Anywhere in the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog
If you save the dashboard in the Dashboards subfolder directly under /Shared Folders/first level subfolder, then the dashboard is listed in the Dashboard menu in the global header. If you save it in a Dashboards subfolder at any other level (such as /Shared Folders/Sales/Eastern), then it is not listed. The dashboard is also not listed if you save it in a subfolder under the Dashboards subfolder, such as /Shared Folders/Sales/Dashboards/Eastern.
If you choose a folder in the Dashboards subfolder directly under /Shared Folders/first level subfolder in which no dashboards have been saved, then a new Dashboards folder is automatically created in that folder in which to save the new dashboard. For example, if you choose a folder named /Shared Folders/Sales in which no dashboards have been saved, a new Dashboards folder is automatically created and the Location entry changes to /Shared Folders/Sales/Dashboards. (A new Dashboards folder is not automatically created if you choose a folder at any other level.)
Dashboards provide a means for users to access data analyses in a variety of formats.
You can add a almost any object to dashboards.
You can use keyboard shortcuts in a dashboard. See Keyboard Shortcuts for Oracle BI EE and Oracle BI Publisher.
Saved customizations allow users to save and view later dashboard pages in their current state with their most frequently used or favorite choices for items such as filters, prompts, column sorts, drills in analyses, and section expansion and collapse.
By saving customizations, users need not make these choices manually each time that they access the dashboard page.
Users with the appropriate permissions and dashboard access rights can perform the following activities:
Save various combinations of choices as saved customizations, for their personal use or use by others.
Specify a saved customization as the default customization for a dashboard page, for their personal use or use by others.
Switch between their saved customizations.
See Applying Saved Customizations, Clearing Your Current Customization, Saving Customizations, and Editing Saved Customizations.
There are several situations when you may want to create saved customizations.
This section describes two example scenarios that describe the creation and use of saved customizations.
You may want to save a group’s customizations so that they can be used by other groups or users.
An IT group in a consumer goods company builds a master dashboard that contains the content that various product groups need to view. The dashboard contains filters and prompts from which members of the product groups would ordinarily make customizations to view relevant results.
The master dashboard contains two analyses, one that shows sales for the east, west, north, and south regions, and another that shows all products shipped in those regions. The analysis for sales by region contains a prompt that allows users to select their particular region. The analysis for all products shipped contains a filter that allows users to select their products.
An IT consultant customizes the view for the Fizzy Brands product group for each region. The consultant first selects the east region and the Fizzy Brand products from the filters and prompts on the dashboard, and then saves these choices as a customization that can be shared by other users. The consultant then assigns this customization as the default view customization to members of the east region group that sells Fizzy Brand products. The consultant repeats this process for the west, north, and south regions.
When a Fizzy Brands sales representative for the western region signs in to Oracle Business Intelligence and views the dashboard, the representative initially views sales and shipment information based on the region and product choices assigned as the default view customization for that group. All sales representatives in that group who would typically make identical choices for region and product no longer have to do so.
Customizations can be used by a specific user who has unique needs.
A business user's dashboard contains two reports, one that shows sales for all regions, and another that shows all products shipped. Each report contains a prompt, allowing the user to select a particular region and product. The user selects the eastern region and the Fizzy Brands product. The dashboard refreshes to show the user this view of the data. The user saves this view as a customization, indicates that the customization is for personal use, and that it is the default customization the user wants to see when viewing the dashboard. Then, this user creates additional combinations of the product and region sets in which the user is most interested, and saves them for later retrieval. The user can also access customizations that were saved by the IT group as shared customizations. To view sales in the western region for Fizzy Brands, the user clicks the Page Options button, selects Apply Saved Customizations, and selects the view named Dollar Sales, Western Region, Fizzy Brands. The dashboard refreshes with the new view of the data.
You can save customization for use by you or by others.
You can also specify whether the customization is to be the default customization for a dashboard page, for you or for others. See What Are Saved Customizations for Dashboard Pages?
You can apply customizations that you have saved for your own personal use or that have been saved by someone else for your use.
You can also apply customizations that have been saved by someone else for your use. For example, you can apply a shared Sales Team customization that was created for customized viewing of a Brand Revenue analysis by members of the sales team. See What Are Saved Customizations for Dashboard Pages?
You can rename customizations, change which customization to use as your default, change permissions for those customizations that have been shared with others, and delete customizations.
You can clear your current customization if you decide the choices for items such as filters, prompts, column sorts, drills in analyses, and section expansion and collapse are not what you want.
For example, you can clear a customization that collapses the display of the Brand Revenue analysis.
The first dashboard page new users see is a dashboard template page.
Dashboard template pages are dashboard pages that are used to populate the personal dashboards (My Dashboard) of new users on their initial login. This allows users to see one or more dashboard pages with content rather than an empty dashboard when they first log in. It also gives users a starting point to build their own dashboard pages.
You create dashboard template pages for your users in dashboards that have a designated name (by default the designated name is default) and that you save in subfolders of /Shared Folders.
When a new user logs in for the first time, Oracle BI EE searches for dashboard template pages in all dashboards that have the designated name, copies all dashboard template pages to which the user has permission to the user's My Dashboard folder, and displays them in the user's My Dashboard.
If a user has permissions to dashboard template pages in multiple dashboards, then Oracle BI EE copies all template pages from those dashboards to the user's My Dashboard folder and displays them alphabetically by name in the user's My Dashboard. If two pages have the same name, then the name of one of the pages is prefixed with the name of the folder in which the dashboard was saved.
By default, Oracle BI EE searches for dashboard template pages in all dashboards that are named default and that have been saved in subfolders of /Shared Folders. It searches only subfolders under /Shared Folders (for example, /Shared Folders/Finance) and not the entire hierarchy (for example, not /Shared Folders/Finance/Div1.)
If your organization has designated a name other than default for the name of dashboards that contain dashboard template pages, then Oracle BI EE searches for dashboard template pages in dashboards with that name (for example, Templates) rather than default in subfolders of /Shared Folders.
To designate a name other than default for the name of dashboards that contain dashboard template pages, your administrator must set the DefaultName element in the instanceconfig.xml file. See Manually Changing Presentation Settings in System Administrator's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.
Dashboard template pages provide a pre-built starting point to create custom dashboard pages.
Users can use dashboard template pages:
As a starting point to build their own dashboard pages.
Users can change any of the content on these dashboard template pages. Any changes that they make to the content are made to their local copies of the dashboard template pages in their My Dashboard folders, and not to the original dashboard template pages.
As examples of additional pages that they might want to build.
If users delete a dashboard template page from their My Dashboard, then they cannot repopulate My Dashboard with the page. However, if users delete their entire My Dashboard, when they log in again or navigate to My Dashboard again, their My Dashboard is recreated with all the latest dashboard template pages.
You can create dashboard template pages for users so that they see one or more dashboard pages with content rather than an empty dashboard when they first log in.
For more information on dashboard template pages, see About Dashboard Template Pages for New Users.
Users have access only to content to which they have appropriate permissions. If you later change the dashboard content or the permissions to the dashboard, then the changes take effect only for new users on first login, not for users whose My Dashboard has been populated with the dashboard template pages.
/Shared Folders, for example /Shared Folders/Finance/Dashboards.You can publish a dashboard page to a shared dashboard location so that you can share the page with others.
When you publish a dashboard page:
Personal content (such as analyses, prompts, and so on) is copied to a destination location that you specify and references updated as appropriate.
References to shared content are retained.
If you have made changes to the page but have not saved them, then the unsaved changes are published along with the saved changes.
Ensure that other users who might display the published dashboard page have the appropriate privileges for the objects on the page. For example, if the page contains a BI Publisher report, then users must have the appropriate privilege to see that report.
Links to dashboard pages allow others easy access to the data..
You can create links to dashboard pages, if allowed at your organization. This lets you, for example, save a link as a bookmark or copy and send a link to other users in email. See Creating Links to Dashboard Pages.
There are two types of links that you can create — bookmark links and prompted links. The following sections describes these links:
You can create a link to a dashboard page and its states.
A bookmark link is a URL that captures the path to a dashboard page and all aspects of the page state, for example:
http://localhost/10.1.3.2/saw.dll?Dashboard&_scid=7ndOC-SjmWo&PortalPath=%2Fusers%2Fadministrator%2F_portal&Page=p2&PageIdentifier=7fsg0r2sdssvgen4&BookmarkState=r78an1mbj0fj4lmqhdjfndvvai
After you create a bookmark link, you can:
Save the link as a bookmark so that you can return to the exact same page content at a later time.
Copy and send the link to other users who then can view the exact same content that you are viewing, providing they have the same permissions as you and have access to the page.
When you create a bookmark link, the state of a dashboard page is saved in the catalog as a hidden bookmark object for the amount of time that your organization specifies. The default is 30 days. See the administrator for the amount of time that your organization specifies. Because the state of a dashboard page is saved when you create a bookmark link, you can continue to modify the content of the page after you create the link.
Prompted links lead to simplified dashboard presentations.
A prompted link captures the path to a dashboard page and a simplified presentation of the dashboard prompts, for example:
<Content Path>&Action=Navigate&col1="Products"."P1 Product"&val1="Bluetooth Adaptor"&psa1="A - Sample Sales"
When you create a prompted link, you can manually or programmatically manipulate the link, such as by adding different values for the prompts. With a prompted link, you cannot capture all aspects of the page state as you can with a bookmark link. This is because you cannot replicate the exact state of non-prompt parameters.
A URL that captures the path to a dashboard page and a simplified presentation of the dashboard prompts can also be manually constructed rather than created by a prompted link. See Description of Services and Methods in Oracle BI EE Web Services in Integrator's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.
See Basic Syntax of Prompted Links, Parameters for Prompted Links, and Guidelines for Manipulating Prompted Links.
Prompted links must follow basic syntax rules.
The basic syntax of a prompted link is:
<Content Path>&Action=Navigate&col1&op1&val1&col2&op2&val2&var3&op3&val3…
where Content Path is any of these base URLs:
http://<obiee url path>/saw.dll?Dashboard&PortalPath=<dashboard path> http://<obiee url path>/saw.dll?Dashboard&PortalPath=<dashboard path>&Page=<page name> http://<obiee url path>/saw.dll?PortalGo&path=<analysis or prompt path> http://<obiee url path>/saw.dll?Go&path=<analysis or prompt path>
You can change prompted links using parameters.
The parameters that you can use to modify prompted links are as follows:
&Action= — Specifies the action that the prompted link is to take. Valid values are:
Navigate — Navigates to the dashboard page.
Print — Format results for printing to PDF, without paging controls, hot links, and so on.
Download — Downloads the results to Microsoft Excel.
You cannot use Print and Download, if the viewState argument exists. For more information, see Optional Parameters for the Oracle BI Presentation Services Go URL in Integrator's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.
&col#= — Identifies the column used in a column prompt.
Example:
&col1="EASTERN REGION"
&var#= — Identifies the variable used in a variable prompt or a variable that is set by a column prompt.
The scope of all variables is dashboard page, by default, unless you explicitly reference the variable.
Example using the default scope controlled by the optional parameter &var1=:
&var1="myRegion"
Example of explicitly setting to dashboard scope:
&var1=dashboard.variables['myRegion']
Example of explicitly setting to dashboard page scope:
&var1=dashboard.currentPage.variables['myRegion']
If you need to set both dashboard scope and dashboard page scope, include both variables in the URL.
You cannot set a session variable with this parameter. You can, however, override a session variable by using setting a request variable. For example, you can override the NQ_SESSION.REGION_VAR by setting this request variable:
&var1=requestVariables['REGION_VAR']
These value parameters:
&val#= — Specifies the value of a prompt.
Example:
&val1="EASTERN REGION"
&valgrp#= — Sets the value of a prompt to a custom group's catalog path.
Example:
&valgrp1="/shared/folder/myCustomGroup"
&valsv#= — Sets the value of a prompt to a server variable.
Example:
&valsv1="SALESREGION"
The val# and valgrp# parameters can co-exist with each other but not with the valsv# parameter. In other words, the prompt can have any combination of val# and valgrp#, but cannot have both valsv# and val#.
&cov#= — Sets the variable of a column prompt that also sets a variable.
Example:
&var1=myRegion&cov1="Markets"."Region"&val1="EASTERN.REGION"+"WESTERN REGION"
&op#= — (optional) Specifies the operator, for example equal (eq).
Use the same operators as those for the Go URL. For a list of these operators, see Navigation Parameters in Integrator's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.
Example:
&col1="Markets"."Region"&val1="EASTERN REGION"+"WESTERN REGION"&op1=in
&psa#= — (optional) Identifies a primary subject area for a prompt.
Use this parameter if a prompt requires that the data types of values be correctly identified by subject area.
Example:
&var1=myRegion&cov1="Markets"."Region"&val1="EASTERN REGION"+"WESTERN REGION"&psa1=Paint
If a prompted link includes multiple subject areas, specify the prompts that do not identify a subject area first (for example, &psa1="Products"."P1 Products") and those that do identify a subject area last (for example, &psa2="B-Sample Target"."Products"."P1 Products").
&formulause#= — Identifies whether a prompt value is a code value or a display value (in a repository that is configured for the double column feature).
If you do not use this parameter, then it is assumed that the value is a display value.
Example:
&var1=myRegion&cov1="Markets"."Region"&val1="2"+"3"&formulause1=code
For prompts that use hierarchical columns:
&hierid#= — (required) Identifies the hierarchy ID.
&dimid#= — (required) Identifies the dimension ID.
&tblnm#= — (required) Identifies the table name.
Example:
&col1="Products"."Products Hierarchy"&hierid1=Products Hierarchy&dimid1=H1 Products&tblnm1="Products"&val1="*"+"all"&psa1="A - Sample Sales"
If there are multiple values across multiple levels, you need to expand the syntax of values. See Expanding the Syntax of Values.
&P1= — Defines the scope of all prompted link parameters. Valid values are:
dashboard
dashboardPage (default if the scope is not provided)
report
This parameter affects both filters and variables of the prompted link.
Example:
&P1=dashboard
Prompted links can be changed in several ways.
The guidelines for manipulating prompted links are as follows:
Use any combination of &col#= and &var#= but number them consecutively starting from 1 to N. For example, you could use var1, col2, col3, or you could use col1, var2, or col3.
Use plus signs (+) to separate values.
Use these locale-independent formats for date, time, and timestamp:
For the date format:
YYYY-MM-DD
For the time format:
hh24:mm:ss
For the timestamp format (the expected time zone is UTC):
YYYY-MM-DD hh24:mm:ss
Make sure that you properly encode the URL. Not all browsers or platforms allow unescaped URLs. For example, encode a double quote (") as %22, a whitespace character as %20, and so on.
Be aware that the URL character length that browsers support varies among browsers. If a URL is longer that the supported length, it will be truncated. The workaround is to use a bookmark link or another browser that supports the longer length.
Optionally omit the double quotes if there are no white spaces inside the values.
Tip:
To quickly and accurately construct a prompted URL manually, navigate to a dashboard page with the corresponding prompts, apply the desired prompt values, create a prompted link to generate the prompted URL, and then use the URL as a template.You can create links to dashboard pages, if allowed at your organization.
The administrator can control the display of the Create Bookmark Link and Create Prompted Link options by settings in the instanceconfig.xml file and by setting privileges. See Enabling the Ability to Create Links to Dashboard Pages in System Administrator's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition and Managing Presentation Services Privileges in Security Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.
If you drill in an analysis that has been set to replace the dashboard with the new results (rather than show the new results directly in the dashboard), then the Create Bookmark Link option is displayed as a link below the new results rather than as an option on the Page Options menu. (To specify how drilling works in an analysis, you use the Drill in Place option on the Properties menu for a section.
Briefing books allow data presentations to be organized and distributed to users.
The following topics explain what briefing books are and how you work with them:
A briefing book is a collection of static or updatable snapshots of dashboard pages, individual analyses, and BI Publisher reports.
You can:
Add the content of dashboard pages (including pages that contain BI Publisher reports) or individual analyses to new or existing briefing books. See Adding Content to New or Existing Briefing Books.
Edit briefing books to reorder content, delete content, and change the content type, navigation link properties, and content description. See Editing Briefing Books.
Download briefing books in PDF or MHTML format for printing and viewing. See Downloading Briefing Books.
The PDF version of a briefing book contains an automatically generated table of contents. See About the Table of Contents in a PDF Version of a Briefing Book.
Add a list of briefing books to a dashboard page. See Adding a List of Briefing Books to a Dashboard Page.
Update, schedule, and deliver briefing books using agents, if your organization licensed Oracle Business Intelligence Delivers. See Using Agents to Deliver Briefing Books.
The PDF version of a briefing book contains a table of contents that is automatically generated.
The table of contents contains an entry for each dashboard page, analysis, and report in the briefing book. Each of these entries includes a time stamp and the page number within the PDF file. The time stamp value depends on how the content was saved to the briefing book. If the content was saved as updatable, then the time stamp is current. If the content was saved as a snapshot, then the time stamp is the time of the snapshot.
Indented beneath each entry for a dashboard page are any briefing book links included on that page, up to a maximum of nine links. These entries do not include timestamps. For example:
Table of Contents My Dashboard Page 7/11/2008 9:15:20 AM . . . . . .1 Years to Dollars Dashboard . . . . . . . . . .2
The administrator can modify the template for the table of contents so that the table of contents that is generated in your briefing books might have a different look.
Note:
The table of contents is always generated in English. Other languages are not supported. Therefore, you might want to translate the tables of contents that are generated in briefing books.For more information about including BI Publisher reports with briefing books, see About Briefing Books and Printing BI Publisher Reports.
You can add the content of dashboard pages (including pages that contain BI Publisher reports) or individual analyses to briefing books.
You can add content to existing briefing books or to new briefing books that you create.
You can edit briefing books to reorder content, delete content, and change the content type, navigation link properties, and content description.
Keep briefing books updated by reviewing and editing them regularly.
You can download a collection of static or updatable snapshots of dashboard pages, individual analyses, and BI Publisher reports in the form of a briefing book.
You can:
Download briefing books to your computer in MHTML format and then share them for offline viewing.
Download briefing books in PDF format and print them.
The Adobe Reader application is required to view or print a briefing book PDF file.
BI Publisher reports that are contained in the briefing book are only included in the PDF file if the reports themselves are enabled for PDF output.
The setting of the Print Rows list in the Print & Export Options dialog for the analysis or dashboard determines whether all rows or only the visible rows of an analysis are shown in the PDF.
The PDF version of a briefing book contains an automatically generated table of contents. See About the Table of Contents in a PDF Version of a Briefing Book.
.mht file extension and can be opened in a browser. You can then email or share the briefing book.You can add a list of briefing books to a dashboard page.
Listing briefing books provides an easy way for users to access information related to the dashboard.