Manually Change Presentation Settings
You can configure settings that change the display of dashboards and presentation settings.
See the following sections:
Manually Change Presentation Setting Defaults
In addition to the presentation settings that you can change in Fusion Middleware Control, other settings can be changed manually. Use various elements in the instanceconfig.xml file to change these settings.
Configuration Settings for Presentation
You can use configuration settings for presentation.
The table describes the configuration settings for presentation.
Element | Description | Default Value |
---|---|---|
DefaultName |
Specifies the name to be used for dashboards that contain dashboard template pages and to override the path in which Oracle Analytics Server searches for dashboard template pages. By default, Oracle Analytics Server searches for dashboard template pages in dashboards named "default" in subfolders under /Shared Folders. |
default |
EnableDelayExecution |
Specifies whether content designers have the ability to delay the execution of dashboard pages. When this is set to true, the Prompt before Opening option is displayed in the Dashboard Properties dialog. . |
true |
MaxFollowLinks |
Specifies the default value for the maximum number of navigation links to follow in a briefing book. A briefing book navigation link is a type of link that can be added to a dashboard using the Dashboard Builder. The default value for this element is 5; the minimum is 1; and the maximum is 10. If you plan to download briefing books to PDF format, then don't set the value of this element to a number greater than 9 because of the table of contents limitation of nine links. For information about the table of contents, see Modify the Table of Contents for PDF Versions of Briefing Books. |
5 |
NumericFormatter |
Specifies a value to use for consistent output at a fixed number of digits. You might notice that after a certain number of significant digits, the number isn't displayed appropriately. Use this setting to set the maximum number of significant digits, such as 16 on Linux platforms. |
No default value |
Note:
See Enable the Ability to Create Links to Dashboard Pages for information about the defaults for the Bookmarks, MaxAgeMinutes, EnableBookmarkURL, and EnablePromptedURL elements. See Configure an Alternate Toolbar for Oracle Analytics Server Publisher for information about the defaults for the ReportingToolbarMode element.
Manually Create Custom Links in Presentation Services
By default, the global header contains menus and options that enable you to navigate easily among features. You can manually customize the global header to add your own links.
Oracle recommends that you use the Console to
make the changes to the CustomLinks
XML file. See Customize Links on the Classic Home Page, and Analytic Content Options.
If you do use this manual method, you shouldn't enter any content into the Custom Links XML field in the Analytic Content section of the Console.
In this example, links are added for "My Weather" and "Analytics Cloud Home".
Description of the illustration customlinksclassic.png
If you want to create custom links, you can specify various attributes, including the following:
-
The text for the link (either a static string or a message name to use for localization).
-
A URL to access.
-
Whether the page from the URL replaces the current page or opens in a new tab or window that you can name.
-
The relative ordering of links in the header.
-
An optional icon to use with the link.
If you want to manually edit a configuration file to customize the global header, you can perform the tasks that are described in the following sections:
Create the customlinks.xml File
Create the customlinks.xml
file to specify customizations to the global header, as described in the following sections.
Create the file
You can place the customlinks.xml
file in any absolute path specified in the instanceconfig.xml
file. See Add the CustomLinks Element. The recommended default location in which to create this file is the data directory for Presentation Services:
BI_DOMAIN/bidata/components/OBIPS/customMessages
Elements in the File
The following table describes the elements and attributes that you can include in the customlinks.xml
file. If you want to hide existing links that are shown by default, then you can comment out their entries in the file. You can’t modify the order of default links such as Favorites or Dashboards.
See Customize Links on the Classic Home Page for a list of the elements and attributes that you can use to specify custom links.
After you update the customlinks.xml
file, the file is reloaded
when you next restart Presentation Services, as described in Start
and Stop Your System.
Sample File and Output
This example displays two custom links to the left of the Catalog link in the global header of the Classic home page.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<customLinks xmlns="com.siebel.analytics.web/customlinks/v1">
<link id="1" name="My Weather" description="Local weather site" src="https://www.example.com/weather" target="blank" >
<locations>
<location name="header" insertBefore="catalog"/>
</locations>
</link>
<link id="1" name="Analytics Cloud Home" description="OAC Viz Home Page" src="https://<OAC example URL>.analytics.ocp.oraclecloud.com/ui/dv/?pageid=home" target="blank" >
<locations>
<location name="header" insertBefore="catalog"/>
</locations>
</link>
</customLinks>
Note:
To obtain the link for Oracle Analytics home page, log into Oracle Analytics, copy the URL, and paste it into thesrc="<target link>"
element (as shown in the
example XML code).
-
The global header is modified to include the following links:
-
My Weather — A link to a local weather site.
-
Analytics Cloud Home — A link to the Oracle Analytics Cloud home page.
-
Add the CustomLinks Element
Before custom links are visible on the Home page, you must edit the instanceconfig.xml
file to include the CustomLinks
element, and the Enabled
element (whose default is true) and filePath
element within it. Omitting the CustomLinks
element is the same as setting the Enabled
element to false; no custom links are displayed.
You can also set in the Console, see Analysis, Dashboard, and Pixel-Perfect Report Options in Configure Advanced System Settings in the Console.
Set the Custom Links Privilege
You must configure the software properly to make customizations visible to users.
If you want users to see the customizations that you've made, then you must ensure that the Custom Links privilege is assigned to the BI Consumer role, which occurs by default. You can't assign this privilege to individual users, groups, or roles other than BI Consumer.
To verify the role for this privilege, use the Manage Privileges page in the Administration pages of Presentation Services. See 'Manage Presentation Services Privileges' in Managing Security for Oracle Analytics Server.
Enable the Ability to Create Links to Dashboard Pages
Users can create links (both bookmark links and prompted links) to dashboard pages.
This enables them, for example, to save a link as a bookmark or to copy and send a
link to other users in email. A bookmark is a hidden object in the Presentation
Catalog (under the /system/bookmarks
folder) that captures the
state of a dashboard page. It's created when a user creates a bookmark link to the
page. You can enable or disable the ability to create these links to dashboard
pages. Further, in order for users to be able to create these links, you must grant
the Create Bookmark Links and Create Prompted Links privileges associated with this
feature.
For more information on these links, see About Creating Links to Dashboard Pages in Visualizing Data in Oracle Analytics Server. For more information on privileges, see Managing Presentation Service Privileges in Managing Security for Oracle Analytics Server .
Configure an Alternate Toolbar for Oracle Analytics Server Publisher
When you include a Oracle Analytics Server Publisher report on a dashboard, you generally enable that report to participate as a recipient of the dashboard state by passing in dashboard context to that report using core dashboard prompts.
For scenarios that don't require passing of context to or from the report to the larger dashboard-based analytic application, you can display a variant of the default toolbar, which exposes the underlying parameter prompts of that report. Within that frame, a user can then pass in parameters to a single report.
This approach can be confusing to the user as any other dashboard prompts on the page don't contribute to the report, which also does not participate in passing context back to the rest of the application. Changes to the toolbar are also applied globally for all reports that are embedded in dashboards across the entire Oracle Analytics Server Publisher instance.
Use the ReportingToolbarMode element to affect how Oracle Analytics Server Publisher reports are embedded in Oracle Analytics Server. You configure the alternate Oracle Analytics Server Publisher toolbar by setting the element's value to 6. Remove the ReportingToolbarMode element to revert to the default toolbar behavior, or set it to the default value of 1.
You can also set in the Console, see Analysis, Dashboard, and Pixel-Perfect Report Options in Configure Advanced System Settings in the Console.
Enable the Ability to Export Dashboard Pages to Oracle Analytics Server Publisher
Content designers can create custom layouts for printing and exporting dashboard pages.
When a content designer creates a custom layout for a dashboard page, the dashboard page is exported to Oracle Analytics Server Publisher. You can enable or disable the ability to export dashboard pages to Oracle Analytics Server Publisher by setting the EnableDashPageExport element.
See About Creating Custom Layouts for Printing and Exporting Dashboard Pages in Visualizing Data in Oracle Analytics Server.
Modify the Table of Contents for PDF Versions of Briefing Books
The PDF version of a briefing book contains a table of contents that is automatically generated. It contains an entry for each dashboard page, analysis, and report in the briefing book.
The default template for the table of contents, toc-template.rtf, is located in the ORACLE_INSTANCE\config\OracleBIPresentationServicesComponent\coreapplication_obisn
directory. You can modify the toc-template.rtf file to accommodate the needs of your organization.
Configure a Custom Download Link for the Smart View Installer
The Smart View version packaged with Oracle Analytics Server may be out of synchronization with the server or with the latest available version of Smart View.
You can configure the Smart View for MS Office link that is displayed on the Download Desktop Tools list on the Oracle Analytics Server Home page to point to a custom download link for the Smart View installer. You can then ensure that the correct version of Smart View for your environment is always available to your users. You do this by adding the SmartViewInstallerURL element to instanceconfig.xml.
You can configure the download link to point to a location where the smartview.exe resides, for example:
-
An external URL, such as the Smart View download page on Oracle Technology Network, where the latest version of Smart View is always available
-
An internal URL, such as internal web page or intranet site where the installation can start immediately
-
A folder on a local server, where the installation can start immediately