Blocking Analyses Based on Criteria

18-20 System Administrators Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition XML message that specifies these characteristics. A content designer who edits the dashboard can still modify this behavior using the options within the dashboard editor. The following XML code example adds a custom header and footer to a dashboard page and specifies landscape orientation. ?xml version=1.0 encoding=utf-8? WebMessageTables xmlns:sawm=com.siebel.analytics.web.messageSystem WebMessageTable system=Answers table=ViewDefaults WebMessage name=kuiDashboardDefaultElements translate=noHTML element signature=dashboardPage personalSelections=false pageProps orientation=portrait printRows=all pageSize=a4 pageHeader showOnDashboard=true show=true zone type=topcaption[b]Acme is Cool[b]caption displayFormat fontSize=9pt hAlign=center fontColor=FFFFFF backgroundColor=000000zone pageHeader pageFooter showOnDashboard=true show=true zone type=topcaption[b]CONFIDENTIAL {timeCreated[mmddyy]}[b]caption displayFormat fontSize=7.5pt hAlign=center fontColor=999999 borderColor=CC99CC fontStyle=italic borderPosition=all borderStyle=singlezone pageFooter pageProps element HTML WebMessage WebMessageTable WebMessageTables

18.7 Configuring for Write Back in Analyses and Dashboards

Users of a dashboard page or an analysis might have the ability to modify the data that they see in a table view. This ability is often referred to as write back. As the administrator, you assist the content designer in configuring write back for users. Detailed information about write back in views is provided in Oracle Fusion Middleware Users Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition. The following sections provide information about how you as the administrator can configure for write back: ■ Section 18.7.1, Write-Back Limitations ■ Section 18.7.2, Configuring for Write Back ■ Section 18.7.3, About the Write-Back Template

18.7.1 Write-Back Limitations

Users can write back to any data source except for an ADF data source that allows the execution of SQL queries from the Oracle BI Server. As you configure for write back, keep the following limitations in mind: ■ Numeric columns must contain numbers only. They should not contain any data formatting characters such as dollar signs , pound signs or hash signs , percent signs , and so on. ■ Text columns should contain string data only. Configuring and Managing Analyses and Dashboards 18-21 ■ You can use the template mechanism only with table views and only for single-value data. The template mechanism is not supported for pivot table views or any type of view or for multiple-value data. ■ All values in write-back columns are editable. When displayed in non printer friendly context, editable fields are displayed as if the user has the Write Back to Database privilege. However, when a logical column is mapped to a physical column that can change, the logical column returns values for multiple level intersections. This scenario can cause problems. ■ Any field in an analysis can be flagged as a write-back field, even if it is not derived from the write-back table that you created. However you cannot successfully execute the write-back operation if the table is not write-back enabled. The responsibility for correctly tagging fields lies with the content designer. ■ A template can contain SQL statements other than insert and update. The write-back function passes these statements to the database. However, Oracle does not support or recommend the use of any statements other than insert or update. ■ Presentation Services performs only minimal validation of data input. If the field is numeric and the user enters text data, then Presentation Services detects that and prevents the invalid data from going to the database. However, it does not detect other forms of invalid data input values out of range, mixed text and numeric, and so on. When the user clicks the write-back button and an insert or update is executed, invalid data results in an error message from the database. The user can then correct the faulty input. Content designers can include text in the write-back analysis to aid the user, for example, Entering mixed alphanumeric values into a numeric data field is not allowed. ■ The template mechanism is not suitable for entering arbitrary new records. In other words, do not use it as a data input tool. ■ Write-back analyses do not support drill-down. Because drilling down modifies the table structure, the write-back template does not work.

18.7.2 Configuring for Write Back

Complete the following steps to configure for users to write back values to the data source. To configure for write back: 1. Create a physical table in the database that has a column for each write-back field needed. In the table create statement, make the write-back fields nonnullable. 2. Use the Oracle BI Administration Tool to configure the new table, as described in Oracle Fusion Middleware Metadata Repository Builders Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition. Caution: The template mechanism takes user input and writes it directly to the database. The security of the physical database is your own responsibility. For optimum security, store write-back database tables in a unique database instance. Note: For optimum security, store write-back database tables in a unique database instance.