Basic Information to Tell Your Users A-11
Modifying Data in a Table View in a Dashboard Page or Analysis
As a user of a dashboard page, you might have the ability to modify the data that you see in a table view. This ability is often referred to as write back and is available if
you have the appropriate privileges and if the administrator has configured it. You can update a value in the view that is written back to the record in the data source.
If your user name has the appropriate privileges and if the administrator has configured for the modification of data values, then a write back button often labeled
Update
is displayed on the table view. After clicking the button, you can update or write to the data source. For example, you can enter sales targets for the current
quarter in a Sales dashboard. The name that is displayed on the write back button depends on how the content designer prepared the view for write back.
To update records in table views: 1.
Display the dashboard and the view in which you want to modify values.
2. Click the button that is labeled Update or a similar name that indicates that write
back is enabled to switch to Edit mode, in which you can modify values.
If you know that you can modify the values in the view but do not see an Update button or similar button, then the content designer has specified that the view
always be in Edit mode. You can begin modifying values immediately and you never see an Update button or similar button.
The updating capability is not available for hierarchical columns.
3.
When you are in Edit mode, you can type a value in the appropriate field. Fields to which you can write back have the appearance of a text box in a dialog.
4.
After you have modified values, click one of the following buttons or buttons with similar names:
■
Apply : By clicking this button, you modify the values in the data source and
keep the view in Edit mode with the modified values being displayed.
■
Revert : By clicking this button, you restore the data to its original values if you
have not yet clicked Apply or Done to save the modifications. Once you have written a modified value back to the data source, you cannot revert to its
original value.
■
Done : By clicking this button, you modify the values in the data source and
return the view to View mode if the content designer has indicated that the view is not always in Edit mode.
When you click the Apply or Done button, the entire dashboard is refreshed from the data source, because other analyses on the dashboard might depend on that
data.
If filters are enabled in the table view and you enter a value in a record that is affected by the filter, then that record might no longer be displayed in the view
after the data is refreshed from the data source.
About Handling Errors for Write-Back
As you modify data values, you might encounter various errors. For example, you might enter an invalid value in a field and attempt to write it back to the data source,
or the administrator might have specified the incorrect write-back template to use. If a problem occurs, then you see a basic error message. To obtain additional information
about the problem, an administrator can increase the logging level of the session to
A-12 Oracle Fusion Middleware Users Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition
create detailed log files. The administrator can search the log files for Presentation Services for a string such as saw.writeback.action.executeimpl.
If you are writing back multiple values simultaneously and accidentally enter invalid values, then the results depend on the rows that are affected, as described in the
following list:
■
If you are updating multiple values on one row and at least one of the values is invalid, then no values are written to the database.
■
If you are modifying values in multiple rows and some values are invalid, then some values might not be written back while some write back successfully.
Accessing BI Publisher Reports in Dashboards
As a user of a dashboard page, you have the ability to access reports that were created in Oracle BI Publisher. The report might be embedded in the dashboard page, or you
might see a link that opens the report in BI Publisher.
To access a BI Publisher report: 1.
Display the dashboard page that contains the report to access.
2.
Perform the following tasks:
■
If the report is embedded in the page, then use the functions from the BI Publisher toolbar to affect the report.
If prompts are included on the dashboard, then use those prompts to specify parameters that affect the display of data in the report. Depending on the
design of the report, certain prompts do not affect the display of data in the report.
■
If the page contains a link for the report, then click the link to open the report in BI Publisher.
Using the Oracle BI Publisher Toolbar on a Dashboard Page
The Oracle BI Publisher toolbar is displayed on the dashboard that contains a BI Publisher report. The options that you see depend upon your permissions. The toolbar
functions are described in the Table A–1
.
Table A–1 Oracle BI Publisher Toolbar Functions
Function Description
Template If multiple report templates are available, then you see them in the
Template list. Select a new template and then click View.
Output Type If multiple output types are available, then select the desired output
type HTML, PDF, RTF, Excel, data from the list and click View. The output is rendered in the browser.
View Select a template or specify an output type and click this button to
view the BI Publisher report. Export
When you click this button, you are prompted to save the BI Publisher report or to open the appropriate application for the output type.
Send When you click this button, the Destination dialog is displayed. From
this screen, select the delivery destination for example, Email, Printer, Fax, FTP, or Web Folder and enter the appropriate information. You
can select multiple delivery destinations.
Basic Information to Tell Your Users A-13
Schedule Click this button to schedule the BI Publisher report. For more
information about scheduling a report, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Users Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher.
Analyzer If you have been assigned permission to access the Online Analyzer,
then click this button to create a pivot table of the BI Publisher reports data. For more information about using the Online Analyzer, see
Oracle Fusion Middleware Users Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher.
Table A–1 Cont. Oracle BI Publisher Toolbar Functions
Function Description
A-14 Oracle Fusion Middleware Users Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition
B
Integrating with Microsoft Office B-1
B
Integrating with Microsoft Office
This chapter describes the integration of Oracle BI Enterprise Edition with Microsoft Office and how to configure the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office. It contains the
following topics:
■
Integrating Analyses with Microsoft Office
■
Features of Oracle BI for Microsoft Office
■
Installing and Configuring Oracle BI for Microsoft Office
■
Setting Properties in the bioffice.xml Configuration File
■
Configuring SSL on Oracle WebLogic Server for Oracle BI for Microsoft Office
■
Configuring an SSO-Enabled Oracle BI EE for Oracle BI for Microsoft Office For information on using the Oracle BI for Microsoft Office after it is installed, see the
Help system that you can access from the Microsoft Office application such as Excel or PowerPoint.
Integrating Analyses with Microsoft Office
From the Oracle BI EE Home page, you can download and install the Oracle Business Intelligence Add-in for Microsoft Office. This add-in enables you to access and run
Oracle BI EE analyses directly within your Microsoft Office workspace. The refreshable analyses leverage not only native Office functionality but also the scalability and
performance of the Oracle BI Server.
When the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office is properly installed and configured, you can work with analyses directly in Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint using the
following means:
■
Copying Views and Analyses
■
Viewing Objects in the Catalog
Copying Views and Analyses
You can copy and paste into Microsoft Office documents the following view types: table, pivot table, graph, funnel graph, gauge, title, and filters view. Copied views are
pasted as Microsoft Office documents, including Excel or PowerPoint tables and graphs. By pasting these views, you leverage Office functionality while referencing the
Oracle BI semantic layer. Only these Oracle BI EE views that are supported by the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office are pasted into Office documents.
This section provides the following information:
B-2 Oracle Fusion Middleware Users Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition
■
General Guidelines for Copying Views and Analyses
■
Copying Table and Pivot Table Views
■
Copying Graph, Funnel Graph, and Gauge Views
General Guidelines for Copying Views and Analyses
The following general guidelines apply to copying and pasting all supported views:
■
You can copy views from the Analysis editor and from dashboard pages and paste them into Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint documents. You can use the Copy link
for an analysis on a dashboard page to copy the analyses definition and current state as applicable of Oracle BI EE views on dashboard pages and paste the view
objects into Microsoft Office documents. The term state includes criteria such as drilling in columns, values for filters, and selections on the page edge.
For example, you can drill on a graph from year to quarter, then drill from region to the district level. Use the Copy link, if available for that view, to copy this state
and paste it into a Microsoft Office document using the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office. When you refresh the Oracle BI EE views inside the Office
document, the data is refreshed and displayed based on this state of the request. Filters are preserved and can be changed subsequently in Microsoft Office
documents.
■
All views pasted from the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office are refreshable, even views pasted as images or as Flash objects. Title views cannot be refreshed so
that user customizations are maintained. You can customize native Office objects, but you cannot customize images.
■
You can copy compound views from the Analysis editor and dashboard pages. Compound views are pasted into Microsoft Office documents as native Office
tables and for graphs as Office native charts, as images, or as Flash objects for PowerPoint.
Copying Table and Pivot Table Views
When you copy and paste a table or pivot table:
■
Table and pivot table views from Oracle BI EE are pasted as native Office format tables.
■
An inserted pivot table view presents data from an analysis with page items and a section-based layout, if these had been defined in the Oracle BI EE pivot table
view for the analysis.
Copying Graph, Funnel Graph, and Gauge Views
When you copy and paste a graph, funnel graph, or gauge:
■
Graph views from Oracle BI EE are pasted as native Excel or PowerPoint graphs, as static but refreshable images, or as high-quality Flash objects in PowerPoint.
You can change the graph type and apply other formatting changes using Excel and PowerPoint graphing capabilities. These changes are preserved during data
refreshes.
■
Gauge views, funnel graph views, and time-line series graph views from Oracle BI EE can be pasted into Office documents as static but refreshable images and as
Flash objects.
Integrating with Microsoft Office B-3
Viewing Objects in the Catalog
You can start Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint and use the Oracle BI menu or ribbon to sign in and display the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog. The Catalog browser is
presented as a pane in Excel and PowerPoint to browse analyses, both user-created and shared, as shown in
Figure B–1 . You can also display the individual views that are
available for each analysis.
Figure B–1 Catalog Browser in Oracle BI for Microsoft Office
Gauge views, funnel graph views, and time-line series graph views from Oracle BI EE are inserted from the Catalog browser in the following formats:
■
Image, in Excel and PowerPoint
■
Flash, in PowerPoint only
Features of Oracle BI for Microsoft Office
Oracle BI for Microsoft Office provides useful features for working with analyses in Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint, as described in the following sections:
■
General Features
■
Features of Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Excel
B-4 Oracle Fusion Middleware Users Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition
■
Features of Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint
■
Features from Oracle BI EE Not Supported by Oracle BI for Microsoft Office For additional information on the features of Oracle BI for Microsoft Office, see the
Help system that you can access from the Microsoft Office application such as Excel or PowerPoint
General Features
Oracle BI for Microsoft Office provides the following general features:
■
Office access — When installed on Excel or PowerPoint 2007 or later, the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office functionality is made available through a native Office
ribbon interface. When installed on Excel or PowerPoint 2003, the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office-ins functionality is made available through a menu
and a toolbar. In both cases, an Office pane is available for browsing the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog and for selecting views to insert inside Office documents.
■
Ability to secure BI data in BI views inserted inside Excel spreadsheets or PowerPoint presentations — This feature enables you to secure inserted BI tables
and graphs so that users must present credentials to view the Oracle BI data. When you secure the data, the BI data is removed from the document. Only the
view definitions are retained, which allows the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office to refresh the data within these BI views.
■
Views — See Copying Views and Analyses
for information on working with these view types: table, pivot table, graph, funnel graph, and gauge.
■
Graph customization — When you work with native graph objects in Excel and PowerPoint, you can customize the look and feel of the inserted views by editing
the objects and changing the graph type and changing the formatting of various graph components such as the axes, legend, and title. These customizations are
retained when the views are refreshed.
■
Prompts — You can use the following features of Oracle BI EE prompts:
■
Multi-selection of values
■
Search for prompt values
■
Shuttle UI for selecting multiple values
■
Skip prompts
■
Enter ranges of values
■
Cascading prompts where the value of one prompt limits the values available in a subsequent prompt Year = 2010 restricts Quarters to only Q1, Q2, if the
current date is May 10 2010, for example.
■
Runtime operator selections where you can select operators such as equal, greater than, and less than in the same ways that you select prompt values.
■
Column selection — When you insert an Oracle BI EE view in an Excel or PowerPoint document, you can select a limited set of columns in that view to be
inserted. When the view is inserted, you can select the view and click the Edit Prompts and Levels
menu item or ribbon item to modify the original selection and to add or remove columns from the view.
You can edit or change the prompts or column selections for the following types of views:
Integrating with Microsoft Office B-5
■
Tables and pivot tables that you inserted from the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog within Excel and PowerPoint.
■
Views that you copied using the Copy link in analyses on dashboard pages and pasted into Excel and PowerPoint documents using the Oracle BI Add-in
for Microsoft Offices Paste option.
■
Server independence — Views inserted in Excel and PowerPoint documents by the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office that is connected to one server can be
refreshed by connecting Oracle BI for Microsoft Office against a different server, in two ways:
– If you insert the view into Microsoft Office by copying and pasting from
Oracle BI EE, then the view is considered to be detached from the original analysis that was saved in a directory in the catalog. Each data refresh obtains
the data that corresponds to a snapshot of the analysis definition.
– If you insert the view into Microsoft Office by selecting it from the Oracle BI
Presentation Catalog, then the analysis must exist in the same directory in the catalog on the two servers.
■
Support for the Oracle BI Security model, including support for both encrypted SSL and Single Sign-On modes — The same login that you use for Oracle BI EE is
available for the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office. For information, see Configuring SSL on Oracle WebLogic Server for Oracle BI for Microsoft Office
and Configuring an SSO-Enabled Oracle BI EE for Oracle BI for Microsoft Office
.
■
Logging — You can enable logging in the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office on the Advanced tab of the Preferences dialog. Log messages are written in an HTML
format to files in the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Offices installation folder.
Features of Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Excel
Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Excel provides the following features for working with analyses:
■
Formatting using styles — You can change the formats of data items that are displayed in Oracle BI EE tables and pivot tables that were imported into Excel
and PowerPoint documents. To change the format of an item in an Excel sheet, you must modify the style for that cell. These formatting changes are then preserved
even during refreshes. Furthermore, these formatting changes are applied to all cells with the same style.
■
Conditional formats — When you import a view, any conditional formatting that was defined in Oracle BI EE is not maintained in Microsoft Excel. You can define
Excel-specific conditional formats for data that was imported from BI views. Conditional formatting that you define using Excel’s native conditional formatting
features can be preserved during data refreshes. This requires that the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office perform cell-level comparisons to preserve the
formatting while updating the cell values with updated data, which is performance-intensive.
You select the Preserve Conditional Formatting option in the General tab of the Preferences dialog to preserve formatting at the cost of performance. If
performance is more important then preserving conditional formatting, then deselect this option to remove the formats when the view is next refreshed.
■
Formatting by customizing templates — You can customize the default appearance of Oracle BI EE table and pivot table views that are inserted in Excel
worksheets using an Excel template that is installed during the client Oracle BI
B-6 Oracle Fusion Middleware Users Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition
Add-in for Microsoft Office installation. The template resides in the following location:
ADDIN_HOMEBIOfficeExcelTemplateOBIReport.xlt where ADDIN_HOME is the location where you installed the Oracle BI Add-in for
Microsoft Office.
Features of Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint
Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint provides the following features for working with analyses:
■
Flash objects — You can insert or copy and paste Oracle BI EE graphs as Flash objects.
■
Crosstab — Pivot tables inserted in PowerPoint documents are displayed with a true crosstab look and feel.
■
Customization — During data refreshes, tables and pivot tables retain most of the customizations that you make to the views inserted in PowerPoint documents.
Examples of customization include font properties such as font size, color, and bold or italic styles.
Features from Oracle BI EE Not Supported by Oracle BI for Microsoft Office
The following list outlines features of Oracle BI EE that are not available in Oracle BI for Microsoft Office. If you try to paste into Oracle BI for Microsoft Office an analysis
or view that uses any of these features, then you see a warning message that the paste cannot occur.
■
Hierarchical columns
■
Map views
■
Graph section sliders
■
Section sliders in general
■
KPIs and Scorecard views
■
Action links
■
Master-detail linking
■
Write back
Installing and Configuring Oracle BI for Microsoft Office
This section describes how to install and configure Oracle BI for Microsoft Office. It includes the following topics:
■
What is the Oracle BI Office Server?
■
Installation and Configuration Steps
■
Tasks Performed by the Installer for Oracle BI EE
■
Installing the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office
■
Configuring Connections to Oracle BI Presentation Services
Integrating with Microsoft Office B-7
What is the Oracle BI Office Server?
The Oracle BI Office Server is a server-side J2EE application. The BI office client on a Windows system communicates with the BI Office Server, which itself communicates
with the Oracle BI Presentation Server using Web services. The configuration file for the BI Office Server is named bioffice.xml.
Installation and Configuration Steps
The following list describes the steps that are required to install and configure Oracle BI for Microsoft Office:
1.
The administrator runs the installer for Oracle BI EE. See
Tasks Performed by the Installer for Oracle BI EE .
2.
The administrator configures Oracle BI for Microsoft Office to work with Secure Socket Layer SSL and Single Sign-On SSO, as described in the following
sections:
■
Configuring SSL on Oracle WebLogic Server for Oracle BI for Microsoft Office
■
Configuring an SSO-Enabled Oracle BI EE for Oracle BI for Microsoft Office
3.
Users download and run the installation file for the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office from the Oracle BI EE Home page.
See Installing the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office
.
4.
Users configure for connections from the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office to Oracle BI Presentation Services.
See Configuring Connections to Oracle BI Presentation Services
.
Tasks Performed by the Installer for Oracle BI EE
When you run the installer for Oracle BI EE, the installer performs the following tasks for Oracle BI for Microsoft Office:
■
Installs and configures the Oracle BI Office Server into the Oracle WebLogic Server container.
The installer for Oracle BI EE configures the BI Office Server to point to the Oracle BI Presentation Services server by setting the SawBaseURL property in the
bioffice.xml configuration file. After Oracle BI EE is installed, you can modify the configuration of the BI Office Server, as described in
Setting Properties in the bioffice.xml Configuration File
.
■
Deploys the bioffice.ear and biofficeclient.war files.
Installing the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office
Content designers and end users can download and run the installation file for the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office from the Oracle BI EE Home page.
Important Notes: Note the following before installing the Oracle BI Add-in for
Microsoft Office:
■
If you have an existing version of the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office, then remove that version before you run the installation program to obtain the new
version. Run the Microsoft Windows Add or Remove Programs feature in the Control Panel to uninstall the existing version.
B-8 Oracle Fusion Middleware Users Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition
■
Microsoft recommends uninstalling all add-ins before upgrading to a new version of an Office product. If you plan to upgrade from Microsoft Office 2003 to 2007 or
later, then ensure that you first uninstall the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office. With Office 2003 still installed, do one of the following:
– Run the client OracleBIOffice.exe file and use the wizard to uninstall the
Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office.
– Use the Microsoft Windows Add or Remove Programs feature in the Control
Panel to uninstall the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office. Then upgrade to Office 2007 or later and run the OracleBIOffice.exe file to install
the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office.
■
If the following prerequisite software does not exist on your computer, then you are prompted to install it. You might be prompted to restart the computer after
installing the software. You can find this software on the Microsoft Web site:
– Office2003-kb907417sfxcab-ENU_Patch
– Shared Add-In Extensibility Microsoft .Net 2.0
– Shared Add-In Support Update Microsoft .Net 2.0
– Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0 or later
To install the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office: 1.
Ensure that the administrator has granted you the Access to Oracle BI for Microsoft Office privilege.
For information on this privilege, see Managing Presentation Services Privileges in Oracle Fusion Middleware Security Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise
Edition.
2.
Ensure that you are familiar with the Important Notes that are documented earlier in this section.
3.
Close all Microsoft Office applications.
4.
Display the Home page for Oracle BI EE.
5. In the Get Started section, click the Download BI Desktop Tools link, then click
