Using Fusion Middleware Control to Change Presentation Setting Defaults

13-4 System Administrators Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition definitions can be found in the database for the column values during map rendering. You must ensure that a shape geometry definition exists for each column value in the database. If a shape geometry definition does not exist for a particular column value, then the shape cannot be shown on the map and might inhibit user interactions on the map. Shape lookup is based on the column values, and column-to-layer mapping is independent of locale or language. Therefore, you must ensure that the spatial column that is being associated with a layer does not itself have values that are affected by locale or language. To ensure this association, do one of the following: ■ Model spatial columns as double columns in the business modeling layer, which is the recommended method. ■ Create special spatial columns that have values that do not change across locale or language. You must ensure that content designers are not confused seeing these special columns in the Subject Areas pane when working with analyses. See Oracle Fusion Middleware Metadata Repository Builders Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition for more information on double columns. The advantages of using double columns are the following: ■ You can provide code values that is, descriptor IDs for each shape definition and at the same time show display values that is, descriptor values according to locale or language. ■ Code values are passed only as layer key values for lookup. ■ You eliminate the need for the complex joining of various columns to uniquely locate the shape. For example, a layer geometry table might contain multiple cities with the name of London. To uniquely distinguish these cities, you might use a pattern of Country_State_City, as in US_Kansas_London or Canada_Ontario_ London. The problem with this approach is that it might require three separate columns to be grouped, joined by a delimiter such as an underscore, and associated with a layer. This association requires the content designer to select three columns Country, State, City in the criteria to create a single layer. A layer can be associated with multiple columns in multiple subject areas. You must ensure that a layer is associated with at least one spatial column. If the layer association is missing, then the map might not be updated when a user drills on the mapped BI column.

13.3.1.2 Ordering Layers on Maps

The ordering of map layers is very important. You must pay close attention to ensure that users have a seamless experience while navigating on the map that is, drilling and zooming. In the Edit Background Map dialog, you assign each layer a minimum and maximum zoom range. Given that the map zoom slider can slide only from bottom to top vertically, the layers with lower minimum zoom levels are placed at the bottom of the slider. Ensure that the layer grid on the Interactive BI Layers section of the dialog follows a similar pattern, so that you place layers with lower minimum zoom levels at the bottom of the list. Ensure that you sort the layers by clicking the sort icon before closing the dialog. Layer ordering becomes irrelevant when the zoom ranges of layers do not intersect on the scale. Ordering becomes very important when layers have a common minimum and maximum zoom range. Use care to ensure that detailed layers are not hidden by the aggregated layers during drilling or zooming operations. Configuring Mapping and Spatial Information 13-5 Example 13–1 World Map with Three Layers Suppose that a world map has three layers Country, State, and City and 15 zoom levels defined on it. The Country layer has a minimum and maximum zoom range of 0-5, the State layer range is 6-10, and the City layer range is 11-15. As the user navigates from the minimum to the maximum zoom level on the map, the layer order also known as the visual order is displayed as Country, State, and City. Figure 13–2 shows the Edit Background Map dialog with the Interactive BI Layers section specified for this example. Reading from bottom to top, you see the layer order in that section as Country, City, and State. Even though the layer order configuration and their respective zoom levels are not consistent with each other, the end users perception is not affected. Figure 13–2 Edit Background Map Dialog with No Intersection Example 13–2 World Map with Common Levels Consider the same world map with layers that have common zoom ranges. Suppose that the user zooms to level 4 on the map that corresponds to the Edit Background Map dialog that is shown in Figure 13–3 . Notice that all three layers include zoom level 4. 13-6 System Administrators Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Figure 13–3 Edit Background Map Dialog with Intersection The layer ordering at zoom level 4 is unclear, because multiple layers can be shown. Because of the layer order that is specified in the Interactive BI Layers section of the dialog, the map renders with the following order at zoom level 4: Country, City, and State reading from bottom to top, which is incorrect. To correct this problem, you must ensure that layers are always ordered properly in the dialog. You can re-order layers by clicking the Move Down and Move Up buttons on the zoom grid of the dialog, or by clicking the Sort Layers by Zoom Level button. For example, you can click the Sort Layers button in the dialog to specify that the layer ordering at zoom level 4 is Country, State, and City. See Oracle Fusion Middleware Users Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition for more information about layers.

13.3.1.3 Changes to Spatial Metadata Require Restart

Administrators can edit the spatial metadata that is stored in the Oracle Database and accessed by MapViewer. For example, an administrator can add a new layer. These edits are not visible on the Oracle BI Presentation Services Administration pages for managing maps until MapViewer is restarted and so refreshed with the latest updates.

13.3.2 Administration Page Functions

The Oracle BI Presentation Services Administration page provides the Manage Map Data link. This link displays the Manage Map Data page, where you can manage the logical and display versions of the data from various physical data sources. This defines the layers that content designers use when creating map views. The data that is available for managing maps and data is stored in Oracle Database as part of MapViewer. Using this page, you provide: ■ Logical names to prevent any existing BI column mappings and map analyses from breaking because of changes to the physical data or to the data source. ■ Display names so that the geographic data is meaningful to end users.