Creating users in OBIEE 11g

User authentication is the important part in OBIEE security. For any user we need to assign some kind of security levels in the sense of read, write and modify application roles.

The default application roles are grouped into broad categories of functional usage: administrator (BIAdministrator), author (BIAuthor), and consumer (BIConsumer). 

Following are the default application roles provided by the OBIEE system:

1. BIAdministrator Role

              The BIAdministrator role grants administrative permissions necessary to configure and manage the Oracle Business Intelligence installation. Any member of the BIAdministrators group is explicitly granted this role and implicitly granted the BIAuthor and BIConsumer roles

2. BIAuthor Role

              The BIAuthor role grants permissions necessary to create and edit content for other users to use, or to consume. Any member of the BIAuthors group is explicitly granted this role and implicitly granted the BIConsumer role.

3. BIConsumer Role

              The BIConsumer role grants permissions necessary to use, or to consume, content created by other users.

4. BISystem Role

              The BISystem role grants the permissions necessary to impersonate other users. This role is required by Oracle Business Intelligence system components for inter-component communication.

5. Authenticated Role

               Oracle Business Intelligence uses the authenticated application role to grant permissions implicitly derived by the role and group hierarchy of which the Authenticated role is a member. The Authenticated role is a member of the BIConsumer role by default and, as such, all Authenticated role members are granted the permissions of the BIConsumer role implicitly.

You can see all these roles in em using following path:

Coreapplication --->Configure and Manage Application roles--->Application Roles

See screen shot for application roles:

Steps for creating new user and assigning application roles:

1. Login to the console using weblogic user credentials.

2. Select Security Realms from Services as marked in the screen shot.

3. Select Myrealms as shown in screenshot.

4. Select User and Groups, you will find total no of system users. For creating new user you have to select New option as marked in the screen shot.

5. Enter user details like user name, description and password and click OK.

6. New user is created admin with default authentication role. To assign new roles to user. Click on admin user. 

7. Assign new role and save changes i.e BIAdministrators and Administrators.

8. New user is created with administrator application role. To Verify user login to analytics with admin user name and it's password. Before login to the system restart services to get changes.

9. User is logged in successfully and we have observed assigned application roles are available for admin user.

In this way we learned to create new user. Keep visiting for new posts.

Thanks...!!

Upgrading the Oracle BI Repository and Catalog

To upgrade the Sample Sales repository and presentation catalog, perform the following steps by using the Upgrade Assistant. Please note that the WebLogic Administration Server and the Managed Server in the 11g environment must remain running during the upgrade process.

1. Navigate to the ORACLE_HOME\bin directory of the Oracle Fusion Middleware installation. In this example, the directory path is D:\bi\Oracle_BI1\bin.

2. Double-click ua.bat to open Upgrade Assistant in the graphical user interface mode. Refer screen shot:

3. On the Welcome screen, click Next.

4. On the Specify Operation screen, select Upgrade Oracle BI RPD and Presentation Catalog and click Next.

5. On the Specify Source Details screen, select Upgrade Repository (RPD).

6. Click Browse next to the RPD File field.

7. Browse to the location of the 10g version of the Sample Sales repository and click Open. In this example, the path is D:\SampleSales\samplesales.rpd.

 8. Enter the Administrator User Name and Administrator Password for the 10g samplesales repository. In this    example, the username and password are both Administrator.

9. Enter new password for rpd which doesn't match with the previous 10g rpd password.

10. Select Upgrade Catalog.

11. Browse to the location of the 10g version of the Sample Sales presentation catalog and click Open. In this example  the path is D:\SampleSales\Sample_Sales_V1.3_Webcat\samplesales.

12. The path to the Sample Sales presentation catalog is added to the Catalog Directory field. The path to  the deliveries directory is automatically added to the Catalog Deliveries Directory field.

13.Enter the weblogic admin server details. Port number, user name and password. 

14. Click Next to continue. On the Examining Components screen, wait until you see a succeeded message. During the examination process, Upgrade Assistant checks whether the source directory exists, the source directory is readable, and contains a file for upgrade.

15. Click Next to continue. On the Upgrade Summary screen, review the summary of the upgrade to be performed.

16. Click Next to continue. When the upgrade completes the status changes to succeeded.

17. Click Next to continue. n the Upgrade Success screen, review information related to the upgrade task and  click Close.

             In this way have upgraded rpd and catalog to 11g. Comment if it is helpful and keep visiting  for new posts.

Thanks....!!

Purge Cache Automatically in OBIEE 11g

It is very difficult to manage OBIEE cache. Cache results often get old. So we need to purge cache.

Generally we call SAPurgeAllCache() function provided by OBIEE for purging the cache.

We can automate the cache purge by using following steps:

1.Create new database in physical layer of RPD.

2.Name new database as "Cache" shown bellow. Do not forget to check "Allow direct database requests by default"

3.Create new object "Connection Pool" in newly created database "Cache".

4. Name this connection pool as "Cache Purge". DSN should be current RPD name and credentials should be of analytics user name and password. 

Click OK and check consistency. Save and close RPD.

5. Create new analysis. Without selecting any subject area, select "Create Direct Database Request" 

6. Use connection pool as "Database"."Connection Pool" eg. "Cache"."Cache Purge". In SQL statement block Call SAPurgeAllCache(); Refer following screenshot.

7. Save analysis as Cache Purge Report and Schedule it is as shown bellow.

8. In scheduler set frequency start date and time and so on. Please run agent as created for automated cache purge.

Comment if it helps...

Thanks,

Sagar

Agents, KPI, Scorecards, Writeback, OCI and ODBC

     Agents:

ü  Agents deliver targeted analytics to users based on a combination of schedule and trigger event. Delivery can be by a variety of routes, for example to Dashboard Alerts or to email.

ü  Agents enable you to automate your business processes.

ü  You can use them to provide event-driven alerting, scheduled content publishing, and conditional event-driven action execution.

ü  You can choose:

1.      A schedule that the Agent runs on

2.      A data condition that determines what the Agent does

3.      An analysis that can be distributed

4.      Actions that can be automatically executed depending on whether the data condition is met

ü  Agents can dynamically detect information-based problems and opportunities, determine the appropriate individuals to notify, and deliver information to them through a wide range of devices (email, phones, and so on).

KPI and Scorecards:

KPI:

      A KPI is a measurement of a particular business process which is compared against specific goals and objectives of an organization. KPI’s are typically tracked over time as a way to monitor performance and drive business decisions to help improve upon that performance. KPI does typically have both a goal and a status that reflects performance relative to the goal.

      KPI in OBIEE 11g can be used an analysis dashboard to allow a user to view KPI performance and drill into the details to understand why a KPI value may be off target. KPI’s can also be used to automatically trigger alerts to specific users using OBIEE’s agent mechanism when KPI target values reach critical status levels.

      OBIEE KPI’s also can be configured with another new feature – Action Links – which allow the user to initiate a action based on the status of the KPI. The action link can reference another analysis, send an email, kick off a workflow, or any other process to assist in making the KPI the basis for “actionable intelligence”.

Scorecards:

      Scorecards help organizations define overall goals to improve corporate profitability or increase customer satisfaction, for example and break those goals down into a series of objectives that will enable them to meet the goals. Each of these objectives and initiatives is associated with one or more of an organization’s KPIs, so progress toward each objective can be measured.

Fragmentation in OBIEE:

ü  We use fragmentation when we have fact or dimensional data in one or more different tables or data is split in different data sources. Then each logical table source represents one data segment.

ü  You can split the query against a table or another. Very often, the table is fragmented according to the most important dimension in a star schema the time dimension.
For example, clients, in the first table are clients from A to M, in the second from M to Z.

ü  You have three sort of fragmentation:

§  Fact-based / Dimension-based fragmentation

§  Content-based / Value-based fragmentation

§  Level-based fragmentation / aggregate navigation

Write back:

ü  It provides users of a dashboard page or an analysis with the ability to modify the data that they see in the table view. 

ü  It is the ability in OBIEE to allow the user to enter a value or values directly into a report and have those values written into the database.

ü  Values are written back to an actual physical table in the database.

ü  Only if the user has the “Write back to database privilege”, then the write back fields in the reports will editable.

Difference between OCI and ODBC:

ODBC: Open Database Connectivity, which is known as Universal Data Connector.

Accessing data in a heterogeneous environment of relational and non- relational database management systems. 

Accessing data in a heterogeneous environment of relational and non- relational database management systems. 

OCI: Oracle Call Interface Normally connects to Oracle Source. Hence, both can connect to Oracle Sources.

Oracle Call Interface (OCI) is an application programming interface (API) that lets you creates applications that use function calls to access an Oracle database and control all phases of SQL statement execution. OCI supports the data types, calling conventions, syntax, and semantics of C and C++.

Authentication and Authorization

Authentication and Authorization:

Authentication means validating the user while logging in the OBIEE application. When a user logs in the OBIEE application a request is sent to the BI Server asking that whether this user is a valid user or not. When BI Server validates the user, then only the user is able to login in the application.

Authorization means a user is authorized to view what all objects. Example, User A might be authorized to view only particular set of reports and dashboards based on the security applied.

1. Object Level Security

As the name states, Object level security refers to restricting access to OBIEE objects between different users and groups. The access to following objects can be restricted using object level security: Presentation tables, Presentation table columns, Subject Areas, Reports, Dashboards, and Project Specific shared folders.

Object-level security controls the visibility to business logical objects based on a user’s role.

Repository level: In Presentation layer of Administration Tool, we can set Repository level security by giving permission or deny permission to users/groups to see particular table or column.

Web level: This provides security for objects stored in the Presentation Catalog, such as dashboards, dashboards pages, folder and reports. You can only view the objects for which you are authorized. For example, a mid level manager may not be granted access to a dashboard containing summary information for an entire department.

2. Data Level Security

Data Level Security is basically securing the data. Users belonging to particular group should see a certain set a data whereas users outside that groups shouldn’t see that data. Example: Users belonging to Asia group should see only the data for Asia region whereas users belonging to US region should see data for US region.

Data-level security controls the visibility of data (content rendered in subject areas, dashboards, Oracle BI Answers, and so on) based on the user’s association to data in the transactional system.

This controls the type and amount of data that you can see in a report. When multiple users run the same report, the results that are returned to each depend on their access rights and roles in the organization. For example, a sales vice president sees results for all regions, while a sales representative for a particular region sees only data for that region. 

3. User Authentication in OBIEE

The goal of the authentication configuration is to get a confirmation of the identity of a user based on the credentials provided.

In OBIEE, the credentials provided are hold in this two variables:

1.      USER 

2.      PASSWORD

The authentication process in OBIEE is managed by the BI Server.

Types of Authentication:

OBIEE Support four types of Authentication

1.      LDAP Authentication: Users are authenticated based on credentials stored in LDAP. This is the BEST method to do authentication in OBIEE and it Supports Company’s Single Sign On (SSO) philosophy as well.

2.      External Table Authentication: You can maintain lists of users and their passwords in an external database table and use this table for authentication purposes.

3.      Database Authentication: The Oracle BI Server can authenticate user based on database logins. If a user has read permission on a specific database. Oracle BI Presentation Services authenticates those users.

4.      Oracle BI Server User Authentication: You can maintain lists of users and their passwords in the Oracle BI repository using the Administration Tool. The Oracle BI Server will attempt to authenticate users against this list when they log on.