Oracle Business Intelligence : The Condensed Guide to Analysis and Reporting

Yuli Vasiliev

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781849681186
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Data Warehousing
• Index: Computer Science

In Detail

Business Intelligence (BI) is the process of obtaining business information from available data and today, most businesses use BI to control their affairs. With Business Analysis and Reporting in Oracle Business Intelligence, you can quickly learn how to put the power of the Oracle Business Intelligence solutions to work. To jump start with analysis and reporting of data on an Oracle Business Intelligence SE platform and to keep the process of learning simple and interesting requires numerous annotated examples.

The examples in this introductory guide will make you immediately familiar with tools included in the Oracle Business Intelligence package. This book will teach you how to find answers to common business questions and make informed business decisions as well as helping you to use Oracle Business Intelligence SE platform and prepare database for analysis.

This practical, example-rich guide starts by explaining concepts behind getting business information from data. We then move smoothly onto the tools included in the Oracle Business Intelligence SE and Oracle Business Intelligence Tools packages. Along the way, we will look at how to take advantage of Discoverer Administrator, Discoverer Plus, and Discoverer Viewer for analysis and reporting. You will also learn how to build, deploy and execute reports using Oracle Reports, and integrate data from different data sources with warehousing, employing Oracle Warehouse Builder software. Covering advanced Oracle Business Intelligence features, this book will teach you how to pivot data, drill it up and down, as well as display it visually in graphs.

A fast-paced introductory guide to get you up and running swiftly with the tools included in Oracle BI SE

Approach

This book is a quick guide to getting started with Oracle Business Intelligence SE platform that will answer common business questions and help you make quick business decisions. The examples in this book will help you prepare the database for analysis and create business reports in no time.

Who this book is for

If you are an business analyst, a report builder, a DBA, or an application developer who wants to learn how to use the Oracle Business Intelligence platform for analysis and reporting, this is the perfect book for you. Previous knowledge of Oracle Business Intelligence tools is not required, but you should have a competent grasp of using an Oracle Database.

Oracle Business Intelligence: The Condensed Guide to Analysis and Reporting

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Table of Contents

Oracle Business Intelligence: The Condensed Guide to Analysis and Reporting

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Getting Business Information from Data

Data, information, and Business Intelligence

The kind of business questions you may need to answer

Answering basic business questions

Answering probing analytical questions

Asking business questions using data-access tools

Deriving information from existing data

Answering business questions from your data

Comparing and analyzing data

Accessing transactional and dimensional data

Reporting against a transactional database

Using historical data

Aggregating dimensional data

Summary

2. Introducing Oracle Business Intelligence

What Oracle Business Intelligence is comprised of

Oracle Business Intelligence components

Composing a Business Intelligence system

Sitting on top of Oracle Database

Installing Oracle Business Intelligence software

The software you will need

Where to get the software

Installation process

Installing the Oracle Business Intelligence Tools package

Post-installation tasks

Summary

3. Working with Database Data

Using analytic SQL functions

Answering simple questions

Multidimensional data analysis with SQL

Cubing

Generating reports with only summary rows

Ranking

Windowing

Accessing external sources

Discovering SQL in Discoverer

Relational implementation of the dimensional model

Database structures behind an EUL

Summary

4. Analyzing Data and Creating Reports

Analyzing and reporting with Discoverer

Preparing your working environment with Discoverer Administrator

Exploring the Discoverer Plus IDE

Maintaining a business-oriented view of relational data

Analyzing data

Using Discoverer Viewer

Using Oracle Reports

Starting up the Reports Server

Building reports with Reports Builder

Summary

5. Warehousing for Analysis and Reporting

Data organization in multidimensional data sources

Getting started with Oracle Warehouse Builder

Installing Oracle Warehouse Builder

Creating a Warehouse Builder repository schema

Creating a Warehouse Builder workspace

Building dimensional data stores with Oracle Warehouse Builder

Launching Design Center

Defining source metadata

Creating a source module

Importing database objects

Designing target structures

Creating a target module

Creating dimensions

Creating a Time dimension

Creating a Product dimension

Creating a Region dimension

Creating a cube

Building a staging table

Creating a staging mapping

Loading the staging table with data

Creating mappings for loading data into dimensions

Creating a product mapping

Creating the REGION mapping

Creating a cube mapping

Deploying

Executing

Summary

6. Pivoting Through Data

Making database data available for use in Discoverer

Creating a crosstab worksheet in Discoverer Plus

Pivoting worksheet items

Creating a calculation

Changing the worksheet layout

Pivoting using the drag-and-drop feature

Summary

7. Drilling Data Up and Down

What is drilling?

Drilling to a related item

Drilling up and down

Working with drill hierarchies

Drilling down to see data in more detail

Drilling up to summarize data at a higher level

Drilling from a graph

Using the page items area

Summary

8. Advanced Analysis and Reporting

Using parameters in Discoverer

Analyzing worksheets by entering dynamic input values

Changing the condition behind a parameter

Filtering a worksheet with parameters

Conditional formatting

Making data easier to analyze with sorting

Summary

Index

Oracle Business Intelligence: The Condensed Guide to Analysis and Reporting

Copyright © 2010 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: October 2010

Production Reference: 1071010

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd. 32 Lincoln Road Olton Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.

ISBN 978-1-849681-18-6

www.packtpub.com

Cover Image by Sandeep Babu(<[email protected]> )

Credits

Author

Yuli Vasiliev

Reviewers

Ivan Brigida

Hans Forbrich

Peter McLarty

Acquisition Editor

Stephanie Moss

Development Editor

Reshma Sundareshan

Technical Editors

Neha Damle

Manjeet Kaur Saini

Indexer

Monica Ajmera Mehta

Editorial Team Leader

Gagandeep Singh

Project Team Leader

Lata Basantani

Project Coordinator

Shubhanjan Chatterjee

Proofreader

Chris Smith

Graphics

Geetanjali Sawant

Production Coordinator

Shantanu Zagade

Cover Work

Shantanu Zagade

About the Author

Yuli Vasiliev is a software developer, freelance author, and consultant currently specializing in open source development, databases, Business Intelligence (BI), Java technologies, and service-oriented architecture (SOA). He has over 12 years' experie...