1) Introduction
1.1) Introduction
Oracle BI Applications 11.1.1.7.1 is set of packaged
data extraction and loading routines designed to load a pre-built Oracle data
warehouse, together with a set of dashboards, reports and other business
metadata objects designed to provide customers with a quick-to-deploy,
best-practice BI environment for Oracle's ERP and CRM applications. Whilst a
full installation of Oracle Data Integrator is provided with Oracle BI
Applications 11.1.1.7.1, its role is as an "embedded" data integration
engine with administrators mainly interacting with it using web-based
administration and configuration tools.
2) Configuration
2.1) BI Applications 11.1.1.7.1 Data Load:
At this point our environment consists only of installed
software and an empty data warehouse. The next step in the process is to run
Oracle's pre-packaged data extraction and load routines against a supported
source system, which for the purposes of this article will be Oracle E-Business
Suite 12.1.3. To do this, we will use a combination of three tools: the
aforementioned Oracle BI Applications Configuration Manager and Oracle Data
Integrator, along with another application called Oracle BI Applications
Functional Setup Manager.
Configuration Manager and Functional Setup Manager are
web-based applications that run in the BI Managed Server and replace many of
the configuration and administration capabilities of the DAC in the prior
release. Where Configuration Manager serves as the interface for administering
the entire BI Applications environment and configuring Oracle Data Integrator,
Functional Setup Manager acts as a lightweight project management tool for
configuring a specific BI Application, like Supply Chain and Order Management
Analytics, as shown in Figure.
2.2) BI Applications 11.1.1.7.1 Instance:
1. Our
first task is to make sure the Oracle Data Integrator Agent is running, as that
will be the "air traffic controller" to allow our Load Plans to
execute. To do this, first ensure that the WebLogic Node Manager Service is
running, and then use your Web browser to navigate to the WebLogic Server
Administration Console at http:/biappseup.inboxbiz.com:7001/console , logging in as weblogic/welcome1.
On
the console Home Page, click the Servers link
under Domain Structure > Environment. The Summary
of Servers page will list the three servers in this environment: the
Admin server (AdminServer), the managed BI server (bi_server1), and the managed
ODI server (odi_server1), and while the state of first two will show as
'RUNNING', odi_server1 will show as 'SHUTDOWN'.
Click
the Control tab and then check the checkbox next to the
odi_server1 managed server. This should enable the Start button
above and below the table of servers. Then, click the Start button
and press Yes when prompted. The odi_server1 will start,
though it may take several minutes to do so. You can click the double circular
arrows icon to have the status refresh automatically. Once the state of
odi_server1 is 'RUNNING', you may continue.
2. Now that the
ODI Agent is ready to do our bidding, we can begin the process of configuring
our BI Applications environment in Configuration Manager.
Business
Intelligence Application Configuration Manager Home Screen shown below:
Note: When you login BIACM first time,
the overview section has showing empty.
Now, we will setup
BI Instance in BIACM.
There
are several global configuration steps we must perform first in Configuration
Manager, and they are grouped under Tasks>System
Setups on the left-hand side of the screen. Click our first
task, Define
Business Intelligence Applications Instance, to start this
configuration process.
Clicking on this
task then presents three tabs for configuration: Source
Systems, Target Warehouse, and Environment
Configuration. If you look at the Target
Warehouse and Environment Configuration tabs,
you'll see that the BI Applications Configuration Utility has already
configured these for you. However, there are no Source
Systems defined, so that becomes our first
task.
Click the Source
Systems tab (if it isn't selected already) and
click the green plus symbol to add a new source system. Enter the following
details, when prompted:
Product
Line: Oracle
E-Business Suite
Product Line Version: Oracle
E-Business Suite R 12.1.3.x
Source Instance Name: EBSVISION
Description: EBS VISION instance
Data Source Number: 1000
(The above fields can be altered based on your source system.)
Click the Next button
to register the source in the ODI Topology. It's worth noting here that
Configuration Manager writes configuration details directly into the ODI Repository.
This saves an administrator valuable time because Configuration Manager
consolidates multiple ODI configurations into a single Configuration Manager
screen.
Start by
selecting Global in
the Context dropdown,
and then in the Technology:
Oracle tab, enter the following information:
ODI Data Server Name: fctraining
JDBC Driver: oracle.jdbc.OracleDriver
JDBC URL: jdbc:oracle:thin:@fctraining:1523:VIS
Database
Username: APPS
Database Password: apps
(The above fields can be altered based on your source system.)
Now click the Test button
under Test
Connection to make sure you've entered the
connectivity information properly and your OBIA environment can communicate
with your source system.
The BI Applications have always made use of text files as sources
for some key content not stored in the source system. While text files are
flexible, they aren't the best enterprise solution, so with BI Applications
11.1.1.7.1, Oracle started the process of moving some of this content to
Configuration Manager. However, there are still text files to be managed and
maintained, so before we can complete the next tab, use Windows Explorer to
copy the 'etl' folder in C:\Middleware\Oracle_BI1\biapps\ to a new directory
called C:\biappsfiles\. Note that you can name the target folder anything
you want (no spaces) and it can be in any location you want, but it's
recommended to move them to another location to avoid them being overwritten
during an upgrade. On a production server, a SAN or NAS server is preferable.
We also need to update this location in ODI, so before continuing
with Configuration Manager, open ODI Studio, navigate to the
Topology tab, and expand Technologies: File: BIAPPS_DW_FILE tree
until you see the following object:
BIAPPS_DW_FILE.c:\Middleware\Oracle_BI1/biapps/etl/data_files/src_files/BIA_11
Double-click this object to open it and update the following two
fields in the Definition tab:
Directory (Schema):
C:\biappsfiles\etl\data_files\src_files\BIA_11
Directory (Work Schema):
C:\biappsfiles\etl\data_files\src_files\BIA_11
Click the Save icon in the toolbar (notice the
object name changes) and you can close the object in ODI Studio.
Then, in the Technology: File System tab back in Configuration
Manager, enter the following information:
ODI Data Server Name: EBSVISIONFILES
Host Name: obia111171w64
Path to File: C:\biappsfiles\etl\data_files\src_files\EBS_12_1_3
Finally, click the Save and Close button, and
then done, to finish this configuration process.
2.3) Manage BI Applications 11.1.1.7.1:
The next task is to inform Configuration Manager of which BI
Applications "offerings" are licensed to be used in this environment.
The key emphasis here is what is licensed to
be implemented, not what you're actually implementing at this time.
Note that for demo or personal training purposes, you can select any offering
from this list, but you should ensure that you only select those that you have
licensed when working on a full implementation project – see your local Oracle
representative, or an Oracle partner, if you need your licensing to be
clarified or extended to include the BI Applications.
Moving back to your Web browser [BIACM Screen], click System Setups > Manage Business Intelligence Applications on the left-hand sidebar in
Configuration Manager. Then, within the Manage
Business Intelligence Applications page, locate the Oracle Financial Analytics, Order Human Resource Analytics and
Oracle Procurement & Spend Analytics entry and check the Enabled checkbox
next to it to select that BI Applications offering (you may need to use the
scroll bar to see this checkbox). Then, press the OK button
in the dialog then is then displayed, and once it closes, press Save.
Next, select the Business
Intelligence Application Offerings and Associated Sources tab and expand Oracle Financial Analytics, Order Human Resource
Analytics and Oracle Procurement & Spend
Analytics. The
'EBSVISION' checkbox in the Enabled column should be checked; once
confirmed, press the Done button to return to the main Configuration Manager
page.
2.4) Manage Preferred Currencies:
To view the preferred currency names that are used on Oracle
Business Intelligence dashboards in the Currency drop-down on the My Account dialog\Preferences tab for a
user logged into Oracle Business Intelligence. You can edit preferred currency
names by clicking the Edit icon. For example, if your organization prefers to
use the term 'Local Currency'
instead of 'Ledger Currency', you
can use this dialog to change the default value 'Ledger Currency' to 'Local
Currency'.
Element
|
Description
|
Preferred
Currencies
|
Use
this pane to view the preferred currency names.
To
change a preferred currency name, click the Edit icon to display the Edit
Preferred Currency Name dialog.
|
2.5) Manage Warehouse Languages:
Use this tab to specify the
languages for which data will be loaded into the Business Analytics Warehouse
during the ETL process. When you install Oracle BI Applications, the American
English Language is enabled by default. You must enable the languages that you
want to deploy.
You can also specify a Base
Language. The Base Language is used if the ETL process cannot locate data in
any one of the enabled languages. For example, if French is an enabled language
and American English is the Base Language, there will be two rows, one for each
language. If French values are not available, then American English values will
be substituted.
Element
|
Description
|
Manage Business
Analytics Warehouse Languages
|
Use this list
to view the available languages, and enable the languages that you want to
support.
Use the Installed column
to change the default value of 'Disabled' to 'Installed', which enables the
selected language.
The other table
columns display read-only data.
|
Set Base
Language
|
Use this option
to specify the Base Language, which is marked with a blue dot. You can only
specify one Base Language.
American
English is the default Base Language. To select a different Base Language,
select a record in the table, then click the Set Base Language icon.
If the current Base Language record is selected, then this icon is grayed
out.
|
2.6) Manage Load Plans:
While there are other
configurations that could be done at this time, we've completed the minimum configurations
required to move to the next phase, which is to generate and execute a Domain
Load Plan. Load plans are the steps that execute a data load and are similar to
execution plans in earlier, DAC-based versions of the BI Applications. The
difference is that BI Applications 11.1.1.7.1 contains metadata about what
steps are required to load every application and you must generate an
executable load plan based on what you specifically plan to load. This
potentially reduces the amount of step pruning you need to do after the fact.
There are also different types of load plans. The Domain-Only
Load Plan will
run some targeted data extractions from the source system to assist with
configurations for specific applications. This stands in contrast to a Source
Extract And Load Plan, which focuses on loading the facts and
dimensions in the warehouse.
In the next step you will build your first load plan, in this
instance a domain load plan to extract data from the source system to support
loading the Inventory Transactions fact table group within the Supply Chain and
Order Management offering. To start this process, using your Web browser and
still within the Configuration Manager application, click Load Plans Administration > Manage Load Plans
Then, when the Manage Load
Plans page opens,
click the green plus symbol to add a new load plan, and enter the following
details to define the new domain load plan:
Name: LP_HR_Absense&Accrual
Description: [optional]
Load
Plan Type: Source Extract
and Load (SDE,SIL & PLP)
Source
Instances: EBS_VISION
(The above fields can be altered based on your source system except 'Load Plan
Type'.)
Then, press the Next button to display the list of
available fact table groups; check the checkbox in the Selected column
for the Accrual
Transactions (ACCRUALTRANS_FG) fact group, which you can find under
the Oracle Human
Resource Analytics > Absence
& Accrual fact grouping.
Click the Save button and select Save and Generate Load Plan when prompted. This will create a
custom load plan in ODI that is a subset of the master load plan based on the
load plan type and fact groups we selected. This process will take a few
minutes and can be monitored by clicking the blue circular arrows refresh
symbol. Once the generation is complete, as indicated in the Generation
Status column by
a green checkmark next to the black circular arrows symbol, you may proceed to
the next step, which is actually executing the load plan.
To execute the load plan, click the Execute button,
signified by a green play button symbol in a white box, and select the
following values when the Execute Load Plan dialog is shown:
Context: Global
Logical
Agent: OracleDIAgent
Oracle
Data Integrator Work Repository: BIAPPS_WORKREP
Then, click the OK button, and the ODI Agent will now
execute the domain load plan we created. This process will take several minutes
depending on your system and can be monitored by clicking the blue circular
arrows refresh symbol. Once the execution is complete, as indicated in the Execution Status column
by a large white checkmark in a green circle symbol, you may proceed to the
next step.
3) Configuration Functional Setup Manager
3.1) Introduction:
Functional Setup Manager operates much like Configuration
Manager does for ODI: a faster, simpler way to get to the configuration you
need to make. More often than not, Functional Setup Manager opens a window to a
specific parameter screen in Configuration Manager that is required for a
particular offering you are implementing. Rather than hunt and peck through the
many parameters in Configuration Manager, Functional Setup Manager notifies you
that a parameter is important and takes you to the right place in Configuration
Manager to configure it. So really, it's a helper application to make sure you
know exactly what you need to do, and that's an important distinction, because
you technically don't have to use it if you know what you're doing. So let's
walk through the basics of Functional Setup Manager so you can see how it works.
1. The
first step, again performed through your Web browser, is to jump to Functional
Setup Manager through Configuration Manager.
Click Perform Functional Configurations in
Configuration Manager, and then login to Functional Setup Manager as
biadmin/welcome1. Then, click Configure Offerings; here we will
enable our licensed offering for implementation.
Check the Enable for Implementation checkbox
beside Oracle
Financial Analytics, Order Human Resource Analytics and Oracle Procurement & Spend
Analytics and press Yes to continue.
Check the Enable for Implementation checkbox beside
Oracle E-Business Suite-Oracle Supply Chain and Order Management Analytics and
every box under it. Then, click Save and Close.
2. Next
we're going to create an implementation project for our
enabled offering. An implementation project is nothing more than a collection
of tasks required to configure the offerings you include in the project. Much
like the load plan, BI Applications 11.1.1.7.1 contains a master task list for
every offering, with some tasks having a one-to-many relationship to the
offerings. Creating an implementation project is very similar to generating a
load plan in that you only get a subset of the master based on your selections.
Click Implementation Projects tab and click the
'Create' icon, then enter and select the values below:
Name: IP_HR
Code: IP_HR
Description: IP_HR
Status: Not
Started
Assigned To: biadmin
Start Date: [accept default]
Finish Date: [leave blank]
Click the Next button.
Check the Include checkbox beside Oracle Financial Analytics, Order Human Resource
Analytics and Oracle Procurement & Spend Analytics,
then check the Include checkbox beside Oracle
E-Business Suite- Oracle
Financial Analytics, Order Human Resource Analytics and Oracle Procurement & Spend
Analytics and all checkboxes under it. Then, click the Save and
Open Project button.
Regards,
Zafar Habib
