New Features in Oracle BI 11g

Here is a list of all the new features introduced with OBIEE 11.1.1.7.

The list covers new features for BI Presentation Layer, BI Mobile, BI Server, Server Administrators and BI Publisher.  If you notice any other additional 11.1.1.7 features then please post a comment at the bottom!

 New Presentation Features

1) Recommended Visualizations Feature for Creating Views

• When you create a view, you can choose a recommended view type based on the data in your analysis and, optionally, what you want to use it for (for example, to analyze trends).
• You can choose a suggested "Best Visualization" as well as a "Recommended Subtype". Or you can instead choose the "Recommended Visualization" option, for which you specify your intent for the new view.

2) Breadcrumbs

• Breadcrumbs have been added to help users understand their current location within Oracle BI content and the path that they have used to navigate Oracle BI content.
• Breadcrumbs display at the bottom of the page, and users can click a breadcrumb or the breadcrumb overflow button to navigate to a specific location on their breadcrumb trail.

3) Enhancement to Dashboards

• The ability to create custom print layouts for high-fidelity printing of dashboard pages (i.e. automatic creation BI Publisher reports)
• A new default style called FusionFX (instead of "blaf")
• The addition of the Freeze Column option to the Column Properties menu. This option allows you to freeze a column at an edge (top or left) of a dashboard layout
• The addition of "Size" and "Page Size" options that allow you to control the position and size of columns and sections
• The ability to export an entire dashboard or a single dashboard page to Microsoft Excel 2007+
• A new "Replace Analysis in <Dashboard>" option added to Answers to replace an analysis on a dashboard
• A new "Return to <Dashboard>" option within Answers to return to a dashboard from the Analysis editor

4) Enhancements to Graphs

• 3 new graph types:  Waterfall graph, Stacked graph and 100% Stacked graph (the latter two are subtypes of Bar and Area graphs)
• Zoom to data range. This option lets the system evaluate the range of values on an axis, and choose appropriate minimum and maximum values for the scale. This is useful when graphing a set of large values that are all within a small percentage of each other
• Hide sliders in graph views that listen to master-detail events. For graphs in master-detail relationships, if you want to simplify the appearance of an analysis or dashboard, you can hide the slider that is created to accommodate detail columns

5) Enhancements to Views

• A new view type named performance tile. This view type displays a single aggregate measure value in a manner that is both visually simple and prominent
• Action links in trellis views. In simple trellis views, action links can now be used on inner graphs per unit, including the context of the outer edges. Action links can also be used in legends and in axis labels. In advanced trellis views, action links can be used in microcharts, where the microchart functions as a single unit (such as an aggregate number), including the context of the outer edges
• For map views, you can now vary the width of a line by measure to accentuate a feature
• You can link a map view as a detail in a master-detail relationship
• Auto Correct option for Map views (as errors in Map views can occur for various reasons). If the issue appears to be related to missing layers, maps, or styles, then it might be possible to correct the map by replacing the missing map view components with similar items that exist in the spatial metadata
• Legend and formatting highlighting
• Null suppression at view and analysis levels. You can set null suppression options at the view level (which overrides the analysis level) for data views including: table, pivot table, trellis (both simple and advanced), graph, gauge, and funnel views when the entire row or column contains nulls
• Ability to include or exclude calculated items and groups at the view level for columns and column headers. Specifically, two new options have been added: Include Custom Member and Exclude Custom Member

For tables, pivot tables, and advanced trellises:

• The ability to ◦specify the method to be used to browse data — either scrolling or paging controls
• Resize rows and columns
• Row count. If your table or pivot table view contains a grand total or subtotal on the row edge, the display totals, that is the grand total and subtotals, are now included in the Rows per Page count for content paging. In prior releases, if you had the Rows per Page count set to 10 for example, the table or pivot table would display more than 10 records if display totals were shown in the view results
• For right-click interactions, the ability to specify whether the Hide Columns interaction is available at runtime

6) Enhancements to Prompts

• This release includes an enhancement to the SQL Results prompt option. If you are working with double columns, you can now write the SQL statement so that filtering is done on code values rather than display values
• An enhancement to the prompt constraint option. The prompts designer can now limit a column prompt value list by more than one column
• This release includes enhancements to the parameters for prompted links

7) New Menu Options for Exporting Views and Results

This release adds the Excel 2007+ and Powerpoint 2007+ options for exporting views and results

8) Total Member Placement for Hierarchical Columns

This release includes an enhancement that allows placement of total members on a hierarchy

9) Browse Catalog Search Results by Object Attributes

The capability to use full-text search to find catalog objects and then filter the search results by attributes. This search is available when the administrator integrates Oracle BI Enterprise Edition with Oracle Endeca Server. After the full-text search results are returned, the Catalog area displays a list of matching items, and the Search pane displays the search results grouped by attribute (that is, Type, Name, Path, and Created By)

10) Navigate from the Total or Grand Total in a Table or Pivot Table

If an analysis contains a total or grand total and the associated attribute or hierarchical column contains an action link or a conditional action link, the action link (or conditional action link) is applied to both the column and the total or grand total

11) New BI Desktop Tools Available for Download

• Oracle Hyperion Smart View for Office
• Oracle Hyperion Financial Reporting Studio (if Essbase is installed)
• Oracle Essbase Studio Console (if Essbase is installed)
• Oracle Essbase Administrative Services Console (if Essbase is installed)

12) Enhancement to Favorites

This release provides the capability to organize your favorites from the Category Tree area and the Selected Category area in the Manage Favorites dialog. In previous releases, you could organize favorites from the Category Tree area, only

13) Integration of Oracle BI EE with Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System

With this release, OBIEE is integrated with Enterprise Performance Management Workspace (as part of the installation process)

Recommended Visualizations Feature for Creating Views

Breadcrumbs

Enhancement to Dashboards

Enhancements to Graphs

Enhancements to Views

Enhancements to Prompts

New Menu Options for Exporting Views and Results

Total Member Placement for Hierarchical Columns

Browse Catalog Search Results by Object Attributes

Navigate from the Total or Grand Total in a Table or Pivot Table

New BI Desktop Tools Available for Download

Enhancement to Favorites

Integration of Oracle BI EE with Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System

New BI Mobile Features

14) Maximize views with double-tap gesture

With this new feature, you can access on your iPad more data—even within dense dashboards—without the restrictions of the smaller form factor. You expand an individual view by double-tapping on it. The individual view then displays within the full screen of the iPad. This maximizing of views can be done on views accessed within a dashboard, and also when viewing an analysis independent of a dashboard. See "Working with Analyses and Dashboards."

15) New view and graph types

The following new graph types are supported with BI Mobile: Performance tiles, Waterfall graphs, 100% stacked graph, Stacked graph

16) Fixed headers

In analyses with fixed headers, you can use a single-finger drag gesture to scroll through data in all directions

17) Changing Orientation

It is now possible to change between landscape and portrait orientation while viewing Oracle BI content

18) Breadcrumbs

You can see the navigation path you have taken while moving through the catalog as a trail of breadcrumbs (near the top of the screen by the Back arrow). In this way, you can see your current location and how you got there, then decide whether to use the Back arrow to navigate in reverse, or to use the Home icon to quickly return to the Home screen

19) Security toolkit

The Oracle Business Intelligence Mobile Security Toolkit provides the ability to generate a signed version of the Oracle BI Mobile HD application. The toolkit includes the instructions and necessary content to build this application making use of Apple's Xcode and the IOS SDKs. The Oracle BI Mobile Security Toolkit will be updated on a regular basis in order to synchronize with the Oracle BI Mobile HD application available on the Apple App store. See "Using the Security Toolkit for Mobile Device Management."

20) Viewing of Oracle BI Publisher reports in dashboards

21) Integrated Full-Text Catalog Search

As in the desktop version of Oracle BI EE, you can use full-text search to find catalog objects in Oracle BI Mobile based on attributes such as author and column name. This search is available after the administrator integrates Oracle BI Enterprise Edition with Oracle Endeca Server

New BI Server Features

22) Changing the Repository Password From the Command Line

You can now change the repository password from the command line using the obieerpdpwdchg utility

23) New Options to Enforce Consistent Versions in Multiuser Development Environments

You can now add options to the multiuser development option file to enforce Administration Tool, MUD protocol, and RPD version consistency among MUD developers

24) New Utilities Available to Generate and Compare Logical Column Type Information

You can use the Administration Tool utilities Generate Logical Column Type Document and Compare Logical Column Types to generate a list of logical column types, and then compare it with logical column types in a subsequent version of the repository. You can also use the command-line utility biservergentypexml to generate the list of logical column types

25) Additional Database Support for Cardinality Estimates in Oracle BI Summary Advisor

The Prefer Optimizer Estimates feature, which improves performance by using cardinality estimates during the Summary Advisor process, is now available for Microsoft SQL Server and IBM DB2

26) Oracle BI Summary Advisor Measure Subset Recommendations

Oracle BI Summary Advisor now recommends only aggregates that contain specific measures that are both present in the analyzed query workload, and that can optimize the query workload if aggregates are created

27) Model Check Manager Enhancements

Model Check Manager now runs parallel queries against the database for better performance. In addition, you can now check models from the command line using the validaterpd utility with the -L option

28) Access to Apache Hadoop Data Sources

Oracle BI EE now supports Apache Hadoop as a data source

29) Support for Multi-Source Session Variables

Oracle BI EE now supports session variables that can be populated from multiple data sources and retain values from all source systems

30) NUMERIC Data Type Support for Oracle Database and TimesTen

You can now change a configuration setting to enable NUMERIC data type support for Oracle Database and TimesTen

31) Ability to Map Flex Object Changes Using the biserverextender Utility

You can now use the biserverextender utility to import flex object changes from ADF data sources and map them to the Business Model and Mapping layer and Presentation layer

32) Support for Servlet Communication Between the Oracle BI Server and Oracle OLAP

The Oracle BI Server now uses a servlet for communication with Oracle OLAP data sources, rather than relying on the JavaHost service

New Features for Administrators

33) Support for Oracle Endeca Server

You can configure Oracle Endeca Server as a search engine for full-text searching

34) Support for Multitenancy

You can configure Oracle BI EE so that it supports the use of multiple tenants  (Dont confuse with multi-instance installs!)

New BI Publisher Features

• Connect Directly to Oracle BIEE Subject Areas to Create Reports
• Excel Template Builder Enhancements (supports automatic insertion of fields and repeating groups)
• Layout Editor Enhancements (Time series axis formatting, Hide axis option, Independent axis formatting)
• Enhanced Create Report Guide
• PDF to PCL Conversion for Embedding PCL Commands in RTF Templates
• Support for PDF 1.7 Specification
• MDX Query Builder
• Support for Local XML File Data Source
• Support for CSV File as a Data Source
• Support for Endeca as a Data Source
• Support for Private Data Sources
• Enhancements for Sample Data Usability

Regards,

Zafar Habib