OBIEE11g Golden Rules: Report Building

First of al the original inspiration for these “Golden Rules” Series are based on the “20 GOLDEN RULES FOR REPOSITORY DESIGN” from the people at Peak Indicators. Kudos to them.

The series contains:

• RPD-Physical Layer
• RPD-Business Model Layer
• RPD-Presentation Layer
• Report Building
• Dashboard Building
• Catalog Management

The “rules” is this article are somewhat in random order.

- First column: TIME/CALENDAR

The first column you select for your report should always a column from your time or calendar dimension. Time is often the most consistent aggregation splitter. And most database use partitioning along a time-line.

- Dimension Order:

Try to maintain the same order of the dimension across all reports build on a single presentation layer. That way the use of aggregate tables and or query rewrite can be optimally provisioned.

- Move Complex Logic to the rpd:

If you have made a nice “fancy” formula which you probably need to use in a couple of reports, consider moving it to the rpd. That way you only have to maintain it in one place.

- Less is more 1!

If the user is only interested in the “bad” records, then only show hem/her the “bad” records. To make the user scroll trough hundreds of records looking for the ones you flagged with conditional formatting isn’t very efficient.

- Less is more 2!

If a report generates more then a hundred records, changes are big that the user is going to do “download to excel”. Check with the user if he needs the report in this form. Consider using different deliver methods (agents / Bip).

- Less is more 3!

If on opening the report the user already has to scroll or navigate to other pages try opening the report on a “higher”  level.

- Avoid multidimensionality on graphs:

If the human eye and brain need to pick up more then 1 dimension on graph it’s easily fooled.

- Check graph for “lost” data

2011 Paid amount is not visible…..

- Make sure the description is always entered:

A good description must be readable for a “noob”.See: http://obiee101.blogspot.com/2011/09/obiee-mandatory-description-field.html

- Give the report a sell by date!

Go back to the user every 6 to 9 months to see if the report still is required in it’s current version.

This is always a “work in progress” and please feel free to make any suggestions!

Till Next Time