OBIEE11g Multi Skin and Style Deployment

Before you read any further, start with reading the Oracle white paper :

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi/customizing-oracle-biee-11g-176387.pdf

I don’t like doing any customisation within the weblogic server. First of all the paths are always long: d:\obiee11g\instances\instance1\bifoundation\OracleBIPresentationServicesComponent\coreapplication_obips1. Second, it’s very easy to loose you work when doing a reinstall….

Let’s start with create a new folder called OBIEE_LAF (OBIEE Look and Feel).

In this example i’m going to make 3 different Skins and Styles for 3 different companies (A, B and C). I made a copy from the original S_ & SK_blafp:

Keep the name lower case and without spaces!!

Next we have to tell the server that it is a application directory. Copy the WEB-INF folder from <<OBIEE_HOME>>\instances\instancen\bifoundation\OracleBIPresentationServicesComponent\coreapplication_obips1\analyticsRes to your LAF Folder:

Log in to the console > deployments and press the lock & edit button

Next press the install button:

Select the LAF folder:

Select install this deployment as a library

Deploy it to a bi server

Check I will make the deployment accessible from the following location:

Press Finish

Press activate changes

Check if it’s started:

Let’s check if it is reachable:

companya

companyb

companyc

Let’s tell the INSTANCECONFIG.XML what to do:

 

<!-- My Custom Stuff -->

<URL>
<CustomerResourcePhysicalPath>D:\OBIEE_LAF</CustomerResourcePhysicalPath>
<!-- CustomerResourcePhysicalPath is a tag that specifies the actual target directory name -->
<CustomerResourceVirtualPath>/OBIEE_LAF</CustomerResourceVirtualPath>
<!-- CustomerResourceVirtualPath provides the URLPrefix that will be added for sourcing all the files -->
<!-- If we don’t give this tag, BI EE will automatically add analyticsRes (System target directory) -->
</URL>
<UI>
<DefaultStyle>companya</DefaultStyle>
<!-- Without the S_ -->
<DefaultSkin>companya</DefaultSkin>
<!-- Without the SK_ -->
</UI>
</ServerInstance>

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OBIEE remove the whole portalbanner

Or how how to remove this in one go:

Add a textbox to your dashboard:

Add the following code:
[code]
<script type="text/javascript">
    var tds = document.getElementsByTagName('table');
    for (var td = 0; td < tds.length; td++) {
        if (tds[td].className != 'PortalBanner' && tds[td].className != 'PortalBottomTable' ) {
            continue;
        }
        if (tds[td].className == 'PortalBanner') {
        //alert (tds[td].className);
        var x = tds[td].parentNode;
        //alert (x.className);
        x.removeChild(tds[td]);}
        if (tds[td].className == 'PortalBottomTable') {
        //alert (tds[td].className);
        var x = tds[td].parentNode;
        //alert (x.className);
        x.removeChild(tds[td]);}
        }
</script>
[/code]

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Update:
Stijn showed an much simpler trick by using the GO URL: http://oraclebizint.wordpress.com/2007/11/01/oracle-bi-ee-101332-hiding-banner-in-dashboards-using-go-url/

Update2:
for OBIEE11Gr5 :

The formatting was screwed up replace 'PortalBanner' ==> 'HeaderTopBar'
'PortalBottomTable' ==> 'HeaderSecondBar ' (Including the space)

OBIEE Online Photoshop

Handy when you don't have a local photoshop at hand for customiztions:

http://www.smartsell.nl/index.php?option=com_wrapper&view=wrapper&Itemid=295

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OBIEE New portal banner

One of our customers wanted a new portal banner with there own logo:

After adding there logo to the banner we ran into the problem that there was a lot of space wasted because the logo was much smaller the the original Oracle one.

Turns out that there is an "opaque" hidden image controlling the "push" to the right. This controled by: {s_name}\portal\portallogo.gif. If you resize the width of this image you can get a much smaller "gap":

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OBIEE get Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar

Thanks to Christian I found one for Firefox: http://obiee101.blogspot.com/2009/04/obiee-get-firebug.html.
Turns out there is one for IE also:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloadS/details.aspx?familyid=E59C3964-672D-4511-BB3E-2D5E1DB91038&displaylang=en

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OBIEE "Greenbar" Customization

Green bar reporting is alternating the row background colour every odd and even row:

You can switch this on the report view:

The colour of the "Even" row is control by views.css:

" TABLE.ResultsTable TD.ECell"

The colour of the "Odd" rows is controlled by the default background-colour of the table:

But chancing this will also change the "normal" background-color of the cell.

You can avoid this by adding a extra "TABLE.ResultsTable TD.OCell" just below the TD.ECell in the views.ccs:

That way you can use both styles without them influencing each other:

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OBIEE Get the FireBug!

A tip I got from Christian: If you are playing around with CSS files get the FireBug for FireFox:

https://addons.mozilla.org/nl/firefox/addon/1843

It's a very handy tool to find which CSS class is controlling which part in your report.

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OBIEE Column headings

This post on OTN (http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=852758&tstart=15) triggered me to have closer look at the column headings possibilities

Lets start with a simple report (Sample Sales):

To alter the column heading go to Table View Properties:

In the Display Column & Table Headings you have five choices:

Only column headings:

As separate rows

This allows you to customize the column heading over two rows:

As Table.Column

As Table.Column (Where needed)

Doesn't seem to change anything at first glance, but works fine when you have two columns with the same name from different folders:

No column or table headings

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OBIEE Selecting SKIN and STYLE from URL

Sometimes you want to redirect a user to a different SKIN and or STYLE. One method is giving the SKIN/STYLE name in the login URL.

To enable this feature you first you have to define a parameterlist in Auth\UserIdPassword part of the instanceconfig.xml:

<Auth>
    <UserIdPassword enabled="true">
        <ParamList>
            <Param name="NQ_SESSION.STYLE" source="url" nameInSource="STL"/>
            <Param name="NQ_SESSION.SKIN" source="url" nameInSource="SKN"/>
        </ParamList>
    </UserIdPassword>
</Auth>

Restart the presentation server. Now add the SKIN and STYLE to the URL: http://vmobiee:9704/analytics/saw.dll?Dashboard&SKN=siebel77&STL=siebel77

{Remember to clear your browser cache first!}

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OBIEE replacing siebelbug.gif (Powered by Oracle)

Did you ever wanted to replace this: by this:
Or any other picture you can find.....

Make a copy of the productmessages.xml to it's customMessages folder. Edit the entry for kmsgPoweredByAnchor to the new picture. You will have to do this for every language.

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OBIEE Skin and Style Naming

Discovered today that you can't use underscores or in Skin and StyleNames.
so MyCompagny_SKIN_A and "MyCompagny SKIN A" are illegal . MyCompagnySKINA is allowed.

(yep, I know it's in the documentation........)

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OBIEE Portal customization part 2 "the portalcontent"

After the Login screen (http://obiee101.blogspot.com/2008/09/obiee-making-custom-log-on-and-log-off.html) and the portalbanner (http://obiee101.blogspot.com/2008/09/obiee-portal-customization-part-1.html) it's time for the portalcontent. Most of this screenpart is controlled by portalcontent.css.
Active Tab:


Appearance: portalcontent.css => .TabHiFont
Inactive Tab:
Appearance: portalcontent.css => a.TabDimFont
Space between tabs:

Appearance: portalcontent.css => .TabSep
Thickness of the bar below the tabs:

Appearance: portalcontent.css => .TabLineTable
Tab Background image's

Appearance: .TabHiCell, .TabHiSep, .TabDimCell, .TabDimSep
Minibuttons:

Appearance: portalcontent.css => .minibuttonOn
Dashboard Sections:



Of course this posting doesn't include all possible CSS settings but it gives you a good starting point.

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This article was original written for the Ciber Knowledge Blog:

http://knowledge.ciber.nl/weblog/?p=137