OBIEE Scale markers

According to the documentation you can set a scale marker based on a column value.

[quote]Options for these values include a static value, a variable, a value
sourced from a column included in the request, or one derived from a SQL
query.
Advanced options enables you to dynamically set values based on
results of a
column, query, or presentation variable which is evaluated
while rendering the
chart as follows.[/quote]

It seems that if a query is very complex (5 union all and some dashboard prompts) you loose the column selector (undocumented feature?).

==>> After futher research I discovered that this feature seems to
be turned on or off based on the availble columntypes. If you make the column an aggragate (SUM,MIN,MAX etc) you can use it directly.... <<==

You can add the scale marker manually by first adding a static marker and then editing the XML directly by replacing the linePosition part:

(saw:linePosition>(saw:columnRef columnID="c59"/> (/saw:linePosition>

( Replace the ( with < )
where "c59" is the column you want to use as a scale marker.

OBIEE Duration between events

OBIEE doesn't have a default GANTT type chart type.





For a customer I developed a simple and crude alternative.
First I get the LAG column and a Dummy column which calculates the total duration in the selection so far:

Then a select a vertical bar graph in which I give the dummy column the same colour as the background:


I know it's crude, but it works, but any better suggestions are welcome.

OBIEE Default security groups for BI Publisher

If you are using OBIEE and BI Publisher side by side using shared security model (XDO), you wil need to create some default users groups:



These groups are used by the XMLP server:

• XMLP_ADMIN
• XMLP_DEVELOPER
• XMLP_SCHEDULER
• XMLP_ANALYZER_EXCEL
• XMLP_ANALYZER_ONLINE
• XMLP_TEMPLATE_DESINGER

If you are working with multi user repository development remember to assign the groups at least to one project, or the group will be lost at check in.

OBIEE Excel and slashes

Just a tip from my (time costly) experience when using the Excel plug-in. Try to avoid the '/' - forward slash (fi: costs / hr) in column names . Excel has sometimes trouble handling those columns if the column name is used in further (VBA) scripting. Basically it not a good idea to use any mathematical signs (+-/*^%#&) in a column name.

OBIEE empty presentation tables in a repository in a multi-user environment

If you check in a repository in a multi-user environment, you will notice that it doesn't accept empty presentation tables, which you might use for table indentation.

One solution is to using a dummy column:

To make it invisible for the other users you can make a special user HideColumn:


And set the persions only for this user:

This way OBIEE checks in and out without any problems.

OBIEE referencing session variables in report title

After spending way to much time figering out the exact lingo, I decided to blog them for futher reference:

• currentTime => @{system.currentTime}
• system.productVersion => @{system.productVersion}
• session.locale => @{session.locale} = en-gb
• session.language => @{session.language} = en
• rtl =>@{session.rtl} = false
• session.loginTime => @{session.loginTime}
• session.logoutTime =>@{session.logoutTime }
• session.lastAccessTime =>@{session.lastAccessTime}
• session.currentUser => @{session.currentUser.id} = administrator
• user.homeDirectory => @{user.homeDirectory} = /users/administrator
• user.id => @{user.id} = administrator
• user.displayName => @{user.displayName} = administrator