OBIEE Hide the saved filter view link

In this article: http://oraclebiblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-to-hide-saved-filter-view-link.html John Andrzejek shows a way of doing this by editing a CSS file.

I prefer editing the viewmessages.xml.

Remove the text between the kmsgViewSavedFilterAnchorText tags. (you have to do this for every languages you use).

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Edit: Stijn found the orignal : http://obiee101.blogspot.com/2008/08/obiee-difference-between-two-rows.html

OBIEE Dashboard Default Controls

Want to remove this?

This is controlled by controlmessages.xml

{webmessage name="kmsgDashboardAlternateFormats"}

{span class="DashboardFormatLinks"}
{?xml:namespace prefix = sawm /}{sawm:param insert="1"}{/sawm:param}
{/span}

{span class="DashboardFormatLinks"}
{sawm:param insert="2"}{/sawm:param}
{/span}

{span class="DashboardFormatLinks"}
{sawm:param insert="3"}{/sawm:param}
{/span}

{/webmessage}

1 = refresh
2 = print
3 = Briefing

Just comment out it in your version controllemessages.xml in th CustomMessage folder.


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OBIEE not all change is good change

Recently I had to do some C work of a MoSCoW list on a 10.3.3.3 system. The customer wanted français on the dropdown list at the logon screen written as Français:

With the help of Christi@n I recovered from my brain freeze and started editing a copy of languagenames.xml in the general customMessages folder:

A quick reboot of the presentation server a the problem was fixed:

Well not really......As most students in the Netherlands I dropped my French classes ASAP in high school. My knowledge of the French language is restricted to "Papa fume un pipe dans le jardin..." (Dad smokes a pipe in the garden).

Thankfully one of the best names in the Dutch OBI community Stijn came to the rescue and prevented this "faux pas" :

In English language names are written with a capital, but not in French. Changing français to Français is actually incorrect, because it means something different.
To be more clear: français means French and un Français means a Frenchmen. This explains why some language names are written without a capital.

A quick conference with the customer reviled that the issue was raised by a Dutchmen who thought the French branches would be offended if there language wasn't starting with a Capital.

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OBIEE Answers Tab Headings

Recently I had to do some C work of a MoSCoW list on a 10.3.3.3 system. The customer will probably wait till the 11g release to do any major changes. One of the problems in 10.3.3.3 is that some of the translation of the system messages are real "BabbleFish" (which means they made a translation using Google). Here is an example in Dutch:

It should simple read "Criteria" which means the same in Dutch as English. The text can be found in searchmessages.xml. Copy the file to your customMessages directory in your language directory.

Use a good XML Editor to change kmsgSheetCriteria to "Criteria":

Reboot the Presentation server:

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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

OBIEE Portal customization part 1 "the portalbanner"

After customizing the log on log off screen (http://obiee101.blogspot.com/2008/09/obiee-making-custom-log-on-and-log-off.html) it's time to customise the portal:

Title:

Appearance: Browser {title} {/title}, content: ProductMessages.xml => kmsgProductPortal

Background:

Appearance: portalbanner.css => .Headline, content: background-image: url(bg_banner.jpg);

PortalLinks:

Appearance: portalbanner.css => .PortalLinks, .PortalLink:link, .PortalLink:visited, .PortalLink:hover , content: Portalnames.

Portalname:

Appearance: portalbanner.css => .PortalName

Welcome text:
Appearance: portalbanner.css => .WelcomeTextCell, Content: uimessages.xml => kmsgUIWelcome

Dashboard actions:

Appereance: portalbanner.css => .DashBarIconCell, .DashBarAlertCell, .DashBarProductCell, .DashBarActiveProductCell, .DashBarActionCell, Content: uimessages.xml => kmsgUIPortal, kmsgUIAnswers, kmsgUIProductsLink, kmsgUISettings, kmsgUILogoff

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This article was original written for the Ciber Knowledge Blog: http://knowledge.ciber.nl/weblog/?p=133

OBIEE making a custom Log On and Log Off screen

One of the first things a customer see when using OBIEE is the log on screen. So it’s important to make this a customer personal as possible. Most information on the web for this personalization is based on altering the bglogon.jpg.


Besides it possible being a copyright infringement, you run run the risk that you loose al your work on the next system upgrade. The content and appearance of the Log On and Log off screen is based on a couple of files which are highly customable. First of all make your own custom Style and Skin. (If you can’t remember how have a looke here). In the ..\OracleBI\web\app\res\sk_MyCompagny\b_mozilla_4 you will find logon.css which controls the look and feel. In the .LogonTable part you will find a reffence to the background image, you can change this to your own personal image:



(WOW: if you are on OC4J_BI be sure to keep all changes in sync with the files in ..\OracleBI\oc4j_bi\j2ee\home\applications\analytics\analytics\res\sk_MyCompagny\b_mozilla_4)

The rest of the screen is diffeded into 6 parts:



HeadLine:



Appereance: logon.css => .Headline, content: ProductMessages.xml => kmsgProductGeneral {Info on making your own customMessages can be found here}.

InfoText:

Appereance: logon.css => .InfoText, content: system generated.

Subtitle:



Appereance: logon.css => .Subtitle, content: logonmessages.xml => kmsgAuthenticateRemembermyIDandpassword

Logon Credentials



Appereance: logon.css => .PromptTable and .PromptCaption, content: logonmessages.xml => kmsgAuthenticateUser, kmsgAuthenticatePassword, kmsgAuthenticateLogOn

Select a language

Appereance: logon.css => .SAWLogonInput, content: logonmessages.xml => kmsgSelectALanguage (Note: the availble langauges are controlled by the instanceconfig.xml)

Copyright:


Appereace: logon.css => .Footer (font-size is overruled), content:productmessages.xml => kmsgProductGeneral, utilmessages.xml => kmsgNQuireLegalCopyright
Log Off Screen



Background: logon.css => .Logontable "background-image"

HeadLine:

Subtitle



Appereance: logon.css => .Headline, content: ProductMessages.xml => kmsgProductGeneral
Appereance: logon.css => .Subtitle, content: logonmessages.xml => kmsgAuthenticateSSOThankYouHaveLoggedOff, kmsgAuthenticateThankYouHaveLoggedOff, kmsgAuthenticateThankYouWereLoggedOffText

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This article was original written for the Ciber Knowledge Blog:
http://knowledge.ciber.nl/weblog/?p=132

OBIEE setting up customMessages folders

OBIEE allows you great flexibility in customizing the interaction with the end user, either in there native language or special systeem messages.
A big risk with these customisation it that you loose them on a systeem upgrade or restore if you edit them directly in the messagedatabase (MSGDB).
This is a XML style database found in ..:\OracleBI\web\msgdb. There are two kind off messages systemmessages, found in ..\OracleBI\web\msgdb\message and language specific messages found in ..\OracleBI\web\msgdb\l_{LanguageCode}\messages.
If you want to customize these messages you have to make some extra folders.
For the systemessages a folder called "customMessages" in the MSGDB root ( ..:\OracleBI\web\msgdb\customMessages).
For the language specific messages you have to create a "customMessages" in each language folder (..\OracleBI\web\msgdb\l_{LanguageCode}\cutomMessages). Copy the table you want to edit to this folder, and with a good XML editor, make your alterations. After a reboot of the presentation server the custommessages will be avialble.

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OBIEE Change the password

Found this one on the blog of Jose Troya (http://oracleintelligence.blogspot.com/2008/08/obiee-enable-users-to-change-passwords.html) It's in Spanish so I translated it into English.

If you don't a security model like LDAP in place, all the users and there passwords are stored in the repository. Wenn you want your users to be able to change there own password from there browers here is how you do it:

Step 1: Create a new entry in your customMessage.xml:

Be sure it's in your customMessage folder. You can cut and paste this message from the controlmessages.xml file found in the ..\OracleBI\web\msgdb\messages.
Restart the Oracle BI Server, Web server, and WWW services in that order.

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OBIEE Preventing Auto-Previewing of Results in Answers

If you are creating a new request it can be a pain in the ... wenn every time you add a column the whole query is exectued. Especially if you are working on a pivot view. This can be switched of by default (except for the tableview)
Yes, it's in the manual, Yes, there is a typo in the example......

Oracle Business Intelligence displays the results of the request when editing most views within Answers. If you prefer that the user explicitly ask to view
the results, you can create an XML message that specifies that auto-preview
should be disabled when new views are created. The user can still click the display results link to view the results when editing a view.

Here is my example.

In your customMessage Folder make a new XML entry called "PreventAutoPreview.XML" (or any other name you fancy). This folder is ussaly found under ..\OracleBI\web\msgdb\customMessages.

Add the following XML in the message:

! Save the file and restart the presentation server.

Now all the autopreview is switched off:

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