OBIEE Tooltip Text in Column Heading

On the forums every now and then the question on how to achieve this:

comes along, and most of the time the conclusion is that it can’t be done without some serious JS hacking. Here is a workaround which takes a little bit less effort:
First create an extra column containing your ToolTip text and column header like:

'<div title="This text explains the contence of the column">1-01  Revenue  (Sum All)</div>'

Set the display format to HTML:

Put the result in a pivot table:

Till Next Time

Edit: Here is an even quicker method:
http://obieepractice.blogspot.com/2008/11/column-headerooltip-mouse-over.html

OBIEE LDAP Problems? Try this! (repost)

On my previous project, we had been facing a very strange LDAP-related issue for a while, which prevented us from upgrading to OBIEE 10.1.3.4. The problem was that upon doing an install of 10.1.3.4, users who accessed the server using an LDAP account could no longer log in. Even worse, when someone tried to log in using an LDAP account, the entire BI server would crash and would need to be restarted. Our BI server was hosted on a Red Hat Linux environment, so the resolution of this problem is OS-specific.
After going through many rounds of trying to figure this problem out, we filed a ticket with Oracle Support. About 3-4 weeks later our problem was solved - we needed to set the environment variable LD_PRELOAD. Apparently this was not being set after our attempted upgrades to 10.1.3.4.
LD_PRELOAD is a way of setting the priority of certain libraries, it loads the specified library first. This is called interposing libraries. Suppose you have an application that makes a call to some function that exists in multiple libraries. If you use LD_PRELOAD to load a particular library first, then the application will go to that library and use its functions, instead of some other library. LD_PRELOAD essentially replaces the functionality of another library.
So the actual problem was traced back to a possible symbol clash that occurs between libraries called by the application (OBIEE), and other 3rd party libraries. Our LDAP user logins are in the format of an email address, so it’s possible the mailto:%27@%27 symbol could causing the issue - I’m really not sure.
We ran the command:

export LD_PRELOAD=/path/to/libibmldap.so

Then we restarted the BI Server and Presentation services, and the problem went away!


This article was original posted on the Kevin C. oraclebi blog. See: http://obiee101.blogspot.com/2009/09/obiee-blog-lost.html


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OBIEE a blog lost….

Recently Kevin C. http://oraclebi.soundvoid.net/ mailed me that he is stopping his blogging activities for the time being and clearing his blog. He asked me if I wanted to “save” his most interesting OBIEE articles.
First of all I want to wish Kevin all the best for the future.
In the next days I will repost his OBIEE related articles under the normal labels and add a special KEVIN C tag.
Till Next Time

OBIEE ODBC Client

One of the features you get when doing an OBIEE install on windows is the ODBC Client application.

I never had any use for it until I saw some entries by Nicolas and @lex on some ‘secret’ procedures.

http://gerardnico.com/wiki/dat/obiee/presentation_service/obiee_nqs_drill

http://siebel-essentials.blogspot.com/2009/08/oracle-bi-server-nqs-procedures.html

It appears to by a demo/check tool to test your sql when developing a application which uses a ODBC connection to the BI-server. I couldn’t find any documentation, so tips pointers are welcome.

After starting the application you have to click:

File > Open Database to make a connection:

The usage of the database field is unclear for me at the moment.

From the utility menu you can directly test your BI-server sql:

From the View Schema you get an very unusable info of the catalog:

I couldn’t get the query list to work….

It seems this is a R&D/Q&D tool for the development team which somehow made it’s way into the production release. I you have some more info or usage- for it please let me know.

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OBIEE Patches 10341

Some interesting patches for 10341 are out:

8599681
Oracle BI Suite EE: Patch
DATE FORMAT ISSUE ON THE DASHBOARD PROMPT
8284585
Oracle BI Suite EE: Patch
NAVIGATION/DRILL DOES NOT WORK WHEN THE COLUMN BEING DRILLED IS IN POSITION 11+
8796912
Oracle BI Suite EE: Patch
DISCONNECTED DOESN'T WORK ON VISTA AS NON-ADMIN USER
8669206
Oracle BI Suite EE: Patch
FIREFOX 3.0 REFRESH FAILURE CAUSES UNEXPECTED BEHAVIOR IN DRILLING/VIEW SELECTOR
8743856
Oracle BI Suite EE: Patch
EXECUTION PLAN DOES NOT UPDATE LAST TASK AS COMPLETED
8685156
Oracle BI Suite EE: Patch
BLR BACKPORT OF BUG 8394579 ON TOP OF 10.1.3.4.1 (BLR #147542)
8650261
Oracle BI Suite EE: Patch
BLR BACKPORT OF BUG 8595693 ON TOP OF 10.1.3.4.1 (BLR #143831)
8685120
Oracle BI Suite EE: Patch
MLR BACKPORT FOR BASE BUGS 8680924 8674235 8608837 8567128

8633968
Oracle BI Suite EE: Patch
MLR BACKPORT FOR BASE BUGS 8331209 8371708 8372436

8616993
Oracle BI Suite EE: Patch
BI OFFICE PATCH
6702999
Oracle BI Suite EE: Patch
REPORT AGGREGATE - RANK HAS DIFFERENT BEHAVIOR VS RANK WITH AGGREGATE
8611209
Oracle BI Suite EE: Patch
MLR BACKPORT FOR BASE BUGS 8332167, 8290868, 8350962
8238481
Oracle BI Suite EE: Patch
NQSERROR14026 OCCURED IRREGULARLY
8439796
Oracle BI Suite EE: Patch
PRIVILEGE ERROR DISPLAYED ON SELECTION OF DELIVERS RECIPIENTS

Yes you need a metalink account to download them. No, I will not download them for you and redistribute them. Ask your local Oracle representative for support.

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Got the flu

For all of you waiting for an answer at the moment: I’m having flu at this moment: (“Dutch” style)

Please be patient or post urgent questions at the OTN forum: http://forums.oracle.com/forums/forum.jspa?forumID=378

EDIT: 19/09/2009 Sort of feeling better now, still got the sniffles. Thanks everybody for the wishes!

Till Next Time