Oracle BI Suite EE 10g R3: Build Repositories

Course Description

This course provides step-by-step procedures for building and verifying the three layers of an Oracle BI repository. Students begin by using the Oracle BI Server Administration Tool to construct a simple repository to address a fictitious company's business requirements. Students import schemas, design and build logical business models, and expose business models to users in Oracle BI Answers. In the process of constructing the repository, students learn how to build physical and logical joins, simple measures, and calculation measures. Students also learn how to validate their work by building queries and verifying query results using Oracle BI Answers and the query log. Students then extend the initial repository and learn how to model more complex business requirements, such as dimension hierarchies, multiple logical table sources, aggregate tables, partitions, and time series data. Students also learn how to implement OracleBI Server security, manage OracleBI Server cache, set up a multi-user development environment, and use Administration Tool wizards and utilities to manage, maintain, and enhance repositories. Finally, students are exposed to more advanced topics, such as implicit fact columns, bridge and helper tables, usage tracking, optimizing query performance, and multilingual environments. Learn To: Build, manage and maintain Oracle BI Administration Tool Build a dimensional business model to address business intelligence requirements Build and execute queries in Oracle BI Answers to test and verify a dimensional model Administer Oracle BI Server using Oracle BI Administration tool

Skills Gained

• Maintain and Enhance query performance by applying cache management techniques
• Build simple and calculated measures for a fact table
• Build the Physical, Business Model and Mapping, and Presentation layers of a repository
• Configure Oracle BI to support multilingual environments
• Connect third-party reporting tools to Oracle BI Server
• Create dimension hierarchies and level-based measures
• Enable usage tracking to track queries and database usage, and improve query performance
• Model aggregate tables to speed query processing
• Model partitions and fragments to improve application performance and usability
• Set up a multi-user development environment
• Set up query logging for testing and debugging
• Set up security to authenticate users and assign appropriate permissions and privileges
• Manage, Maintain and enhance repositories using administration tool wizards and utilities
• Run queries in BI Answers to test and validate a repository
• Create time series functions to support historical time comparison analysis
• Create variables to streamline administrative tasks and modify metadata content dynamically

Who Can Benefit

• Application Developers
• Business Analysts
• Business Intelligence Developer
• Data Modelers
• Data Warehouse Administrator
• Data Warehouse Analyst
• Data Warehouse Developer
• Reports Developer

Prerequisites

• Dimensional modeling
• Basic SQL
• Data warehouse design
• Database design

Syllabus

Repository Basics

• Oracle BI architecture components
• Repository structure, features, and functions
• Using the OracleBI Administration Tool
• Creating a repository
• Loading a repository into Oracle BI Server memory

Building the Physical Layer of a Repository

• Importing data sources
• Setting up connection pool properties
• Defining keys and joins
• Examining physical layer object properties
• Creating alias and select tables

Building the Business Model and Mapping Layer of a Repository

• Building a business model
• Building logical tables, columns, and sources
• Defining logical joins
• Building measures
• Examining business model object properties

Building the Presentation Layer of a Repository

• Exploring Presentation layer objects
• Creating Presentation layer objects
• Modifying Presentation layer objects
• Examining Presentation layer object properties

Testing and Validating a Repository

• Checking repository consistency
• Turning on logging
• Defining a repository in the initialization file
• Testing a repository using Oracle BI Answers
• Inspecting the query log

Adding Multiple Logical Table Sources

• Adding multiple logical table sources to a logical table
• Specifying logical content

Adding Calculations to a Fact Table

• Creating new calculation measures based on existing logical columns
• Creating new calculation measures based on physical columns
• Creating new calculation measures using the Calculation Wizard

Creating Dimension Hierarchies and Level-Based Measures

• Creating dimension hierarchies
• Creating level-based measures
• Creating share measures
• Creating rank measures

Using Aggregates

• Purpose of aggregate tables in dimensional modeling
• Modeling aggregate tables to improve query performance
• Testing aggregate navigation
• Using the Aggregate Persistence Wizard

Using Partitions and Fragments

• Purpose for segmenting data into partitions and fragments
• Partition types
• Modeling partitions in an Oracle BI repository

Using Repository Variables

• Session variables
• Repository variables
• Initialization blocks
• Using the Variable Manager
• Using dynamic repository variables as filters

Modeling Time Series Data

• Using time comparisons in business analysis
• Using Oracle BI time series functions to model time series data

Modeling Many-to-Many Relationships

• Using bridge tables to resolve many-to-many relationships between dimension tables and fact tables
• Using helper tables to model many-to-many relationships for team-based hierarchies in a dimension

Configuring Oracle Business Intelligence data and metadata to support multilingual environments

Setting an Implicit Fact Column

• Adding fact columns automatically to dimension-only queries
• Ensuring the expected results for dimension-only queries
• Selecting a predetermined fact table source
• Specifying a default join path between dimension tables

Integrating Third-Party Reporting Tools with Oracle BI Server

Creating Repositories Using Multidimensional Data Sources

• Adding a multidimensional data source an Oracle BI repository
• Displaying data from multidimensional sources in Oracle BI Answers requests and Oracle BI Interactive Dashboards

Security

• Creating users and groups
• Setting permissions for users and groups
• Authenticating using a external database
• Authenticating using database authentication
• Setting query limits and timing restrictions
• Setting filters to personalize information

Cache Management

• Restricting tables as non-cacheable
• Using Cache Manager
• Inspecting cache reports
• Purging cache entries
• Modifying cache parameters and options
• Seeding the cache

Setting Up and Administering Usage Tracking

• Tracking and storing Oracle BI Server usage at the detailed query level
• Using usage tracking statistics to optimize query performance and aggregation strategies
• Analyzing usage results using Oracle BI Answers and other reporting tools

Multi-user Development

• Setting up a multi-user development environment
• Developing a repository using multiple developers
• Tracking development project history

Using Administration Tool wizards and utilities to manage, maintain, and enhance repositories

• Employing techniques to optimize Oracle BI query performance
• Applying Oracle BI repository design principles