1 Introducing Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Viewer

What is Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer?

Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer is an intuitive ad-hoc query, reporting, analysis, and Web publishing toolset that gives business users immediate access to information in databases.

Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer enables business users at all levels of the organization to make faster and more informed business decisions. Using any standard Web browser, you have secure and immediate access to data from both relational and multidimensional data sources. Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer provides a business view to hide the complexity of the underlying data structures, enabling you to focus on solving business problems.

Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer comprises a number of integrated components that work together with the Oracle database to give you a complete and integrated Business Intelligence solution.

Figure 1-1 The Discoverer BI toolset

Description of "Figure 1-1 The Discoverer BI toolset"

Which Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer component you use will depend on what you want to do. For example:

• if you want to create new worksheets and analyze data from both relational and multi-dimensional data sources across the Web, you will use Discoverer Plus (Relational and OLAP)

• if you want to create new worksheets and analyze data from relational data sources using a Windows application on a PC, you will use Discoverer Desktop

• if you want to analyze data in existing worksheets, you will use Discoverer Viewer or Discoverer portlets (that have been added to an Oracle Portal page using Discoverer Portlet Provider)

• if you want to display Discoverer worksheets as gauges in dashboard-style portals, you will use Discoverer Portlet Provider and Discoverer portlets

• if you want to manage the end user view of relational data, you will use Discoverer Administrator

The Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer components use definitions of Discoverer objects stored in the Discoverer End User Layer or the Discoverer Catalog.

Why use Discoverer Viewer?

Decision makers today need a business intelligence solution to track up-to-the-minute company information and key performance indicators. Part of Oracle Business Intelligence, OracleBI Discoverer Viewer is an intuitive ad hoc query, reporting and analysis tool that gives business users immediate access to information from data warehouses, datamarts and online transactional processing systems.

Using Discoverer Viewer, business users can easily turn data into information and publish it seamlessly throughout the enterprise using a familiar and intuitive user interface, the Web browser.

Reasons why you use Discoverer Viewer are as follows:

• "Easy-to-use Interface"

• "Consistency with Discoverer Plus and Discoverer Desktop"

• "Familiar Browser Facilities with Discoverer Viewer"

• "Database Security"

• "Integration and Customization"

• "JavaScript Enhanced User Interface"

• "National Language Support"

• "Publish to Oracle Portal"

What are the new features in Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Viewer 10g Release 2 (10.1.2)

Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Viewer 10g Release 2 (10.1.2) contains the following new and improved features:

• Native support of the database OLAP option - Discoverer Viewer now enables you to analyze multidimensional databases.

• Single Sign-on support for VPDs - Single Sign-On IDs (if used) are propagated to the Virtual Private Database policy being used (for more information, see the Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Configuration Guide).

• Email support - Send a worksheet as an attachment to an email message (for more information, see "How to send Discoverer worksheets in an email").

• Save to database - Save worksheets to the database (for more information, see "How to save worksheets").

• Customization - Customize Viewer's look and feel and layout using Oracle Application Server Control (for more information, see the Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Configuration Guide.

• Enhanced drilling - Drill to related data, and drill directly into graph data to display other Discoverer worksheets or Internet URLs (for more information, see "About drilling in Discoverer Viewer").

• Enhanced printing - Define advanced page setup, print preview, generate a sample, and print to PDF format (for more information, see "How to preview worksheets before printing" and "How to print worksheets").

• New export formats - Export to Excel Web Query (*.iqy) format to run queries in Microsoft Excel sheets, and export to PDF format (for more information, see "Exporting Discoverer worksheets").

• Enhanced worksheet formatting - Define conditional formatting and stoplight formatting (for more information, see "Using conditional formatting in Discoverer").

• Enhanced parameter handling - Search and select parameters from lists of values, include mandatory or optional parameters, use indexes and values (for more information, see "Using parameters in Discoverer Viewer").

• Enhanced graphing capability - New graph types, predefined graph styles, drill in graphs (for more information, see "Using graphs in Discoverer Viewer").

• Single Sign-On support for Oracle Applications users - Create and use private connections, and connect directly to an Oracle Applications environment using authenticated OracleAS Single Sign-On users (for more information, see "About starting Discoverer Viewer").

What are workbooks?

Workbooks are Discoverer files that contain worksheets displaying data retrieved from the database. If you are familiar with spreadsheet applications (e.g. Microsoft Excel), think of a workbook as a spreadsheet file. Discoverer workbooks are stored in the database (for relational data) or the Discoverer Catalog (for multidimensional data).

Workbooks typically contain data that is related in some way but organized to show different perspectives.

What are worksheets?

Worksheets contain the data that you want to analyze, together with a number of Discoverer components to help you analyze the data. For example, a worksheet can contain parameters, totals, percentages, exceptions, and calculations.

If you are familiar with spreadsheet applications (e.g. Microsoft Excel), think of a workbook as a spreadsheet file and worksheets as different sheets in that spreadsheet file.

About Discoverer worksheet types

In Discoverer you can display data in two different ways:

• in a table worksheet - see "About table worksheets"

• in a crosstab (i.e. cross-tabular) worksheet - see "About crosstab worksheets"

About table worksheets

A table worksheet lists data in rows and columns. The figure below shows an example table worksheet analyzing profit values for cities within a region.

Figure 1-2 A table worksheet

Description of "Figure 1-2 A table worksheet"

Note: The table worksheet style is only used for analyzing relational data.

About crosstab worksheets

A crosstab worksheet (short for cross-tabulated worksheet) relates two different sets of data and summarizes their interrelationship in terms of a third set of data. The figure below shows an example crosstab analyzing profit values for regions by department.

Figure 1-3 A crosstab worksheet

Description of "Figure 1-3 A crosstab worksheet "

Key to figure:
a. Top axis, containing the Region item.
b. Left axis, containing the Department item.
c. Data points, containing profit sum figures for each region in each department.

The region and department items are displayed as rows and columns on the crosstab. Each row and column intersection shows a data point, which in this case is the profit total for a particular region and a particular department.

What are the components of a cube?

A cube in a multidimensional data source has the following components:

• A measure, which is the name given to the data itself.

• One or more dimensions. Dimension is the name given to the parts of the cube that categorize the data, such as Product, Geography, and Time. Dimensions have dimension members, dimension hierarchies, and attributes.

The cube contains a measure value for each possible combination of the different dimensions. It is therefore very quick for applications such as Discoverer Plus OLAP to find the value for sales of a particular product in a particular city in a particular year.