Reports and Analytics Pane Guideline Version 2.0.0.0

Overview

The Reports and Analytics pane is a Fusion component that provides shortcuts to analytic content.

It is an optional panel that resides in the Regional Area of a work area. The pane is pre-seeded with relevant reports and analytics for each individual work area. Application administrators and end users can add or remove reports and analytics from the pane.


Fig. 1 Reports and Analytic pane Reports and analytics related to a specific business flow are available from the Reports and Analytics pane of the transactional work area (reports and analytics that are part of the flow are directly embedded into the work area and task flows)

Note that the actual content is stored in Business Intelligence Presentation Catalog (BI Presentation Catalog) of Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) outside of Fusion Applications and then "mapped" to work areas. The same reports and analytics can be mapped to multiple work areas, or embedded into a task flow or a dashboard. Embedding reports and analytics into dashboards and flows is covered in the Analytics and Reporting FAQ. For this guideline it is important to keep in mind that analytic content is often shared, and changing it via Reports and Analytics pane in one place can affect its usage in the other places. See Editing and Creating: Scope and Context section below for details.

The Reports and Analytics pane can contain all types of analytic content including OBIEE (OTBI analysis and OBIA dashboards), BI Publisher reports, and Hyperion reports. (See Analytics and Reporting FAQ: What analytics technologies are available? for more information on different types of analytics).

Where relevant, the pane will contain user tools for creating and editing analytics.

In addition to Reports and Analytics pane, there is a dedicated Reports and Analytics work area accessible via Navigator menu that lists all analytic content available to the user across and on top of individual work areas.


Fig. 2 Reports and Analytics work area Reports and Analytics link of the Navigator menu brings users to Reports and Analytics work area where all the reports and analytics are available stand-alone
 
Contents
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Types of Analytics and Available Actions
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Because the Reports and Analytics pane contains different types of analytics, the available functionality is not the same for all items in the pane.
 
Analysis (OBIEE)
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OBIEE Analysis is a type of analytics that is optimized for interactive ad hoc analysis. User selects OBIEE Analysis to immediately view information and then fine-tune it by direct interaction in order to break information down in a different way, or filter it to a specific item, or select a different item to focus on. (See Analytic Display Guidelines: Interaction for more information on ad hoc analysis).


Fig. 3 Analysis (OBIEE) Actions Menu Users can choose to view the analysis, to edit (redesign), or to create custom

Viewing

Depending on the tabbing model of the work area, selecting "View" in OBIEE Analysis action menu will either launch the analysis in a new dynamic tab, or in a chromeless secondary browser window.


Fig. 4 Analysis (OBIEE) In this example, analysis is launched in a secondary browser window

Editing and Creating

Sometimes users will want to redesign the selected analysis or to create a new one.

Selecting "Edit" in the action menu will launch a step-by-step flow or train (also known as BI Composer) to edit the content and the display.


Fig. 5 Edit Flow (BI Composer) In this example, the flow is launched in a secondary browser window.

Selecting "Create" will first prompt the user to select a subject area (e.g. Territory Forecasting or Cash Management) and then will launch a step-by-step flow to create a new analysis.


Fig. 6 Select Subject Area Which subject areas the user can see is based on the user's roles.

The shortcut to the newly created analysis will be automatically added to the Reports and Analytics pane of the work area for the given user. The flow will also prompt the user to select an area where the new or edited analysis will be actually stored in a file-like structure of the Business Intelligence Presentation Catalog.


Fig. 7 Create Flow (BI Composer) The “Save” step of Create and Edit flow prompts the user to select where the new or edited analysis shall be saved in the BI Presentation Catalog.

Most advanced users can choose to branch off the Fusion Applications and launch OBIEE for additional editing, creating, and file management functionality by selecting "More..." in the action menu (see BI Presentation Catalog and Analysis Editor (Answers) section below).

Scope and Context

Does the user edit and create analysis for him/herself or on behalf of the other users? Do changes apply to just this work area or across Fusion Applications? This will depend on user role and where the user chooses to store the analysis in BI Presentation Catalog. There is a special set of BI Duty roles that grant user access to the folders of BI Presentation Catalog. Most users will have access to My Folder area. This is where the majority of personalized analysis will be stored by default. Other users will have access to Shared Folders area. Saving the analysis in a shared folder makes this analysis available to all users who can access the folder. Read Mapping Reports and Analytics to a Work Area to see how administrators can make a shared report to show up in the Reports and Analytics pane for all users of a work area.

 
Report (BI Publisher)
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Fig. 8 Report (BIP) Actions Menu Users can choose to view the process history (and outputs) of the report, to schedule the reports to be processed, or, in some rare cases, to run the report without scheduling

BI Publisher reports are usually high-volume reports that can take a long time and lots of resources to run. To prevent the operations from being tied up, most of these reports cannot be run and opened immediately but have to be scheduled for processing on the background. The process can result in more than one output (for example, an expense report formatted as HTML and PDF documents). A report can be scheduled for processing periodically (for example, a weekly sales forecast). A report can also be scheduled for processing with different parameter settings (for example, an expense summary for each business unit).

Note that BI Publisher supports the following output types: RTF, PDF, HTML, Excel, PowerPoint, Flash, MHTML, CSV, XML and Interactive (DHTML). BI Publisher accessibility support is for HTML output only.

Scheduling

There are two ways to schedule a BIP report – via BIP scheduling or Concurrent Processing. The benefit of scheduling the report via Concurrent Processing is that the user can manage the scheduling process and outputs via the common Fusion Concurrent Processing interfaces . The drawback is that the report needs to be "registered" with Concurrent Processing to take advantage of its capabilities. Registering the reports is a developer task, and therefore the reports created by customers may not be registered with Concurrent Processing. It is a development decision to register pre-seeded reports that ship with Fusion with Concurrent Processing.

For reports that are not registered with Concurrent Processing, selecting "Schedule" in the BIP report action menu will launch BIP scheduling interface in a secondary browser window.

For reports that are registered with Concurrent Processing, selecting "Schedule" in the BIP report action menu will launch Concurrent Processing scheduling dialog.


Fig. 9 BIP Scheduling BIP Scheduling interface always launches in a secondary browser window


Fig. 10 Concurrent Processing Scheduling Dialog Concurrent Processing Scheduling and BIP Scheduling interfaces have a common look and feel


Fig. 11 Concurrent Process Management Concurrent processing provides a common framework for managing scheduled processes

History

Selecting "History" in the BIP report action menu will launch BIP job history interface that lists all processes completed for this report. (Note that in BIP interfaces processes are called "jobs" ). Selecting a process from the list will launch BIP process details interface that lists all outputs for this process. Finally, selecting an output from the list launches the output for viewing. For example, if user's goal is to view the latest weekly sales forecast for her business unit, she needs to select history of "Weekly Sales Forecast" report in the Reports and Analytics pane, drill onto the most recent process for her business unit, and then select the desired output format.


Fig. 12 Step 1: BIP Report Job History Lists all processes completed for this report


Fig. 13 Step 2: BIP Job Output Lists all outputs of a process


Fig. 14 Step 3: BIP Output This is when the user gets to see the information

Run

In some rare cases, administrators are allowed to by-pass scheduling and run the report immediately. To do that, an administrator needs to select "Run" of the report's action menu. By-passing the scheduling can also be enabled for end users for low-volume reports. However for most users and most reports this action will not be available. The option to by-pass scheduling needs to be set up in BI Publisher.

 
Mapping Reports and Analytics to a Work Area
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End users can add or remove reports and analytics from the pane by selecting "Personalize" in the pane's toolbar. The personalization affects only this user and this work area.


Fig. 15 Reports and Analytics Pane Personalization Users can add or remove content from the pane

Administrators can map reports and analytics to a work area for all its users with "Map Reports to Work Areas" setup task flow.
 
BI Presentation Catalog and Analysis Editor (Answers)
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The Business Intelligence Presentation Catalog (BI Presentation Catalog) provides a repository of all reporting and analytic content supporting the Fusion Applications. Out of the box it contains the shipped reports and analytics as defined by Oracle Applications and Oracle BI development teams. Customers will also use the BI Presentation Catalog to store any custom reporting/analytics created on-site in support of the Fusion Applications.

It is assumed that most Fusion users will have access to the Catalog. The users get access to the Catalog as soon as they have access to any report or analysis. Users navigate to the top of the Catalog by selecting "Catalog" action of the Reports and Analytics pane toolbar. "More..." action in the report or analysis menu provides a shortcut to the place in the Catalog containing this report or analysis. Users can also directly login to OBIEE without launching Fusion Applications.


Fig. 16 BI Presentation Catalog Home Page Users can access the Catalog from Reports and Analytics Pane

The interface to the Catalog is a part of Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE), a Fusion Middleware product. In essence, the Catalog is a file system that stores and manages analytic artifacts. This is were the users can delete reports and analytics; move it from folder to folder; create, delete or move the folders; and set up user access to folders and individual content.


Fig. 17 Inside of BI Catalog Inside of the Catalog analytic content is organized in a file-like structure

Selecting an analysis in the Catalog launches it with OBIEE Analysis Editor, a full featured ad-hoc analysis tool formerly known as Answers. Users can use Analysis Editor to interactively analyze information, or to redesign the analysis. The customers will use Analysis Editor to create their own analytics on-site.


Fig. 18Analysis Editor (formerly Answers) A full-featured ad-hoc analysis tool

It is expected that analytic experts might use BI Presentation Catalog and Analysis Editor interfaces while majority of Fusion Application users will use the Application suite's native reports and analytics features - Reports and Analytics pane, Reports and Analytics work area, and Create/Edit Analysis interface (BI Composer).