Tips and Hints for Discoverer

Discoverer Plus

How to set up e-mail alerts of new data for users
Automatic e-mails are sent when a table is refreshed or modified

How to troubleshoot 'Cannot Login' or 'Communication protocol error' problems

How to set up drill out to a pre-formatted detail worksheet with supporting information
Useful tip on how drill out to a predefined target worksheet from a given row in a source worksheet.

How to change your database password in Discoverer 4 i

How to configure the Sun Java plug-in for use with Netscape on Solaris

How to return a random sampling of rows in Discoverer

How to save multiple .dis files on the filesystem to the database in batch
Useful when migrating a large number of filesystem workbook files into the database in one shot.

How to create a function that returns the week number for a given day

How to do year over year comparisons in Discoverer
For variance analysis, you can use the 'LAG' function in the database to allow you to compare measures year over year (i.e. Sales 1999 versus Sales 2000)

How to handle certain calculations which could generate a division by zero exception

How to zoom in or out of the worksheet
Permits a better view of your worksheet without having to change the font size

Discoverer Viewer

How to automatically login from Discoverer Viewer

How to connect to a specific EUL after single sign on (SSO) authentication

How to configure Discoverer Viewer to use a predefined help page for a specific worksheet
Useful for when you've developed supporting documentation for your reports and want to incorporate them as help files in Discoverer Viewer

How to define Discoverer Viewer as an external application in Oracle Portal in order to enable single sign on (SSO)
For 4 i . Discoverer 9.0.2 and higher support this feature already.

How to modify the query progress page update frequency in Discoverer Viewer
This document describes how to change the frequency at which the query progress page is refreshed.

How to improve Discoverer Viewer performance over a WAN
For 4 i . Shows you how to ensure that images are cached for better performance over a WAN which spans domains.

Discoverer Administrator

How to perform DML operations from Discoverer
Describes how to modify data using Discoverer via autonomous transactions

How to automate scheduled exports of data into various formats
Details the use of the Discoverer Desktop command line facility to automate schedule exports of data to HTML, Excel etc.

How to use date hierarchies in summary tables
Describes how date hierarchies can be automatically aggregated.

How to set up Oracle fine grained security for use with Discoverer
Details how to secure the EUL with the Oracle database fine grained security feature.

How to read flat files and Excel files as data sources into Discoverer
Makes use of the heterogenous data services feature of the Oracle database.

How to use Discoverer with the Oracle spatial option
Describes how to configure Discoverer and your schema.

How to replicate your Discoverer environment
Not to be confused with cloning, this details how to set up copies of the EUL which point to the same underlying tables.

How to separate LOV from drill to detail item classes
When you want to expose an item as a drill to detail target but not have an LOV associated with it, or vice versa.

Using Oracle Applications hierarchies in Discoverer
Describes how to incorporate some of the value based hierarchies used in Oracle Applications in Discoverer

Alternate Sort Items
Describes the configuration and use of this feature to set up sorts for items which should not be sorted alphabetically. For example, the days of the week are often sorted in chronological order, not alphabetical order.

What is EUL_TRUNC_DATE?
Details the use of this Discoverer function to manipulate your date format items

How to install Discoverer and the Oracle Database (of a different RSF version) onto the same Windows™ machine
Describes how to install Discoverer onto a machine with a more recent database version already installed than the RSF files that Discoverer depends on.

How to sort Business Areas alphabetically

How to set up column or row based security on Business Areas and folders

EUL sizing guidelines
Describes database space usage of the EUL

How to access nested table varray objects in Discoverer

How to insert the 'ALL' item into your list of values
The 'ALL' value in a parameter will allow users to run queries as if all values in the LOV had been selected.