In the Web browser, enter the URL for OracleAS Portal. The URL looks like the one given below:

http://<Host name>:<Port>/pls/portal

On the home page, click the Login link (highlighted in the image below)

Log in to OracleAS Portal using the SSO user (bi_user here) credentials.

Note: Contact the portal administrator for the SSO user credentials.

The default page for this user is displayed. Click the Edit link to view the page in edit mode. The Graphical view of the portal page is displayed.

Note: The Default page can be set by the Portal administrator, by editing the SSO user profile. The page layout may slightly vary from the image shown here, based on how the portal administrator has created this page while doing the setup. A sample page is used in the screens, and also this OBE concentrates more on the steps for publishing Discoverer portlets, rather than designing portal pages.

Also, note that when you click the Edit link on the portal page, the Graphical view of the page is displayed. You can also edit the page from the Layout view of the page. A portion of the BI dashboard is shown below. Observe the options for Editing Views ( highlighted in the image):

Note that this page has already regions added for portlets. Click the add portlet icon in a desired region to add portlet to that region.

Note: The region to which the portlet will be added is highlighted in the image below:

Note: You can add regions to the left, right, below, or above a region. To do this, use the add region (Left, Right, Below , and Above) icons available for a region. Also, you can edit a region using this icon , and you can set the type of region to contain Portlets, or Items and so on. Observe the image below:

When you click the add portlet icon of a region, the Available Portlets page is displayed. On the Available Portlets page, click the link Portlet Staging Area. This will display a list of newly registered providers.

Click the link for the Discoverer Portlet Provider (named as Discoverer Provider in the image) that has been registered for you.
Note: Take the help of your Discoverer manager or portal administrator, for the name of the Discoverer Portlet Provider registered for you.

This will display the three types of portlets offered by Discoverer. Click the link for a Discoverer portlet to add it to the Selected Portlets list. In the screen shown below, a Discoverer List of Worksheets portlet has been selected to be added to the portal page.

Note: Similarly, you can add more regions, and different types of Discoverer portlets (such as Worksheet portlets, and Gauges portlets) in those regions depending on how you want to design the dashboard. The Layout view of the sample dashboard page after adding the Discoverer portlets is shown below. You can create a similar page by adding different types of Discoverer portlets following the steps listed in this topic.

Click the Edit Defaults icon or the Edit Defaults link on the List of Worksheets portlet (highlighted in the image) from the Graphical view of the page. This will invoke the Edit Portlet Defaults wizard.

In the first step of the Edit Portlet Defaults wizard, define the Database Connections to be used to display the data in the portlet. Select the public connection (bi_user is used here) created by the Discoverer manager for you as the Publisher's Connection.

Accept the default values for the Users Logged In and User Not Logged In sections, and click Next.

In the next step, select All Worksheets from Selected Workbooks from the Worksheet Selections drop-down list, and also select the option Allow the User to Change the Selected Workbooks (see the images below).

Note: You can also select to display only Specific Worksheets. Click the sign next to the workbook to see all the worksheets in a particular workbook, and select the desired ones. You can also focus on a particular workbook, to view the worksheets in that workbook, by clicking the focus icon next to the workbook name.

Select Sales &Profits by Time & Geography, and Sales&Profits by Time, Geography, & Channel workbooks from the list. Click Next.

This will display all the worksheets from the selected sample workbook in the List of Worksheets portlet.

The Portlet Options page of the wizard is displayed. In the Display Options section, enter Electronics and More Sales Worksheets as the Portlet Title, select the option Show All (to show all the worksheets), and deselect the check boxes Description and Creation Date not to display these columns in the list.

In the Analyze Options section, select the options Allow saving changes made in Viewer, and Launch Worksheet Viewer in a new window. Click Next.

Note: These options will enable you to open the worksheet in a new window when you click the Analyze link after the portlet is published, and will also allow the users to analyze, edit, and save the worksheets.

In the next step, from the Refresh Options page, select to refresh the portlet once every day and click Next.

Review Portlet Defaults in the next step, and click Finish.

Note: To change any of the options that you have selected, use the Back link.

Click the Refresh Page link in the portlet to display data. Note that the portlet may take some time to fetch the data.

The list of worksheets portlet is displayed as shown below:

Click the Edit Defaults icon or the Edit Defaults link on the worksheets portlet (highlighted in the image) from the Graphical view of the page. This will invoke the Edit Portlet Defaults wizard for the worksheet portlet.

In the first step of the Edit Portlet Defaults wizard, define the Database Connections to be used to display the data in the portlet. Select the public connection created by the Discoverer manager for you as the Publisher's Connection. Accept the default connections for the Users Logged In and User Not Logged In sections, and click Next.

In the next step, select the worksheet to be displayed. Expand the node for the Sales &Profits by Time & Geography workbook, and select the Profit Margins by Country worksheet. Click Next.

The Parameter Values page appears. The default value for the Region parameter (Americas) is displayed in the drop down list. Click the the search icon beside the drop-down list for the Country parameter (highlighted in the image below). This will display the list of countries in the Americas region.

Note: This step will be skipped if the worksheet selected does not contain any parameters.

Move Canada and United States Of America from the Available Values list to the Selected Values list by using the move icon . Click Select.

This will take you back to the Parameter Values page of the wizard. Note that the values that you selected for the parameters are reflected in this page. Select the option to Allow logged in users to customize parameter values. Click Next.

Note: This OBE does not concentrate on generic Discoverer portlet parameters. However, you can also map Discoverer worksheet parameters with generic Discoverer portlet parameters in the Page Parameter Mapping section. A generic Discoverer portlet parameter can be defined using OracleAS Portal, and can be used by multiple Discoverer portlets on the same portal page. For example, you might create two Discoverer Worksheet portlets in a page to display two different worksheets that both contain a Year parameter. You can map the Year parameter in both the worksheet portlets to the same generic portlet parameter. If a user selects 2001 as the value for year, both the Discoverer Worksheet portlets are updated to display the data for the year 2001. Observe the images shown below, to understand the behavior of these parameters:

This will take you to the Portlet Options page of the wizard. In the Display Options section, enter Profit Margins by Country as the Portlet Title, and select Both as the Portlet Content option, to display both crosstab and graph in the portlet. Also, deselect the options Title and Text Area of the worksheet not to display these in the portlet.
Note: Alternately, you can choose to display Title and Text Area of the worksheet too.

Observe the other Display Options to set the number of rows and columns to be displayed in the portlet .

You can also set Analyze Options, to allow the users perform further analysis using Discoverer Viewer. In the Analyze Options section of the Portlet Options page, select options to Allow user to analyze the worksheet in Viewer, Allow saving changes made in Viewer, and also to Launch Worksheet Viewer in a new window. Click Next.

In the next step, from the Refresh Options page, select to refresh the portlet once every day and click Next.

Review Portlet Defaults in the next step, and click Finish.

Note: To change any of the options that you have selected, use the Back link.

Click the Refresh Page link in the portlet to display data. Note that the portlet may take some time to fetch the data.

The worksheet portlet is displayed as shown below:

Note: Similarly, you can publish other worksheet data following these steps. Publish the Regional Sales and Profits by Year worksheet from the same workbook following the steps listed here. Similarly, you can also publish an OLAP worksheet Product Category Performance from the sample OLAP workbook Corporate Profitability using a public connection to the Scott's schema, where OLAP sample workbooks are installed. Check with the portal administrator for the name of public connection to the OLAP datasource.

Also, note that you can customize the look and feel of the worksheet data as well as the graph to suit your requirements. Customizing Discoverer portlets is covered later in this OBE.

Click the Edit Defaults icon or the Edit Defaults link on the List of Worksheets portlet (highlighted in the image) from the Graphical view of the page. This will invoke the Edit Portlet Defaults wizard.

In the first step of the wizard, define the Database Connections to be used to display the data in the portlet. Select the public connection created by the Discoverer manager for you as the Publisher's Connection. Accept the default connections for the Users Logged In and User Not Logged In sections, and click Next.

In the next step, select the worksheet for which you want to define the gauge(s). Expand the node for the Sales &Profits by Time & Geography workbook, and select the (crosstab) worksheet Regional Profit Margins. Click Next.

Note: Gauges can be defined for crosstabs only.

In this step, from the Gauge page of the wizard, define options for the gauge portlet. The crosstab that you selected to define gauge(s) is displayed in the Data Options section. Click the Hide Crosstab link to hide the crosstab, and display only the gauge in the portlet.

Note that only a portion of the Gauge page of the wizard is shown here.

Select Profit SUM as the Measure (drop-down list) from the Data for Gauge section.
Observe the components of a Gauge, depicted as an image in the Data for Gauge section (highlighted in the image below).

Also, select Column Items, and Row Items to be represented in the gauges portlet. Click this icon beside the Column Items , and move Sales Revenue SUM from the Available Values list to the Selected Values list. Click Apply. Observe the images shown below:

Similarly, select Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania as the Row Items.

Note: The number of gauges in the gauge set is determined by the number of row and column items selected (that is, number of gauges = number of row items X number of column items).

Also, select Default as the option from the Minimum Value and Maximum Value drop-down lists in the Range section.

Note: You can use one of the following options for defining the maximum and minimum values.

Default: Use this option when you want to go by the default values.
Map to measure: Use this option when you have two measures in the crosstab, and you want to select the second measure.
Specify: Use this option when you want all the gauges in the set to have the same maximum/minimum values.

Now specify the thresholds for gauges. Select the option to Enable Thresholds, and also select the option to define Two Thresholds. Select Specify from the drop-down lists for both Low Threshold and High Threshold to define these values. Enter 400000 as the value for Low Threshold and 1500000 as the value for High threshold. Take the help of the images shown here:

In the Display Options section, define the Gauge Width/Height as 200, select Arrow as the Indicator Type, and also select the option to Apply Threshold Colors to Arrow. Also, in the Customization section, select the options to Allow Users to Customize Data Options, and Allow User to Customize Display Options. Click Next.

See the image below to take a look at all the Gauge options that you selected:

The Portlet Options page of the wizard is displayed. In the Display Options section, enter Profits by Region as the Portlet Title. Deselect the check boxes for Title and Text Area, not to display these from the worksheet as the Portlet Content. Also, from the Analyze Options section, select Allow user to analyze worksheet in Viewer, and Launch Worksheet in a new window options. Click Next.

The Refresh Options page of the wizard is displayed. Select to refresh data once every day, and click Next.

Note: You can also change the First Refresh Time for the portlet, if you want to refresh the portlet at a specific time. By default, the system time is reflected in this field.

Review Portlet Defaults that you selected in all the steps, and click Finish.

You can also change these options, by using the Back link.

Click the Refresh Page link in the portlet to display data. Note that the portlet may take some time to fetch the data and display the gauges.

The gauges portlet that you have defined is displayed as shown below:

Note: You can customize to reduce the size of the gauges, so that they fit better in the portal page. Customization is covered in the next topic. You can publish some more gauges portlet following the steps given in this topic. Use the Sales Revenues by Year worksheet to create another gauges portlet, select the Sales Revenue SUM as the Measure as well as the Column Item, and years 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001 as the Row Items.

To customize the Discoverer List of Worksheets portlet (named Electronics and More Sales Worksheets), click the Customize link on the portlet. The Customize Portlet screen is displayed.

Note that the Update button is not shown in the Database Connections section. If you want to allow the end users to change the database connection, then you have to select one of the following options, while editing defaults for the portlet:
Display different data using the Publisher's connection: If the data striping is based on SSO user
Display different data by allowing users to customize database connection: If the data striping is based on database user
These options are highlighted in the image below, which displays a portion of the first step of Edit Portlet Defaults wizard. However, as mentioned earlier, this OBE concentrates on other customization aspects of Discoverer portlets.

Click Update in the List of Worksheets section. This will display the list of all workbooks available. Deselect the Sales & Profits by Time, Geography, & Channel checkbox, not to display this workbook in the list. Click Continue. This will take you back to the Customize Portlet screen.

Note: End users can change the list of workbooks to be displayed in the list, only if you have selected the Allow users to change selected workbooks option , while editing the defaults for the portlet.

In the Portlet Options section, click Update. This will display all the portlet options that you can customize. Change the Portlet Title to Electronics and More Sales Worksheets-Relational. Observe the other options. Click Continue.

In the Refresh Options section of the Customize Portlet screen, click the link Refresh Portlet Now, so that the portlet reflects the customizations that you have done. Click Apply.

After the customization, the list of worksheets portlet will appear as shown below:

Note: You can also click the Restore Default Customizations link on the Customize Portlet screen, if you do not want the customizations that you have done to be reflected in the portlet.

The first step for customizing any Discoverer portlet remains the same as that for list of worksheets portlet. Click the Customize link on the portlet to display the Customize Portlet screen for the Profit Margins by Country worksheet portlet that you have published before.

Click Update in the Parameters section, to customize parameter values for this worksheet portlet.

Note: End users will be allowed to perform parameter customizations, only if you have selected the Allow logged in users to customize parameter values option, while editing the defaults for the portlet.

The Parameter Values screen appears. Click the search icon beside Country parameter, and remove Canada from the Selected Values list, to see the data for United States of America only. Click Select. See the images below:

This will take you back to the Parameter Values screen. Click Continue.

Note: You can also select a different value for the Region parameter (such as Europe) and select the countries in Europe, for which you want to see the data.

Click Update in the Format section, to change the worksheet portlet formats. The Format page appears.

Click the Format link. Holding the Shift key down, click the bars below the column headers for Sales Revenue SUM, and Profit SUM to select these two columns, and click the bold icon , to make the values in both the columns appear in bold.

Similarly, you can change the number formats, change the background and font colors , and so on.

Click the Stoplight link on the Format page to apply stoplight formats to the data. Select Profit SUM from the Format drop-down list, enter 2100000 as the Unacceptable value, and 3200000 as the Desirable value to represent United States of America's profits. Click GO. Now, click Continue.

Now, to customize the graph in the portlet, click Update in the Graph section of the Customize Portlet screen.

The Graph Settings page appears. Click the Graph link. Set the graph Width and Height to 200, and click Go. Now, click Continue.

Note: Observe the options to change the graph type along with its subtype. Note that you can experiment and choose the graph type, which you think will look better on your dashboard.

Similarly, you can customize portlet options such as Portlet Title, Portlet Content ( whether to display Crosstab only, or Graph only , or Both, and so on). For customizing these options, you can click Update in the Portlet Options section. However, click Cancel , not to change the portlet options.

Note: The type of customizations chosen are highly dependant on an individual's choice, and it is advised to experiment with the various customization options. You can select the options according to your choice of look and feel for your dashboard.

Finally, Review Portlet Customizations , and click Apply on the Customize Portlet page, to apply the changes to the portlet.

The worksheet portlet will look like this after the customizations:

You can click Restore Default Customizations, to roll back all the customization options that you have selected.

In a similar fashion, you can customize other worksheet portlets published on the dashboard, according to your requirements.

Click the Customize link on the gauges portlet that you have published before ( Profits by Region). This displays the Edit Gauges Portlet screen. Click Update in the Gauge section.

This displays the Gauge page with all the customizable options for the gauges portlet. Go to the Display Options section, and set the Gauge Height/ Width to 150. Click Continue.

Observe the other options on the page, and retain them.

Note: You can experiment on customizing other options for the gauges, according your requirements.

This will take you back to the Customize Gauges Portlet page. Review the customizations selected, and click Apply. Now, the gauges portlet looks like this:

Click the Analyze link on the gauges portlet (Profits by Region) that you have published and customized before. This will open the corresponding worksheet in Discoverer Viewer.

Before opening the worksheet, you may be prompted for SSO user credentials. Provide the same SSO user credentials as you had provided before, for logging in to OracleAS Portal. Also, a query progress screen is shown, while the query is being run:

The worksheet is shown in Discoverer Viewer, so that you can further analyze this worksheet.

To make changes to the worksheet layout, perform these actions: click Layout. Click More from the Layout toolbar. In the Crosstab Layout page, select the Show Page Items option to display page items for the worksheet, and click Apply.

Now the worksheet displays the page item Year. Observe the sales and profits data for each year.

Note: After making the required changes, you can save the changes made to the worksheet by clicking the Save and return to Portal link (highlighted in the image). Alternately, you can click the Cancel and return to Portal link (highlighted in the image), so that the changes are not saved to the worksheet.

When you observe the data for all the years, you can see that Americas and Europe are doing consistently well in terms of sales revenues and profits. You can also note that the years1999, and 2000 have shown a downtrend in the profits, but profits started rising again in the year 2001.

In Discoverer Viewer, you can make more changes to the worksheet formats, graph, and so on. For more information about performing worksheet analysis using Discoverer Viewer, refer to the OBE on Discoverer Viewer. Also, you can refer to the OBE on Discoverer New Features.

Similarly, when you click the Analyze link for an OLAP worksheet, the worksheet is opened by using Discoverer Viewer. Note that, the sample OLAP worksheet Product Category Performance from the Corporate Profitability (OLAP) sample workbook is used here.

Observe the OLAP specific options such as Saved Selections, and Unlink layout (highlighted) in the image below:

Note: As the current version of OracleBI Discoverer supports OLAP datasources, now the portal pages can have Discoverer portlets rendered by OLAP datasources, as well as relational datasources on the same portal page. This gives BI analysts and executives who access the dashboards, greater flexibility for the analysis, and improved visibility of data.
Also, for more information on analyzing OLAP workbooks using Discoverer Viewer, refer to the lesson on Working with OLAP Workbooks.

Add different types of Discoverer portlets to the BI dashboard page

Publish Discoverer portlets by editing defaults

Customize the look and feel, and other options for Discoverer portlets