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Oracle9i Business Intelligence Beans

Release Notes

Version 9.0.3.2.1

August 2003

Oracle9i Business Intelligence Beans (hereinafter referred to as "BI Beans") is a set of standards-based JavaBeans™ that provides analysis-aware application building blocks designed for Oracle9i OLAP. Using Oracle9i JDeveloper and BI Beans, you can build web applications quickly and easily. These applications expose the advanced analytic features of the Oracle9i database to both casual information viewers and high-end users who require complete ad-hoc query and analysis functionality.

For installation instructions, see Oracle9i Business Intelligence Beans -- Installation Guide. To help you start working with BI Beans, consult the Help system (which includes links to tutorials) and the API reference. In addition, sample code is published on Oracle Technology Network to assist you in coding common application tasks.

Contents

What's New in 9.0.3.2
Certification and System Requirements
General Issues and Workarounds --

• Tutorials and samples
• J2SE 1.4 considerations
• Database considerations
• Presentations
• QueryBuilder and Queries
• Connections
• BI Beans Catalog
• JDeveloper
• Deployment
• Servlet applications
• Error messages
• Localization issues

What's New in 9.0.3.2

This document is an update to the release notes for BI Beans 9.0.3. Items that are new in this release are so marked throughout the document.

BI Beans 9.0.3.2 supports connections to Oracle9i Release 2 (9.2.0.3) and JDeveloper release 9.0.3.2. It also includes performance enhancements and bug fixes.

Certification and System Requirements

Design-time environment - Client tier

Design-time environment - Server tier

Runtime environment - Client tier

Runtime environment - Middle tier

Run time environment - Server tier

General Issues and Workarounds

This section describes general issues and workarounds for BI Beans.

Tutorials and samples

New -- When you install the sample database schema, you might get an error that says the SH account is locked. If you want to remove the SH metadata and use only the BIBDEMO metadata, then the DBA must unlock the account. If you do not want to remove the SH metadata, then you can ignore this error and allow the installation script to continue. BI Beans will then display both BIBDEMO and SH metadata from the database.

J2SE 1.4 considerations

BI Beans with J2SE 1.4 has known issues in the areas of keyboard and mouse navigation and of dialog focus, as well as other minor issues. These will be addressed in a later release of BI Beans.

Database considerations

• BI Beans no longer supports connecting to Oracle9i Release 2 with the 9.2.0.1.0A patch set. You must install the 9.2.0.2 (or later) patch set.
• BI Beans 9.0.3.2 supports 64-bit UNIX server instances. However, because of an OLAP bug, the executeCommand method of the BI Beans Connection instance will not work in BI Beans applications that connect to 64-bit server instances. To work around this problem, use the DBMS_AW PL/SQL package through a JDBC connection.
• If you install the BIBDEMO schema on Oracle9i Release 1, then you might see an error message that indicates that a call to cwm2_olap_metadata_refresh.mr_refresh failed. You can safely ignore this message. BIBDEMO will still be fully functional.
• The Oracle9i Release 2 database uses different versions of the OLAP API and JDBC libraries from those that work with Oracle9i Release 1. In the past, if you wanted to perform OLAP queries against Oracle9i Release 2, then you had to replace these libraries manually. The installation program now handles this for you. In addition, the switcholapver utility, which you can run in JDeveloper to switch between releases of the Oracle9i database, now handles both the OLAP API libraries (as it always has) and the JDBC libraries. Instructions for using this utility are in the Help topic "Switching Connections Between Release 9.0.1 and Release 9.2 of the Oracle9i Database."

Presentations

• New -- To ensure that frames in HTML presentations work as expected, you must configure the EventTarget of the BIConstants.PAGE_EVENT of the FindMember bean to target the frame that contains the presentation. For example, if the presentation frame is named pres_frame, then you would add the following code to the FindMember JSP page:
  <%@ page import="oracle.dss.thin.beans.BIConstants"%>
<%@ page import="oracle.dss.thin.beans.EventTargetImpl"%>
<%@ page import="oracle.dss.thin.beans.dataView.FindMember"%>
  

  Here is an example of the JSP page up to the end of the BIThinSession tag:

  </orabi:BIThinSession>
<%
FindMember f = (FindMember)pageContext.findAttribute("findMember");
EventTargetImpl target = (EventTargetImpl)f.getEventTarget(BIConstants.PAGE_EVENT);
target.setTargetFrame("pres_frame");
%>

• In Netscape 4.7, vertical alignment of crosstabs in HTML-client applications does not work on cells that have drill or graphics images.

QueryBuilder and Queries

• BI Beans does not support the interspersing of symmetric and asymmetric drill operations. That is, the AsymmetricDrilling property of a Query object should not be changed during that object's lifetime.
• In DataDirector, if you set the SuppressionState method to either DataDirector.ZERO_SUPPRESSION or DataDirector.NA_ZERO_SUPPRESSION, then the result is the same: both zeros and nulls are suppressed in the results.
• You cannot save a favorite that references both a calculation and another favorite. Attempting to do so results in a null pointer exception.

Connections

• Because of an OLAP bug, the executeCommand method of the BI Beans Connection instance will not work in BI Beans applications that connect to 64-bit UNIX server instances. To work around this problem, use the DBMS_AW PL/SQL package through a JDBC connection.
• After defining a new connection that you will use to access OLAP data, be sure to test it to verify that it is configured correctly. You can test connections two ways: in the BI Designer wizard, or in the BI Beans Settings dialog box, which you access by right-clicking a BI Designer in the JDeveloper System Navigator and choosing Settings from the drop-down menu.
• The getCause() method has been renamed to getBIRootCause().

BI Beans Catalog

• New -- Previous releases of the BI Beans Catalog did not correctly save presentations that have long dimension names. If you encountered this problem, then you can install the 9.0.3.2 release of the catalog to correct it. Alternatively, if you want to continue using an earlier version of the catalog, then you can use the following workaround. Copy the SQL*Plus® commands below into a script named bi_fixcolumnwidth.sql. You can then call this script with the @bi_fixcolumnwidth command.

alter table bism_objects modify comp_subtype1 varchar2(256);
alter table bism_objects modify comp_subtype2 varchar2(512);
alter table bism_objects modify comp_subtype3 varchar2(1333);

drop type bism_objects_table_t;
drop type bism_objects_table_new_t;

create or replace type bism_objects_obj_t as object
(
USER_VISIBLE varchar2(1),
OBJECT_TYPE_ID number(5),
VERSION number(6),
TIME_DATE_CREATED date,
TIME_DATE_MODIFIED date,
OBJECT_ID raw(16),
CONTAINER_ID raw(16),
FOLDER_ID raw(16),
CREATED_BY raw(16),
LAST_MODIFIED_BY raw(16),
OBJECT_NAME varchar2(1333),
TITLE varchar2(128),
APPLICATION varchar2(256),
DATABASE varchar2(256),
DESCRIPTION varchar2(1333),
KEYWORDS varchar2(1333),
XML clob,
APPLICATION_SUBTYPE1 varchar2(32) ,
COMP_SUBTYPE1 varchar2(256),
COMP_SUBTYPE2 varchar2(512) ,
COMP_SUBTYPE3 varchar2(1333)
);
/
create or replace type bism_objects_obj_new_t as object
(
USER_VISIBLE varchar2(1),
OBJECT_TYPE_ID number(5),
VERSION number(6),
TIME_DATE_CREATED date,
TIME_DATE_MODIFIED date,
OBJECT_ID raw(16),
CONTAINER_ID raw(16),
FOLDER_ID raw(16),
CREATED_BY VARCHAR2(64),
LAST_MODIFIED_BY VARCHAR2(64),
OBJECT_NAME varchar2(1333),
TITLE varchar2(128),
APPLICATION varchar2(256),
DATABASE varchar2(256),
DESCRIPTION varchar2(1333),
KEYWORDS varchar2(1333),
XML clob,
APPLICATION_SUBTYPE1 varchar2(32) ,
COMP_SUBTYPE1 varchar2(256),
COMP_SUBTYPE2 varchar2(512) ,
COMP_SUBTYPE3 varchar2(1333)
);

/
create or replace type bism_objects_table_t as table of bism_objects_obj_t;
/
create or replace type bism_objects_table_new_t as table of bism_objects_obj_new_t;
/

• New -- When you use JDeveloper to copy objects to the BI Beans Catalog, you specify the Catalog User in the first page of the Copy Objects to Remote Catalog wizard. This user must have WRITE (or higher) access to the runtime Catalog's root folder.
• Starting with this release, BI Beans no longer supports a BI Beans Catalog that was built with Oracle8i (8.1.7).
• In the installed Help, the topic "Installing and Configuring the BI Beans Catalog" contains several errors. However, on Oracle Technology Network there is a new standalone version of this topic (http://otn.oracle.com/products/bib/htdocs/installation/bi_installing_catalog.html), in which these errors have been corrected.
• In the section "Before You Begin," the second step for an existing catalog is necessary only if you are moving to a new instance of the database.
• In step 6 of Option 1 (Simple Installation), the name of the user whose password you enter should be SYSTEM.
• In the example of bi_export (in the section "Moving the Catalog to a New Database Instance"), the final switch should be -x rather than -s, as follows:
  bi_export -u BIBCAT -p BIBCAT -lu BIBCAT -j thin -h test-lap -po 1521 -sid hbr92 -x a catalogdump.xml
• When you apply privileges to a folder in the Explorer, they are not applied to any subfolders.
• When you import a folder into JDeveloper from a JDBC-stored BI Beans Catalog, the imported folder may not appear immediately in the System Navigator. This happens when the BI Designer node is expanded and no other objects have been created. To display the imported folder, right-click BIDesigner and select Refresh Contents.
• Although you can include characters that are not supported by the file system in objects that you save into the Oracle database implementation of the BI Beans Catalog, doing so causes problems when the objects are imported from the database into the local file system. The list of such characters includes: \ / : * ? < > |.
• If you encounter performance issues during the copying of objects to and from the BI Beans Catalog, then Oracle Corporation recommends that you use the Oracle9i OCI drivers instead of the thin JDBC drivers, as described in Oracle9i Business Intelligence Beans - Installation Guide.
• If a query that you save in BI Beans 9.0.3 includes a favorite that references a custom measure, then that query cannot be used with BI Beans 9.0.2.
• If a number format includes a locale-based ISO currency symbol, then that symbol will not be saved. When you load the view, the standard locale-based symbol (such as "$") will be displayed instead.
• In the BI Beans Catalog, if you want to save and restore objects whose names contain foreign characters, then you must ensure that the database character set supports the characters that are used in the object.
• If a folder in the BI Beans Catalog contains an OLAP Catalog object (that is, a metadata object from the OLAP Catalog), then if you save a BI Beans object with the same name into that same folder, you create a naming conflict. Although the new object is saved and the application compiles, when you run the application, the newly-saved object will not be loaded. You must either rename the object or remove it from the BI Beans Catalog. To do so, right-click the BI Designer in the JDeveloper System-Navigator and choose Browse Remote Catalog from the menu. Complete the fields in the Browse Remote Catalog dialog box and click OK. Select the object you want to rename or delete, then choose the appropriate action from the File menu.

JDeveloper

New -- In a uiXML application that begins with a login page, the "Exceptions only" setting, which specifies the logging level, is not respected at runtime. Instead, all output is shown, including TRACE messages. Runtime settings are stored in the BI Beans Configuration file and specified in the Run tab of the BI Beans Settings dialog box.

Deployment

• New -- Before you package a BI Beans application for deployment to Tomcat or JBoss, you must edit the application's web.xml file to add a leading forward slash (/) to the url-pattern element. The following example shows the servlet-mapping element in the application's web.xml file. The forward slash (shown with emphasis) has been added to the url-pattern:

  
  
  <servlet-mapping>
     <servlet-name>webapp</servlet-name>
     <url-pattern>/webapp</url-pattern>
  </servlet-mapping>

• To deploy a BI Beans application to the OC4J that is part of Oracle9i Application Server, you must first configure it as described in the technical note Setting Up a Separate OC4J Instance for a BI Beans Application. There are different versions of this note for Windows and for UNIX.
• If you are deploying to a standalone OC4J instance that you downloaded from Oracle Technology Network, then you must reconfigure OC4J as follows:
  
  1. Stop OC4J.
  2. Rename <oc4j_home>/jdbc/lib to <oc4j_home>/jdbc/lib.old.
  3. Create a new directory named <oc4j_home>/jdbc/lib.
  4. Copy the files listed below to the new directory that you created in the previous step. Copy the files from the machine where you installed JDeveloper and BI Beans, where they are in a directory named <jdev_home>/bibeans/jdbc/lib_92:
     classes12.jar
classes12dms.jar
nls_charset12.jar
     If your installation does not include <jdev_home>/bibeans/jdbc/lib_92, then you should reinstall.
  5. You can now start OC4J and deploy and run a BI Beans application.

  Note: The OC4J that is embedded in JDeveloper is upgraded to the correct version of the files when you install BI Beans.

• New -- The following are corrections to the technical note, Setting Up a Separate OC4J Instance for a BI Beans Application, which is available from the BI Beans product area on Oracle Technology Network (http://otn.oracle.com/docs/products/bib/content.html):
  
  
  • In step 6, note that the separator between paths is different on Windows (semi-colon) and UNIX (colon). For example, on Windows the value of -Djava.ext.dirs in the Java Options field would be ias_home\jdk\jre\lib\ext;new_oc4j_instance\jdbc, while on UNIX it would be ias_home/jdk/jre/lib/ext:new_oc4j_instance/jdbc.
  • Step 8 is incorrect. It should read as follows (for UNIX; on Windows, substitute backslashes):
    

    Configure the application general parameters. To do so, edit application.xml (in new_oc4j_instance/config) and comment out all the <library path> elements except the following:
    <library path = "../../home/lib">
<library path="../../home/jsp/lib/taglib"/>.

• Oracle Corporation supports deployment of BI Beans to BEA WebLogic Server 7.0 on Windows NT. For details, see Deploying Applications to BEA WebLogic Server, which is available on Oracle Technology Network.
• Java™ applet deployments are not supported for this release. However, you can use Java Web Start to deploy a BI Beans Java-client application, as shown in this outline:
  1. Configure your web server for Java Web Start, as described in the Java Web Start Developers Guide (http://java.sun.com/products/javawebstart/1.2/docs/developersguide.html).
  2. Use JDeveloper to deploy your Java-client application, as usual. In the deployment profile, you must:
     • Deploy the application as a JAR file.
     • Include the following libraries: BIBEANS Runtime, BC4J Runtime, and Oracle JDBC.
  3. You must sign the application JAR file. For more information, see (for Solaris) http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.1/docs/tooldocs/solaris/jarsigner.html or (for Windows) http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.1/docs/tooldocs/windows/jarsigner.html. You can also consult the following: http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/books/javaprogramming/jar/sign/signing.html.
  4. Generate the JNLP file (the configuration file for Java Web Start) for the application, then set all permissions for the <security> element.
  5. New -- Still in the JNLP file, set <j2se version> to 1.3. For example:
     
     <resources> <j2se version="1.3"/> <jar .../> </resources>

  Note: This step is necessary to work around a bug in Web Start with J2SE 1.4. If you must use J2SE 1.4, then you must also use JDK version 1.4.2, which fixes this bug.

  6. Copy the signed JAR file and the JNLP file to your web server.
  7. Create an HTML page that opens the JNLP file.

  Note: Because of a bug in the Oracle Java compiler, you must compile your application outside of JDeveloper, using Sun's JDK, to successfully deploy to Java Web Start.

• If you want your application to use the Oracle JDBC Thick (OCI) driver rather than the Oracle JDBC Thin (Pure Java) driver, which is the default, then you must edit the application configuration file. You can do this in either of two ways, as follows:
• In JDeveloper -- Right-click the application designer and choose Settings. Click the Run Setting tab, then click either New or Edit for the connection that you want to change and follow the wizard that appears. The driver type is part of the connection definition. You can specify a connection for either or both the Catalog and Data Source.
• By editing the application configuration file by hand -- Open the file and locate the PersistenceConnection element (for the BI Beans Catalog connection) and the OLAPConnection element (for the data connection). For either or both, change the value of JdbcDriverType to "oci".
• If you want to deploy your application manually, rather than use the standard JDeveloper deployment mechanism, then you must copy a number of BI Beans JAR files to your production server. For the list of required JAR files, right-click on your project and choose Project Settings. In the Project Settings dialog box, under Development, select Libraries. In the Available Libraries list, click BIBEANS Runtime and choose Edit. Click Edit for the Class Path field to display the Edit Class Path dialog box, which shows the list of required JAR files and their locations. Copy the JAR files to a directory that is under the classpath of your deployed application. You must also copy the runtime JAR files for BC4J to your production server. Similarly, runtime JAR files are required if you are deploying a JSP or uiXML-based application and if you are using OCI drivers for database connections.

Servlet applications

In a deployed servlet application running in Netscape Communicator 4.7x, resizing pages using the Explorer tree inside of frames does not produce any action. This situation happens only when Communicator's cache is full or set to 0. The end user should refresh the page to correct this problem.

Error messages

The documentation for the error message BIB-16626 refers to a file named olap_api_xx.zip. The file name should be olap_api_xx.jar. Documentation of BI Beans error messages is part of the Help system. To locate the topic, click Oracle Business Intelligence Beans in the Table of Contents, click BI Beans Reference, then double-click BI Beans Error Messages.

New Localization issues

• Non-Latin1 data in the generated servlet application is corrupted on export. To workaround the problem, include the exportCharacterEncoding parameter in web.xml on the project node. Use the IANA encoding name, such as UTF-8. For example: exportCharacterEncoding=UTF-8
• Non-Latin1 data in the generated JSP application is corrupted on export. To workaround the problem, set export encoding using the setExportCharacterEncoding method in the BIThinSession tag on the export page. For example:
  


<orabi:BIThinSession id="BIThinSession1" configuration="/Project1BIConfig1.xml"> <orabi:Presentation id="untitled1_Presentation1" location="Presentation1"/> <orabi:DialogLink id="untitled1_DialogLink1" presentationId="untitled1_Presentation1" />

targetPage="untitled2.jsp" targetToolId="untitled2_ExportOptions1" text="Export" />

%untitled1_Presentation1.setExportCharacterEncoding("UTF-8"):%>

<orabi:BIThinSession>

• Non-ASCII data cannot be opened or saved in a uiXML application.
• Non-Latin1 data in a uiXML application is corrupted on export. To work around this problem, modify biuixappn.java, where n is the unique number in the JDeveloper project. Add the following in the Analyze_preRendering() method: dataview.setExportCharacterEncoding("UTF-8")
  

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