This lesson teaches you how to set up a BI Beans project and create business intelligence objects such as Calculations, Crosstabs, and Graphs, that serve as application components. These objects can be used in either BI Beans HTML-client or Java-client Class applications.
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Overview | |
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Prerequisites | |
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Set Up a BI Beans Project | |
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Create a Crosstab | |
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Create a Graph | |
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Summary | |
30 minutes
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JDeveloper provides wizards that facilitate the development of business intelligence objects, which are the building blocks of BI Beans analytic applications. The definitions of these objects are stored in the local BI Beans Catalog. The local catalog is automatically created in the development machine's file system.
Business intelligence object definitions can also be copied to a remote BI Beans Catalog. The remote catalog is defined in an Oracle database, which allows analyses to be shared within a user community.
Lesson Objectives
The specific goals of this lesson is are to:
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Guide you through the process of setting up a BI Beans project. | |
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Teach you how to create BI Beans objects such as Calculations, Crosstabs, and Graphs. | |
Data Model
For information on the data model used in the BI Beans OBE lessons, please see the Data Model page.
High Level Objectives
The general business requirements of the BI Beans OBE lessons are described in the Business Requirements page.
In order for this lesson to work successfully, you will need to have performed the following:
| 1. | Install Oracle Business Intelligence Beans by following the instructions in the Oracle Business Intelligence Tools Installation Guide.
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| 2. | Business Intelligence Beans provides a set of samples to help you learn how to use the product. These samples use the Oracle Common Schema analytic workspace as the sample data set. The BI Beans OBE lessons also use the Common Schema analytic workspace as the sample data set. Therefore, if the BI Beans samples have been installed, you should have access to the analytic workspace for the BI Beans OBE lessons. If the BI Beans samples have not been installed, refer to Installing the Common Schema for detailed instructions on how to install the Common Schema sample data set.
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To define the framework for BI Beans application development, you must set up your project. This includes creating three objects: a Workspace, a Project, and a BI Designer.
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A Workspace keeps track of the projects and environment settings that you use while developing your application. | |
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A Project is a container for the source files that are used to create applications. | |
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A BI Designer is used to aid in the visual development of business intelligence objects. | |
Follow these steps to set up the BI Beans Project:
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Create a New Workspace and Project | |
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Create the BI Designer | |
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Examine the BI Designer | |
Grouping your files by workspace and project enables you to manage your work logically and hierarchically.
To create a new JDeveloper workspace and project, you perform the following steps:
| 1. | Double-click on the Oracle10g JDeveloper icon on your desktop. The Oracle10g JDeveloper main window opens.
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| 2. | From the File menu, select New. The New Gallery Dialog box opens.
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| 3. | In the New Gallery dialog box, under Categories, select General; under Items, select Workspace and click OK.
The Create Workspace dialog box opens.
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| 4. | In the Create Workspace dialog box, specify BIWorkspace for the workspace file name. Accept the default workspace directory name and ensure that the Add a New Empty Project box is checked.
Click OK to open the Create Project dialog.
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| 5. | In the Create Project dialog box, accept the defaults and click OK.
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| 6. | From the File Menu, click Save All to save your work. Notice that the JDeveloper Applications-Navigator has been updated to display your new workspace and project.
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The BI Designer is used to aid in the visual development of your business intelligence objects. It also contains references to the information that is required for connecting to Oracle OLAP and to the BI Beans Catalog.
To create a new BI Designer, you use a wizard that prompts you for the following information:
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A BI Designer Name | |
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An Oracle OLAP data source that is the source of your business data | |
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A local folder where you save your business intelligence object definitions(crosstabs, graphs, calculation and queries) during development.. | |
Follow these steps to create a BI Designer.
| 1. | In the JDeveloper Applications-Navigator pane, select project Project1. From the File menu, click New. The New Gallery dialog opens.
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| 2. | In the New Gallery dialog box, under Categories, drill on the Business Intelligence Beans node and then select Business Tier for OLAP. Under Items, select Designer.
Click OK to launch the BI Designer Wizard. Then, click Next in the Welcome page.
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| 3. | In the BI Designer Object screen, you specify the name for your BI Designer object.
Accept the default name and click Next to continue.
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| 4. | In the OLAP Data Source screen, you specify the Oracle OLAP data source. Click New.
This launches the OLAP Connection wizard. Click Next in the Welcome page.
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| 5. | In Step1of the OLAP Connection wizard, you specify the connection name and type. Accept the default Connection name and type. Click Next to continue.
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| 6. | In Step 2, you specify the access username and password to your OLAP data source. Enter CS_OLAP as the username and CS_OLAP as the password. Leave the Role field blank and Deploy Password checkbox unchecked. Click Next to continue.
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| 7. | In Step 3, you specify the connection details for the database machine. Accept the default Thin driver, then enter the appropriate hostname, JDBC port 1521, and SID. Click Next.
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| 8. | In Step 4, click Test Connection. If the connection test is successful, then click Next to proceed. If not verify the details from the previous two steps.
Click Finish to complete the OLAP Connection wizard. In the BI Designer Wizard, click Next to continue.
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| 9. | In Step 3 of the BI Designer Wizard, you specify the location where you want to save your Business Intelligence objects (for example crosstab and graph definitions). Accept the default directory and click Next. If the wizard prompts you to create the specified directory, click Yes.
Review the summary and click Finish to complete the BI Designer Wizard.
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From the File Menu, click Save All to save your work.
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Notice that the JDeveloper Applications-Navigator has been updated to display the newly created BI Designer object, a BI Configuration file (Project1BIConfign.xml), and a Database Access Descriptor (DAD) file (Project1BIConfign.dad).
BI Designer also has a node called “Local Catalog,” which will contain the BI objects that you create during design.
The BI Designer object holds the settings for your design environment; the BI Configuration file holds the settings for your runtime environment. Initially, these settings are identical. The DAD file contains OLAP and Catalog connection settings.
To examine or modify the settings for a BI Designer, follow these steps:
| 1. | To change the settings for either the BI Designer or the BI Configuration file, right-click the BI Designer object or the BI Configuration file, and click Settings.
The BI Beans Settings dialog box opens. The BI Beans Setting dialog box consists of two tabs: Design Settings and Run Settings. The Design Settings lets you view and edit settings in your BI Designer object. The Run Settings lets you view and edit settings in your BI Configuration file.
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| 2. | To test the OLAP connection that will be used during design, select the Design Settings tab and click Test. To test the OLAP connection that will be used at runtime (if it is different from the design settings), select the Run Settings tab and click Test.
Click Cancel to close the BI Beans Settings dialog box.
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When you start using BI Beans, crosstabs and graphs are commonly the first kind of object that you learn to create. However, the first report that you will create in this lesson requires the creation of a calculation. Therefore, you will create a calculation first, and then use that calculation while developing your first presentation.
A calculation consists of existing data, functions and constant values that are combined in a formula to produce a new value. The calculation object can be used as any other measure in your data model.
In this topic, you learn how to:
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Create a Calculation | |
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Edit a Calculation | |
The Calculation Wizard enables you to create calculation objects. You perform the following steps to create a calculation:
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Name your calculation and select the calculation type. | |
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Select items and enter values to define your calculation. | |
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Select the location where you want to save your calculation. | |
Here, you create a calculation object named Sales Revenue Growth % that uses the Sales Revenue measure. After the calculation is created, you can use it throughout your BI Beans application to display calculated data in graphs and crosstabs.
| 1. | In the Applications-Navigator pane, right-click Project1BIDesigner1 and select New Calculation from the popup menu.
This starts the Calculation Wizard. Click Next in the Welcome page.
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| 2. | In Step 1 of the Calculation Wizard, enter Sales Revenue Growth % as the name the calculation. In this step, you also specify the calculation type. For Calculation type, open the Prior/Future Comparison folder and select Percent Difference from Prior Period . Click Next to continue.
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| 3. | The Percent Difference from Prior Period calculation type returns the percentage difference between the current value of a measure and the value of that measure from a prior period. In the Measure drop-down box, select More to display a list of all available measures. In the Select Measure dialog box, open the Electronics-KPIs folder, select the Sales Revenue for the measure.
Then click OK.
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| 4. | You can set the number format for the Sales Revenue Growth %. Click Options to open the Number format dialog box. Set the format to category Percent with 2 decimal places.
Click OK to continue.
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| 5. | In the From section, select Year Ago.
Click Next to continue.
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| 6. | Accept the defaults for the labels of your new calculation and the location where the calculation will be stored. Click Finish.
Notice that the Local Catalog node in the JDeveloper Applications-Navigator has been updated to display your new calculation. From the File menu, click Save All to save your work.
Note: To perform file management on objects in the Local Catalog, use options from the right-mouse menu. Never use Windows Explorer or any other file management utility to manage objects in the Local Catalog.
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You just created a new calculation using the calculation wizard. You can use this calculation in the same way as any other measure in any crosstab or graph that you create. You can also modify the calculation.
To edit the calculation, follow these steps:
| 1. | Right-click the calculation in the Applications-Navigator pane and select Edit from the menu.
The Edit Calculation dialog box opens. Here you can change the definition of the calculation.
Click Cancel to close the Edit Calculation dialog box.
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A crosstab enables you to view complex query results in user-friendly and formatted manner. It also allows you to navigate through the data by drilling, paging, pivoting, and so on. In addition, you can define cell-level formatting that is dependent on the data and/or dimension values for a cell.
You can create a crosstab using the Presentation wizard that can then be shared and used in BI Beans applications for reporting and analysis.
To create a crosstab, perform the following steps:
| 1. | In the Applications-Navigator pane, right-click Project1BIDesigner1 and select New Crosstab from the menu.
The Presentation Wizard is launched. Click Next in the Welcome page.
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| 2. | Notice that the Crosstab box is checked by default. You specify the presentation name and description that will be associated with the crosstab as follows:
Click Next to continue.
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| 3. | In Step 2, the wizard displays a list of available measures and dimensions that can be displayed in the crosstab. This list may include folders that were created by the database administrator when setting up Oracle OLAP. These folders organize measures of similar business use. In this case, the Computer Sales database schema has a folder called ‘Electronics-KPIs’. In the available list, expand Electronics-KPIs folder and select the measure Sales Revenue.
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| 4. | Use the Add Selected Items button (">") to move Sales Revenue to the Selected list. Notice that Sales and its related dimensions are moved to the Selected list because the Automatically add/remove dimensions checkbox is checked.
Bypass the remaining steps for customizing the crosstab and click Finish to create the crosstab. Once created, the crosstab should open automatically in the Presentation Editor. Later, you will learn how to customize this crosstab. Also, notice that your new crosstab object has been added to the Applications-Navigator under the Project1BIDesigner1 object.
In the next lesson, you will learn how to customize the crosstab.
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| 5. | From the File Menu, select Save All to save your work. Then choose File > Close to close the crosstab.
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Graphs present complex query results in an interactive manner allowing you to to explore the data by drilling or pivoting. There are 70+ graph types, with special customizers for formatting various graph components (layout, legend, series, axes).
To create a graph, follow these steps:
| 1. | In the Applications-Navigator pane, right-click Project1BIDesigner1 and click New Graph from the popup menu.
This launches the Presentation wizard. Click Next in the Welcome page.
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| 2. | Notice that the graph box is checked by default. Specify the presentation name, description, and the search keywords that you want to associate with the graph as follows:
Click Next to continue.
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| 3. | Now, you specify the graph type. You can experiment with other graph types and review the extensive subtypes that appear in the pane on the right.
Select Bar for both the Graph Type and Graph Subtype. Click Next to continue.
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| 4. | In the available list, expand Electronics-KPIs folder and select the measure Sales Revenue. Use the Add Selected Items button ("'>") to move Sales Revenue to the Selected list.
Bypass the remaining steps for customizing the graph. Click Finish to create a graph.
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| 5. | Now, you should see the new graph in a Presentation Editor as shown below. Also notice that your new graph object has been added to the Applications-Navigator under the Project1BIDesigner1 object.
In the next lesson, you will learn how to customize the graph.
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| 6. | From the File Menu, select Save All to save your work. Then choose File > Close to close the graph.
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In the first topic of the lesson, you looked at the basic steps that are required to create a workspace, a project and a BIDesigner. These objects act as containers for Java source files and for the BI Components that are used in the development of your application.
In the second topic, you created a new calculation using the calculation wizard.
The last two topics introduced the Presentation wizard that enables you to define data-aware crosstabs and graphs. In the next lesson, you will learn how to customize these objects.
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