Dashboard Reporting: Design Tips

and Tricks
Melinda Rojo
Kathy Kimball

December 5, 2008 1
Session Overview

OBIEE offers a rich array of “widgets” for

use in designing and developing
dashboards, from dashboard prompts to
view selectors to column selectors. This
session will share the tips and tricks we’ve
discovered on how best to use the powerful
capabilities.

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Session Topics
■ Overall Design Tips & Tricks
■ Dashboard Tips & Tricks
■ Answers Tips & Tricks
■ Dashboard Terminology
■ Usage Tracking
■ Resources

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Overall Design Tips & Tricks
■ Develop and implement standards for both
dashboards and requests
■ Summarize and then drill to detail
■ Make prototypes
■ Make use of visual indicators where appropriate and
useful
■ Reuse! Reuse! Reuse!
– Prompts
– Requests
– Filters
■ Document requests and filters to facilitate reuse and
maintenance

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Dashboard Tips & Tricks
■ Prompts
■ Section Properties
■ Request Properties
■ Saved Selections
■ Branding
■ Download Options
■ Printing

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Dashboard Prompts
■ Use prompts to filter results on either an
entire Dashboard or the current
Dashboard page

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Dashboard Prompts
■ Tips & Tricks
– Select from many operators available
– Use SQL Results to set choices shown
– Use Server Variables to set defaults
– Set Presentation Variables
– Use constrain
– Use multiple prompts
■ Example
– Only show departments and funds that a user is
interested in. But still allow them to search on any.

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Dashboard Prompts

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Dashboard Section Properties
■ Guided Navigation
– Can guide users to a related set of results either by
static or conditional links
■ Drill in Place
– Shows the new results directly in the dashboard
rather than replacing the entire
dashboard page
■ Arrange Horizontally
– Displays all requests in this section
horizontally

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Dashboard Report Properties
■ Show View
– Option shows available views
of a report
– Default is Compound Layout
■ Report Links
– Option controls links displayed
under reports

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Dashboard Saved Selections
■ Use saved selections to allow users to view
dashboard pages with the their most
frequently used choices
■ Applies to many aspects of a dashboard page
– Filters
– Prompts
– View selections
■ Stored on BI Server Web Catalog in
/root/users/username/_selections

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Dashboard Saved Selections
■ Tips & Tricks
– Add a button to all dashboard pages
allowing users to clear their selections

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Dashboard Branding
■ OBIEE can be customized to your
institution using styles, skins, and
custom images
■ Tips & Tricks
– Name your dashboard (bg_banner.jpg)
http://obiee101.blogspot.com/2008/09/obiee-portal-customization-part-1.html

– Change “Powered by Oracle” on page

footer (siebelbug.gif)
http://obiee101.blogspot.com/2008/10/obiee-replacing-siebelbuggif-powered-by.html

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Dashboard Download Options
■ Download to Excel and
Download to Excel 2000
behave a little differently
depending on the platform
and browser used
■ We recommend Mac users
use the Firefox browser and
the Excel 2000 link
■ Excel and Excel 2000 file
format is really *.mht; *mhtml
though the extension is .xls
■ You’ll want to save the file as
a Microsoft Excel Workbook
before editing the file

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Download to Excel or Excel 2000
■ Formulas are not downloaded.  The value in a cell is downloaded as that value, not as a
formula. 
■ Monetary columns download as numbers.  Values with commas are formatted as numbers
and retain formatting that was displayed on the Dashboard, i.e., if two decimal places are
shown then those appear in Excel.
■ Monetary columns without a comma are formatted as general, which is a number but with no
specific number format.  The value does not change but decimal places are suppressed if
zeros appear to the right of the decimal place.
■ Columns that are numeric and contain values with leading zeros lose the leading zeros
when downloaded to Excel.

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Conditional Formatting Indicators
■ We’ve had inconsistent results using
conditional formatting indicators such as a flag
or bubble and the image may move when the
rows are sorted
■ Conditional formatting indicators appear as a
broken images when Download to Excel 2000
is used in both Firefox and IE 7 on
Windows/PC
■ No testing has been done on Macs yet

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Download to Data
■ Download to Data creates a CSV (Comma
Separated Values) file, which includes all of
the columns included in the Answers request
(not just the view displayed on the screen) 
■ Formatting from the screen will not be carried
over to the file
■ Additional download results have been
documented on our website: http://
polydata.calpoly.edu/dashboards/faqs.html

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Dashboard Printing
■ PDF or HTML of
displayed view
■ Headers or Footers
appear in PDF if
added to the
Compound Layout

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Headers and Footers
■ Cal Poly footer includes:
– Saved Name (name of the
request)
– Print Date
– Page Number
– Author Name (person
running the dashboard
request)

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Answers Tips & Tricks
■ Column Selector View
■ View Selector View
■ Narrative View
■ Compound Layout
■ Saved Filters
■ Saved Data Formats
■ Value Interaction (Navigation)

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Column Selector View
■ Use column selectors view to allow
users to dynamically change which
columns appear in a request

December 5, 2008 21
Column Selector View
■ Tips & Tricks
– Standardize on label text such as “Show Column:”
– Color code column selector to make visible to end users
– Standardize on “common” columns and sort in same order on
all requests
» Used Advanced Tab to edit XML and copy/paste
– Include all members of hierarchies in column selectors so
they can “jump” to level
– Add column selector to a hidden field on a Pivot to sort
results (otherwise only available on table view)
– Uncheck “automatically refresh when a new column is
selected” so users have GO button

December 5, 2008 22
View Selectors View
■ Use view selector view to select a
specific view of the results from among
the saved views

December 5, 2008 23
View Selectors
■ Tips & Tricks
– Standardize on label text such as “Select a
View:”
– Create view to display filters
– Create view with instructions before
displaying data
– Create view to easily download data

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Narrative View
■ Use narrative view to combine text with
the results of a request
■ Useful for referencing variables

December 5, 2008 25
Compound Layout View
■ Use compound layout view to assemble
different views for display on a dashboard
■ Tips & Tricks
– Remove the Title view
– Know your boundaries (upper, lower, left, right)
» View Boundaries
» Report Boundaries
– Use multiple compound layouts for requests with
multiple layouts but the same criteria

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Compound Layout

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Saved Filters
■ Use saved filters so they may be shared
with multiple requests
■ Document shared filters in a flow chart
to show dependencies on specific saved
filters

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Saved Filters
PolyData Dashboards: Finance

Revenue and Expense Summary

by Period - Budget Transactions – Budget My Budget
Source: Fact Budget, Filters: 7 Transactions Page
Revenue and Expense Source: Fact Summary, Filters: 5, 6

Summary
Source: Fact Summary, Filters: 4, 5 Revenue and Expense Summary
My Revenue and by Period - Encumbrance Transactions – Encumbrance
Source: Fact Encumbrance, Filters: 7 My PO
Expense Page Source: Fact Summary, Filters: 5, 6 Transactions Page

Activity Summary by Year Revenue and Expense Summary

Source: Fact Summary, Filters: 4, 5a, 11 Transactions – Actuals My Revenue and
by Period – Actuals Source: Fact Actual, Filters: 7
Source: Fact Summary, Filters: 5, 6 Expense Transactions Page
My Projects Page

Project Summary
Source: Fact Summary, Filters: 12, 13

My Trial
Balance Page
Trial Balance Summary Transactions – Trial Balance
Trial Balance by Period
My Trial Balance
Transactions Page
Source: Fact Summary, Filters: 8, 9
Source: Fact Summary, Filters: 8, 9, 10 Source: Fact Actual, Filters: 7, 8

My Open
POs Page
Open PO Summary Open PO Detail
Source: Fact Encumbrance, Filters: 1, 3 Source: Fact Encumbrance, Filters: 1, 2, 3

Filters Legend:
1: Encumbrances Criteria
2: Encumbrances Drill
3: Encumbrances Prompt
4: Revenue and Expense Criteria
5: Revenue and Expense Prompt
5a: Revenue and Expense Prompt without FY
6: Revenue and Expense Summary by Period
7: Transactions Prompt
8: Trial Balance Criteria
9: Trial Balance Prompt
10: Trial Balance Summary by Period
11. Five Years Back Prompt
12. Projects Criteria
13. Projects Prompt

VisioDocument Rev. 12/3/2008

December 5, 2008 29
Saved Filters
■ Tips & Tricks
– Create to match all columns in a dashboard
page prompt
– Create to match all columns in the criteria
– Create to match all columns in standard
column selectors
– Create to use for “development” while
building new requests
– Order of filters matters!

December 5, 2008 30
Saved Data Formats
■ Use saved data formats to apply, save, and
re-use column properties on Value Format
tab, Column Format tab, and Conditional
Format tabs
■ Scope of save can vary
– For a specific column
– As a system-wide default for this column
– As a system-wide default for this data type
■ Stored in an XML file in the Web Catalog in
the /root/system/metadata folder

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Saved Data Formats
■ Tips & Tricks
– Save the email
address field to
display system-
wide using mail-to
format
– Will display on all
requests using that
column

December 5, 2008 32
Value Interaction
■ Use value interaction to specify
what should happen when a user
clicks on a column heading or
column value
■ Allows users to navigate to
multiple requests or dashboards
– If multiple navigation paths, pop-up
window displays caption
■ Provides drill-to-detail capability

December 5, 2008 33
Value Interaction
■ Source Request
– Set Interaction
Type to Navigate
– Add Navigation
Target to an
Answers request
– Add caption (if
multiple targets)

December 5, 2008 34
Value Interaction
■ Target Request
– Use filter with operator of
‘Is Prompted’
– Include all possible
columns
» Columns in Pivot Axis
» Columns in Prompts
» Column Selectors
■ Column names must
match source request
EXACTLY

December 5, 2008 35
Dashboard Elements

December 5, 2008 36
Dashboard Terminology
■ Dashboard – content separated by Functional Areas
■ Dashboard Pages – one or more related requests
■ Dashboard Page Prompt – controls requests on dashboard page
■ Narrative text – allows static and variable text
■ Request – query
■ Hyperlinks - hierarchical drills, drill to detail options, and links to
related information
■ Filter – selection criteria for request
■ Column Selector – view different columns of data
■ View Selector – select different reports within the same request
■ Conditional formatting using green, yellow, red symbols
■ Presentation Catalog Folder – list of content related requests

December 5, 2008 37
Usage Tracking
■ OBIEE provides a usage tracking
system with the standard installation
■ Usage Tracking includes
– SQL statements to create tracking user and
tables/views
– RPD containing Usage Tracking models
– Web Catalog for Usage Tracking
dashboard

December 5, 2008 38
Usage Tracking
■ Installing the Usage Tracking components
includes:
– Creating a database user to host the Usage
Tracking objects
– Creating the Usage Tracking database objects
– Merging master RPD with Usage Tracking RPD
– Altering NQSConfig.ini to enable
– Importing Usage Tracking web catalog
components
■ Reference Blog for step-by-step instructions
http://obiee101.blogspot.com/2008/08/obiee-setting-up-usage-tracking.html

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Usage Tracking

December 5, 2008 40
Usage Tracking

December 5, 2008 41
Resources
■ Oracle Metalink 3.0
http://metalink3.oracle.com
■ Oracle Business Intelligence obiee-101
http://obiee101.blogspot.com
■ Business Intelligence – Oracle
http://oraclebizint.wordpress.com
■ FAQs for PolyData Dashboards
http://polydata.calpoly.edu/dashboards/faqs.html

December 5, 2008 42
Questions?

December 5, 2008 43
Contact
■ OBIEE Technical Conference:
http://polydata.calpoly.edu/dashboards/obiee_conf/index.html
■ Email: polydata@calpoly.edu

December 5, 2008 44