Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Boolean functions, relationship functions, calculation operations, mathematical
functions, member set functions, range and financial functions, allocation func‐
tions, forecasting functions, statistical functions, and date and time functions.
Key business intelligence components that deliver information to business analysts
include:
Enterprise Reporting and Publishing (BI Publisher)
Template-based publishing solution that incorporates XML data extracts and pro‐
duces reports in various output formats including PDF, RTF, HTML, Excel, XML,
and eText. Report editors include popular desktop tools such as Adobe Acrobat and
Microsoft Word.
Ad hoc Query and Reporting
A thin client interactive tool used for generating ad hoc queries and analysis, it can
be used directly against relational databases and MOLAP data stores. Generated
reports can be posted to the dashboard or serve as input to BI Publisher.
Scorecard and Strategy Management
A highly visual environment used for defining KPIs and then creating and man‐
aging strategy maps, cause and effect diagrams, and custom views.
Interactive Dashboards
The dashboards are an interactive web-based collection of content provided by the
other BI components that can be highly customized. Guided navigation links can
be set up to guide business analysts to more relevant dashboard content depending
on the business situation. Briefing topics consisting of report decks can also be
defined using the dashboards.
Action Framework
The Action Framework enables invocation of workflows, Web Services, Java meth‐
ods, and other custom procedures in response to predefined business events
and/or data exceptions. An alerting engine can also capture and distribute notifi‐
cations.
Oracle BI Mobile
Access to the BI dashboards from popular mobile devices (e.g., running iOS) is
achievable with no reprogramming involved. As this topic was published, the most
popular form factor and device for accessing the dashboards was the Apple iPad.
Microsoft Office Integration
The BI Office plug-in enables the embedding of data from Interactive Dashboards,
Ad hoc Query and Reporting, BI Publisher, and the BI Server into Microsoft Word,
Excel, and PowerPoint.
Figure 10-4
illustrates a typical dashboard in the Oracle Business Intelligence tools.
