Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
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Oracle Smart View:
This tool is separate from the Essbase add-in and in fact,
must be purchased as a separate component to be used with the Essbase suite
of applications. As will be discussed at great length in the
Appendix
, Smart
View is a dynamic data retrieval tool that allows the user to pull data directly
from an Essbase database into any of the Microsoft Office components. This
allows for the creation of Microsoft PowerPoint presentations that never need
data updating as fresh data can be retrieved in real time into the slides. The
same holds true for Microsoft Outlook emails and Microsoft Word documents.
Oh yes, and it also works with Microsoft Excel.
•
Essbase Query Designer:
This tool is a part of the Essbase add-in and
is a menu pick from the Essbase menu in Microsoft Excel. The Essbase
Query Designer tool allows you to create simple to complex Essbase
queries. This is accomplished through the use of an easy to use visual
query wizard. The saved query can be opened and retrieved in Microsoft
Excel to return your data.
•
Essbase Report Script:
The Essbase report script will be discussed in great
detail in the next section. An Essbase report script can be created from
scratch as an ASCII text file or conveniently, a report script can be created
by Essbase, as a by-product of the Query Designer function. Essbase
report scripts can be executed within a Microsoft Excel worksheet, Essbase
command script or MaxL script, or from an Essbase API call.
•
Essbase MDX Query Language:
Essbase MDX can be easily described as
a structured query language for multidimensional databases. MDX queries
for the most part use simple and easy to understand statements to extract
data from your Essbase database. MDX queries can be executed in much
the same manner as Essbase report scripts or MaxL scripts.
All of the above mentioned methods are used to report or extract the data that is in
your Essbase database or cube. Some of the above mentioned tools go beyond the
scope of the Microsoft Excel add-in and can be used by the other Microsoft Office
products as well like Oracle Smart View. The Essbase add-in is the most complete
tool in terms of functionality and ease of use. Included with the Essbase Add-in for
Microsoft Excel is the
Essbase Query Designer (EQD)
, which allows you to visually
design custom reports from Essbase. The downside to the EQD is that
the reports are only usable in Microsoft Excel.
The Essbase report script can be used to run reports from a batch program and
automatically send a morning report to key persons. While the formatting can be
orderly, the report is still an ASCII based report without the pretty colors or graphs.
And then there's MDX, which is a nice option, but the scripts do tend to require
a bit of maintenance. However, the resultant output is in a very usable format.
