OBIA Customizations-Types of Customization and Impacts

There are 6 types of customizations that will be implemented.  These customizations can be as simple as exposing already existing attributes in the DW to the Presentation Layer of OBI-EE.  They can also be as complex as creating new dimension, facts and external data sources. The new report creation is not in scope of the this discussion.

The following are the main extensions covered in this blog.

TYPE A- Simple Extensions and Adding Simple/Complex Logical Definition

The Data Warehouse has a vast amount of attributes within its data model.  However, not all this data is exposed to the repository and dashboards.  One of the simplest customizations is to expose the attribute top the Presentation Layer of OBI-EE.

Creating new logical definitions (simple-moderate-complex) based on physical/logical columns already exposed should also be included into the Type A category. Time Series Logical columns are an example of this type of customization.

Impact:

• Changes only in the OBI-EE repository in the Physical, Logical and Presentation Layer are needed.

TYPE B- Attribute Extensions

Adding attributes to existing dimensions and measures to existing facts.  The complexity of this customization depends on the SQL required to populate the attribute.  If the attribute is part of an existing table in an existing query then the inclusion is very simple.

Impact:

• Additional column(s) to the physical staging and target tables.
• Changing existing SDE source mapping to add the additional column(s) to the SQL query and the target table.
• Changing existing SIL target mapping to add the additional column(s) to the SQL extraction query to the target table.
• Changes required to the OBI-EE repository to add the column to the Physical and modeled through to the Business and Presentation Layers.

TYPE C- Additional Fact, Parent Child Hierarchies Table, Bridge Table

Adding new Facts, Parent Child Hierarchies (value hierarchies) or Bridge tables (a technique for modeling Many-to-Many relationships) will require new SDE mappings for extraction to the DW staging area and new SIL loading routines from the staging area to the DW

Impact:

• Additional physical tables created in the staging and DW areas.
• Add new SDE source mapping to populate the target staging table
• Add new SIL target mapping to populate the DW target table
• Import the new data objects to the OBI-EE repository and model the physical through to the Business and Presentation Layers.
• Optionally applying security filtering.
• Adding new SDE and SIL to the DAC dependency

TYPE D- Localization of Oracle Business Intelligence (Repository Metadata, Oracle BI Data or Report and Dashboard)

Localization of Oracle Business Intelligence requires three configurations i.e. localization of Oracle BI Repository Metadata, localization of Oracle BI Data and localization of Reports and Dashboards. These configurations require configuration file changes, creating metadata objects to support it which includes initialization block, externalize metadata objects etc , DW tables and routine to populate the language dependent data.

Impact:

• Additional translation tables/ Modification to existing columns in staging and DW areas.
• Add/Modify SDE source mapping to populate the target staging table.
• Add/Modify SIL target mapping to populate the DW target table.
• Session Variables and Configuration Settings and creation of supporting metadata objects
• Import the data objects to the OBI-EE repository and model the physical through to the Business and Presentation Layers.
• Adding new SDE and SIL to the DAC dependency if required

TYPE E- Fact Granularity Change

Add new Dimensions to an existing Fact requires changes to existing SDE and SIL mappings for the Fact table.  In addition, SDE and SIL mappings are required to implement new dimensions.

Impact:

• Additional physical dimension table created in the staging & DW areas.
• Additional key fields to staging and DW fact tables.
• Add new SDE source mapping to populate the new target staging table.
• Add new SIL target mapping to populate the DW target table.
• Changing existing SDE source mapping to add the additional keys staging fact table.
• Changing existing SIL target mapping to add the additional key column(s) to the DW target fact table.  Also, include the key lookup to the new dimension.
• Create SDE & SIL workflows.
• Create DAC tasks with required dependencies.
• Import the new data objects to the OBI-EE repository and model the physical through to the Business and Presentation Layers.
• Changes required to the OBI-EE repository to model new Physical model and modeled through to the Business and Presentation Layers.
• Optionally applying security filtering.

TYPE F- New Star Schema

New facts and some new dimensions integrated with existing dimensions.

Impact:

• Additional physical dimension and fact table(s) created in the staging & DW areas.
• For each new physical dimension table and fact table a new SDE source mapping to populate the new target staging tables.
• For each new physical dimension table and fact table a new SIL target mapping to populate the DW target table.
• Create SDE & SIL workflows
• Create DAC tasks with required dependencies.
• Import the new data objects to the OBI-EE repository and model the physical through to the Business and Presentation Layers.
• Optionally applying security filtering.

TYPE G- Additional Source Systems or Using Universal Adaptors

Adding a second home-grown or non-supported data source.  OOTB BI-Apps has one supported data source.  However, it is possible that you want to integrate other data sources into the Business Analytic Warehouse (BAW).  Additional sources can include simple spreadsheets to interlacing data into existing data models.

Interlacing is a method of loading data into the existing data model without matching & merging into the supported data source.  For example, there might be Purchase Orders from a different ERP system that you want to provide integrated reporting with eBS.  In this case you will need to integrate dimensional and fact data.

Another example is to use the universal adaptors to push the data into the BI Apps. The universal adaptors implementation lists following impacts.

Impact:

• Additional columns created for additional attributes in dimension and fact table(s) created in the staging & DW areas.
• Modify the universal adaptor SDE mapping &  SIL mappings to include additional attributes if any
• Create SDE workflow
• Create DAC tasks with required dependencies.
• Import the new columns data objects to the OBI-EE repository and model the physical through to the Business and Presentation Layers.

In the next blog of this series I would like to cover the naming conventions and development guidelines that should be followed when developing new attributes, tables, dimensions and facts in the Business Analytics Warehouse (BAW) and new/changed repository objects in the OBIEE repository.