Integrating Obiee and Essbase

Integrating Essbase & OBIEE: The Future of Reporting and Analysis Jonathon Eastman, Director FDSM

Abstract 

If your company has a data warehouse or is thinking of building one, come to this presentation to learn how Oracle EPM System, Fusion Edition (including the products formerly known as Hyperion) helps drive value from your warehouse solution. Understand the benefit of Essbase and OBIEE+ and how they fit into your overall information delivery platform. Learn about how Essbase and the Oracle technologies combine to provide seamless integration between your applications, relational databases, and multi-dimensional databases. We’ll show how the OBIEE+ Reporting and Analysis components provide a single interface into any type of data source, combining data from your data warehouse and data marts into in nicely formatted reports, user friendly dashboards, and easy-to-use analytic screens. Join us for this informative session to learn the best way to build a warehouse for integration with Oracle EPM System, and how to get information out of your warehouse if you've already built one.

About WellPoint Our Brands

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Largest health insurer in the country. Fortune 42 company 33+ million members 37,000+ employees

About Me, Jonathon Eastman  

Jonathon Eastman, Director FDSM (Financial Data and Systems Management). Our department is basically CEE of EPM. ● Cross functional team of CPAs to technical experts. ● Our Team: Jerry Ursetti, Giovanni Marrufo, Daniel Greenleaf, Irene Cua Dy, Kelly Tien, and Robert Blair ● We manage system tools and processes critical for the forecasting and budgeting, internal management reporting, and external GAAP and Statutory Reporting functions.

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We report to Chief Accounting Officer in Finance even though we perform many functions traditionally considered “IT”. We focus creating development standards.

EPM & BI at Wellpoint

Our Oracle EPM + BI production Environment     

Oracle EPM 11.1.1.3 and OBIEE 10.1.3.4 on AIX. We are a heavy Essbase users. Calculations/Reporting. Essbase shop since 2001. Use Oracle 10G relational, but not a lot for analytic data. Reporting Tools ● ● ● ● ●

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Classic Essbase Excel Add-in. Financial Reporting Interactive Reporting (Dashboards). EPM Workspace. SmartView limited due to software delivery issues.

Forecasting and Budgeting ● Oracle Hyperion Planning.

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Custom tools including internally developed web apps. 2000+ Essbase, 200 Planning, and 25 OBIEE users.

Upgrade To OBIEE 11.1.1.5 

Take advantage EPM integration advances. ● Essbase Integration is a lot better. ● ActionFramework ● Integrate into anything with a java API. ● ESS_JAPI. ● EPM Workspace API. ● Shared Services API. ● Bringing OBIEE back into EPM workspace as Dashboards.

Introduction to OBIEE & Essbase

What is OBIEE?

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The bridge between your data and reporting / analysis

OBIEE – Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Excellent all round reporting solution for enterprise level reporting requirements. The future of reporting and analysis.

Oracle’s Enterprise Performance Management System

Common Enterprise Information Model 

Presentation Layer

BI Server, Essbase

● User roles, preferences ● Simplified view ● Logical SQL interface 

Semantic Object Layer ● ● ● ● ● ●

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Dimensions Hierarchies Measures Calculations Aggregation Rules Time Series

Physical Layer ● Map physical data ● Connections

Consistency, Security, Reuse, Flexibility

Broad and Deep End User Needs

Oracle BI Server – Foundation of OBIEE 11G     

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Scalable, efficient query and analysis server Provides integration of many sources Intelligent caching services Calculation and integration engine Intelligent request generation and optimized data access services Three layers ● Physical ● Business Model /Mapping

Essbase  

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Multidimensional cubes Dimensions ● Common grouping or hierarchy of master data ● Organization ● Product ● Accounts Multidimensional view Aggregated data stored for fast reporting and analysis

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Powerful calculation engine

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New in 11.1.2.1 – OBIEE can spin off Essbase cubes!

JAN

LA

SALES

ACTUAL

500

JAN

SF

SALES

ACTUAL

250

JAN

PHX

MARGIN BUDGET

180

FEB

LA

SALES

BUDGET

300

FEB

SF

MARGIN ACTUAL

400

WEST L.A.

S.F. PHX

DEN

Actuals Sales

Mar gin

Budget Sales

Mar gin

Oracle BI Server – 50,000 ft view   

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Federates the data with a virtual schema Virtual schema is created Moving the data “virtually” Do everything you do in your data warehouse without building the data warehouse physically Combine tables across sources (columns + columns) Combine data in tables sources (rows + rows) Perform transformations Aggregate tables for performance improvements

What’s New in 11G – 50,000 Ft View Improved End User Experience • Task oriented interface • New Query Interface • Actionable BI Framework • Geospatial

Improved Integration Capabilities • All in one MOLAP/ROLAP Query Interface • Improved Essbase Support • Support for HFM • Oracle Fusion Middleware Stack

Technical New Features / Changes • Enterprise Manager • Identity Manager • Multi-user RPD deployment

Add Ons • OSSM • Collaboration • Advanced Search

New Home page

Create Section 

Create… section provides links to create a new Analysis, Dashboard, Published Reporting, Actionable Intelligence, Performance Management and other objects.

Browse/Manage and Get Started 

Under the Create is the Browse/Manage… area with Get Started… underneath it. (Just scroll down to view)

Recent & Most popular 

List of recently accessed Dashboards ● With easy access to open, edit, print and more

New …menu item 

Clicking on New displays a list of the objects available to create. Includes some old favorites and new ones

Create Analysis (a.k.a Answers) 

A New Analysis asks you to select a subject area, and then opens the new version of Answers. Similar looks in that it has two panes, and you can select Criteria, Results, Prompts and Advanced tabs like before.

Catalog 

The catalog link in the main menu takes you to the catalog view to navigate folders and objects in the catalog.

Dashboard 

The Dashboard drop down reveals available dashboards – including Most Recent (newly added feature), My Dashboard and Shared Dashboards (like before)

Search 

There is a new search feature that permits searching through the catalog for object names and also by object type.

New Interactive Visualizations

New charting Animated transitions Range and paging sliders Legend based interactions

Master detail linking

New Controls 

Faster start – e.g. charts

New controls 

Slider

Master Detail linking 

Master-detail linking – selecting on the master automatically filters the detail.

• Clicking on the detail in the report filters the chart

Check boxes 

Checkboxes and check boxes inside drop downs

Action Framework  Find a business  condition from visual cue

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Navigate to relevant analysis

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Next evolution in BI BI tells what happened; So what should I do next? In 10G – you see issue, then email someone, get into a transactional app In 11G, the action framework tells you what to do next ● Based on set of conditions ● Human driven ● Full automatic

Take action via process

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Create all of the actions and then make available to report developers

Detect a business event

Respond automatically with alert to user

Initiate a process

New Navigate options 

Navigate to BI content

Navigate to Web Page 

Navigate to a webpage

 - permits passing additional parameters to web page

Navigation 

Standard Navigation

Navigation 

Conditional Navigation

Spatial Intelligence   

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Layer BI data with maps Deeper insights through visualization In past required heavy IT, customization Now users can create their own spatial analysis; also no concern over upgrades

Improved Integrations in OBIEE 11G and Essbase

OBIEE 10G Essbase Considerations    

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Flat accounts No member select UDAs Alias tables DTS and other Time Intelligence support Alpha sorting vs. outline order Workarounds, custom MDX queries, functions (EVALUATE) help address some of the limitations noted above Essbase substitution variables are automatically retrieved and populated into corresponding BI Server dynamic system variables

To the Rescue!

Enhanced Support for Essbase 11G 

11g supports improved support for aliases, Accounts dimensions, UDAs, alternate hierarchies, outline sort order, attribute dimensions and value based hierarchies ● UDAs are created as separate columns ● Alias tables are created as separate columns and then you can choose the display column in reporting and analysis ● Alternate hierarchies are automatically imported as separate hierarchies ● Sort order is applied using a member order column

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11g provides hierarchy and member browsing and member selection 11g supports asymmetric drilling

Hierarchies Support 

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Support for parent child attribute based hierarchies not restricted to level based Support for skip level hierarchies Support for ragged hierarchies

Hierarchy display 

Note the drill on time – progressively lower levels displayed within the same column

Step by step selection 

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Complex selection criteria can be broken down into manageable steps and executed in a specific order to generate the required member selection for the report. Includes ranking, sorting and specific selection.

Accounts Dimension Support 

Final result in a report – ragged hierarchy sourced from Essbase

Option 1 Blended Reporting – Federated Essbase Data  

Month and quarter – Essbase data Week and day – Relational data

Option 2 Blended Reporting – Linked Reports

Integrating OBIEE & Essbase Applied at Wellpoint

Back to Why Upgrade To OBIEE 11.1.1.5 

Take advantage EPM integration advances. ● Essbase Integration is a lot better. ● ActionFramework ● Integrate into anything with a java API. ● ESS_JAPI. ● EPM Workspace API. ● Shared Services API. ● Bringing OBIEE back into EPM workspace as Dashboards.

Continuous Improvement Projects 

Perfect time to integrate OBIEE into our continuous improvement projects. 1. Interactive reporting Dashboard Replacement.   

Take advantage of better visuals. Strategic Oracle Product. EPM Navigation Action Framework

2. Security reporting, certification, and self service. 

Report Essbase/PeopleSoft data security in OBIEE

3. Fully loaded named associate transfer tool.

Fully Loaded Named Associate Transfer Tool 

We leverage Essbase hierarchies to provide “Multiple Scenario Based Forecasting”.

Transfer Process 

Transfer name associates from one cost center to another. ● Maintains the plan and builds automatically into the forecast. ● Current tool fat client requires too much maintenance. ● No real integrated reporting candidate besides adhoc excel.

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Ideal candidate for OBIEE Dashboard. ● Data stored in relational database. ● Data stored in Essbase. ● OBIEE plays well with external applications web applications.

OBIEE Challenges Expected Challenges at Project Start 1.

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Building Essbase and relational star schemas into the OBIEE admin tool RPD. Data security. Dashboard design and its integration with external web applications (ActionFramework).  Web App or integrate more tightly into OBIEE with web services???

Expected Issue #1: OBIEE Admin Tool  

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Process was easier than expected. Tailored our Essbase cubes for OBIEE. ● “Label Only” issues. Relational integration into RPD was drag and drop. ● Create star schema with defined primary and foreign keys. ● Oracle SqlDeveloper 3.0’s Data Modeler ● DDL generator and version control saved time. ● Didn’t have a measure, only reporting transactional metadata.

SQLDeveloper Data Modeler Example

Expected Challenge #2: Data Security 

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Salary data for named users – security very important. Did not have a good experience integrating PeopleSoft data security into OBIEE 10G Only “read” access to company LDAP directories. Very comfortable with Essbase data security.

Expected Challenge #3: ActionFramework  

GOOD: Easy integration with external website. GOOD: Using session variables, pass USER to web app.

Expected Challenge #3: ActionFramework  

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Use EJB ActionFramework to interact directly with Essbase java api (ESS_JAPI). Use the combination of Analyis reports, filters, and prompts to mimic a web form.

Could work with limited number of input parameters and a lot of creativity. Could do a whole session on this.

Lessons Learned Perl’s slogan – TMTOWTDI ●There's More Than One Way To Do It.  Big leap forward from OBIEE 10G.  Exciting future for OBIEE. 

Questions & Answers