BITeamwork is now certified to work with Oracle BI 11g 11.1.1.7.0.  I should lead with that statement in the title but it is such a delight to see the Oracle Collaborative BI solution perfectly integrated into the latest release of the best-in-class Enterprise Business Intelligence tool, OBIEE.

The Oracle BI Development team has incorporated several of the enhancement requests that @artofbi submitted for both presentation layer and security management. We are delighted at the 11.1.1.7.0 release and even more ecstatic that the roadmap for Oracle BI 11g and BITeamwork have aligned in such symbiotic fashion.  For this reason we’ve code name this release of BITeamwork, the Charles Babbage release.

As you already know, Charles Babbage is credited as the engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer and also considered by some as the “father of the computer”.  Babbage was a mathematician, engineer, and philosopher (1791-1871). Not much is known about Babbage’s early years except that he had a penchant for learning, particularly math and science, and he enjoyed discovering the unknown. Ultimately after several attempts at creating mathematical computing machines such as the Difference Engine, his breakthrough came with the Analytical Engine which marked the era for the general purpose computation via machine. The Analytical Engine, circa 1871, utilized pushed cards in order for the machine to be programmed. Many of the computing concepts pioneered by Baggage one-hundred years ago are still utilized in modern computing.

The main impetus of the BITeamwork 1.9 release was the certification with Oracle BI 11.1.1.7.0.  However, it also includes several enhancements such as:

* Addition of Italian, Russian, and Danish language/localization
* Addition to control Salesforce.com (ESN) API end-point
* Dynamic logging
* Certification with OBIEE 11.1.1.7.x

A Quick Look at Obstacles

After speaking with several other Oracle BI thought leaders it was mentioned that it would be great if some of the challenges in creating BITeamwork could be exposed.  I truly hope to talk more on these points in the near future as needless to say there are quite a lot of them.  One of which is the effort required to certify that BITeamwork works in both readily used version of OBIEE, 11.1.1.6.x, 11.1.1.7.x, etc..  This is a challenge in itself by testing every release (minor or patch worthy) of OBIEE that comes out of the gate to ensure that no new changes breaks the compatibility of BITeamwork.  During the process to ensure the 11.1.1.7.0 certification, there was one issue having to do with dashboard rendering that was more annoying than preventative, which I’ll explain in more detail.

So, in OBIEE 11.1.1.7 when the reading a cell comment a comment reader window appear under the Global Header.  This works perfectly fine under OBIEE 11.1.1.6.x.  However, in 11.1.1.7, the dashboard actually renders over the Global Header images due to a drastic change in the Presentation Layer.  This is also the case with some of the new Trellis based charting which they are finally doing in HTML5 (instead of Flash).

The image above is actually showing the second issue behind a trellis’d pivot table, it was worse before that fix. So, after several failed attempts to mimic the intended functionality as shown in 11.1.1.6, we had to push the comment reader window in 11.1.1.7 to the upper left corner of the dashboard.  This eliminates the rendering behind the dashboard and is out of the way of the dashboard charting and graphing.  Notice the custom cell comment icons that were added in version 1.8.5, cool, right?

Here’s what the BITeamwork 1.9 release continues to look like in OBIEE 11.1.1.6.x.

There are several more maintenance type solutions that were worked on in order to certify BITeamwork for OBIEE 11.1.1.7.0 and we are so excited to release this version to the masses.  Please pour in your feedback once you’ve download BITeamwork.

What’s Next?

The next release of BITeamwork continues to extend the Oracle Business Intelligence offering by releasing more sought after integration features of Self-Service Analytics and general Business Analytics, Embedded BI.  Embedded BI allows an organization to post an Oracle BI view (i.e.: table, pivot table, chart, etc.) on a separate portal or web application such as a company’s SharePoint, WebCenter, or intranet site, in a manageable way. If you thought Collaborative BI was amazing, get ready for Embedded BI.

There will be several minor releases between the much anticipated 2.0 release which will include more localization and other minor enhancements but rest assured that BITeamwork is here to stay and will continue to offer value-add enhancements to Oracle BI.

Christian will also be speaking at the RittmanMead BI Forum in May #biforum and will be discussion tactics and techniques on creating plug-ins for Oracle BI along with pitfalls and other ancillary information you need in order to create additional functionality in OBIEE.

I have always been a fan of Open Source technology and the Open Source Software initiative. I’ve contributed to several OSS projects in the past and continue to do so today.  We have even launched several small OSS projects over at the artofbi github repository.  I’ve always found that OSS innovation is usually a smart means to reaching a solution.  Another perspective I am lucky to have is that of consulting in the realm of Data Warehousing, Business Intelligence, and Enterprise Performance Management through a variety of industries.  Often, with clients, I am privy to BI tool selection conversations which can bring into question Commercial Enterprise software vs. Open Source Software and all of the standard comparisons that an IT and/or business team can consider to determine the best tool for the job (for them, of course).

So, when I got my hands on a copy of Lyndsay Wise‘s book (admittedly months ago, but just now having the time this last month to read it), Using Open Source Platforms for Business Intelligence, I was actually impressed that someone  would take the time to write a book combining two of my favorite things: OSS and BI. Combined that equals, OSBI, by the way. I had a fleeting thought that the book might be full of fluff as the topic itself is fairly straightforward (at least to me) and there wouldn’t be a way to write enough content without getting product specific or technical.  I was wrong, of course, after thumbing through the index and several chapters.

I’ve chatted with Lyndsay before and if you listen to our conversation you can tell that she has a very concise way of delivering a message.  So, the fact that she wrote a great thought-leadership book on OSBI shouldn’t be surprising.  It is clearly just another outlet for her to deliver insight from a sector she clearly knows better than most.I’ll break it down like this:

• Lyndsay does a good job of laying out in the beginning what to expect from the book.  But my only criticism around this point is I think she didn’t give the book credit for the larger audience the book could enlighten.  I see this as a crucial bookshelf piece for all Application Development Managers, any IT Project Manager, and any one who is trying to understand ROI in a Business Intelligence implementation (OSBI or otherwise).
• Lyndsay did her homework on this book conducting case studies with several groups and companies using OSBI. She even gets some advice from market research alumns Cindi Howson and Howard Dresner as mentioned in the book’s acknowledgements.
• The book goes into short but concise explanations about core concepts to OSBI and even standard BI which could be applied to any BI vendor.  This is worthwhile just for reference and regurgitation sake working with clients new to BI.
• Having chapters focused on user adoption and selling the business on OSBI is excellent.  Again, the application here could be against Open Source or Commercial BI offerings. The common sense is not so common adage is in play here.
• The coverage from looking at a BI from end-to-end is just what any BI manager needs. Nowhere have I seen the full picture in one place, and drumroll….at under 250 pages.  Even for a slow reader like me this was only a couple of flights worth of reading.

One of my favorite things that Lyndsay does in this book is that she provides a “A checklist for OSBI Readiness” highlighting technical and business considerations and their respective impacts.  I wish I had done something like this in my book (next time).

The other brilliant outpouring of genius are the two chapters on Return On Investment (ROI) and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).  The fact that she literally goes through the math of cost benefit analysis for purchasing, time to implementation, and all of the other things that get taken for granted in some implementations is eye-opening if not pure perspective.  The additional formulas for calculating these often used acronyms that I’ve gotten from this part of the book are going to get a lot of mileage.

Wrapping things up, I would not have written this post if I didn’t feel the book should be looked at. This a great book for those of us who enjoy the art of business intelligence. I actually think the book could have had a more in-your-face title like, “Dancing with Open Source BI”, or “Conquer you BI Program through Open Source BI methodology” as I think it is much broader than just “Using OS…BI”. Anyways, I’m looking forward to Lyndsay’s next book already.

As you read in the first part  (Part 1) of this short series on Understanding Social and Collaborative Business Intelligence the idea of working as a team to make better decisions for an organization is not a new concept, merely the vehicle for that process has evolved.  That vehicle will differ from vendor to vendor as it relates to Collaborative BI. Furthermore, the idea of incorporating an Enterprise Social Network (ESN) into an organization’s infrastructure and daily activity will soon become common place.

But let’s not talk in platitudes.  Let’s see exactly what we actually gain from a Business Intelligence System (application), a Collaborative BI solution (vehicle), and an Enterprise Social Network (network).  The Venn Diagram below illustrates the tight integration that we described in part 1 of this series.

We’ll come back to the Collaborative BI solution but first let’s take a look at the ESN problem.  We think the first reason for the slow adoption of an Enterprise Social Network within an organization is due to education. There is no need to ask the question of “Why do we need it?”; just the mention of Facebook and describing in a few short sentences how applying the same principles of networked decisions and unity into the Enterprise should quench that question. Its a question of clarity. For, example, Salesforce.com Chatter is a social network but most people simply think its only for “CRM”, Salesforce Automation, and “Sales Teams”.  How can one see the big picture clearly when the Social Network is so often combined with an application. In marketing we call this Marketing Myopia. In addition, there are many ESN’s available today.  Which one best aligns with your  business? And how well does it integrate with your current software investments?  If you only care about your sales team collaborating on opportunities and deals is Salesforce Chatter the best option or would Yammer work just as well? Could we use Chatter for our entire organization? Or do we need a different system that appears less focused? And can we integrate it with existing systems?

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