This is the longest in the series but it has the most detail and content. As you’ll see, as I was getting BIComposer set up this was the first run and we bumped into a few issues but we circled back around and explained the troubleshooting methods used to resolve the issues.

Oracle BI 11g BIComposer – Part 2 from ArtOf BI on Vimeo.

This Series

• BIComposer – Part 3
• BIComposer – Part 1

Resources

• http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E21764_01/bi.1111/e10544/bicomposer.htm
• BIComposer Installation Guide

At the ArtOfBI.com we like staying on top of things.  We might spell a word or two wrong but in the end we are exactly what the doctor ordered.  As such we wanted to bring the first full length installation, configuration, and review of Oracle BI 11g BIComposer.  Tweet it up or give it a thumbs down in this three part series

Oracle BI 11g BIComposer – Part 1 from ArtOf BI on Vimeo.

This Series

• BIComposer – Part 2
• BIComposer – Part 3

Resources

• http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E21764_01/bi.1111/e10544/bicomposer.htm
• BIComposer Installation Guide

Those tricky developers at Oracle have provided the masses with a beautiful front-end interface for OBI 11g.  They even answered the call for provided native, intuitive drill-down functionality right there in the GUI.  I only have positive things to say about it after working with OBI 11g since during the Beta release. Ahhhhhh!

At a high-level, a hierarchical column is created from a logic dimension’s logic hierarchy.  Clearly you can have more than one logical hierarchy under one logical dimension which means you could have more than one hierarchical column.  A hierarchical column is only called by that name once it resides in the presentation layer (ultimately the Subject Area, right?).  So, by dragging over a logical hierarchy (at any level, but I won’t go into that now) into a Subject Area’s Presentation Table, a Presentation Hierarchical Column is created.  Ok.  So, the end-users from the front-end GUI actually seen a new icon in their Analysis Subject Area selection list which differs from the Presentation Column icons they are used to seeing.

This blog post is just about one gotcha that may or may not catch a few metadata developers when attempting to leverage the new hierarchical columns when developing in the RPD.   This has to do with the fact that for any level in a level-based hierarchy, the key column representing the level, must also be represented in the Presentation Layer (Subject Area) in order for that hierarchy level to be visible in the Subject Area.

Here is an illustrated example using the SampleApp repository that comes from Oracle.  I’ll let you do the testing for yourself.
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