Enhancing Oracle Business Intelligence with cubus EV How users of Oracle BI on Essbase cubes can benefit from cubus outperform EV Analytics (cubus EV)

Transcription

1 Ehacig Oracle Busiess Itelligece with cubus EV How users of Oracle BI o Essbase cubes ca beefit from cubus outperform EV Aalytics (cubus EV)

2 CONTENT 01 cubus EV as a ehacemet to Oracle BI o Essbase 02 Oracle BI ad Essbase: Curret status ad lessos leared 04 Itegratig cubus outperform EV Aalytics with Oracle BI 06 Coclusio CUBUS AG HEADQUARTERS Bahhofstraße 29 I Herreberg (Germay) I Telefo I Fax I [email protected] I

3 CUBUS EV AS AN ENHANCEMENT TO ORACLE BI ON ESSBASE The products cubus outperform EV Aalytics (cubus EV) cubus outperform EV Aalytics is the self-service reportig ad aalysis compoet of the cubus outperform platform. cubus outperform EV Aalytics is a comprehesive ad hoc aalytics tool for Oracle Hyperio Essbase, Microsoft Aalysis Services ad IBM TM1. Iteractive aalytics ad reports provide maagers ad cotrollers with ad hoc aswers to critical questios ad deep isight ito busiess processes. The maagemet iformatio system cubus outperform EV Aalytics helps users to leverage the power of their OLAP database i real-time. As it is ituitive, iexperieced users ca quickly ad easily create iteractive, dyamic aalytics ad reports ad meet the requiremets of seior executives ad decisio makers. Customers usig Oracle BI i cojuctio with Oracle Essbase ca greatly beefit from cubus EV s powerful capabilities to ehace their BI ad reportig applicatios. Oracle Busiess Itelligece (Oracle BI) Oracle BI is curretly the most comprehesive ad best itegrated BI solutio i the market ad offers a wide rage of fuctios: Eterprise Reportig Ad hoc aalytics Query reportig Dashboards Scorecards Oracle Essbase users deploy their reportig with a variety of tools like Excel ad Hyperio BI solutios like Hyperio BI+ ad WebAalysis. After the acquisitio of Hyperio, Oracle classified Hyperio s BI tools as o-strategic ad ceased developmet. A migratio path to curret versios of Oracle BI focusig o the Foudatio Suite is available to Hyperio BI customers. The objective of this offer is to facilitate the trasitio to ewer techologies ad to esure cotiued maiteace. 1

4 ORACLE BI AND ESSBASE: CURRENT STATUS AND LESSONS LEARNED cubus has successfully completed a lot of migratio projects to Oracle BI. I most cases a 1:1 migratio of reports ito Oracle BI is impossible. May workshops with experieced Essbase power users led to the same coclusio: Oracle BI s ad hoc aalytic capabilities are ot able to meet their requiremets. The result is a lack of adoptio by the Essbase user commuity ad may useful fuctioalities ad applicatio fields of Oracle BI are either cosidered or evaluated. Oracle BI caot dey its relatioal origi ad i some areas it clashes with the OLAP approach of Essbase. cubus EV is able to close this gap. cubus EV was iitially developed for Essbase ad breathes its multidimesioal architecture. All Essbase metadata icludig Substitutio Variables ad Dyamic Time Series are automatically itegrated. Users ca switch to differet Alias Tables ad are able to geerate additioal KPIs. Where Oracle BI beefits most from the itegratio of cubus EV: cubus EV Oracle BI 1. Off-grid dimesios Not every report uses all dimesios. Uused dimesios ca be placed off-grid ad may be icluded agai via drag & drop. This fuctioality is ot available i Oracle BI. All dimesios i the cube eed to be used for aalysis. A fuctio called Pivot Table Prompt ca be used to set a filter, but this does ot chage the query agaist the cube, oly the view. Itesive use of Pivot Table Prompts impacts performace. 2. Measures dimesio Eve measures ad key performace idicators ca be displayed i a hierarchy ad used for aalysis. As Oracle BI s structure is relatioal, measures ad KPI dimesio members eed to be coverted ito a flat structure for comparisos. Defiig filters is a alterative but this becomes highly impractical with more tha 10 elemets. Especially fiacial services orgaizatios ad fiace departmets have measures dimesios with several hudred elemets (e.g. accouts). A P&L report or balace sheet without hierarchy is practically useless. 2

5 3. Hierarchies Oracle BI icludes a so-called Drill-iplace which has very limited capabilities Dimesios are built i hierarchical i compariso to the defiitio of ormal structures ad it is possible to drill-dow (to colums. expad a hierarchy) or drill-up (to collapse a The order of elemets i the hierarchy is hierarchy) ito these structures. firmly liked with the order i the database (outlie). It caot be chaged, oly reversed. Defiig a flexible, custom order is difficult ad a rather complicated process. Hierarchy members ca be selected ad displayed usig Selectio Steps. But this process is ot dyamic ad oly available durig report creatio. Itesive use of Selectio Steps impacts performace. 4. Asymmetrical aalysis Dimesio elemets ca be displayed asymmetrically i a report. E.g. last year s reveue is show as a aual value, while the curret year presets mothly or weekly data. Asymmetrical reports are almost impossible to achieve i Oracle BI. There is a workaroud (placig two aalyses side by side ito oe dashboard) but it comes with a dramatic loss of fuctioality. 5. Custom calculatios i a report Users ca create custom calculatios based o cube data, like variaces or a sum across two or more moths. They may also iclude other dimesios. These calculatios ca be used like ormal cube elemets for drag & drop operatios, slicig & dicig, as a off-grid filter, etc. Oracle BI offers the creatio of custom calculatios but those are applied to all members i a report, resultig i problems with average values. Oce desiged, a calculatio caot be chaged ad re-usig a calculatio is ot possible 6. System issues Displayig alterative hierarchies as sigle hierarchy colums works oly o ASO cubes. The use of hierarchy-based filters like isdescedat of is very limited i Oracle BI. Outlie chages require a update of a iteral Oracle BI repository file ad should oly be performed with cautio. 3

6 INTEGRATING CUBUS OUTPERFORM EV ANALYTICS WITH ORACLE BI Essbase customers ad their power users are lookig for a flexible ad fast tool to access Essbase cubes. Itegratig cubus outperform EV Aalytics with Oracle Busiess Itelligece is the ideal solutio ad offers the best of both tools. Cubus EV provides a real multidimesioal experiece while Oracle BI icludes powerful features to other data sources. Itegratio features 1. Sigle sig-o After loggig o to Oracle BI users ca work with cubus EV accordig to their Essbase authorizatios. 2. Embeddig cubus EV reports ito Oracle BI dashboards cubus EV reports ad views ca be embedded ito Oracle BI dashboards i the same way as Oracle BI reports. Dashboard prompts will cotrol both cubus EV ad Oracle BI reports. 4

7 3. Drill-through from Oracle BI ito cubus EV A Actio-Lik provides drill-through from a Oracle BI report or dashboard ito cubus EV while maitaiig full OLAP capabilities icludig the trasfer of PoV iformatio. 4. Itegratig cubus EV reports with Oracle BI dashboards retaiig full OLAP capabilities It is possible to itegrate cubus EV reports with Oracle BI while maitaiig cubus EV s full OLAP capabilities. I this case the Oracle BI dashboard serves as a commo portal. 5. Write back ito Essbase (BSO) cubus EV users ca write back ito a Essbase BSO cube. Itegratio ito a Oracle BI dashboard does ot limit this capability. 5

8 CONCLUSION Additioal features of cubus EV The itegratio of cubus EV provides Oracle BI users with a whole set of ew capabilities icludig coectivity to other multidimesioal OLAP database egies. Normally, Oracle BI caot retrieve data from IBM TM1 cubes. With the itegratio of cubus EV ito Oracle BI, users ca combie data from TM1 ad other data sources i their reports. They ca eve drillthrough from a Oracle BI report ito a cubus EV view that is based o TM1 data. Coclusio Compaies migratig their old frot-eds to Oracle BI ca retai their ivestmet i Essbase by usig cubus EV. cubus EV is the perfect add-o to meet the demads ad requiremets of their Essbase power users. I case of questios, please cotact us via [email protected] or visit our website CUBUS AG HEADQUARTERS Bahhofstraße 29 I Herreberg (Germay) I Telefo I Fax I [email protected] I