OBIEE - BI Presentation Service (SAW/OBIPS)
About
Oracle BI Answers, Interactive Dashboards, and Delivers refer collectively to Oracle BI Presentation Services.
The Oracle BI Presentation Service Server:
- is a pure Web Environment
- visualize data from the Oracle BI Server through the creation of Interactive Dashboards and Oracle Answers.
The process is:
- Under Windows sawserver.exe
- Under UNIX, sawserver
The instanceconfig.xml file stores the configuration settings that affect Oracle BI Presentation Services.
It interacts with the Oracle BI server as an ODBC client and provides a number of important services:
- it generates the Answers and Dashboards user interface
- it responds to user selections, generates logical SQL for the Oracle BI Server, and caches logical SQL statements and their results
- it records the specifications the user makes about how data should be presented and interacts with the charting engine to create charts;
- it pivots and aggregates data after the Oracle BI Server generates the result set
- and provides user and group security for all of the Dashboards and Dashboard objects (reports).
When a user session begins, Oracle BI Presentation Service:
- submits the user’s identity (either username/password or some other token) to the Oracle BI Server
- authenticates the user
- and then requests the Oracle BI Server to provide the “databases”, “tables”, and “columns” that the user is entitled to use. These objects are displayed in the user interface as subject areas, folders, and columns. The Oracle BI Server also provides metadata information to Oracle BI Presentation Service about column properties such as data types, aggregation rules, and whether or not the user can drill on the column – each of these elements also affect how data is displayed in the user interface.
Logical SQL Generation: Oracle BI Presentation Service allows users to visually define queries within the Answers and Dashboard interfaces. It presents a graphical representation of the query as the user selects and manipulates columns and adds filters (constraints) to the query. The Answers interface also allows users to enter logical SQL directly – the results can still be formatted and displayed within Answers. Once the user submits the query, Oracle BI Presentation Service sends logical SQL to the Oracle BI Server.
User Interface Personalization: When Answers and Dashboard users personalize the structure of their user interface including defining views, layout specification, properties of individual charts, tables, and pivot tables, Oracle BI Presentation Service stores these personalization definitions in a metadata catalog called the Web Catalog as an XML Schema that includes metadata about the user interface and security information such as users, groups, and roles.
Performance and Scalability: Oracle BI Presentation Service allows web servers to be clustered for scalability. If web server processing capacity becomes a bottleneck to system performance, an administrator can configure multiple Oracle BI Presentation Service and HTTP servers. A variety of load balancing facilities are supported to distribute user sessions and maintain session affinity with the HTTP server it selected for that session.
Filters, selection steps (11g), and prompts allow you to limit or specify the data that is displayed in dashboards and analyses.
Prompt / Variable
Time Calculation / Period-to-period comparison
Navigation / Drill
Integration
Configuration
UI Customization
In Oracle BI Presentation Services, customization of user interface elements and appearance is accomplished by modifying:
- and styles and skins,
- and not with JavaScript.