Multi Language Support(Localization)(Presentation Services)

One of the foremost important features in OBIEE is Localization i.e. Multi country implementation .It’s a robust feature indeed to make the application reusable across several countries in multi country roll-out deployment and thus internationalizing the application.

The Oracle Business Intelligence Presentation layer supports multiple language translations for any presentation column name and column description. When working with Oracle BI Answers or rendering a dashboard, users should see their local language strings in their reports. For example, English-speaking and French-speaking users would see their local language strings in their reports.

The Oracle Business Intelligence Presentation layer supports multiple language translations for any presentation column name and column description. When working with Oracle BI Answers or rendering a dashboard, users should see their local language strings in their reports. For example, English-speaking and French-speaking users would see their local language strings in their reports. There are two kinds of application strings required for the translation in Oracle Business

Policy Store

Testing JAZN translation file is straightforward. You need to deploy them in place of existing system-jazn-data.xml in your dev instance from biapps Installer(C:\Middleware\Oracle_BI1\biapps\admin\provisioning\localization) . You have to bring down the weblogic before replacing the existing jazn with translated jazn. You can then see the display name change in enterprise manager.

JAZN deployment Location - (C:\oracle\middleware\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\config\fmwconfig)

Policy Store looks like below for Arabic language

Catalog Strings

To test the catalog localization, we need to deploy the translated strings (C:\Middleware\Oracle_BI1\biapps\catalog\res\l_xx) into a particular location in oracle instance home (ORACLE_INSTANCE\bifoundation\OracleBIPresentationServicesComponent\coreapplication_obipsn\msgdb\)

Please see this OBIEE documentation link for more details of this - http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23943_01/bi.1111/e10541/deploylocal.htm#CIHHGIAC

Note: After deploying the translation strings, you should choose appropriate language in UI to see the translated content.

Repository Strings

We have to import the dat files given by translation team into W_LOCALIZED_STRING_G table in the warehouse. The import tool(dataimp.exe) is available in the clear case(biapps\seeddata\Bin) and will be shipped with biapps installer. We then need to configure the initialization block to populate the session variables (row-wise initialization) for translation

Please see the below link for details about importing repository strings (.dat) files into w_localized_string_g table

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E20490_01/bia.7963/e19038/anyinstadmconfiglocalize.htm#i1039801

"Unable to connect to Oracle WebLogic NodeManager. Make sure the NodeManager windows service is running” erros in Oracle BI Applications (BI Apps) Installation

This post shows how to install BI Apps 7.9.6.3 with OBIEE 11.1.1.5.0 version on  Windows 7 environment.
Download BI Apps 7.9.6.3, which is released for OBIEE 11g (11.1.1.5 or higher) from the following link
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-enterprise-edition/downloads/biee-111150-393613.html
Extract the .zip file in your hard disc and run the setup.exe file to start the installation wizard

Click next

Specify installation location. Select the following location paths for BI Home, Instance and Domains and then click Next
BI Oracle Home: <install directory>\Oracle_BI1
Oracle Instance: <install directory>\instances\instance_number
Domain Home: <install directory>\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain

Specify WebLogic Administration Server Details i.e port, user name (OBIEE Admin user)  and password and then click Next

Note: if you get “Unable to connect to Oracle WebLogic NodeManager. Make sure the NodeManager windows service is running” erros, then open  Start–>All Programs–>Oracle WebLogic –> Oracle WebLogic Server 11gR1–> Tools –> Node Manger. A command prompt window will open, its looks like the following

If you get the above error, click Back and then Next in the installation wizard. If not just ignore the above step and continue with your installation.
Click Next after choosing the Applications you would like to install

Click Next to see the summary of the selected applications and click Next to start the installation. 

Click Finish to complete the installation.

Navigate to <install directory>\Oracle_BI1\biapps\repository to see the BI Apps repositories.

Password to both repositories is Admin123, you can see it in AdminToolCmdFile.txt file

Open anyone of these repositories using Oracle BI Administration tool in Off line mode to confirm that it is working…
Remember, Default password for Oracle BI Apps 7.9.6.3 repositories  is Admin123
 
Thanks
Dimple

Installing Oracle BI Apps 7.9.6.3

The following is a short description of what steps have to be taken to install Oracle BI Applications (OBIA) version 7.9.6.3. This version of OBIA is the first version which runs on the new Oracle BI 11g 11.1.1.5.0 platform
This document assumes, that Oracle BI 11g has been installed already. Make sure the Weblogic Administration Server is running before the installation starts.

• Unpack the installation software
• Navigate to the folder; ‘Oracle_BI_Applications’
• Start Setup.exe
• A wizard will start

• Click Next
• Enter the installation directories — {MIDDLEWARE_HOME}
  • There are three important locations;
    • Oracle BI Home Locatie  –> {MIDDLEWARE_HOME}\Oracle_BI1
    • Oracle Instance Locatie  –> {MIDDLEWARE_HOME}\instances\instance1
    • Oracle Domain Location –> {MIDDLEWARE_HOME}\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain

• Click Next
• Enter the Weblogic Administrator Details

• Click Next
• In the background, some examinations are performed. This could take a while
• Select the applications (default = everything), which should be installed

• Click Next
• A summary appears with the e=information about what will be installed

• Click Next

• Wait for the installer to finish

• Click Finish

After the installation has finished, one can check what has been installed. In the ‘Oracle BI Home’ there has been an additional folder (biapps) added.

You will find the new Repository RPD-file in; {MIDDLEWARE_HOME}\Oracle_BI1\biapps\repository
The Repository can be opened offline. The Repository password (Admin123) is the default.
De new Catalog resides in the; {MIDDLEWARE_HOME}\Oracle_BI1\biapps\catalog-folder.

Extract Projects using Command extractprojects

Using the extractprojects Utility to Extract Projects

You can use the Oracle BI Server utility extractprojects to extract projects from a given repository without the overhead of the MUD environment. The extractprojects utility is available on both Windows and UNIX systems. You can only use extractprojects with binary repositories in RPD format.
The extractprojects utility generates an RPD file that includes the set of projects you specify. The utility does not perform other tasks that are performed when you check out projects using the Administration Tool, like saving an original repository file or tracking the extract as a check-out in the MUD directory.
Before running extractprojects, you must first run bi-init to launch a command prompt that is properly initialized.

Syntax 
The extractprojects utility takes the following parameters:

extractprojects -B base_repository_name -O output_repository_name {-I input_project_name} [-P repository_password] [-L]

Where:
base_repository_name is the name and path of the repository from which you want to extract projects.
output_repository_name is the name and path of the repository generated by the utility.
input_project_name is the name of a project you want to extract. You can enter multiple projects. Be sure to precede each project entry with -I (for example, -I project1 -I project2). If the project name contains spaces, enclose it in double quotes (for example, "project 1").
repository_password is the password for the repository from which you want to extract projects.
Note that the repository_password argument is optional. If you do not provide the password argument, you are prompted to enter the password when you run the command. To minimize the risk of security breaches, Oracle recommends that you do not provide password arguments either on the command line or in scripts. Note that the password argument is supported for backward compatibility only, and will be removed in a future release.
- L enables logging. When logging is enabled, a log file in the format ProjExtr.YYYYMMDD.HHMMSS.xml is created in the Oracle BI Server logging directory. For example:

ORACLE_INSTANCE/diagnostics/logs/OracleBIServerComponent/coreapplication_obisn/ProjExtr.20100616.082904.xml

Example 
The following example extracts project1 and project2 from my_repos.rpd and creates a new repository called extract_repos.rpd:

extractprojects -B my_repos.rpd -O extract_repos.rpd -I project1 -I project2
Give password: my_rpd_password

Note:

Be sure to provide the full pathnames to your repository files, both the input file and the output file, if they are located in a different directory.

Nesting Of Presentation Tables in Obiee 10g/11g

Methods to Support Nesting Of Presentation Tables in Obiee 10g/11g

1.      By prefixing the presentation table with a hyphen and a space character (ex: ‘- Bill To Location’)

2.      By beginning the description of presentation table with ‘->’ characters

In Obiee 11g,New ‘Child Presentation Tables’ functionality is going to help here.it is new implemented 
in 11.1.1.6.3 and 11.1.1.6.4 Verison.We Can add sub folder table to Child Presentation Tables of Main Table

Hide dashboard prompts/Section in OBIEE

There is a way to hide the dashboard prompts in OBIEE.
But, need to have a separate section containing this prompt.. that’s reason i made my article title as: prompt/Section 
Here is the way..
1. Edit Dashboard, go to Properties of Section > Format Section..

2. Expand Custom CSS Style Options (HTML Only) then select Use Custom CSS Style check box… and write the following code as shown:

display:none;

It’s more effective then collapsible option..

Conversion of date datatype to timestamp in OBIEE

Hi,
In OBIEE, direct date to timestamp conversion is not possible unless we use evaluate functions to call it’s database functions…
One way i found to convert date column to it’s timestamp is:
First, cast the date column to char later cast it to timestamp
Ex: Cast(Cast(CURRENT_DATE AS CHAR) AS TIMESTAMP)
 
You may have question why we need to convert it to timestamp..
Well, while using timestampdiff with sql_tsi_hour as interval, we can’t pass date datatype columns as it throws error:
Ex: TimestamDiff(SQL_TSI_HOUR, TimeID, CURRENT_DATE) won’t take as functionality. Gives you following error:

[nQSError: 10058] A general error has occurred. [nQSError: 22025] Function TimestampDiff is called with an incompatible type. (HY000)

 Now, try in this way:
TimestamDiff(SQL_TSI_HOUR, TimeID, Cast(Cast(CURRENT_DATE as Char) as Timestamp))
It gives you proper results with out any error.