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Introduction

 

Now that Oracle has purchased Hyperion Solutions, the integration of OBIEE with Hyperion will become increasingly important – OBIEE’s strength is in data integration whereas Hyperion’s strength is in analytics and reporting.  In this tutorial we’ll look at using Hyperion’s Essbase as a data source for OBIEE.  This requirement may arise when an organization has sources of data other than Essbase and wishes to produce some consolidated reports without loading the data into Essbase cubes.

 

 

Cube Import

 

Select “Start => Programs => Oracle Business Intelligence => Administration”.  Select “File => New” from the menu to create a new repository.  In the “New Repository” window enter a file name of “Essbase.rpd” and press “Save”.  A blank repository is displayed:

 

To import the Essbase cube, select “File => Import => from Multi-dimensional...”.  The “Import from Multi-dimensional” window appears.  Enter the following values: Provider Type: “Essbase”; Essbase Server: “<name of machine hosting the Essbase server>”; Username: “<Essbase user>”; Password: “<Essbase password>”:

 

In the “Select Source” window expand the Essbase server node to list the available Essbase applications:

 

In the present case, the set of default Essbase applications is listed.  Select the “Demo” application and then press “Import” followed by “Close” when the import has been completed.  Expand the nodes that appear in the Physical layer of the Administration Tool:

 

In the present case we have a database of “localhost”:

 

a connection pool (automatically created by the import process):

 

a physical catalog of “Demo”, corresponding to the Essbase application name:

 

and a physical cube table of “Basic”, corresponding to the Essbase database name:

 

Under the “Basic” node there are four hierarchies, for example, “Year”:

 

Note, that the three levels have been given generic names, such as “Gen1,Year”.  The levels can be renamed within the OBIEE Administration Tool or they can be renamed before import in the Hyperion Essbase Administration Services Console (edit the outline corresponding to the Essbase database, right-click on the relevant dimension, and select “Generations”).

 

Also under the “Basic” node there are ten physical cube columns, for example, “Total Expenses”:

 

 

Business Model and Presentation Layers

 

One of the key functions of the Administration Tool is its ability to create cubes (in the Business Model layer) from relational sources.  However, in this case we already have a cube in the Physical layer, so all we need to do to create a default Business Model is to drag the cube across to the Business Model layer:

 

The Administration Tool automatically maps the Physical layer hierarchies onto Business Model layer logical tables and dimensions; and it maps the physical cube columns onto logical columns within the “Basic” logical measure table.

 

To create the Presentation layer drag the “Basic” Business Model across to the left hand pane:

 

You can see that some renaming would be required if this were a real application.

 

Save the repository (“File => Save”), check for global consistency (“Yes”), mark the Business Model available for queries (“Yes”).  Close the “Consistency Check Manager” window that appears (ignore the missing Administrator password warning).

 

Select “File => Exit” to exit the Administration Tool.

 

 

Reports

 

The repository can now be used to generate reports using any reporting tool that can connect to the BI Server by setting Essbase as the default repository in the “NQConfig.INI” configuration file (add “Star = Essbase.rpd, DEFAULT;” in the “REPOSITORY” section, after commenting out the current default repository).  For example, here’s a simple tabular report created with BI Answers:

 

 

 

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