Comparing the Analysis Editor and BI Composer

The "Analysis editor" and BI Composer share a similar purpose, in that both are analytical components that power intelligent business process decision making. Collaboration fueled through exploration, analysis, sharing, and visualizations, allows business users at all levels to glean insight into data. BI Composer and the Analysis editor differ however, in that BI Composer is more suitable for simple analyses that do not contain advanced analytic functions such as calculated items, selection steps, and multiple conditions. Sophisticated and highly structured analyses should be edited by using the Analysis editor.

What Types of Views Can I Work with in BI Composer?

BI Composer allows you to quickly and simply create or edit analyses. Table 14-1 describes the views with which you can work and the options available in BI Composer to enhance the analyses.

Table 14-1 View or Option and Description

View or Option	Description
Table	You can have a: Table Summary Table Pivot Table Summary Pivot Table A table can have: Prompts Sections See "BI Composer wizard -- Create Analysis: Edit Table panel" for additional information.
Graph	You can have a: Bar - Vertical, horizontal, vertical stacked, horizontal stacked, 100% vertical stacked, or 100% horizontal stacked Line Scatter Pie Line-Bar A graph can have: Prompts Sections Group By Vary Color By Slices (for a pie graph) Points (for a scatter graph) See "BI Composer wizard -- Create Analysis: Edit Graph panel" for additional information.
Conditional formatting	See "BI Composer wizard -- Create Analysis: Highlight panel" for additional information.
Column formula	See "BI Composer wizard -- Create Analysis: Select Columns panel" for additional information.
Filter	See "BI Composer wizard -- Create Analysis: Sort and Filter panel" for additional information.
Interaction	Allows you to specify what happens when you click a value. You can: Drill Navigate to Transaction Do nothing by specifying None See "BI Composer wizard -- Create Analysis: Select Columns panel" for additional information.
Sort	See "BI Composer wizard -- Create Analysis: Sort and Filter panel" for additional information.