New Features for Oracle BI EE 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.7)

New features in Oracle BI EE 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.7) include:

• "Recommended Visualizations Feature for Creating Views"

• "Breadcrumbs"

• "Enhancement to Dashboards"

• "Enhancements to Graphs"

• "Enhancements to Views"

• "Enhancements to Prompts"

• "New Menu Options for Exporting Views and Results"

• "Total Member Placement for Hierarchical Columns"

• "Browse Catalog Search Results by Object Attributes"

• "Navigate from the Total or Grand Total in a Table or Pivot Table"

• "New BI Desktop Tools Available for Download"

• "Enhancement to Favorites"

• "Integration of Oracle BI EE with Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System"

Recommended Visualizations Feature for Creating Views

In this release, when you create a view, you can choose a recommended view type based on the data in your analysis and, optionally, what you want to use it for (for example, to analyze trends).

You can choose a suggested "Best Visualization" as well as a "Recommended Subtype". Or you can instead choose the "Recommended Visualization" option, for which you specify your intent for the new view. For example, will the view compare values, compare percentages, visualize trends, or something else? From a list of suggested view types that is ordered with the best option at the top, you can then choose your preferred view type. See "What Is the Recommended Visualizations Feature?" for more information.

Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs have been added to help users understand their current location within Oracle BI content and the path that they have used to navigate Oracle BI content. Breadcrumbs display at the bottom of the page, and users can click a breadcrumb or the breadcrumb overflow button to navigate to a specific location on their breadcrumb trail. See "Navigating With Breadcrumbs" for more information.

Enhancement to Dashboards

This release provides the following enhancements to dashboards:

• The ability to create custom print layouts for high-fidelity printing of dashboard pages. See "About Creating Custom Print Layouts for High-Fidelity Printing of Dashboard Pages".

• The new default style is FusionFX. See the "Dashboard Properties dialog".

• The addition of the Freeze Column option to the Column Properties menu. This option allows you to freeze a column at an edge (top or left) of a dashboard layout. See "Properties Buttons for Objects".

• The addition of the following options that allow you to control the position and size of columns and sections:

  • Size option in the Additional Formatting Options area of the "Section Properties dialog" and the "Column Properties dialog"

  • Page Size option in the "Dashboard Properties dialog"

• The ability to export an entire dashboard or a single dashboard page to Microsoft Excel 2007+. See "Exporting Dashboards and Dashboard Pages".

• The addition of options to replace an analysis on a dashboard and to return to a dashboard from the Analysis editor:

  • The Replace analysis in <dashboard name> option was added to the Save As dialog. This option displays when the user is viewing a dashboard, clicks an embedded analysis' Analyze or Edit link, edits the analysis, and selects Save As to rename and save the analysis. The Replace analysis in <dashboard name> option allows the designer to choose to include the modified analysis on the dashboard. See "Save As dialog" for additional information.

  • The Return to <dashboard name> option was added to the Analysis editor. This option displays in the Analysis editor when the user is viewing a dashboard and clicks an embedded analysis' Analyze or Edit link. The designer can click this option to easily move from the Analysis editor to the dashboard. See "Analysis editor" for additional information.

Enhancements to Graphs

In this release graphs have been enhanced in various ways.

• New graph types include:

  • Waterfall graph. A waterfall graph lets you visualize how a value increases or decreases sequentially and cumulatively. An initial value is summed with subsequent values (both negative and positive changes or deltas) to arrive at an end value, focusing your attention on h ow each measure contributes to the whole.

  • Stacked graph as a new subtype to the area graph. A stacked graph is useful for comparing the proportional contributions within a category. A stacked graph displays the relative value that each part contributes to the whole.

  • 100% stacked graph as subtypes to the bar graph and the area graph. A 100% stacked graph, like the stacked graph subtype, lets you compare the parts to the whole. But while the stacked graph shows cumulative total in the units of the measure, the 100% stacked graph always shows units as percentages of the total, and the axis scale is always zero to 100 percent.

  See "What Types of Graphs Are Available?" for additional information about the new graphs in this release.

• Zoom to data range. This option lets the system evaluate the range of values on an axis, and choose appropriate minimum and maximum values for the scale. This is useful when graphing a set of large values that are all within a small percentage of each other. See "Graph Properties dialog: Scale tab" for additional information.

• Hide sliders in graph views that listen to master-detail events. For graphs in master-detail relationships, if you want to simplify the appearance of an analysis or dashboard, you can hide the slider that is created to accommodate detail columns. See "Defining the Detail View" for more information.

Enhancements to Views

This release includes enhancements to various view types, including those in the following list:

• A new view type named performance tile. This view type displays a single aggregate measure value in a manner that is both visually simple and prominent. See "Editing Performance Tile Views" for additional information.

• Action links in trellis views. In simple trellis views, action links can now be used on inner graphs per unit, including the context of the outer edges. Action links can also be used in legends and in axis labels. In advanced trellis views, action links can be used in microcharts, where the microchart functions as a single unit (such as an aggregate number), including the context of the outer edges. For more information, see "What Are Action Links and Action Link Menus?"

• For map views:

  • Vary the width of a line by measure to accentuate a feature. See "Line (Layer) dialog" for additional information.

  • Link a map view as a detail in a master-detail relationship. See "Defining the Detail View" for additional information.

  • Auto Correct option. A map view error can occur for various reasons. If the issue appears to be related to missing layers, maps, or styles, then it might be possible to correct the map by replacing the missing map view components with similar items that exist in the spatial metadata. See "Editing Map Views" for additional information.

  • Legend and formatting highlighting. See "What Are the Components of Map Views?" for additional information.

• Null suppression at view and analysis levels. You can set null suppression options at the view level (which overrides the analysis level) for data views including: table, pivot table, trellis (both simple and advanced), graph, gauge, and funnel views when the entire row or column contains nulls. See "Understanding Null Suppression" for additional information.

• Ability to include or exclude calculated items and groups at the view level for columns and column headers. Specifically, two new options have been added: Include Custom Member and Exclude Custom Member. These interactions are available for tables, pivot tables, and trellises. See "Creating Groups and Calculated Items" for additional information.

• For tables, pivot tables, and advanced trellises, the ability to:

  • Specify the method to be used to browse data — either scrolling or paging controls. For more information, see "Table Properties dialog: Style tab", "Pivot Table Properties dialog" and "Trellis Properties dialog: General tab".

  • Resize rows and columns. For more information, see "Resizing Rows and Columns in Table Views, Pivot Table Views, and Advanced Trellis Views".

• Row count. If your table or pivot table view contains a grand total or subtotal on the row edge, the display totals, that is the grand total and subtotals, are now included in the Rows per Page count for content paging. In prior releases, if you had the Rows per Page count set to 10 for example, the table or pivot table would display more than 10 records if display totals were shown in the view results. See "Editing Views" for additional information.

• For right-click interactions, the ability to specify whether the Hide Columns interaction is available at runtime. See "Right-Click Interactions in Views" for additional information.

Enhancements to Prompts

This release includes enhancements to prompts, including those in the following list:

• This release includes an enhancement to the SQL Results prompt option. If you are working with double columns, you can now write the SQL statement so that filtering is done on code values rather than display values. For more information, see "New Prompt dialog".

• This release includes an enhancement to the prompt constraint option. The prompts designer can now limit a column prompt value list by more than one column. For more information, see the Limit values by component in the "New Prompt dialog".

• This release includes enhancements to the parameters for prompted links. For more information, see "What Are Prompted Links?".

New Menu Options for Exporting Views and Results

This release adds the Excel 2007+ and Powerpoint 2007+ options for exporting views and results.

See "Export Menu Options for Views and Results".

Total Member Placement for Hierarchical Columns

This release includes an enhancement that allows placement of total members on a hierarchy. See "Analysis Properties dialog: Data tab" for additional information.

Browse Catalog Search Results by Object Attributes

This release provides the capability to use full-text search to find catalog objects and then filter the search results by attributes. This search is available when the administrator integrates Oracle BI Enterprise Edition with Oracle Endeca Server. After the full-text search results are returned, the Catalog area displays a list of matching items, and the Search pane displays the search results grouped by attribute (that is, Type, Name, Path, and Created By). See "What Results are Returned from a Full-Text Catalog Search?" for additional information.

Navigate from the Total or Grand Total in a Table or Pivot Table

If an analysis contains a total or grand total and the associated attribute or hierarchical column contains an action link or a conditional action link, the action link (or conditional action link) is applied to both the column and the total or grand total. See "What Are Actions?" for additional information.

New BI Desktop Tools Available for Download

This release adds the following tools to the list of BI desktop tools that are available for download:

• Oracle Hyperion Smart View for Office

• Oracle Hyperion Financial Reporting Studio (if Essbase is installed)

• Oracle Essbase Studio Console (if Essbase is installed)

• Oracle Essbase Administrative Services Console (if Essbase is installed)

See "Downloading BI Desktop Tools" for additional information.

Enhancement to Favorites

This release provides the capability to organize your favorites from the Category Tree area and the Selected Category area in the Manage Favorites dialog. In previous releases, you could organize favorites from the Category Tree area, only. See "Organizing Favorites" for additional information.

Integration of Oracle BI EE with Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System

With this release, Oracle BI EE is integrated with Enterprise Performance Management Workspace. See "Integration of Oracle BI EE with Oracle Enterprise Performance Management System".