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BICG University

Introduction to Oracle Essbase

Version 11.19.09

Copyright
Copyright 2009, BI Consulting Group, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the authors. BICG training materials are intended for the use of students who have paid for and have attended BICG training. Please contact BICG for information on receiving additional training materials: http://www.bicguniversity.com

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2009 BICG University

Course Welcome
Welcome to BI Consulting Groups Introduction to Oracle Essbase class!

BI Consulting Groups comprehensive training program reflects the best practices developed after more than 200 implementations of Oracle BI Enterprise Edition (formerly Siebel Analytics). Our curriculum is designed to not only provide a functional understanding of the variety of Oracle BI and data warehousing tools, it also provides a wealth of advice, tips, and tricks designed to fully take advantage of all aspects of OBIEE before, during and after a project. Our classes operate in an immersion environment, designed to allow the student to become fully engaged in all aspects of the class curriculum through a series of real world exercises. Unlike other training organizations that use trainers who have never actually implemented the software or built a data warehouse, BI Consulting Group taps into our wealth of experienced consultants to act as trainers and mentors. The best practices, tips and tricks developed by our team will allow you to push your data warehouse, Oracle BI Enterprise Edition and Oracle Essbase implementations to the limit.

Mike Jelen [Vice President of BICG University] 651.403.6524 mike.jelen@biconsultinggroup.com

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2009 BICG University

Introduction to Oracle Essbase


The Introduction to Oracle Essbase course is intended to provide an overview of Oracle Essbase architecture, functionality and how it is used to solve business problems.

Topics Covered: Business Intelligence Pyramid Essbase Concepts Data Architecture Sample Outlines Cube Dimensions BSO (block storage option) and ASO (aggregate storage option) Oracle Essbase and OBIEE Oracle Essbase Top 10 List

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2009 BICG University

Introduction to Oracle Essbase


Oracle Essbase sits at the center of a business intelligence pyramid. Companies are very good at collecting transaction level data. The challenge is to unlock this transactional data and turn it into useful information. Data from on-line transaction systems is loaded into Oracle Essbase so users can make sense of it for management reporting and analysis.

2009 BICG University

Introduction to Oracle Essbase


Oracle Essbase is now a key component of the Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition products. the industry-leading OLAP (online analytical processing) server rapidly develop custom analytic and enterprise performance management (EPM) applications quickly model complex business scenarios

2009 BICG University

Introduction to Oracle Essbase


For years, business managers and financial analysts have been asking questions and thinking about the budgets, sales data, and nearly every other piece of business information in multidimensional terms. They might want to know how a particular product sells in one market versus another. They might want to know which customer actually nets them the most profit. The multidimensional analysis capabilities of Essbase makes it possible to do this kind of reporting. Essbase is a multidimensional database application that lets you continually analyze and compare aspects of your business. An Essbase database: Works with multidimensional data Works with rollup hierarchies within dimensions Obtains data from other systems or can calculate new data using formulas and calc scripts Deals with summarized data not transactions Adapts to different reporting and analysis environments

2009 BICG University

Introduction to Oracle Essbase


With Essbase as your application development environment you gain the following benefits: You can build multiple databases using the same tool Individual analytic applications are integrated Single environment for development, testing, deployment, training

As shown above, Essbase users can zoom in and zoom out to analyze data across all the potential combinations of all available dimensions and attributes.

2009 BICG University

Introduction to Oracle Essbase


Most Essbase users interact with the tool using Microsoft Excel. This accounts for its popularity among the spreadsheet user community.

There is an Excel Add-In that sits within the menu bar which provides the user selection and interactivity.

There is also an SmartView Add-in which provides more advanced capabilities for Excel to talk with various Oracle EPM products.

2009 BICG University

Introduction to Oracle Essbase


The database outline is the key to understanding Essbase. The outline contains the database organization (structure), hierarchies, the database members, attributes and other items (load rules, calc scripts, member formulas), as shown below.

Attributes

Attributes function in a similar way to dimensions and describe characteristics of data (ie size, color)
2009 BICG University

Dimensions

Introduction to Oracle Essbase


Here are another outline example. This cube was designed for global inventory analysis. Dimension Details

2009 BICG University

Introduction to Oracle Essbase


Here are yet another outline example. This cube was designed for global sales analysis of a large consumer products company.

Dimension Details

2009 BICG University

Introduction to Oracle Essbase


A typical Essbase production environment consists of Outline Facilitates to organization of data into hierarchies and dimension Easy to visualize Load rules Facilitates loading and maintaining dimension members Organizes data from multiple data sources Calculation scripts Facilitates top-down calculation capabilities across dimensions Requires little coding Reporting Uses Excel spreadsheet add-in

2009 BICG University

Introduction to Oracle Essbase


Here is an example of how Essbase fits in to a corporate data architecture. Data is typically sourced from a data warehouse but can also come from Excel spreadsheets (via a lock and send process). Data is loaded using load rules and stored in the cube Data is retrieved via Excel or report writing software.

2009 BICG University

Introduction to Oracle Essbase


There are two types of cubes that can be constructed: 1. Block Storage Option (BSO) 2. Aggregate Storage Option (AS0) The key difference is that a BSO cube allows users to lock and send data to the cube. This is useful for budgeting and forecasting applications. Also, BSO cubes have more functionality with complex calculation scripts. A downside of BSO cubes is that they usually take longer to calculate than ASO cubes. ASO cubes load and aggregate data much faster than BSO cubes. They can also contain many more dimensions and attributes without impacting performance. For this reason, ASO cubes have grown in popularity among the Essbase developer community. A general guideline is that is your cube does not require lock and send capabilities or complex calculations, then use the ASO version. In newer versions of Essbase (particularly 11.x), ASO cubes the differences between ASO and BSO have been narrowed.

2009 BICG University

Introduction to Oracle Essbase


Oracle Essbase and OBIEE Beginning with OBIEE 10.1.3.3.2, Essbase (9.3.1 or later ) is supported as an Oracle Business Intelligence (OBI) Server data source. Can now expose Essbase data to a broad user audience via OBIEE Answers, OBIEE Interactive Dashboards, and OBIEE Delivers. Using the OBI Server repository, developers can build business models that unite Essbase data sources with sources supported by OBI Server. There is a lot of development going on to enhance capabilities in future release of OBIEE Answers (called OBIEE Answers Plus)!

2009 BICG University

Introduction to Oracle Essbase


Oracle Essbase and OBIEE OBIEE Answers can sit on top of Oracle Essbase to provide browser based reporting. You can also combine relational and Essbase multidimensional data in reports.

OBIEE Answers

Oracle Business Intelligence Administration Tool

Essbase cube (version 9.3.1 or higher)

2009 BICG University

Introduction to Oracle Essbase


Oracle Essbase and OBIEE Essbase cube can be imported to Physical layer of OBIEE. Oracle BI flattens out the Essbase multidimensional view into a relational view (star schema of dimensions and facts). Can recreate a Measures hierarchy similar to Essbase.

2009 BICG University

Introduction to Oracle Essbase


Oracle Essbase and OBIEE OBIEE talks to Essbase via MDX queries automatic for standard reports customize for enhanced reports (use the EVALUATE function to call Essbase functions)

OBIEE creates MDX queries against Essbase Essbase returns result set OBIEE reformats the result set and presents

Thanks to http://oraclebizint.wordpress.com

2009 BICG University

Introduction to Oracle Essbase


Oracle Essbase Top 10 List Use the Scenarios dimension to select the type of data you want (ie Budget, Actual, Forecast). Understand the user options. The Options command enables you to select options for the active sheet and customize the behavior of the Essbase Spreadsheet Add-in software. Read the fine Essbase user manual. This well-written pdf file is available with the Essbase client software and will help a great deal. Automate Essbase. You can write Excel macros that will automatically perform Essbase actions. Join others. Tap into the global Essbase community at various Oracle Essbase discussion boards and blogs.

2009 BICG University

Introduction to Oracle Essbase


Oracle Essbase Top 10 List (continued) 6. For users, Excel is 90%, Essbase is 10% of usage. Once you retrieve your data, you can update Excel with graphs, formulas or reports. 7. Use specific dimensions or attributes if you need to create a filter and focus on a specific intersection of data. 8. Use the force, Luke. The Hyperion Essbase Spreadsheet Add-In provides a convenient toolbar that displays buttons for accessing most of the common Essbase commands without having to open the Essbase drop-down menu. 9. Suppress that data. You can suppress missing and zero values from displaying in the worksheet. 10. Have fun. Essbase is your personal Rubik's cube of global information on finance, sales, marketing, etc.

2009 BICG University

Introduction to Oracle Essbase


A copy of the Essbase Users Guide for Excel is available on the BICG Knowledge Base. This is a very well-written tutorial and expands on the topics presented in this lesson.

2009 BICG University

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