Disabling interactions in OBI 11g Table Views

Recently had a issue with client wanting to globally disable certain interactions that user can use within OBI 11g globally not on a per report basis, found that by editing the instanceconfig.xml and add the following you can toggle those interaction globally. Below is the settings you would need to add to instanceconfig.xml make sure you add them between the correct tags. Make backup of instanceconfig.xml first then restart OBIEE services after you have made the necessary changes.

<ServerInstance>
<Analysis>
<InteractionProperties>
<InteractionPropertyAddRemoveValues>false</InteractionPropertyAddRemoveValues>
<InteractionPropertyCalcItemOperations>false</InteractionPropertyCalcItemOperations>
<InteractionPropertyDrill>false</InteractionPropertyDrill>
<InteractionPropertyGroupOperations>false</InteractionPropertyGroupOperations>
<InteractionPropertyInclExclColumns>false</InteractionPropertyInclExclColumns>
<InteractionPropertyMoveColumns>false</InteractionPropertyMoveColumns>
<InteractionPropertyRunningSum>false</InteractionPropertyRunningSum>
<InteractionPropertyShowHideSubTotal>false</InteractionPropertyShowHideSubTotal>
<InteractionPropertySortColumns>false</InteractionPropertySortColumns>
</InteractionProperties>
</Analysis>
</ServerInstance>

Setting up OBI 11g AdminServer and bi_server1 as Windows services

Recently worked to setup the AdminServer and the bi_server as Windows services and hit a few snags working through a SR with Oracle was shared this very helpful post by Ahmed Awan from Oracle.Very helpful though would be worth posting.


https://blogs.oracle.com/pa/entry/obiee_11_1_1_how3

OBI 11g Freeze Column Header Feature not supported on IE7/8

I recently ran into a issue with a user complaining that when they look at a report on a Dashboard page that the "freeze" column headers wasn't working.....weird since I logged in the same test account and I see then and the functionality. After some investigation the user was using IE8. Ok so of too the land of Oracle Support to find out the answer. Put in SR; after looking around and this is the response from Oracle Support. Good to know when accessing the client's environment during discovery phase.

"In IE 7 and IE 8 the Freeze Header is intentionally disabled. If you click the help button on the table properties dialogue you will see the help page contains the following:
...
Note:
Tables and pivot tables that use the scrolling method to browse data do not render properly in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser version 7 or 8. As a result, when Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser version 7 or 8 is detected, the table or pivot table will be rendered using paging controls instead...."

OBIEE 11.1.1.6.x + "Excelish" Freeze Column Headers

Recently had a client as for the freeze column heading feature in OBIEE 11g turned on. They stated "You know like Excel". So off on another stroll through the documentation and found the following:

1. Stop the Presentation Services. 

2. Open instanceconfig.xml at <MiddlewareHome>\instances\<YourOBIInstance>\config\OracleBIPresentationServicesComponent\coreapplication_obips1

3. Locate closing tag for </Views>; which should be at the end of the file. 

4. Add below entry before </Views> and save: 
<GridViews>
<DefaultScrollingEnabled>true</DefaultScrollingEnabled>
<DefaultRowFetchSlicesCount>500</DefaultRowFetchSlicesCount>
<DefaultColumnFetchSlicesCount>300</DefaultColumnFetchSlicesCount>
<DefaultFreezeHeadersClientRowBlockSize>60</DefaultFreezeHeadersClientRowBlockSize>
<DefaultFreezeHeadersClientColumnBlockSize>15</DefaultFreezeHeadersClientColumnBlockSize>
</GridViews> 


5. Save the file and start the Presentation Services back up 

Porting GoURL parameters from 10g to 11g

During a recent port from an existing 10g environment to an 11g environment ran into a  issue where the Go URL was being used to link to OBI from another application but there were more parameters that were defined in the Go URL for security. So the config in 10g was the following in the instanceconfig.xml file:

<Auth>
<UserIdPassword enabled="true">
<ParamList>
<Param name="NQ_SESSION.securityVariable"
source="url"
nameInSource="securityVariable"/>
</ParamList>
</UserIdPassword>
</Auth>


Alright so I look to see if 11g has the same instanceconfig.xml tags...nope. Adding these into 11g config caused the Presentation Service not to start....so after some research I found that those Parameters have to be placed in a totally different file details of my finding below:

a.) Went to authenticationschemas.xml file located in
C:<MW_HOME>\Oracle_BI1\bifoundation\web\display

b.) Made copy of authenticationschemas.xml file

c.) Look for line <!-- Group for HTTP POST login -->

d.) Found the <AuthenticationSchemaGroup> right under the above.

e.) You would be 3 xml lines as below.
<RequestVariable source="url" type="auth" nameInSource="NQUser" biVariableName="UID" options="trim" /><RequestVariable source="url" type="auth" nameInSource="NQPassword" biVariableName="PWD" options="secure"/><RequestVariable source="url" type="proxyUserAuth" nameInSource="RUNAS" biVariableName="NQ_SESSION.RUNAS" />

f.) Added the new line below with the existing configs : Saved the file
<RequestVariable source="url" type="auth" nameInSource="securityVariable" biVariableName="NQ_SESSION.securityVariable"/>

g.) Restarted all the OBI Services and the world is right again.

Date Error Message Customization

During a recent OBIEE 11g project the user requested a more "descriptive" date format error; huh; how did they get to that. After some Q&A with the user found out that they put in 2123/2013 as the date under a date prompt at that OBIEE sent a nice red error back stating "2123/2013 is not a valid date value" user issue was it didn't say what was acceptable. So my job was to make that more descriptive. So I found that in the following path: "OracleBIHome"\OracleBI_1\bifoundation\web\msgdb\l_en\messages\uicmsgs that there is a file called obiprp.propmtcomponents.xml which houses several of the messages around Date/Time errors. I modified (after taking a backup of the original file) in particular the WebMessage named "kmsgPromptRunTimeInvalidDateErrorMsgFormatStr" to a more descriptive error with a suggested format, saved the file, restarted the BI Suite and The message was more to the user's liking. There are several other messages based on Date/Time within this file as well so if you need to change a differnt one that is where I would start.

IE 7/8 Slowness Issues with OBIEE 11g

Recently I have been working on a issue with slowness with IE 7/8 and OBIEE 11g (11.1.1.6.2 BP1) before you say it yes I know IE 7/8 is NOT on the compatibility matrix for supported browsers for this version but client had the older versions as their standard with no room for upgrade to IE9. So I worked with Oracle via Sev 1 SR and they supplied a patch which worked nicely and I have come to find that it is now available in the 11.1.1.6.6 patch set which is available at Oracle support. Just search: "OBIEE 11g 11.1.1.6.6 is Available For BI Enterprise and Exalytics [ID 1508519.1]"