Reporting Options and Business Intelligence Roadmap for Oracle E-Business Customers

Naren Thota

Professional Background
Oracle Application Development since 1996 Experienced in Implementations and Upgrades
10.6 SC is the start, worked thru 11.5.10.2

Extensive experience with BI solutions for Oracle EBS Clients since 1997 Experience with Packaged Vendors
Informatica DecisionExperts from Teradata Noetix Views Cognos Enterprise Suite etc.

Extensive experience with Oracle BI Tools

Discoverer Daily Business Intelligence XML/BI Publisher OBIEE Suite

Active in OAUG and regional User Groups. Currently serving as a Chair for the Applications Forum of Dallas Oracle Users Group (DOUG) Relationship with Oracle - Solution Beacon is a 5-Star Certified Advantage Partner
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Agenda
Run down of major Products in the Market for Oracle EBS
Oracle Products Oracle Reports
XML Publisher

Discoverer Oracle Daily Business Intelligence Oracle Business Intelligence Extended Edition Plus Suite (OBIEE)
Hyperion acquisition

Other Products Noetix Views Decision Experts from Teradata (formerly DecisionPoint Software) Cognos/Business Objects

Discuss scenarios and recommend applicable solutions from above Summary & Conclusion Q&A

Oracle Reports
Component of Oracle Developer Suite Major Functionality
Static Reports Robust

Limitations
Rigid to change/enhance/customize IT involvement during upgrades, patches etc.

Future
XML Publisher Integrated with EBS11i (11.5.8 and above) More so with Release12 (over 800 templates pre-delivered)

Discoverer10g
Adhoc query tool based on Oracles standard EUL (abstraction layer) Renamed to Oracle Business Intelligence Standard Edition Secured by Application Responsibilities and Users Can be customized, can be licensed as a separate suite, create custom EULs for non-Oracle EBS databases Limitations
Limited to Oracle E-Business, can be extended for non-EBS Limited Dashboarding capability via Discoverer Portlets

Future
Integration of XML Publisher, rumor is with Discoverer11g

Oracle Daily Business Intelligence Pre-packaged KPIs and Dashboards for Financials, Procurement, Supply Chain, HR etc. Available with 11i (11.5.8+) and Release12 Limitations
Applicable to only Oracle EBS Rigid to customize

Future
Product is put on Maintenance mode, Oracle is pushing OBIEE+ Suite with BI Packaged Applications as the replacement

Alternative Solution
Combo - OBIEE Answers and Dashboards interface (only the front-end) with Noetix Views Noetix Views
Automatically picks up Key and Descriptive Flexfields

Combined solution can be an alternative to Discoverer and DBI Noetix is also tightly integrated with Discoverer and BI Publisher Differentiator: OBIEE front-end can report from any data source, not just Noetix Views for EBS, on any platform. Repository can be expanded for other sources for real-time reporting Limitations
Abstract layer (Metadata repository layer) for OBIEE doesnt exist yet, can be created rather easily. Noetix and Oracle to create a public API to automatically refresh repository with changes in APPS Mid 2008

Data Warehouse in the Making

OBIEE Plus
Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Plus (OBIEE)
Presentation Services Answers and Dashboards Delivers/ibots BI Publisher OBIEE Administrator Pre-Packaged content (BI Applications)

Oracle Business Intelligence Standard Edition-1 (OBISE-1)

Reporting interface (Answers and Dashboards, PS, BI Publisher) Oracle Warehouse Builder license is included Supported only on Windows at the moment
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OBIEE Plus Continued

Ability to connect to any data source on any platform, merge data from multiple sources BI Applications (Pre-Packaged Solutions)
Fusion Intelligence DBI components integrated into OBIEE; on maintenance mode as of July07 Business Intelligence Applications
Physical Data Warehouse Star-schema adaptors for Oracle EBS, Siebel, PeopleSoft, SAP etc. Informatica OEM Power Center Server and ETL with Datawarehouse Administrator Server and Console (DAC) to administer the ETL

Hyperions Financial Performance Metrics related KPIs and Dashboards are included in Fusion Intelligence. Not fully integrated with Hyperion though
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OBIEE Plus Continued

Limitations?? Call em Observations
Expensive just as with any complete BI solution Informaticas Power Center Server and ETL processes are slow, and support intensive Business Adaptors for Oracle EBS are incomplete, limited flexfield support etc. Organizations now need to acquire a new skillset in Informatica ETL

Other Tools/Options
Either a Cognos or a Business Objects as the UI Not complete solutions for Oracle EBS customers though
Need Data Warehouse as a source No pre-built metadata repository if its for Oracle EBS (Noetix offers it)

Cannot access or merge data from different sources on different platforms, I believe Cognos8 and BO xiR2 (integration with Crystal Reports postacquisition) can access them separately OBIEE has an edge here
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Alternative Solution
Combo - OBIEE Answers and Dashboards interface (only the front-end) and DecisionExperts (from Teradata) DecisionExperts Formerly DecisionPoint Software Pre-packaged Star-schemas for Oracle EBS and PeopleSoft Comprehensive solution, full automatic support for KFF and DFFs SQL based with a GUI Interface Limitations Abstract layer for OBIEE doesnt exist today Plans underway develop OBIEE abstract layer and integration with DecisionExperts
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Summary and Conclusion

OBIEE is undeniably a great next generation Business Intelligence solution OBIEEs packaged solutions are good, but other options such as DecisionExperts and Jaros can be evaluated A combination of OBIEE and the above-mentioned thirdparty back-end packaged solutions are options to consider Finally, an assessment of your current systems, architecture, tools, technology, resources must be performed to prepare for an overall Corporate BI reporting solution

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Questions and Answers

Thank You! Naren Thota Email: NThota@solutionbeacon.com
www.solutionbeacon.com Real Solutions for the Real World

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Installing, Upgrading and Maintaining Oracle EBusiness Suite Applications 11.5.10.2+

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