Examining the ongoing challenges of delivering high-quality, value-added ERP services in Higher Education.


Monday, August 6, 2012

OBIEE How-To Posts Coming

As those of you who follow me on Twitter may know, my team is trying to gain traction with an implementation of Oracle Business Intelligence (OBIEE). This has proven difficult for myriad reasons I need not get into here, but I have established bold and aggressive goals for replacing our existing reporting tools (for the communities we serve: finance, research administration, capital planning, student financials) over the next 16 months. I am taking an active, hands-on role in the project, including some light dabbling in solution design.

I tell people that Oracle BI is like the LEGO Star Wars Star Destroyer kit (see below for image, click here to buy from Amazon). It is an awesome toy, intricate and complicated, and looks great sitting on your dining room table at home...
LEGO Star Destroyer Set: Not for the meek!
Except there is a problem: imagine that the instruction booklet comes with only every third page. There is a lot to interpolate, heavy reliance on spatial thinking, and plenty of trial and error.

Figuring out how the pieces go together has become my latest off-hours avocation. The OBIEE Sample App has proven invaluable, as have blogs from Gerard Nico and Rittman Mead and the Learning Center from Performance Architects. The Oracle documentation has its moments, too, believe it or not!

Over the next few days, I will be posting an assortment of things I've learned -- usually after coming up empty on Google! I am hoping to "pay it forward" a bit in this domain; perhaps one or two of my observations helps somebody out there put a few more pieces together. 

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