What is OBIA? Oracle BI Applications and various Components of OBIA

Oracle BI Applications

The increasing volumes and complexity of data provide a strategic opportunity for organizations to turn information into business intelligence.This has resulted in OBIA. We will see what are the important features of OBIA(Latest version is  Oracle Business Intelligence Applications, v. 7.9.6.1).

Definition:

Oracle Business Intelligence Applications is a prebuilt business intelligence solution that deliver intelligence across an organization, empowering users at all levels from front line operational users to senior management with the key information they need to maximize effectiveness.

Sources for OBIA

EBS or Oracle E-Business Suite

Oracle’s Siebel Applications

Oracle’s PeopleSoft Applications

Oracle’s JD Edwards Applications

Non-Oracle sources such as SAP Applications.

Oracle Business Intelligence Application (OBIA) is composed of : 

INFORMATICA

+

DAC

+

OBIEE

Components of OBIA

Components	Description
DAC Repository metadata files:	Content includes repository objects such as tables, subject areas, execution plans, and tasks, and is contained in XML files.The DAC client and server were included until version 7.9.5. Since then it is a separate installer.
Embedded Informatica ETL tool and repository	ETL is a third party tool which includes mappings (wrapped in workflows) to extract data from the supported source systems (various versions of standard applications such as Siebel CRM - yes it was first - , Oracle eBusiness Suite, Peoplesoft, JDEdwards and SAP (BI Apps version 7.8.4) ) and load the data into the Oracle Business Analysis Warehouse.
Prebuilt metadata content	This metadata content is contained in the Oracle BI Applications repository file  (OracleBIAnalyticsApps.rpd). It maps the source physical tables to a generic business model and includes more than 100 presentation catalogs (aka subject areas) to allow queries and segmentation using Oracle BI clients such as Answers, Dashboards and Segment Designer
Prebuilt reports and dashboard content	Contains hundreds of requests and ready-to-use dashboards which enable tight integration between the source applications and the BI infrastructure
Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse	The prebuilt data warehouse that holds data extracted, transformed, and loaded from the  transactional database
Ad-hoc Analysis	Metadata layer serves as foundation to provide flexible and intuitive ad-hoc reporting and custom dashboard designs through Oracle BI Answers and Oracle BI Dashboard tools that are part of the OBIEE toolset.
Role-Based Dashboards	Delivered role-based dashboards are easily configurable to meet specific organizational needs and practices.

Oracle BI Applications includes the following modules:

• Oracle Financial Analytics (Manage financial performance across locations, customers, products, and territories, and receive real-time alerts on events that may impact financial condition)
• Oracle Human Resources Analytics (Correlate financial measures with key workforce metrics to demonstrate HR’s strategic value in the organization)
• Oracle Procurement and Spend Analytics (Creates visibility to spending patterns for both direct and indirect spend, enabling users to identify and realize the savings opportunities, with the ability to do the spend analysis by commodities, suppliers, supplier locations, buying locations, business units, cost centers, buyers and contract usage)
• Oracle Project Analytics
• Oracle Supply Chain and Order Management Analytics
• And more….

 You can also read more about What a DAC is and Full Load in DAC.

Tables Used by OBIA

Table	Description
Aggregate tables (_A)	These tables contain summed (aggregated) data.
Dimension tables (_D)	Dimension tables with descriptive data
Staging tables for Dimension(_DS)	These tables contain the data which is to be loaded to Target
Fact tables (_F)	Tables storing facts and measures
Dimension Hierarchy tables (_DH)	Tables that store the dimension's hierarchical structure
Fact Staging tables (_FS)	Staging tables used to hold the metrics being analyzed by dimensions that have not been through the final ETL transformations.

Internal Tables in Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse

Internal tables are used primarily by ETL mappings for data transformation and for controlling ETL runs. These tables are not queried by end users and are not directly managed by the Oracle Data Warehouse Administration Console (DAC).

Name	Purpose
W_DUAL_G	Used to generate records for the Day dimension.
W_COSTLST_G	Stores cost lists.
W_EXCH_RATE_G	Stores exchange rates.