What is ERP -Enterprise Resource Planning or EBS

Definition:

ERP (enterprise resource planning) is an industry term used to define the activities that help a business to grow.This gives a boost to the whole business process..

ERP is also known as E business Suite or EBS (widely used as source for the OBIA projects).

 

What is the use of ERP?

ERP provides information about the KPI’s (The key points in a business which needs to be monitored every now and then) of a business.By implementing an ERP system in your company, you will be able to control and manage all your departments at the same time, and to improve their performance, through this integrated system. Because of its complexity, it may take a couple of years to implement properly, but the ERP will make your investment worthwhile.ERP includes application modules like finance and human resources aspects of a business. Typically, an ERP system uses or is integrated with a relational database system.

Since the ERP softwares are very costly normally clients by it module by module and cover the whole department .ERP brings various departments in a company together by making it fully automated and sharing the information.This fact leads to a better service of the customers, and thus to happier clients, who will be willing to recommend you to others.

Even though this software is really an investment , we need to provide training to the company and explain them all the business process.To facilitate this big businesses, companies like Oracle Corporation have created huge software known in the category of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) as Oracle Applications or Oracle APPS

Read about  Oracle APPS also………….

Different types of Target tables in OBIEE?

Target Tables	Description
W_XACT_SOURCE_TMP	These tables hold the temporary results as a part of conforming rocess.It is used as a part of ETL process to conform the data to fit the DS and FS tables.
W_XACT_SOURCE_D_PE	Tables used to support the soft delete feature. The table includes all the primary key columns (integration ID column) from the source system. When a delete event happens, the full extract from the source compares the data previously extracted in the primary extract table to determine if a physical deletion was done in the Siebel application. The soft delete feature is disabled by default. Therefore, the primary extract tables are not populated until you enable the soft delete feature. Note that there are two types of delete tables: _DEL and _PE.
W_SALES_INVOICE_LINE_FS	Staging tables used to hold the metrics being analyzed by dimensions that have not been through the final ETL transformations.
W_PROD_CAT_DHS	Staging tables for storing the hierarchy structures of dimensions that have not been through the final extract-transform-load (ETL) transformations.
W_POSITION_DH	Tables that store the dimension's hierarchical structure.

What is EAM in OBIA?

Oracle Enterprise Asset Management (eAM) is part of Oracle's 11i E-Business Suite and addresses the comprehensive and routine asset maintenance requirements of asset intensive organizations. Using eAM, organizations can efficiently maintain both assets, such as vehicles, cranes and HVAC systems, as well as rotable inventory items, such as motors and engines. To measure performance and optimize maintenance operations, all maintenance costs and work history are tracked at the asset level.

EAM Overview 

Oracle Enterprise Asset Management (eAM) provides organizations with the tools to create and implement maintenance procedures for both assets and rebuildable inventory items. Maintenance procedures are an integral part of an organization's complete asset lifecycle management strategy,enabling an organization to optimize asset utilization. eAM enables users to optimally plan and schedule maintenance activities with minimal disruption to an organization's operations or production. Importantly, it improves resource efficiency, enhances maintenance quality, tracks work history, and records all maintenance costs.

Oracle eAM tracks the performance of assets (including rebuildable, inventory items) using meters, quality plans, and condition monitoring systems. By effectively monitoring an asset's operating condition, effective preventive maintenance strategies can be implemented. In addition to creating preventive maintenance schedules, users can create alternative maintenance strategies for seasonal or production capacity changes.

eAM's comprehensive maintenance functionality supports asset lifecycle strategies for asset intensive industries, including Metals/Mining, Manufacturing, Pulp/Paper, Petrochemicals, Facilities, and Education. eAM eliminates the need for spreadsheets and disparate data repositories, by enabling companies to manage reactive, planned, preventive maintenance, and adopt a centralized, proactive strategy for managing asset maintenance across an enterprise.

eAM enables an organization to do the following:

• Create a preventive maintenance strategy
• Maximize resource availability, including both equipment and labor
• Optimize scheduling and resource efficiency
• Integrate with Oracle's E-Business Suite for enterprise-wide solutions

Also read Indexing in Datawarehouse 

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.