Some fields will have a standard way of being formatted, such as a date DD-MMM-YYYY or a dollar amount being set $x,xxx.xx. Having to format the field each time that a user wants to use it becomes quite burdensome and gives a developer more room for error if they are formatting the field each time it is used. The saying “work smarter, not harder” comes to mind with this solution. For this example we will globally change the format of the field “revenue” to the format $x,xxx.xx. Let’s open an analysis and for the sake of seeing the format prior … Read More
Fixing the Configuration Error in the Oracle BI (OBIEE) Administration Tool on 64-bit Windows 7
After completing a client-only installation of the Oracle BI (OBIEE) tools on a 64-bit Windows 7 computer, people frequently report getting a “Configuration Error” dialog box every time they launch the Administration Tool. This is what the dialog box looks like: Hitting OK just closes the tool. There are no log files. You appear to be stuck. Here is how you can resolve the problem: Go to the C:\Program Files\Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Plus Client\oraclebi\orahome\bifoundation\server\binC:\Program Files\Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Plus Client\oraclebi\orahome\bifoundation\server\bin directory. Look for the bi_init.bat file. This is the file that is executed when you run the Administration Tool. Make a … Read More
Windows 8.1 and the return of the start button
At last, the long awaited Windows 8.1 update is here! Windows users can now get back to using the familiar ‘Start Button’ we are all used to. Before I get into the new features of Windows 8.1 both ascetically and behind the scenes, I’d like to talk about the install time and process. For starters, the install time isn’t exactly speedy, and instead of telling the user what is being updated, Microsoft has chosen to to use phrases like ‘Getting Ready’ , ‘Setting up a Few More Things’, and ‘Taking Care of a few Things’. Once the install is complete, the … Read More
Happy Ada Lovelace Day!
Before Tesla and Turing and Edison and Einstein, there was Ada Lovelace. Those first four names are nearly all household names, especially in the world of science and technology. But Ada Lovelace is not a name one hears as often. She is often referred to as the first person to write a computer program. There is a movement based on Ada’s namesake to spread awareness of women who inspire from the world of Science Technology Engineering and Math, or more frequently referred to as STEM. To introduce Lovelace, she was born on December 10th, 1815 and is the daughter of … Read More
Misleading Statistics in Internal Developer OBIEE 11.1.1.6.2
Today, we are going to look at the demo standard deviation charts that come with the internal developer VM OBIEE 11.1.1.6.2. We’ll look at several misleading statistics that are produced with this report and suggest ways to make the page more understandable for the user. Below is the page (1) that we will be investigating. (1) Standard Deviation Page Start with the upper left graph (2), it appears to be using confidence bands on the different factors. One can think of a confidence band as a continuous confidence interval for a linear model. This data is not continuous but consists … Read More
Career Fairs – The Other Side of the Table
In this blog post, two newer members of the M&S team reflect on career fair experiences. While students, we’d been through career fairs quite a few times. Trying to sell yourself to companies in just a few short minutes is stressful. It can be hard to put yourself out there as an inexperienced student. This year, we got to be on the other side of the career fair table. With the experience of participating in career fairs fresh in our minds still, we have some pointers for students that we think will help them…and us. What Actually Matters Attending career … Read More
Exporting Negative Numbers from OBIEE 11.1.1.7.0 to Excel 2007+
If you’re trying to export numeric values in OBIEE 11.1.1.7.0 to Excel 2007+, you may notice there are issues when you attempt to sum a column that has negative numbers. This problem will occur if you have a negative number’s font color set to red. Excel 2007 disregards those values when directly exported whereas if you export to Excel 2003 you will not have this issue but will lose some of the formatting from OBIEE. Proposed is an easy solution to implement that will allow users to have useful data and not be limited to where they can export to. The Problem: … Read More
Oracle APEX 4 Advanced Tutorial 1 – Creating A Tabular Form Video Walkthrough
This tutorial is designed to walk you through chapter 2 of the Oracle APEX Advanced Tutorial, Creating a Tabular Form. We will be creating an application with a form, testing the base form, then extending the functionality of that base form. If you haven’t already, please review our APEX Tutorial Preparation and OEHR Sample Data Install Video Walkthrough. APEX 4.2 Series We created and made the original set of tutorials back in 2009 when version 3.2 of APEX was released. Since then we have had an amazing response to our series, even as new versions were released. As of 2013, … Read More