What is Oracle Discoverer?

Oracle Discoverer is a business intelligence toolset that comprises:

Oracle Discoverer Administrator Oracle AS Discoverer PlusOracle AS Discoverer ViewerOracle Discoverer Desktop

Discoverer Components

What Is Oracle Discoverer Admin?

Discoverer Administrator is a tool to hide the complexity of the database from business users, so they can answer business questions quickly and accurately using Oracle Discoverer.

Discoverer Administrator’s wizard-style interfaces enable you to:

set up and maintain the End User Layer (EUL) control access to information create conditions and calculations for Discoverer

end users to include in their worksheets Users of Discoverer Administrator are called

Discoverer managers.

What is our Role as Discoverer Mgr?

As a Discoverer manager, you are responsible for:

the initial implementation of the Discoverer system

the ongoing administration and maintenance of the Discoverer system

Basic Concepts Of Discoverer Mgr?

"What is business intelligence?" "What are relational databases, OLTP

systems, and data warehouses?"

"What are the fundamental concepts behind a Discoverer system?"

"How does Discoverer work?"

What Is Business Intelligence?

Business intelligence is the ability to analyze data to answer business questions and predict future trends.

Oracle Discoverer is a great business intelligence tool because it enables users to analyze data in an ad hoc way.

What are RDBMS,OLTP, &DW?

A relational database stores data in tables that are composed of rows and columns that contain data values.

A typical RDBMS is designed for online transaction processing (OLTP).

An OLTP system contains the information that a business uses on a day-to-day basis.

Data warehouse design is primarily concerned with getting data out of an RDBMS.

The information in a data warehouse is typically subject-oriented, historical, and static.

Oracle Discoverer provides business users with data analysis capabilities, regardless of whether the RDBMS was designed for an OLTP system or as data warehouse.

Cont’d

Concepts Behind Discoverer System

"Introducing the End User Layer" "Introducing business areas" "Introducing folders and items" "Introducing workbooks and

worksheets" "Introducing hierarchies and drills" "Introducing summary folders"

End User Layer (EUL)

The End User Layer (EUL) insulates Discoverer end users from the complexity and physical structure of the database.

The EUL provides an intuitive, business-focused view of the database that you can tailor to suit each Discoverer end user or user group.

The EUL enables Discoverer end users to focus on business issues instead of data access issues.

The metalayer structure of the EUL preserves the data integrity of the database.

EUL Cont’d

The EUL is a collection of approximately 50 tables in the database. These are the only tables that can be used through Discoverer Administrator.

Business areas are defined in Discoverer Administrator using the EUL database tables.

Discoverer provides read-only access to the application database.

Business Area

Business areas are defined in Discoverer Administrator using the EUL database tables.

Using Discoverer Administrator, you create one or more business areas as containers of related information.

Having created a business area, you load the database tables containing the related information into that business area.

Folders and Items

The tables and views you load into a business area are presented to Discoverer end users as folders.

The columns within a table or view are presented as items.

Workbooks And Worksheets

A workbook is a collection of Discoverer worksheets.

Workbooks are essentially documents containing query definitions.

Discoverer end users can store their workbooks centrally in the database.

Worksheets contain the data that you want to analyze, together with a number of Discoverer components to help you analyze the data.

Hierarchies And DrillsHierarchies are logical relationships b/n items

that enable users to drill up and down to view information in more or less detail.drill down to see more detail about a

particular piece of information.drill up to see how the detail data

contributes to information at a higher level.

When you load tables into a business area, Discoverer automatically creates default date hierarchies for date items.

Summary FoldersA Discoverer folder is a representation of

result set data.Summary folders are a representation of

queried data that has been saved for reuse.

You create summary folders with Discoverer Administrator to improve query response time for end users.

The response time of a query is improved because the query accesses pre-aggregated and pre-joined data rather than accessing the database tables.

How does Discoverer Work?

When a user creates or opens a worksheet, Discoverer: converts the worksheet into the corresponding

SQL statements (e.g. byconverting folder names and item names to table

names and column names respectively) sends the SQL statements to the database

displays the result set that is returned from the database

In the case of Discoverer Plus and Discoverer Viewer, the SQL statements are routed to the database via Discoverer processes running on an application server machine.

Steps for suc’ful imp’n of Discoverer

New Features In Discoverer Admin

SQL Optimization and the New Join Wizard - To improve query performance, Discoverer now optimizes the SQL that it generates.

Heterogeneous Data Services - Discoverer users can now take advantage of generic connectivity (a mechanism supported by the Oracle database

Heterogeneous Services) to access ODBC or OLE DB (object linking and embedding database) databases.

Getting Started With Discoverer Administrator

Work Area

The Work area is your view into the EUL. The Work area is where you maintain the EUL by creating and editing:

business areas and foldersitemshierarchiesitem classessummary folders

Cont’d

The Work area window is displayed within the Discoverer Administrator main window.You can open more than one Work area window at a time, which is useful when you want to copy objects between business areas. Note however that all Work area windows contain the same business areas.

About Tabs In Work AREA

Data TabItem Classes TabHierarchies TabSummaries Tab

Data Tab

The Data tab displays the structure and content of each business area. The Data tab enables you to:

create calculated items create complex folders create joins create conditions create new business areas, folders, and items

modify object properties

Hierarchies Tab

The Hierarchies tab displays the hierarchies within each business area. The Hierarchies tab enables you to:

create new hierarchies review the content and organization of

existing hierarchies view the hierarchy templates supplied

with Discoverer AdministratorThe Show button on the Hierarchies tab

enables you to specify the hierarchies that are displayed.

Item Classes Tab

The Item Classes tab displays the item classes within each business area. The Item Classes tab enables you to:

create new item classes view the list of values associated with an

item class view items that use each item class identify the item classes that have drill to

detail and alternative sort attributes, and whether those options are active

Summaries Tab

The Summaries tab displays the summary folders within each business area. The Summaries tab enables you to:

create new summary foldersreview the organization and

definition of summary foldersrefresh summary folders

Administrator Task list

Use the Administration Task list in two ways:

as a reminder of the basic steps involved in preparing a business areaas a shortcut method of displaying the dialogs associated with the listed tasks

Features

Retrieving Rows and Counting the Number of Rows

Creating Parameters Creating Calculations Creating Advanced Conditions Setting Options Using Command Line Options Importing SQL

Components Of Discoverer Desktop

Workbooks

Worksheets

Workbook

a. Tool Barb. Analysis Barc. Formatting Bard. Page Axise. Top Axisf. Left Axisg. Data Pointsh. Worksheet Tabsi. Tab Scroll Buttonsj. Page Scroll Bar (Horizontal)k. Page Scroll Bar (Vertical)

Types of Display

Table Page-Detail Table Cross tab Page-Detail Cross tab

Table Layout

The most familiar layout for data, a table, lists data in rows and columns.

Table Layout with page details

A table layout with page details is a table with multiple pages of data, where each page shows various portions of the data in detail.

Cross Tab Layout

A cross tab, short for “cross-tabulation,” relates two different sets of data and summarizes their interrelationship in terms of a third set of data.

Every cross tab has at least three dimensions of data—rows, columns, and data points.

But in Discoverer, cross tabs can show the interrelationships between many dimensions of data on the various axes.

A cross tab layout has three axes: side axis, top axis and page axis.

Work with Discoverer Desktop

Pivoting– Pivoting data is how you move the data from one

axis to another to arrange it for efficient analysis. For example, you can pivot data from the body of the table or cross tab to the page axis and back again to see new data relationships.

– One way to think about pivoting data is to visualize the data plotted on a graph, and then switching data from the x-axis to the y-axis.

Drilling – Drilling into data shows more details about the

data. Drilling out of data (or collapsing) consolidates the data for a broader overview.

Sorting – Sorting arranges text data in

alphabetical order and numeric data in numerical order.

– Creating an ordered list of customers, or employees, or product part numbers are typical uses of sorting.

Reporting Results

Preparing reports for printing and previewing

Sending reports with e-mailExporting to other applicationsProducing scheduled reportsSharing worksheets

Discoverer Plus

– Discoverer Plus is a business intelligence (BI) analysis tool that works over the Internet.

– If you are already familiar with Discoverer Desktop, you will recognize many Discoverer Plus features.

– The two versions are compatible and you can share work between them.

– Discoverer Plus is the Internet version of the award-winning Windows product, Discoverer Desktop.

– It is developed by using Java Applets

Discoverer Viewer

– Discoverer Viewer is a business intelligence (BI) analysis tool that works over the Internet.

– Discoverer Viewer is used to analyze the data and for creating the charts

– It has been provided as an URL to access in oracle applications

– It is developed by XML/XSL style languages