OBIEE 11g - XMLP Server Cache Control

1.   Login to BI Framework with the user account which has the XMLP_ADMIN privileges on BI Publisher. Click Admin Tab from this page.

2.  Click Server Configuration on Admin Page.

3.     If you have never set up the Caching for publisher, by default,it should be all blank for this section. Input the numbers for each text field as expected.

4.     Restart OPMN

Open a terminal and type the following commands.

 $cd <OAS_Home>/opmn/bin

      $./opmnctl stopall

      $./opmnctl startall

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BI Publisher - 10g to 11g Upgrade Process

Things to Know Before the Upgrade

With 11G, now the data model is completely a separate object. You can create multiple reports all pointing to a single shared data model. So after the upgrade, your single report on the 10G will be split into two Reporting Objects, one is a Report (.xdo) that contains the layouts and another is a Data Model (.xdm) that contains the data model information.

Another thing to be aware is, BI Publisher 11G shares the catalog, where all the reports are stored, with BI Presentation Server. That means, when you install BI Publisher 11G as part of the BIEE suite then there will be only one catalog, which is called BI EE catalog (or, BI Presentation catalog), and that’s where all the BI contents will be stored including BI Publisher reports, BI Answers requests, Dashboards, etc. If you installed only BI Publisher standalone then you will have a BI Publisher catalog, it’s the same way as the 10G.

Overall Process

There are three main steps to upgrade your BI Publisher 10G to 11G.

• Install BI Publisher 11G
• Upgrade BI Publisher 10G catalog to 11G
• Migrate BI Publisher 11G catalog to BI Presentation catalog (Only for BIEE integrated environments)
• Upgrade BI Publisher 10G Scheduler Schema to 11G

There are two things you need to upgrade, one is the BI Publisher catalog and another is the BI Publisher Scheduler schema. After upgrading the catalog you’ll have a BI Publisher 11g catalog with your contents. And if your BI Publisher is integrated with BIEE then you need to migrate (or upload) the catalog to the BIEE catalog. And of course, if your BI Publisher is running on a standalone mode then this step is not necessary.

Install BI Publisher 11G

There is an installation guide that takes you through the steps with detail information. 

Upgrade BI Publisher 10G Catalog to 11G

Backup!

Before you start the upgrade, as always, I’d highly recommend that you make a backup for both the 10G and 11G catalogs. I know it’s a normal practice so nothing special here, but just to make sure…

Source Catalog and Target Catalog

One thing you want to decide before you start the upgrade is the locations for the original 10G catalog and for the target catalog which will be generated by the Upgrade Assistant utility.

You can find the 10G BI Publisher catalog location by logging into BI Publisher 10G and go to Admin –> Report Repository page.

Start Upgrade!

You can use the Upgrade Assistant utility to upgrade the BI Publisher 10G catalog. The utility is an UI based application It is located under %Oracle_Home%/Oracle_BI1/bin folder (or directly) and you can simply double click on ‘ua.bat’ for Windows or run ‘ua’ for Linux/Unix to start.

Once you launch the utility you will see the following UI.

First, select ‘Upgrade Oracle BI Publisher Repository’

Select ‘Upgrade 10g BI Publisher Repository Directory’ and specify your 10G catalog location.

And now you specify a target location for the upgraded catalog. (e.g. C:\BIP\11G\repository)

Now you can enter WebLogic Admin Server connection information. Let’s say, if you can access to the WebLogic Console with ‘http://bipublisher.us.oracle.com:7001/console’ then the Host is ‘bipublisher.us.oracle.com’ and the Port is ‘7001’. The username and passwords are the same ones to login to the Console.

When you click ‘Next’ button you will see an Examination window which checks the server connectivity. If’ the status shows ‘succeeded’ then Click ‘Next’.

You’ll get a Review window. If the source and target catalog locations look ok then click ‘Upgrade’ button.

Once the upgrade is done, you will see the Status showing ‘succeeded’. Click ‘Next’ button.

Here, you can find a log file location. (e.g. C:\biee11\Oracle_BI1\upgrade\logs\postupgrade.txt) You might want to review the file to ensure that there is no error during the upgrade process. Well, if you see the ‘succeeded’ in the previous step there shouldn’t be any error message though.

Now you should be able to find a newly generated catalog at the specified location !

If your BI Publisher is integrated with BIEE then you need to migrate (or upload) the catalog to the BIEE catalog following the steps at the next section. But if your BI Publisher is running on a standalone mode then you can skip the next step and jump to ‘Upgrade BI Publisher 10G Scheduler Schema’ section. .

Upload to BIEE (BI Presentation) Catalog

From 11G, the integrated of BIEE and BI Publisher is very tight. BI Publisher shares the BIEE catalog so that the users can access to all the BI contents including BI Publisher reports, BI Answers requests, BI Dashborad, etc, in a single catalog and from a same UI. Now you have an upgraded BI Publisher catalog, which was generated at the previous step, so you need to upload that to the BIEE catalog. 

1. Login to BI Publisher 11G as an user with BI_Admin application role or ‘weblogic’ user.

2. Go to Administration UI and click ‘Server Configuration’ link, you should see the following page.

3. Now the Catalog Type should be set to ‘Oracle BI EE Catalog’. Click ‘Test Connection’ to ensure BI Publisher can connect to Oracle BI Presentation Services

4. Enter the path of the upgraded BI Publisher catalog location

5. Click ‘Upload to BI Presentation Catalog’ button. This will upload the contents of your BI Publisher catalog to the BI Presentation catalog.

Now when you go to the Catalog UI by clicking the ‘Catalog’ menu, then you should see all the folders and reports from the 10G catalog along with other 11G contents !

Upgrade BI Publisher 10G Scheduler Schema to 11G

After finishing the catalog upgrade, there is one more thing. You need to upgrade the BI Publisher Scheduler schema. You can do so by using the same Upgrade Assistant utility.

Start Upgrade Assistant Utility and select ‘Upgrade Oracle BI Publisher Scheduler Schema’ and click ‘Next’.

Type an information about the database where the BI Publisher 10G Scheduler schema is installed, and click ‘Next’.

Now, type an information about the target database where the BI Publisher 11G scheduler schema is installed. This is the same database that you run the RCU against before the 11G installation.

Select a Schema Name that you installed the RCU, and click ‘Next’

Once the ‘Examination’ process is done and the Status is showing ‘succeeded’ then click ‘Upgrade’.

After the upgrade process is done you should see the Status is showing ‘succeeded’, and click ‘Next’.

In the last page, you can find a location where you can find a log file for the upgrade. You might want to review the log file even if the Status in the previous is showing ‘succeeded’ to ensure there is no error or warning.

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OBIEE 11g - Deployment of BI Publisher reports

OBIEE 11g, BI Publisher reports are integrated into the BI answers catalog, which means if you want to see the actual catalog you have to go through BI Answers. It still maintain an xmlpserver repository with the location:

 <middleware_home>/user_projects/domains/bifoundation_domain/config/bipublisher/repository/Reports

We might think of using the same methodology to deploy the OBIEE 11g BI Publisher reports by just copying the reports to the above location. And upgrade the BIP catalog to BI Answers catalog.This would work if you upgrade the 10g reports to 11g reports and then deploy them to the folder above.

What you need to do next is to go to login to analytics.On the upper right corner, click Administration link:

Then on the next page, click Manage BI Publisher on the panel.

    Click Server Configuration on the Administration Page.

    

    On the next page click the button Upload to BI Presentation Catalog. And then clickApply.

   

   In this case you would be able to see the new folder and the reports underneath it once you login to analytics. Refer to previous blog on how  

   But this method didn’t solve the original question that if we want to get the reports from an 11g server and deploy them to another 11g server.We need to know after we upload the xmlpserver repository to BI Presentation Catalog.

    Well, it reformats the BIP repository to an BI Presentation Catalog folder entry. Say the folder BIPreports would be reformatted to folder BIPreports/ and BIPreports.atr. The reports under the original folder are also reformatted. The most obvious detection is by adding a atr file for each report and folder and sometime reaming some of the reports.The location of the BI Answers catalog is :

  <middleware_home>/instances/instance1/bifoundation/OracleBIPresentationServicesComponent/coreapplication_obips1/catalog/SampleAppLite/root/shared

   The problem is that you cound not simply copy the uploaded BIP reports folder to the same location on to another server. The presenation service would not recognize the folder as what 10g xmlpserver would do. And also once you have modified the uploaded reports from presentation service, the changes go directly to the catalog not the xmlpserver repository. And there is no way to reverse the BI Answers publisher reports back to the xmlpserver publisher reports having the changes we just made.

   In order to solve the problem, there are two ways available both with the help of presentation service. On OBIEE 11G, oracle tends to put more heavy usage on the frontend operation instead of backend manipulation.

   Method 1.

   If you want to deploy a whole folder of BIP reports from OBIEE 11g Server A to B, simply login to analytics on Server A.

   Click Catalog:

   

   On the left panel, expand shared folders and choose the perticular report folder that you want to deploy to Server B. For example, I would do Sample2. Click on the folder and then click Archive

   

   Now depends on if you want to remain the permissions and timestamps. Check the boxes and click ok.

  

  Click Save. Then this archived file contains all the reports under Sample2 and is ready to be deployed to Server B.

  

  Login to analytics of Server B. And go to catalog as the step above.Choose the folder where you would like to deploy the reports. In this case, I would choose shared folder. And then click unarchive.

  At the pop-up window. Choose the Sample2.catalog and then input the neccessary parameters.Click OK

 Now Sample2 is showed under the shared folder and all reports are under it.

  Method 2.

  The second methodology for deployment of BIP reports is that you could simply downloadand upload a single report. This is useful when you are not deploying too many reports.

  Instead of login to analyitcs, this time you need to login to xmlpserver on Server A at:

  http://kishore:9704/xmlpserver

  Step 1.Click Catalog on the right corner to traverse down to the reports.

   

Step 2. Navigate to the report you want to move to another server. Click onMore->Download

You have to download the data model correspondingly as well like below:

Now the files that we have just downloaded are looking like this:

    Balance Letter.xdoz

    Balance Letter Datamodel.xdmz

Step 3. Go to the Server B and upload the files. Login to the following link:  

http://kishore:9704/xmlpserver 

Go to catalog and navigate to the folder you would like to upload to.

At the left corner, click upload

Upload the two files we just downloaded to Serve

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Change Password in BI Publisher 111.1.6.0

I just noticed an interesting screen in BI-Publisher 11g (11.1.1.6) while looking at the screenshots in

Getting Started with Oracle BI Publisher 11.1.1.6.0

Using the "My Account" link, OBIEE 11g end-users can change their passwords without having to go through the not-so elegant approach documented in my previous blog entries.I might have missed this feature in 11.1.1.5, I remember seeing a screenshot in the help link, but the "Password" tab was missing in the app. 

- Log into BIP : http://HOST:PORT/xmlpserver/

- Select My Account

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BI Publisher report is showing incorrect date(Showing 1 day less than actual date in database)

Problem
BI Publisher report is showing incorrect date. It is showing date one day less than actual date in database and answers.

Solution
i.  Description

Lets take the above example of BI Publisher report. Here I have selected the date 09-Sep-2011 in parameter range. But when i generate the report, it is showing date
1 day less (i.e., 08-Sep-2011). 

The problem is with date column used in query, automatically the date column changes to canonical format(i.e., 2009-06-03T18:44:32.000-07:00). This canonical format comprises of Date, Timestamp and UTC.. So you need to suppress timestamp and UTC from date to resolve this issue.

ii. Procedure
1. Open the dataset linked to the BIP report.
2. Edit the query
3. Let say the date column is Settlement_Date. You need to use CAST function to convert this date to char to suppress timestamp and UTC.

Example
Column Name - Settlement_Date

should be change to

CAST(settlement_Date AS CHAR)

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[OBIEE11g] Upgrading BI Publisher 10.1.3.4.1 to OBIEE 11.1.1.6.0

To begin the upgrade for BI Publisher, perform the following steps:

1. We can find the 10G BI Publisher catalog location by logging into BI Publisher 10G and go to Admin –> Report Repository page. 
   
   
   

The path of the catalog is in <Drive>:\OracleBI\xmlp\XMLP. Take a backup of the XMLP folder and save it into the machine where OBIEE 11g is installed.

2.	Starts the Upgrade Assistant by navigate to the ORACLE_HOME\bin directory of the Oracle Fusion Middleware installation. Double-click ua.bat to open Upgrade Assistant in the graphical user interface mode.
3 .	The Welcome page appears. Click Next.
4 .	The Specify Operation page appears. Select Upgrade Oracle BI Publisher Repository, and then click Next.
5.	Select the BI Publisher Repository, and then click Browse to locate the repository that you want to upgrade. This should be the location of the 10g catalog backup. Click next to continue.
6 .	The Specify Destination Details page appears. Click Browse to select the location for your upgraded repository. This can be the same repository as the installed bishiphome 11g repository path (for example, %MIDDLEWARE_HOME%\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\config\bipublisher\repository).
7 .	Click Next.
8 .	The Specify WebLogic Server page appears. Enter the Host, Port, User Name, and Password of the weblogic Admin Server and click Next.
9.	The Examining Components page appears. The system is examined to ensure that everything is available and correct for the upgrade to proceed. The status is succeeded. A log file for the session is available. Click the hot link for the log file (highlighted at the bottom of the dialog box).
10 .	Click Next.
11 .	The Upgrade Summary page appears and provides with the details for both source and target of the BIPublisher catalog. Click Upgrade.
12 .	The Upgrading Components page appears and examining the status of OBIPublisher once again. Click Next.
13 .	The final page of the Upgrade Assistant Wizard page appears. Click Close.

Verifying the BI Publisher Repository Upgrade

To verify that the reports are upgraded to 11g properly, perform the following steps:

1 .	Open a new browser window and in the address bar, enter http://<hostname>:7001/xmlpserver (for example, http://localhost:7001/xmlpserver). The Oracle BI Publisher Enterprise Login window appears.
2 .	Enter the Username and Password , and click Sign In.
3 .	The Home Page appears. Click the Administration link. BI Publisher 11g configuration Configuration.
4 .	Within the System Maintenance section, click Server Configuration.
5 .	Click the Server Configuration tab.
6 .	Enter the path for your upgraded repository into the Configuration Folder area. This is the path that you specified on the Destination Details page in the Upgrade Assistant (for example, %MIDDLEWARE_HOME%\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\config\bipublisher\repository). 7. Click the Button Upload to BI Presentation catalog
8 .	Click Apply. A confirmation message appears.
9 .	Log out, and then log back into BI Publisher to review your changes to the repository.
10 .	Click the Catalog link on the global header. Expand Shared Folders > HR Manager > HR – User in the Folders pane. The ported reports appear in the right pane.
11 .	Select a specific report to view. Click Open for the Form P11D-UK2004 report. The report appears. Thus we have verified that our reports have been successfully migrated. Close BI Publisher.

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