Table Of Content®
Data Visualization for
Oracle Business
Intelligence 11g
About the Authors
Dan Vlamis has been developing business intelligence and OLAP applications since
1986 when he graduated from Brown University with a Bachelor’s degree in
Computer Science. After graduating, he joined Information Resources Inc. (IRI)
where he led the back-end team that wrote Oracle Sales Analyzer in Express. In
1992 he left IRI and moved to the Kansas City area where he founded Vlamis
Software Solutions Inc., an Oracle Gold Partner, which has led more than 200 BI
and OLAP implementations with some of the world’s leading corporations and
organizations.
Dan has been a popular speaker at major Oracle conferences such as Oracle
OpenWorld, Collaborate, and ODTUG Kscope for two decades and is known for
his live demos of Oracle software . As an Oracle Business Intelligence Warehousing
and Analytics SIG (BIWA) board member of the IOUG, he chaired BIWA Summit
2014 and BIWA Summit 2015.
Recognized by Oracle as an Oracle ACE Director and on the editorial board of
Oracle Magazine, he consults with Oracle Product Management regularly. Dan
covers Oracle BI and related products through his popular blog at www.vlamis.com
/blog. Dan was a co-author on the Oracle Press book Oracle Essbase and Oracle
OLAP: The Guide to Oracle’s Multidimensional Solution.
Tim Vlamis is an expert in the visualization of data and the design of business
intelligence dashboards. Tim combines a strong background in the application of
business intelligence (BI), analytics, and data mining with extensive experience
in business modeling and valuation analysis, new product forecasting, and new
business development scenario analyses. Tim is an instructor for Oracle University’s
Oracle Data Mining and Oracle R Enterprise courses and teaches in Benedictine
College’s Traditional and Executive MBA programs as an Adjunct Professor of
Business.
Tim earned his Professional Certified Marketer (PCM) designation from the
American Marketing Association and is an active speaker on BI and data
visualization topics as well as marketing and business development. In addition to
his life-long study of business processes, systems, and theories, Tim is a passionate
student of complexity theory, the history of mathematics, and the principles of
design. Tim earned an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of
Management and a BA in Economics from Yale University.
®
Data Visualization for
Oracle Business
Intelligence 11g
Dan Vlamis
Tim Vlamis
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CCoonntteennttss aatt aa GGllaannccee
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2 Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3 Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4 Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5 Advanced Visualizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
6 BI Publisher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
7 Dashboard Design and Mechanics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
8 Dashboard Interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
9 Scorecard and Strategy Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
10 Mobile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
11 Other Visualization Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
12 General Advice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
v
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CCoonntteennttss
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
About Oracle Business Intelligence 11g . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Business Intelligence System Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Humans Evolved to Sense the World, Not to “Do Numbers” . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Basic Principles of BI Dashboards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
BI Systems Need Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Dashboard Best Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Motion Demands Attention and Cannot Be Ignored . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Color Is Powerful . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Alignment and Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
A Little Bit about Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Background Thoughts on Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Data Visualization Graph Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Map Views Communicate Effectively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Dashboard Design Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Oracle’s OBIEE SampleApp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
The Sample Dashboard Is a Good Start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Improving a Dashboard from SampleApp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Where the World of Business Intelligence Data Visualization Is Headed . . . 16
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
vii
viii Data Visualization for Oracle Business Intelligence 11g
2 Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Understanding Table Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Table Views vs. Pivot Table Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Stating a “Need” Sentence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Table Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
The Criteria Tab Sets the Basic Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
The Column Properties Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Table Views—Results Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Editing Table Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Pivot Table Views—Results Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Organizing Dimensions in Pivot Table Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Conditional Formatting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Table and Pivot Table Right-Click Interaction Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Performance Tiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3 Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Types of Graphs and When to Use Them . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Line Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Time Series Line Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Bar Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Line-Bar Combo Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Waterfall Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Pie Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Area Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Scatter Plot Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Bubble Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Radar Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Pareto Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4 Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Justification for Maps and When to Use Them . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Maps, Layers, and Spatial Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Geocoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
MapViewer Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
MapViewer and OBIEE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
MapViewer Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 00
Using Maps with OBIEE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 01
Creating Choropleth Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 01
Interacting with Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 04
Map Color Choices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 06
Bubbles and Variable Shapes on Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 08
Contents ix
Placing Graphs on Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 13
Placing Lines on Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 15
Combining Data Sets on Maps and Using Map Feature Layers . . . . . .1 17
Custom Integration of Maps in OBIEE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 21
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 21
5 Advanced Visualizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 23
Trellis Charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
Simple Trellis Charts (Type 1 Trellis Charts) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 28
Advanced Trellis Charts (Type 2 Trellis Charts) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Gauges and Dials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Extending Native OBIEE Data Visualization Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 36
Showing Data Distributions Using Tricks with OBIEE
Stacked Bar Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Oracle ADF Visualizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 41
Using R Visualizations in OBIEE Dashboards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Using the Third-Party Visualization Engine D3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 47
JQuery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 52
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 56
6 BI Publisher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
The Power of Pixel Perfect Visualizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
BI Publisher Contrasted with OBIEE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 58
BI Publisher Report Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 60
Data Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 60
Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 61
Layout Editor Is the Major Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 61
Interacting with BI Publisher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 62
BI Publisher Dual-Y Graph Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 69
Bursting Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 74
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 76
7 Dashboard Design and Mechanics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 77
Roles of Dashboard Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 80
Common Roles in Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Importance of Dashboards Depends on Roles and Usage . . . . . . . . .1 84
Dashboard Content Can Vary by User . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 84
Dashboard Standards and Style Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 85
Important OBIEE Dashboard Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 86
Basic Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 86
Include Contextual Information on Dashboards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 88
Dashboard Format and Placement of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 89
Form Follows Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 91
Alignment, Grids, and Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 91
