Welcome to Oracle BI applications blog! This blog will talk about various features, general roadmap, description of functionality and implementation steps related to Oracle BI applications. In the first post we start with an overview of the BI apps and will delve deeper into some of the topics below in the upcoming weeks and months. If there are other topics you would like us to talk about, pl feel free to provide feedback on that.
      The Oracle BI applications are a set of pre-built applications that enable pervasive BI by providing role-based insight for each functional area, including sales, service, marketing, contact center, finance, supplier/supply chain, HR/workforce, and executive management. For example, Sales Analytics includes role-based applications for sales executives, sales management, as well as front-line sales reps, each of whom have different needs.
      The applications integrate and transform data from a range of enterprise sources—including Siebel, Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP, and others—into actionable intelligence for each business function and user role. 
      This blog  starts with the key benefits and characteristics of Oracle BI applications. In a series of subsequent blogs, each of these points will be explained in detail.
      
      Why BI apps?
  
    Demonstrate the value of BI to a business user, show reports / dashboards / model that can answer their business questions as part of the sales cycle. 
    Demonstrate technical feasibility of BI project and significantly lower risk and improve success 
    Build Vs Buy benefit 
    Don’t have to start with a blank sheet of paper. 
    Help consolidate disparate systems 
    Data integration in M&A situations 
    Insulate BI consumers from changes in the OLTP 
    Present OLTP data and highlight issues of poor data / missing data – and improve data quality and accuracy 
  
  Prebuilt Integrations
  BI apps support prebuilt integrations against leading ERP sources: Fusion Applications, E- Business Suite, Peoplesoft, JD Edwards, Siebel, SAP
  
    
      Co-developed with inputs from functional experts in BI and Applications teams.
    
    
      Out of the box dimensional model to source model mappings
    
    
      Multi source and Multi Instance support
    
  
  Rich Data Model
      
           BI apps have a very rich dimensionsal data model built over 10 years that incorporates best practises from BI modeling perspective as well as reflect the source system complexities 
        Thanks for reading a long post, and be on the lookout for future posts.  We will look forward to your valuable feedback on these topics as well as suggestions on what other topics would you like us to cover.
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      Conformed dimensional model across all business subject areas allows cross functional reporting, e.g. customer / supplier 360
    
    
      Over 360 fact tables across 7 product areas
    
    
      CRM – 145, SCM – 47, Financials – 28, Procurement – 20, HCM – 27, Projects – 18, Campus Solutions – 21, PLM - 56
    
    
      Supported by 300 physical dimensions
    
    
      Support for extensive calendars; Gregorian, enterprise and ledger based 
    
    
      Conformed data model and metrics for real time vs warehouse based reporting
    
    
       Multi-tenant enabled
    
  
  Extensive BI related transformations
  BI apps ETL and data integration support various transformations required for dimensional models and reporting requirements. All these have been distilled into common patterns and abstracted logic which can be readily reused across different modules
  
    
      Slowly Changing Dimension support
    
    
      Hierarchy flattening support
    
    
      Row / Column Hybrid Hierarchy Flattening
    
    
      As Is vs. As Was hierarchy support
    
    
      Currency Conversion :-  Support for 3 corporate, CRM, ledger and transaction currencies
    
    
      UOM conversion
    
    
      Internationalization / Localization
    
    
      Dynamic Data translations
    
    
      Code standardization (Domains)
    
    
      Historical Snapshots
    
    
      Cycle and process lifecycle computations
    
    
      Balance Facts
    
    
      Equalization of GL accounting chartfields/segments
    
    
      Standardized values for categorizing GL accounts
    
    
      Reconciliation between GL and subledgers to track accounted/transferred/posted transactions to GL
    
    
      Materialization of data only available through costly and complex APIs e.g. Fusion Payroll, EBS / Fusion Accruals
    
    
      Complex event Interpretation of source data – E.g. 
    
  
  
    o    What constitutes a transfer
    o    Deriving supervisors via position hierarchy
    o    Deriving primary assignment in PSFT
    o    Categorizing and transposition to measures of Payroll Balances to specific metrics to support side by side comparison of measures of for example Fixed Salary, Variable Salary, Tax, Bonus, Overtime Payments.
    o    Counting of Events – E.g. converting events to fact counters so that for example the number of hires can easily be added up and compared alongside the total transfers and terminations.
  
  
    
      Multi pass processing of multiple sources e.g. headcount, salary, promotion, performance to allow side to side comparison. 
    
    
      Adding value to data to aid analysis through banding, additional domain classifications and groupings to allow higher level analytical reporting and data discovery
    
    
      Calculation of complex measures examples:
    
  
  
    o    COGs, DSO, DPO, Inventory turns  etc
    o    Transfers within a Hierarchy or out of / into a hierarchy relative to view point in hierarchy.
  
  Configurability and Extensibility support 
  BI apps offer support for extensibility for various entities as automated extensibility or part of extension methodology
  
    
      Key Flex fields and Descriptive Flex support
    
    
       Extensible attribute support (JDE)
    
    
       Conformed Domains
    
  
  ETL Architecture
  BI apps offer a modular adapter architecture which allows support of multiple product lines into a single conformed model
  
    
      Multi Source
    
    
      Multi Technology
    
    
      Orchestration – creates load plan taking into account task dependencies and customers deployment to generate a plan based on a customers of multiple complex etl tasks
    
    
      Plan optimization allowing parallel ETL tasks
    
    
      Oracle: Bit map indexes and partition management
    
    
      High availability support    
    
    
      Follow the sun support.
    
  
  TCO
  BI apps support several utilities / capabilities that help with overall total cost of ownership and ensure a rapid implementation
  
    
      Improved cost of ownership – lower cost to deploy
    
    
      On-going support for new versions of the source application
    
    
      Task based setups flows
    
    
      Data Lineage
    
    
      Functional setup performed in Web UI by Functional person
    
    
      Configuration
    
    
      Test to Production support
    
  
  Security
  BI apps support both data and object security enabling implementations to quickly configure the application as per the reporting security needs
  
    
      Fine grain object security at report / dashboard and presentation catalog level
    
    
      Data Security integration with source systems
    
    
       Extensible to support external data security rules
    
  
  Extensive Set of KPIs
  
    
      Over 7000 base and derived metrics across all modules
    
    
      Time series calculations (YoY, % growth etc)
    
    
      Common Currency and UOM reporting
    
    
      Cross subject area KPIs (analyzing HR vs GL data, drill from GL to AP/AR, etc)
    
  
  Prebuilt reports and dashboards
  
    
      3000+ prebuilt reports supporting a large number of industries 
    
    
      Hundreds of role based dashboards
    
    
      Dynamic currency conversion at dashboard level
    
  
  Highly tuned Performance 
  The BI apps have been tuned over the years for both a very performant ETL and dashboard performance. The applications use best practises and advanced database features to enable the best possible performance.
  
    
      Optimized data model for BI and analytic queries
    
    
      Prebuilt aggregates& the ability for customers to create their own aggregates easily on warehouse facts allows for scalable end user performance
    
    
      Incremental extracts and loads
    
    
      Incremental Aggregate build
    
    
      Automatic table index and statistics management
    
    
      Parallel ETL loads
    
    
      Source system deletes handling
    
    
      Low latency extract with Golden Gate
    
    
      Micro ETL support
    
    
      Bitmap Indexes
    
    
      Partitioning support
    
    
      Modularized deployment, start small and add other subject areas seamlessly
    
  
  Source Specfic Staging and Real Time Schema
  
    
      Support for source specific operational reporting schema for EBS, PSFT, Siebel and JDE
    
  
  Application Integrations
  The BI apps also allow for integration with source systems as well as other applications that provide value add through BI and enable BI consumption during operational decision making
  
    
      Embedded dashboards for Fusion, EBS and Siebel applications
    
    
      Action Link support
    
    
      Marketing Segmentation
    
    
      Sales Predictor Dashboard
    
    
      Territory Management
    
  
  External Integrations
  The BI apps data integration choices include support for loading extenral data 
  
    
      External data enrichment choices : UNSPSC, Item class etc. Extensible
    
    
      Spend Classification
    
  
  Broad Deployment Choices
  
    
      Exalytics support
    
    
      Databases :  Oracle, Exadata, Teradata, DB2, MSSQL
    
    
      ETL tool of choice : ODI (coming), Informatica 
    
  
  Extensible and Customizable
  
    
      Extensible architecture and Methodology to add custom and external content
    
    
      Upgradable across releases