March 11, 2015

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by: KevinMcGinley

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Categories: General, ORACLE BICS, Tips

Red Pill Analytics recently purchased a license for the Oracle BI Cloud Service (BICS), and with our account being activated, I thought I’d take it for a spin. But rather than write a garden-variety series of how-to articles, I thought I’d give you a first-hand look, or a day-in-the-life (DITL) experience of what it was […]

March 9, 2015

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by: KevinMcGinley

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Categories: Red Pill News, Tips

At Kscope14, ODTUG announced that they would be rebranding the special interest groups (SIGs) into ODTUG Communities to reflect the growing focus on the people-aspect of ODTUG. Networking, connections, and friendship all make ODTUG the powerful force that it is today and there’s no greater satisfaction than connecting with like-minded individuals on all topics person and professional. This renewed focus […]

February 6, 2015

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by: Kathryn Watson

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Categories: Data Integration, Tips

In my previous post, I discussed the transition from a Type 1 to a Type 2 Dimension structure after initial implementation. Today we’ll maintain our focus on Type 2 Dimensions and highlight derived effective dating and its timestamping implications. Why Effective Date? Within Type 2 Dimensions, it is essential that each record be effective dated […]

January 19, 2015

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by: KevinMcGinley

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Categories: Events, General

Like-mindedness isn’t always good, but there’s nothing like being at a conference where you know everyone there is attending for the same reason you are: great Oracle BI content and networking. While conferences like OpenWorld, Kscope, and Collaborate are great experiences in their own right, the reality is that they have to support a much […]

January 16, 2015

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by: Stewart Bryson

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Categories: Red Pill News, Tips

Recently, my former colleague Robin Moffatt authored a blog post about approaches to Concurrent RPD Development, where he discussed some of the technical challenges around trying to use MDS XML as a core OBIEE repository development strategy. As usual, Robin’s attention to detail was spot-on, and he does a really nice job detailing some of the […]

December 17, 2014

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by: FrankDavis

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Categories: Tips

While I was looking into a calculation issue today for a calculated percentage, let’s say the formula is ((b-a)/c)*100, the numbers just were not coming out correctly. Actually they were all coming out to 0! I know this was not right, so I investigated. I looked at my physical query and noticed OBI was creating that […]

December 16, 2014

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by: Kathryn Watson

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Categories: Data Integration, Data Modeling, Tips

In the data warehousing world, much attention has been paid to detailing the different dimension types and the design selection criteria for each. A related data warehousing design conundrum has garnered little fanfare, however—a post go-live transition from one dimension type to another. In today’s post, we will focus on the transition from a Type […]

November 3, 2014

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by: KevinMcGinley

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Categories: OBIEE

It’s a bear. There, I said it. A bear. Wrestle with OBIEE RPD Development and you’ll feel like you’re wrestling with a big ‘ol grizzly bear. It’s not that the OBIEE metadata layer is bad, or that it doesn’t work, or it should be removed. Far from it. But work in the RPD long enough […]

October 23, 2014

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by: Stewart Bryson

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Categories: General, Red Pill News

I’m the Best Choice for the ODTUG Board If you know me well, then the title of this story shouldn’t surprise you. I’m not short on confidence (okay… pun intended). But let’s face it, everyone running for the board believes they are the best choice for ODTUG, or they wouldn’t waste the time and effort. […]

September 8, 2014

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by: KevinMcGinley

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Categories: General, Tips

In Part 1 of my story on OBIEE’s Direct Database Request (DDR), I walked through the basic process of how to use DDR for directly querying a database mapped ino the RPD without using logical SQL, bypassing the metadata layer and going straight to the connection pool. In Part 2, I’ll be pointing out what works differently […]