Discoverer White Paper

Oracle Discoverer A Complete Business Intelligence Tool

AUTHOR:

POONAM CHADDHA

Abstract Why Oracle Discoverer? We always look for ways in which to better involve the user community. Using Discoverer, you can access and analyze data that you know is in your company's database, without having to understand complex database concepts. Discoverer's intuitive wizards and menus enable you to retrieve and analyze data that supports your business decisions. Discoverer does the hard work for you while you reap the harvest by focusing on the decision-making part.

Rapidigm (India) Limited B-118, Sector-2, NOIDA, UP 201301• +91 (120) 244-4725 – Phone • +91 (120) 244-4723 – Fax

www.rapidigm.com 10/18/2007 06:31:00 AM

Oracle Discoverer Table of Contents INTRODUCTION......................................................................................3 TARGET AUDIENCE:.................................................................................3 WHAT IS DISCOVERER?.............................................................................4 IT’S AN INTEGRATED BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE SOLUTION (BIS)............................4 DISCOVERER ADMINISTRATOR: ..................................................................4 DISCOVERER END USER LAYER (EUL):...........................................................5 DISCOVERER PLUS/DESKTOP:.....................................................................5 DISCOVERER VIEWER:..............................................................................5 DISCOVERER BENEFITS/FEATURES:..............................................................5 Scalability and Performance:..........................................................................................5 Usability:...................................................................................................................5 Hiding Complexity:.......................................................................................................6 Data Visualization:.......................................................................................................6 Query Processing:........................................................................................................6 Ease of Setup and Maintainence:......................................................................................6 Centralized Metadata:...................................................................................................6 Automatic Summary Management/ Query Redirection:..........................................................6 Integration With Oracle Portal:........................................................................................6 Print Option:..............................................................................................................6 Parameters:...............................................................................................................6 Export:.....................................................................................................................7

ORACLE REPORTS:..................................................................................8 INTEGRATION WITH ORACLE APPLICATIONS:..................................................9 CONCLUSION.........................................................................................9 REFERENCES:.......................................................................................10 ABOUT THE AUTHOR.............................................................................10 COPYRIGHT INFORMATION.......................................................................10 DISCLAIMER.........................................................................................10

© 2004 Rapidigm (India) Limited

Page 2 of 10

Oracle Discoverer INTRODUCTION In an increasingly competitive world, successful organizations leverage information at Internet speed to completely integrate business intelligence about company’s operations and its customers to assess the potential opportunities and risks. A robust business intelligence tool is required to formulate e-business strategies and transforms an organization’s most valuable asset, data, into information. It is increasingly important to be able to quickly convey information that drives your business. The need to make informed decisions exists at all levels and across functional areas in an organization. All employees need immediate access to accurate information to execute their jobs. Meeting this need translates into increased productivity and better cross-functional performance. Oracle Discoverer is the only ad-hoc query; reporting and analysis tool that provides the optimum balance between functionality and high availability required for Intranet and Internet applications. Thus, suiting to people 's need in the business world, of knowing their data figures. Discoverer End User Layer (EUL) provides the functionality of a server based, low maintenance, powerful metadata repository and query management engine for data warehouses and on-line transaction processing (OLTP) systems, for a complete data processing experience. Discoverer offers a variety of formatting, printing and graphing capabilities for easy understanding of data by the people.

TARGET AUDIENCE: • • • •

Senior Management interested in high-end and dynamic analytical reports with pivot analysis of data and their comparison. People who are using Oracle Reports but are not satisfied with the cost of development and depth of analysis, looking for alternate reporting tool. Business Analysts Data Warehousing Administrators /Database Administrators

© 2004 Rapidigm (India) Limited

Page 3 of 10

Oracle Discoverer WHAT IS DISCOVERER? Oracle Discoverer is an open, ad-hoc query, reporting, analysis, and web-publishing tool that enables business users at all levels of the organization to gain immediate access to information from relational data warehouses, data marts, and online transaction processing systems. It is the tool that enables business users to transform data to the useful information and gain strategic insight into their business and operations. Discoverer offers a cost effective, business intelligence tool that provides information anywhere, anytime. Users are empowered with on demand data access to make informed business decisions. Discoverer is deployed in either client/server or n-tier web architecture. Each client tool is designed to support specific business roles. Discoverer empowers people to take ownership of their reporting and analysis directives. Discoverer user gains rapid access to corporate data through it‘s easy to use interface. Oracle Discoverer is the most tested user Interface in the market.

IT’S AN INTEGRATED BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE SOLUTION (BIS). Business Intelligence is a company's ability to leverage the information resources that they have available, whether internal or external to their organization, to drive real business decisions and to take action. Oracle Discoverer is a comprehensive integral element of Business Intelligence Solution (BIS) that offers web based decision support capabilities to end-users.

There are different elements of Oracle Discoverer for different roles. They are: DISCOVERER ADMINISTRATOR: It is used for the initial setup and ongoing maintenance of metadata. The administrator performs a variety of tasks including creating and maintaining a business-oriented view of the data, access control, summary data management, and batch scheduling administration. Discoverer Administrator quickly and easily reduces the level of user support needed for business intelligence querying. This business-oriented view of data is called Business Area. Only Administrator has the rights to create the required Business Areas. The Administrator implements their End User Layer (EUL).

© 2004 Rapidigm (India) Limited

Page 4 of 10

Oracle Discoverer DISCOVERER END USER LAYER (EUL): EUL is a server based, low maintenance, powerful metadata repository and query management engine for data warehouses and on-line transaction processing (OLTP) systems. End User Layer also a repository for user-defined queries, usage statistics, and Discoverer privileges providing valuable feedback on query performance, query volume, usage patterns, etc. End User layer hides the complexity of data structures and drill relationships from business users who need to focus on business issues, not data issues. It automatically performs query redirection to summary tables. Centrally stored in the RDBMS for scalability and ease of maintenance. Shared by both the client/server and web releases of Discoverer, which significantly lowers maintenance and administration overhead. The End User layer created by the administrator is used by other Discoverer elements. DISCOVERER PLUS/DESKTOP: Discoverer Plus is a tool for power users, data analysts and report builders and empowers business users to create reports and to perform powerful analysis without understanding SQL or database structures. Discoverer Plus supports multiple firewalls for users who create queries on the Internet or Intranet. Discoverer Desktop enables users to export results in XML to other Business Intelligence tools like Oracle Reports. Users create ad hoc queries, reports and graphs in a 100% Java client or client/server version. Analysts’ drill up and down on their result set, pivot data, and change the layout to find answers to questions. Report builders create their own calculations, conditions, and totals to generate custom reports. There is a distinction between Discoverer Plus and Discoverer Desktop being that Desktop runs in a client/server architecture and Discoverer Plus as a java client. DISCOVERER VIEWER: Discoverer Viewer is the tool for end users and data analysts. Users execute reports and graphs created in Discoverer Plus or Discoverer Desktop from any HTML device. Discoverer Viewer offers a flexible way to view reports, drill, pivot and export similar to Discoverer Plus. Discoverer Viewer reports are live, enabling users to interact with their data by changing layouts and specifying parameters. Viewer requires no other software than a simple web browser and its backbone uses the same high performance, scaleable architecture as other Discoverer solutions. DISCOVERER BENEFITS/FEATURES: Scalability and Performance: Discoverer is built using stable n-tier distributed component architecture. Discoverer components may be installed across multiple servers, providing a distributed virtual server that maximizes performance. Large documents are viewed in pages. Discoverer breaks the document into pages in the background and displays the first page. Additional pages are displayed on demand reducing network traffic between the client and Discoverer server. Components of the Discoverer Server can be added dynamically to meet increased demand as the number of concurrent users increases. Usability: Users retrieve and analyze information without understanding the conceptual issues and terminology of database technology. Resizable wizards, tool tips, tutorials, and context sensitive help guide users to create or modify workbooks.

© 2004 Rapidigm (India) Limited

Page 5 of 10

Oracle Discoverer Hiding Complexity: Discoverer hides complexity of underlying relational database structures by presenting a business-oriented view of the data. Discoverer automatically detects queries that can generate unexpected results and automatically rewrites the query ensuring the appropriate results. Data Visualization: Discoverer provides ‘what you see is what you get’ results. Graphs are always synchronized with the data. End users create their graphs using a wizard that supports more than 25 different graph types. Graphs can be used in Viewer, Plus and Desktop. Query Processing: Discoverer allows end users or administrators to set an upper threshold on query execution time. Discoverer provides predictive query governor which estimates the retrieval time before a query is run. If query is predicted to take longer than a user defined time, Discoverer warns the user and allows them to determine if the query should be run which conserves the resources. Ease of Setup and Maintainence: Wizards, tutorials, online help, etc. support managers, which facilitate rapid development and deployment. Discoverer managers can add or modify existing metadata without disturbing unrelated business views. Centralized Metadata: Discoverer stores all of its metadata in the database. Therefore, there is one place to update and maintain it. Automatic Summary Management/ Query Redirection: Using Discoverer, you can create and maintain pre-summarized data; the automatic summary redirection capability reduces the amount of data to be searched. Requests for aggregated results are automatically redirected to pre-summarized data, reducing total elapsed time for query. This wizard-based feature simplifies the summary creation process by recommending and creating summaries based on criteria set by the Discoverer Administrator, the summary policy. Integration With Oracle Portal: The tight integration between Oracle Discoverer and Oracle Portal empowers users to publish their favorite reports or list of reports to Oracle Portal and enable other users in the organization to easily access the information by subscribing to these portal pages. Discoverer supports Oracle9iAS Portal Single Sign-On. Print Option: The print option in Discoverer includes options for printing data only, graph only, or both table and graph, enabling better control of the print area. Parameters: Discoverer can apply parameters to either an individual worksheet, or to all sheets in a workbook. When applied to the workbook, users do not need to reenter the same parameter value for each sheet. Workbook level parameters are visually distinguishable from worksheet level ones, so the user can easily identify which parameter values will be applied to the whole workbook and which ones will be applied to individual worksheets.

© 2004 Rapidigm (India) Limited

Page 6 of 10

Oracle Discoverer Export: The Data can be exported to MS Excel and other formats. Discoverer preserves the formatting of the exported reports/ data increasing the user productivity. Even Pivot Analysis of Data can be exported to MS Excel.

© 2004 Rapidigm (India) Limited

Page 7 of 10

Oracle Discoverer ORACLE REPORTS: A sophisticated enterprise production reporting tool to build and distribute high-quality reports. Oracle reports produces sophisticated, high quality web reports, allows unlimited data formatting and offers high quality report visualization. Oracle Reports is a popular report producing reporting tool, but Oracle Discoverer was designed keeping in mind the different set of audience. The main audiences for Oracle Discoverer are the management people who have the data at there disposal and need to interpret it quickly, without knowing the technical know – how of report creation. It provides a lot of features, which cater to the audience perfectly. I am presenting the comparison of Oracle Discoverer to Oracle Reports, highlighting the advantages of using Oracle Discoverer.

Comparison between Oracle Discoverer and Oracle Reports Oracle Discoverer Oracle Reports Reports Development Effort is less Maintenance is minimal Pivot Analysis and Drill Down Option given to User. Layouts are Dynamic and Parameters Values can be changed any time Group Sorting can be changed any time Graph is Dynamic and can be designed by End User itself. Data can be exported to MS Excel and other formats. Even Pivot Analysis of Data can be exported to MS Excel. Current V/s Previous Comparison can be done for between any period dimension (Year, Quarter, Month, week) and across any number for financial years. And that too with zero efforts and end user driven. Even user can dynamically change the columns values during comparison. Analytical Functions like Rank, Running Totals, Statistical Functions are available “Out-of-the Box” to be used by Users in a dynamic fashion

Reports Development Effort is very high. Modification takes almost similar time as developing a new report. Option not Available. Layouts are Static and Parameters Values can be specified before invoking the Report. Sorting can be changed before invoking the Report. Graphs are Static and will be designed by Developer. Export to MS Excel is not possible. Can be exported to only not editable formats like PDF. For each single dimension, a separate report has to be prepared. And effort is 1000 times what discoverer provides.

Option not Available Dynamically.

© 2004 Rapidigm (India) Limited

Page 8 of 10

Oracle Discoverer INTEGRATION WITH ORACLE APPLICATIONS: Deployed in an Oracle Applications environment, Discoverer provides an intuitive way for non-technical end users, such as executives and business analysts to get rapid answers to business questions. These answers draw a clear picture of the company’s current operations, trends in markets and products, revenue opportunities, financial performance, and so on. Discoverer helps transform the transactional data into valuable business information. Discoverer is integrated with Business Intelligence System (BIS) to provide a powerful analysis solution for Oracle Applications. Oracle BIS is a performance management system for Oracle Applications and provides integrated set of intelligence modules for Financials, Purchasing, Operations, Human Resources and Process Manufacturing. Each intelligence module comes with Discoverer workbooks that provide ad hoc and detailed analysis of critical day-to-day performance measures calculated from Oracle Applications. Discoverer is the only business intelligence tool that uses the Oracle E-Business suite security model out of the box. When a user logs in to Discoverer, they view only the data pertaining to organizations they have access to. Discoverer supports Oracle e-Business Suite features, enabling customers to flexibly set up and configure their OLTP systems. End user accounts and responsibilities in the OLTP system are available in Discoverer immediately, without any extra setup by the administrator Discoverer also provides the same level of multi-organization access control that is available through Oracle e-Business Suite. Cross organization reporting is also supported.

CONCLUSION In the world where managers and data analyst have data information, but are under constraint to make key business decisions, Oracle Discoverer helps them do there job by providing them with visual cues to understand, what they need to know. It provides them the utility of creating reports with a variety of formatting, printing and graphical capabilities over the web to be distributed externally or internally. It offers them optimal productivity with its unique performance features, visualization and sophisticated calculation capabilities. It also offers a tight integration with database simplifying security, scalability, and data access and metadata creation. It’s strong integration with Oracle Portal and Oracle Applications can transform any kind of data to information. Distribution and sharing information has never been easier, producing better communication and increase in productivity.

© 2004 Rapidigm (India) Limited

Page 9 of 10

Oracle Discoverer REFERENCES: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Oracle Discoverer Internal Training conducted by Reema Goenka. What is Oracle Discoverer? By Spectrum Group. Oracle Discoverer 4i Plus, User Guide. White Paper on “Developing an Oracle Discoverer End User Layer™ against Oracle Applications”.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR I am a technical resource working in the capacity of Systems Executive. I am very well acquainted with Oracle Reports and Oracle Discoverer, hence the comparison. I am working on understanding the Integration of Oracle Applications with Oracle Discoverer.

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION © 2004, Rapidigm (India) Limited B-118, Sec-2, Noida, UP, India

© 2004, Rapidigm (India) Limited A-15, MIDC Technology Park, Talawade, Pune, Maharashtra, India

This document is protected by Copyright Laws of the Land. This document may not be reproduced in any form, by any means without prior written permission from Rapidigm (India) Ltd, as represented by the Technology Evaluation and Adoption Group (TEAG), or the Corporate Communications Team (CCT).

DISCLAIMER The above White Paper, has been written by the author, in the capacity of a Rapidigm employee and all rights are now vested in Rapidigm (India) Limited.

© 2004 Rapidigm (India) Limited

Page 10 of 10