Action Framework in BI EE 11g opens up BI EE to
external applications for extensive integration. Mark has covered this
as part of his posting here.
BI EE, even in 10g had a lot of integration options. But one biggest
drawback had always been the lack of an ability to call external
applications/scripts/processes right within the BI EE dashboard. Only
way in 10g was to either make the call through a URL (like action links
to Ebusiness Suite & Siebel) and browser based Java Scripts. In 11g,
we now have a lot more options. There are basically 2 kinds of Actions.
The first one is the Navigate action which basically enables the drill
from BI EE to external applications like EPM, Ebusiness Suite, another
report/dashboard in BI EE etc. The parameters can be passed from one
application to the other easily.
The
second one is the Invoke action that provides an ability to call
external Java processes, Browser scripts, web services etc. The invoke
action does not provide external navigation. They are primarily used for
triggering processes that happen outside of BI EE like calling ETL
processes, java processes etc
Both
the Navigate and Invoke actions are part of the Action Framework.
Listed below are some of the new features in Action Framework that
enable integration with external applications.
1. Integration to external Applications through a URL
– This feature existed even in 10g and was one of the most commonly
used ways of integrating other applications with BI EE. The biggest
problem with this in 10g was, we manually had to hand craft the URLs and
the parameters. In 11g, this integration has been enhanced to alleviate
2 important issues that we have had with 10g
a. We can specify location aliases instead of
hardcoded ip addresses (or hostnames). For example, if you are using Go
URL to call another BI EE report, then we will have to enter the full
URL including the hostname. When we migrate from environments (say dev
to prod), then we will have to manually change the hostnames in every
report that use Go URL. This is not needed anymore.
b. Its now much easier to specify the url
parameters through the UI. We can pass parameters which can be either
made visible or hidden. For example, if you want to pass username and
passwords to the url but you would like them to be invisible for the
person invoking it, then that is possible now.
2. Integration with Web Services
– This is a complete new feature of BI EE 11g. In 10g, web services can
be called only using Java Scripts or by calling an external JSP page.
In 11g, we have this feature natively. So, effectively if you have say
ODI ETL Web Services and you would like to kick start an ETL process
from BI EE, it is easily possible now. In addition to making calls to
external web services, BI EE also has a new type of Web Service called
BI EE Web Services for SOA. This new web service basically is for
integration with Oracle FMW products like BPEL etc. One of the big
drawbacks in BI EE 10g web services was, every-time we had to call a
report or an iBot, we had to establish a session with BI Server and then
pass the session id to the individual web service methods. But in the
BI EE Web Services for SOA, there is no need to establish a session to
get access to the individual methods. I will cover this in detail in
another blog post.
3. Integration using Java Methods
– Another interesting integration that is part of 11g is the ability to
call Java methods natively. In 10g, the only way to call java methods
directly was to use delivers and then call the java methods through the Java Host.
In 11g, this method of calling java methods (through Javahost) is not
recommended. Instead the java classes will have be wrapped inside a EJB
and then this EJB can be called from BI EE. This opens up a lot of
integration opportunities like writeback to Essbase etc. I will cover
this in a separate blog post.
4. Integration with EPM – BI
EE 10.1.3.4 introduced the first steps of integration between BI EE and
EPM. In BI EE 10g, we could embed BI Answers, Dashboards etc within an
EPM workspace. Also, SSO capability was added between the EPM and BI
Suites. But there was no native integration between the reporting tools
like Hyperion Financial Reporting and BI EE. One had to use methods like
the one i have used here and here.
In 11g, this is not needed anymore. It is possible navigate to any EPM
report (HFR & Web Analysis) and we can also pass parameters from BI
EE to the target EPM report. I will blog about this in detail in another
blog post.
BI
EE 11g provides us with a lot of potential opportunities for
integration that weren’t easily available in 10g. Next up is a blog post
on how to call Java-EJB methods to add watermarks to BI EE PDF exports.
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