DVD and Essbase

Sébastien Roux

Summary

Build analysis based on levels (LEV) and not generations (GEN)

Content

Dears,

In my case selecting member sets by generations (GEN) is not appropriate as I am dealing with ragged or unbalanced hierarchies.

Would it be any way to switch to levels (LEV) instead of generations? I am using latest version of DVD (12.2.5).

If no way to change this behavior then it makes DVD useless on top of Essbase.

Thank you for your help!

Version

12.2.5

Lalitha Venkataraman-Oracle

Hi Sebastien,

Sorry for the delay in responding to this. I checked with the PM internally on this. 

This feature is not available in the current version of DV (12.2.5).

Regards,

Lalitha

Sébastien Roux

Thank you very much for your feedback Lalitha, I understand that this feature is not implemented so far, so what is the next step?
Was a request raised, if not what would be the process?
This feature should be already considered as it is another very useful way to request data from Essbase using Data Visualization tools. Without this selection option, querying from Essbase is limited.

Is this something I could discuss with the PM?

Keep me updated. Thank you.

Sébastien

Matt Milella-Oracle

Currently we support a generation based view when creating data sets from Essbase cubes.  We do not have near term plans to support an option for level vs generation but we are carefully evaluating Essbase functionality in DV and consider this as we add features.

Sébastien Roux

Thank you Matt for your feedback.

Now if you could set it as a top priority as it would be much appreciated in every cube where ragged hierarchies are in use. Also ragged hierarchies are part of Essbase specificities, isn't the objective to making DV native on top of Essbase?

This would also make a major difference with the competitors outside which I am not sure they understand the difference between level and generation... and which are not leveraging the Essbase connector as it deserves.

One more thing by the way: what about switching metadata to alias?

Thank you

Sébastien Roux

Philippe Lions-Oracle

This may not relate directly, but incase it helps : a custom plugin was just posted on Oracle Analytics Library (www.oracle.com/analytics-library) that transforms value-based hierarchy data into level based tabular format. This works up to a certain level of depth but can help in such situations.

Look into Extensions Tab in the library and search for plugin named Value Hierarchy Convertor. A video describing the plugin is here https://youtu.be/lZUWEbRJapY.

Hope that helps

Philippe

Sébastien Roux

Hi Philippe,

Thank you for your reply, however the extension is out of scope as the subject is about the way you select your dimension item/metadata in data visualization interface and not the way you display the result.

The default, and only way so far, is by GENERATION, which means starting the level numbering from the dimension top layer. This is OK when dealing with a balanced hierarchy, which is indeed the requirement in traditional BI or in some standardized Essbase hierarchies.

Now and dealing with Essbase, dimensions may be balanced or not (ragged), which means that for instance SKUs may not be located at the same deepness in the hierarchy because of specific, or extra, aggregation nodes. Then a good way of navigating in that organization is by LEVEL where numbering starts from the dimension bottom layer. Please find clearer explanation here.

Regarding a product which is supposed to be supported on top of Essbase then end users must be given this option else its usage will more than limited, unless you workaround it adding UDAs etc (not sure yet if UDAs are handled in DVD BTW..).
I could verify this fact at a customer a few month ago, Tableau could allow the selection by Generations only - case closed - POC canceled.! As far as I can read now, Tableau is now handling these options in the latests releases (ref to Generations and Levels)...

 

Sébastien Roux

Just to illustrate my previous comment: