Export Analytic XML structure (not data) via analytics-ws

Wade Wilson

Summary

Back up analytics using analytics-ws

Content

I am wanting to do some partial automation with version control/backups using the analytics-ws. Does anyone know if the analytics-ws is able to export analytic xml (not the results)? I have taken a quick look, but I can't seem to find a Soap call that will do this.

Endpoint is like this - https://bi-aufsn4x0<pod>.oracleoutsourcing.com/analytics-ws/saw.dll/wsdl/v10

Gianni Ceresa

Hi,

So you want to backup the catalog, right?

Sure you can do it by webservice, tested and perfectly working on OAC.

You can look at this doc https://docs.oracle.com/middleware/1221/biee/BIEIT/methods.htm#BIEIT180 which describe the various services available. The one you look for is the WebCatalog Service. You find methods to navigate your catalog (you can do it in an iterative way and the "readObjects" method can give you the full XML of the object based on the parameters you set.

Wade Wilson

Thanks for confirming, Gianni! I had looked at this method previously, but missed the second '<sawsoap:catalogObject>' tag. SOAPUI displays the entirety of the XML payload on 1 line only, so I didn't realize that was what I needed.

Cheers.

Gianni Ceresa

Just to note that I wouldn't really consider this a backup.

You get the content of an object, but the XML doesn't contain the ACL and other few metadata (like type of object, owner etc.). So it's really a pure "content" backup and will not be fun to restore. But better than nothing for sure !

Wade Wilson

That's true. You are giving me something else to consider. One could just save off the entire top-level catalogObject, which would include ACL, owner, etc.

Gianni Ceresa

True that you can get everything via the webservice.

But in the end: aren't you going to overengineering something? Not sure what exact product you have in front, Catalog Manager really isn't an option? You could do an archive of the catalog by command line / code and be 100% sure it will work in case of a restore.

But still: you can do everywhere by webservice (been there, done that: it works )

Wade Wilson

Gianni, we are on HCM Cloud, so I'm not sure if our BI instance will work with runcat. It looks promising. I have been trying to get the client tools installed on my Windows VM, but running into issues - the catalog manager just won't start - but the Admin tool will. Different issues on my Linux VM. I admit, I've wasted more than a few hours on this activity. I'll give it a go again next week with a fresh VM.

Ultimately, I'm looking to solve 2 issues: getting the textual code into repositories for backup/code review, and one day to discern which version of a report is on the system via repo tag (or something else).