Catalog Manager - delay planned deprecation of GUI JAN-24 or provide alternate UI

Zyandra

We currently rely quite heavily on the Catalog Manager UI to make minor changes to the SQL for Direct Database Queries because we don't then have to validate and then reformat the result columns, like we would have to do from OAC Answers.

Doing it from the Catalog Manager retains the Column Names, data format overrides etc. and makes it a far quicker experience.

The desupport notice reads "Some functionality in the current desktop interface will be available through a browser-based user interface" - if the functionality described above is not available from the browser-based UI then we request a delay in deprecation until a comparable option can be sourced.

Michal Zima

I am signing this Idea - if there will not be functionally adequate web-based replacement available for Catalog Manager till this time, Catalog Manager thick client GUI should stay in unchanged form.

William Johnston

Can you share the desupport notice about Catalog Manager or where I can find it? We rely on catalog manager windows application to migrate content between two OAC instances, I'm not clear how a web based application would be able to do this same thing.

Michal Zima

@William Johnston See document What's Notable and Different in Oracle Analytics Server from OAS documentation set: https://docs.oracle.com/en/middleware/bi/analytics-server/whats-different-oas/index.html

Michal Zima

Btw, what is also notable from this document is following:

Feature: Inclusion of Oracle Analytics Clients as a part of Oracle Analytics Server installation

Plan: Deprecated. Planned for desupport in Oracle Analytics Server 2024 update.

This is , I would say, even worst message than Catalog Manager desupport.

Pls, @Alan Lee - Oracle-Oracle , @Gabby Rubin-Oracle , can you, pls, provide more details on that ? Thanks

William Johnston

Thanks! I'm using Oracle Analytics Cloud, but I see same is happening for Catalog Manager client app for OAC as well. I'll reach out to our client services rep about this as well, as without catalog manager, we're going to be at a significant disadvantage.

https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/paas/analytics-cloud/acswn/index.html#GUID-60776BF3-7CBD-4D82-B348-228A671E8DC9

Alan Lee - Oracle

Catalog manager command line is still available and has all the features of the GUI. In terms of Oracle Analytics Client, all this means is that it will not be delivered as part of the server installation. The client download/install remains available.

Michal Zima

@Alan Lee - Oracle-Oracle Thanks for clarification

Zyandra

Hi @Alan Lee - Oracle-Oracle ,

Now that the GUI is disabled and we cannot connect, we have no choice but to use the CLI.

Is there any advice on how to connect to the correct catalog, with the correct credentials, and then how to download a specific Direct Database Query analysis, and make changes to the XML (it could be a simple change in the WHERE clause, or changing the colour scheme for headers etc).

I have tried running "runcat.cmd -help" but I can't see how to control which catalog I'm connecting to, or how to achieve simple change like the examples above.

Also, noted that as it is usually Direct Database Queries we need to edit, we cannot use the Advanced tab from within the application.

This is quite a hit to our productivity, as what used to take minutes to do in the GUI, I am spending much more time researching how to do it.

Alan Lee - Oracle

@Zyandra

The general find and replace syntax is:

runcat,sh -cmd replace -online <oac instance url> -folder <root folder to start find> textreplace -old "<string to replace> -new "<new string>" -credentials <file with login/pwd>

Example, following will rename catalog folder from "Revenue" to "Sales Reports"

runcat.sh -cmd replace -online "https:/oacinstance.ocp.oraclecloud.com/analytics-ws" -folder "/Shared Folders/North America" textreplace -old "/Shared Folders/North America/Revenue" -new "/Shared Folders/North America/Sales Reports" -credentials /scratch/credentials.txt

credentials file has the following rows:

login=<userid>

pwd=<password>

We are working to improve the documentation.

mohammad-rafi-ansari-Accenture

This is definitely not great to decommission Catalog GUI functionality. Command line is not that great with GUI you can copy paste any object from one instance to another. If we have to automate it in OAC then the REST API are also not there to migrate catalog objects from one environment(Source) to another (Destination).