Oracle BI Agent to send each page in a dashboard to different users

Jaymie

Please suggest a more efficient method to deliver around 20ish dashboard pages to different users without requiring the creation of 20ish separate agents in Oracle.

The main dashboard, let's name it 'Main Dashboard,' contains individual dashboards named after each manager. I also read some articles about using Recipient (but it's in 2017). Would this be possible? Will it be sent as an Excel file for individual managers?

Thank you in advance for your assistance and responses.😊

Federico Venturin

Hi @Jaymie ,

Yes, I would create a single dashboard page and make the deparment to change dynamically based on the user/recipient who is running it.

You can achieve this by using something like the following expression as a filter in the analysis, or to initialize the default selection in the dashboard prompt:

"DeparmentColumn" = CASE VALUEOF(NQ_SESSION.USER) WHEN 'username1' THEN 'department1' WHEN 'username2' THEN 'department2' ... END

Then you only have to schedule the agent to run as recipients istead of a specific user. Please note that by doing this, your dashboard page will be executed 20 times (one for each recipient).

Federico Venturin

Hi @User_46H0P ,

Unfortunately, there is no better alternative that will work with your actual dashboard design (one dashboard page for each manager). You have to create a separate agent for each dashboard page.

Running the agent as each recipient could be an option only if you can redesign the dashboard to have the same dashboard page for all users, but with different content according to the user which is executing them. As an example, you can achieve this by implementing row-level security, or by using conditions to dynamically hide/display dashboard sections.

Jaymie

Hi @Federico Venturin,

Thank you for your answer. It helps me understand, but I have a question.

The dashboards are all the same; the only difference is the manager's name, as each manager oversees a different department. Do you suggest creating a single dashboard and adding them as recipients? Would this send them an Excel file personalized with only their name or department?

Gianni Ceresa

It looks like you didn't pick the "best" approach at designing the dashboard for the target it has, and this is what Federico is pointing at with his suggestion of making it a single page with "smart" logic in each acting differently based on the user opening it.

Alternatively, if you set security on your pages to only allow access to a page to a given user, sending the whole dashboard should also achieve a similar result (because manage A will not be allowed to see page 1, 2,3 etc. except page 15 that is his own page...).

Still, you should go more in the direction of what Federico suggested, but I would not use a CASE WHEN logic in the dashboard. You probably could benefit to know what department people manage in different parts of your OBIEE, therefore would make more sense to me to have the departments (the org structure of users) into session variables already and just use that variable as filter in the content.

Jaymie

Hi @Federico Venturin

Thank you so much for taking the time to address my question. Your explanation was incredibly helpful, and I truly appreciate it. I will follow your approach, and hopefully, with a crossed finger, it might work. Once again, thank you for your unwavering support and generosity.😊😊

Thank you too @Gianni Ceresa, I used your answer way back in 2017 to get some ideas.