Description

Feature of creating Analysis based on Direct Database Query should be retained and made more robust

Use Case and Business Need

As Per me this is very nice feature and instead of making it more robust and scalable, Oracle is planning to discontinue it.  Any IT product's success is measured by output in the form of reporting. I agree majority of the reports should come through Subject Areas but there is always a case of 80-20. 80% of reports can come through Subject Area or BI Publisher but client specific configuration at times cannot be easily managed in seeded subject area. There are outer joins required, conditional joins required, it is always difficult to come to Oracle always and get it done in time. As Oracle will have many other major priorities. BI Publisher can be used for such requests but problem is look and feel. When we put BI Publisher reports onto dashboard, it cannot match look and feel provided by analytics, such as conditional colour formatting on Pie Graph, Gauge, Bars, View Selector, etc. 

We just had this case. We created wonderful Succession Plan Dashboard depending on requirement but we are unable to project this to end users. This is so complex using Oracle different module functionalities that it is not possible through subject area. Refer below Business Case. This is again just one example. There are many such examples. 

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Business Case 

We need list of all roles where succession plan is defined and related metrics. 

To achieve this we used Criticality content and mapped to Position Work Structure content. [It can be mapped to Job, Organization as well. I am just covering one dimension. Below scenario further complicated when we use all dimensions.] 

In this criticality content, we specify if Succession Plan roles are required or not. This is the way we identify Business Critical Roles. 

Currently in subject area all contents are available under one folder. Once we identify content and join to Succession Planning subject area, out join is not there. Moreover, it is joined by Person Id and not Position ID. 

Nonetheless once all BCRs are identified, we need to measure company succession health using Number of Successors and their readiness in each role. 
We also need to identify company preparedness using number of emergency successors identified. 

Columns: 
Position Name [List of all positions] 
Profile Name [Position Profile where criticality is defined] 
Succession Plan Name [Name of plan for the above position] 
Name of Successor 
Division [Third level from the Organisation Hierarchy] 

Succession Plan may or may not exist still Position should come in output 
Name of Successor may or may not exist still position and succession plan should come in output 
Division: Based on Position Organisation should travel upward in the hierarchy and get third level Organisation from top 

As per me, above is not possible out of available business area. See if it works out then I shall not use Direct Database Query. 

Please see dashboard we prepared and catlogue attached as well. 

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This is just one example. I know Oracle is very assertive and keep on rolling out new functionalities. Every new functionality might not be incorporated in Subject Area immediately. It is better to make direct database query more secured and scalable rather than closing Reporting Door. BI Publisher cannot be substitute for such requests as look and feel is severely compromised. BI Publisher serves different purpose altogether in terms of document and listing reports. 

BI Publisher Limitation on Dashboard and hence direct database query analysis is required
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1. Complete dashboard page along with Multiple BI Publisher snippets cannot be exported to PPT. Only option is printable PDF but that does not work.
2. Severe compromise on Look and Feel. Scroll bar at the bottom of each snippet comes up.
3. Takes time to invoke compared to BI Analysis
4. View Selector option is unavailable in BI Publisher which makes report less interactive
5. Condition formatting around colour in multiple graphs is not possible. Such as Pie, Bar, Gauge, etc.
6. Limited support around Gauge Font Formatting. It always print on top left corner.
7. In Alalysis Gauge title can be printed from Column values using @ sign which is not possible in BI Publisher

Major limitation is look and feel. BI Analysis snippets fits into without Scroll bars which is very good. BI Publisher snippets are derived based on BI Publisher template page layout and the least possible is A4 which brings in scroll bar all the time.

Original Idea Number: 51c4d1c58e