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Insight (OBIEE) Tips for Report Designers
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Just some random tips that have been on my mind lately... What are your tips that might help others?
Only include the columns that you need
Avoid overcrowding your analysis by including a lot of columns lot of columns in Criteria tab and several different views with many excluded columns.
However, since Insight retrieves results for all columns specified in Criteria tab, creating several analysis with a single view rather will generate more efficient queries (i.e. faster).
Keep your views to a minimum
It is better again to create multiple analysis with the view you need, than building many views in a single analysis. Also, delete views you do need even if you're not using them. Each view may have a cost on performance even if it is not included in compound layout.
Know your limits and build within them
Reports will timeout after 5 minutes. The only solution is to change the report design.
Row and cell limits are here: https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/saas/marketing/eloqua-user/Help/Insight/InsightFAQ.htm
Use inline prompts or dashboard prompts instead of table prompts
Table prompts enable report consumers to select the data that they want to view. However Table prompts doesn’t apply any WHERE condition- meaning that all the full data set is retrieved first (based on Criteria tab) and then data is selected to display on the fly. By using inline prompts or dashboard prompts you are ensuring you are only returning the data you need.
Use default prompt settings
If you know what users will select most often, use it as the default value. If you don't know, force them to choose something. Save resources and performance - and avoid the painful execution times.
Use filters instead of selection steps
Filters are applied on the Criteria tab and are used to determine what data to retrieve. They are applied to all views. Selection steps are applied after the data is retrieved, applied to single view, and may result in additional queries.
Use default sorts
Otherwise OBIEE sorts columns in column order.
Consider how you can report on custom fields before you create them
If you think about how you will want to report on your data first and make sure your data is clean, it will save headaches when you get to report building. While OBIEE is flexible and allows you to transform the data for reporting, using CASE statements, conversion functions, calendar functions, etc. it will be painful to maintain and might slow down report performance. Thinking about how you want to report on something might help avoid a headache later and make sure your data is clean before it gets to OBIEE.
Keep your agents clean
Give agents a timeline - don't let them run forever. If they stop working, disable them. To help troubleshooting later, include the agent name in the email body.
Don't know where to start?
Check out our main resource page: https://bit.ly/InsightResources