Oracle9iAS Discoverer Integration with Oracle9iAS Portal

An Oracle White Paper October 2001

Oracle9iAS Discoverer Integration with Orcale9iAS Portal

EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW .............................................................................. 3 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 3

WHAT ARE DISCOVERER PORTLETS? ......................................................... 5 PERSONALIZATION OF DISCOVERER PORTLETS.................................... 5 REFRESHING PORTLET CONTENT................................................................ 6 PUBLISHING CONTENT TO ORACLE9IAS PORTAL .................................. 7 LIST OF WORKBOOKS PORTLET............................................................................. 8 WORKSHEET PORTLET .......................................................................................... 8 CENTRALIZED SECURITY VIA SSO ............................................................... 9

CONCLUSION................................................................................................... 10
ORACLE9IAS DISCOVERER PORTLETS AVAILABILITY ....................... 12 NEED MORE INFORMATION ON ORACLES BI SOLUTION?................ 12

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Oracle9iAS Discoverer Portal Integration

EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW Enterprise information portals (EIP) are becoming mission-critical to enterprises that want to deploy their operations to the web. These organizations are using enterprise portals to give users a single point of access to a wide range of internal and external information providers. An EIP is required to provide access to various data sources as well as enterprise applications including business intelligence systems over the web. The benefits of accessing business intelligence systems in an EIP include centralized knowledge management, increased productivity, better communication, higher quality decision-making and centralized security management. However, there are not many vendors offering an EIP environment seamlessly integrated with business intelligence applications. Organizations have to shop different vendors and try to get different products work together resulting in a high cost of ownership of an incomplete and non-integrated solution. Oracle9iAS Release 2 offers a complete and integrated run-time infrastructure for your web applications at a low cost. The tight integration between Oracle9iAS Discoverer and Oracle9iAS Portal empowers users to publish their favorite reports or list of reports to Oracle9iAS Portal and enable other users in the organization to easily access the information by subscribing to these portal pages. INTRODUCTION Oracle9iApplication Server (Oracle9iAS) provides solutions for enterprise information portals, business intelligence tools and web site analysis tools.

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Oracle9iAS Portal, the portal component of Oracle9iAS, is a software framework for building and deploying personalized web sites that deliver information and applications to customers, employees, and partners. Oracle9iAS Discoverer is an end user ad hoc query, reporting, analysis, and web publishing tool. Users gain rapid access to corporate data through an easy to use interface. This in turn empowers users to make more informed business decisions. Oracle9iAS Discoverer portlets offers the following benefits:
= = = = = = Integrated BI Solution within Oracle9iAS Portal Easy Access to Information Easy Distribution Flexible Page Layout Centralized Security via Single Sign On (SSO) Business Intelligence at a Low Cost

This white paper describes the integration between Oracle9iAS Discoverer and Oracle9iAS Portal. Oracle9iAS Discoverer achieves the seamless integration with Oracle9iAS Portal by introducing the following Discoverer portlets: = List of Workbooks Portlet = Worksheet Portlet The following sections provide details on how Discoverer portlets are published, customized, and accessed by multiple users in a secure environment, and explore the benefits of using Discoverer portlets.

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WHAT ARE DISCOVERER PORTLETS?

Oracle9iAS Portal is a true enterprise portal that serves the needs of users across all business functions and supports a wide variety of repositories and applications. A portlet is information placed within a region on a portal page. All portlets come from a data source registered with Oracle9iAS Portal, called a portlet provider. Oracle9iAS Discoverer is a portlet provider to Oracle9iAS Portal. There are two types of Discoverer portlets: = List of workbooks portlet = Worksheet portlet A List of workbooks portlet includes the names of workbooks available from Discoverer. A Worksheet portlet is an individual worksheet contains only data (table or cross-tabular report), only a graph, or both.
Oracle9iAS Portal powered by Discoverer portlets

The terms worksheet and workbook are used by Discoverer to identify a report or a set of reports created by users. The workbook has pages, or worksheets, that contain data for the specific tasks. Each worksheet in a workbook contains the result of a query in a tabular or cross-tabular format that may include a graph.
PERSONALIZATION OF DISCOVERER PORTLETS

Authenticated users granted the Customize Page privilege in Oracle9iAS Portal can customize Discoverer portlets. Initially, the portlet publisher determines each portlets default settings when placing it on the page. Personalization enables users to change these default settings. This includes the default connection to the database, parameter values, if any, or portlet properties such as title, workbook filter, and workbook sorting column. Users customize Discoverer portlets by simply clicking the Customize link of the Portlet. The following information can be customized for List of Workbooks portlet: = Discoverer connection A Discoverer connection identifies the database connection (user and data source information) and the Discoverer End User Layer to be used.

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= Filter list of workbooks Users can specify a filter to select the workbooks to be shown in the portlet. For example, all the workbooks containing the word Sales can be chosen. = Number of workbooks to show = Portlet title = Sort order by: workbook name, last modification or creation date Within the portlet, the workbooks can sorted by the above parameters. = Display columns: description, last modification or creation date User can also specify which additional columns will be displayed along with the workbook name.
Easy customization of Discoverer portlets

The following information can be customized for Worksheet portlet: = Discoverer connection = Show data and/or graph = User may want to show just data as a table or cross-tab report, a graph, or both. = Portlet title The major benefit of customizing a portlet is that the portlet is defined once and shared by multiple users providing = A different look and feel defined by each user = A different content based on worksheet parameters, if any, chosen by the user = A different content based on access privileges of the user. This feature also increases the users productivity.
REFRESHING PORTLET CONTENT

The content published to a portal page should be up-to-date and retrieved as quickly as possible. A portlet provider collects its data from multiple data sources such as data warehouses, transactional systems or other applications. Regardless of what data source is used, the portlet content should be in synch with the actual data source. For example, if a data mart is populated and refreshed every week, then the portlet content should be refreshed every week just after the data mart is. Another important requirement is performance.

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Every portlet provider is responsible for how fast the information can be delivered to the portal and rendered in a page. Discoverer portlet provider successfully achieves the above requirements by offering the functionality to automatically refresh the portlet content in order to have the most up-to-date information at a fast response time. At design time the portlet publisher determines how frequently the portlet needs to be refreshed. This can be hourly, daily, weekly or monthly.
List of Workbooks Portlet

Each user is granted specific access to workbooks. This list is cached in Portal to ensure instantaneous performance. However, the cache may become out of date, as more workbooks are added or modified. The user refreshes the List of Workbooks Portlet on demand simply by applying a refresh in the customization page.
List of Workbooks Portlet

Alternatively, there is a refresh frequency parameter that enables publishers to specify a rate at which portlet content should be refreshed.
Worksheet Portlet

The refresh frequency is a parameter that allows a publisher to specify a rate at which the portlet content is refreshed. When the portlet is initially published, the content is rendered by querying the database and immediately cached. The next time the portal page is accessed; the portlet content is retrieved from the cache instead of being re-run. This provides faster page rendering. In order to achieve the synchronization
Worksheet Portlet with a crosstab report

between the cache and the actual data source, the content stored in the cache repository is refreshed in the background according to the refresh frequency specified by the portlet publisher.
PUBLISHING CONTENT TO ORACLE9IAS PORTAL

Worksheet Portlet with a graph

In order to add a portlet in Oracle9iAS Portal, users are required to login to Portal and must have the Create/Customize Page privilege. A user with the privilege can add Discoverer portlets to the page and becomes the publisher for this portlet. To add a Discoverer portlet to a page, users edit the portal page in Oracle9iAS Portal and add either List of Workbooks portlet or Worksheet

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Portlet. Once published, portal users may launch Discoverer by selecting a workbook from the List of Workbooks Portlet or clicking the View Worksheet in Discoverer link in the Worksheet Portlet. List of Workbooks Portlet During publishing, the List of Workbooks Portlet requires the following information to be specified:
List of Workbooks portlet Discoverer Connection Portlet Settings Description User Name, Database, End User Layer Workbooks to show on the Portal page Portlet Title Refresh Options
Types of Dicoverer portlets

Default The first connection accessible to the user The first five workbooks Data Source appended by EUL name Current time and date Never repeat

Refresh time and date Refresh frequency: Never repeat or every X hours, days, weeks, months.

Worksheet Portlet During publishing the Worksheet Portlet requires the following information to be specified:
Worksheet portlet Discoverer Connection Workbook Worksheet Parameter Values Portlet Settings Description User Name, Database, End User Layer Name of the workbook Name of the worksheet Applicable only if the worksheet has parameters Portlet Title Default The first connection accessible to the user First workbook in alphabetical order First worksheet as saved in the database Defaults saved with worksheet in Discoverer Workbook name appended by worksheet name Crosstab/table and graph Current time and date Never repeat

Adding Discoverer portlets

Content Type: Crosstab/table only, graph only, both table and graph Refresh Options Refresh time and date Refresh frequency: Never repeat or every X hours, days, weeks, months.

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The publisher changes the parameters mentioned above from using the Edit Defaults page of the portlet.
CENTRALIZED SECURITY VIA SSO

Many organizations find it difficult for users to manage multiple usernames/passwords for multiple applications. The single sign-on concept describes an environment where users are authenticated only once during a browser session and do not have to re-authenticate again when switching between applications during that session. Oracle9iAS components including Discoverer support the Oracle Login Server. providing users with the ease of use of a single sign-on (SSO). When an Oracle9iAS Portal user is authenticated by Oracles SSO technology, they are automatically authenticated to Discoverer within the same browser session. Sign on to any Oracle Login Server compliant application is transparent to end users using a SSO account, providing access to multiple solution areas from
Designing a page in Oracle9iAS Portal

Oracle9iAS Portal or Oracle9iAS Discoverer.

Community vs My Pages

Oracle9iAS Portal has the concepts of My Pages and Community Pages. My Pages are generally created by an end user for his/her own use such as my.yahoo.com or my.oracle.com. Since the page is not shared with anyone, only the owner of the page can see the content. Community Pages are created by portal publishers for use by multiple users of a community, for example, a Sales portal or Human Resources portal. At design time, the portlet publisher determines whether a portlet will be available to casual users (unauthenticated) or just to authenticated users. Therefore, un-authenticated users only see the content published for everyone or public accounts. Authenticated users see the public content, as well as any additional portlets requiring authentication. Discoverer portlets can be published to both My Pages and Community Pages. In the following section, we explore how Discoverer portlets handle content displayed to different users viewing the same Community Pages.

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Authenticated vs un-authenticated users

Discoverer portlets distinguish between authenticated and un-authenticated users. This enables multiple users with different privileges to share information securely in a single portal page. Discoverer provides security that allows the person who publishes the content to a portal page, the portlet publisher, to control the connections used to display data to authenticated and unauthenticated users. This allows different Portal users to view data according to their privileges. For example, two regional sales managers viewing the same portal page would get different data. The manager of the North region would see only the sales figures of the North and the manager of the South region would see only the sales of the South. Therefore, the content of the same page is dynamically rendered and a different set of data is displayed according to the users access privileges. CONCLUSION Integrating business intelligence applications with enterprise information portals empowers users at all levels of the organization. Users easily access the companys key performance indicators, personalize content according to their needs, and share information across the organization. Oracle9iAS Discoverer extends the business intelligence power of Oracle9iAS by introducing Discoverer portlets to Oracle9iAS Portal. Oracle9iAS Discoverer users publish their favorite worksheets or list of workbooks and enable other users to access the information by subscribing to the portal pages within Oracle9iAS Portal. The benefits of having Discoverer portlets in Oracle9iAS Portal are:
Integrated BI solution within Oracle9iAS Portal

Discoverer portlets extend the analytic capabilities of Oracle9iAS with an integrated business intelligence solution now available within Oracle9iAS Portal. Publishing Discoverer portlets to Oracle9iAS Portal pages is a free service that enables business analysts, managers and users at all level of the organization to make faster, informed and high quality decisions.

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Easy access to information

Using Discoverer portlets increases productivity and makes business intelligence available to wider user communities who can easily access to key performance indicators, trends, and year-to-year comparisons by simply browsing a web page.
Easy distribution

Once a Discoverer portlet is published to a portal page, many users share the information and customize it according to their needs. Distribution and sharing information has never been easier producing better communication and increased in productivity.
Flexible Page Layout

While designing a portal page, a portlet publisher can include as many portlets
Oracle9iAS Portal + Oracle9iAS Discoverer = BI enabled portal

as needed. Therefore, multiple Discoverer worksheets with tables and graphs can be published to a single portal page, providing flexible layout design and viewing capabilities to the users.
Centralized Security via Single Sign On (SSO)

Oracle9iAS provides Oracles single sign-on (SSO) technology. Users are authenticated only once during a browser session and do not have to reauthenticate when switching between applications during that session. For example, when an Oracle9iAS Portal user is authenticated by Oracles SSO technology, then Discoverer will not require the user to re-authenticate him/herself as a Discoverer user for the duration of their browser session. In summary, Oracle9iAS offers a highly scalable and high performance platform for organizations that want to build and deploy personalized web sites to deliver business applications to customers, employees and partners. Oracle9iAS Release 2 extends its business intelligence capabilities and enables users to access and share the business information stored in Discoverer workbooks by simply adding Discoverer portlets to the Oracle9iAS Portal pages. Oracle9iAS, powered by Oracle9iAS Discoverer, offers a complete and integrated business intelligence solution at a low cost.

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ORACLE9iAS DISCOVERER PORTLETS AVAILABILITY

Discoverer portlets will be available with Oracle9iAS Release 2 that will be released on Windows NT, Sun Solaris, HP, Linux, and IBM-AIX platforms.
NEED MORE INFORMATION ON ORACLES BI SOLUTION?

http://oracle.com/ip/deploy/database/oracle9i/index.html?bi_home.html

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Oracle9iAS Discoverer Integration with Oracle9iAS Portal October 2001 Author: Aydin Gencler Oracle Corporation World Headquarters 500 Oracle Parkway Redwood Shores, CA 94065 U.S.A. Worldwide Inquiries: Phone: +1.650.506.7000 Fax: +1.650.506.7200 www.oracle.com Oracle Corporation provides the software that powers the internet. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. Various product and service names referenced herein may be trademarks of Oracle Corporation. All other product and service names mentioned may be trademarks of their respective owners. Copyright 2001 Oracle Corporation All rights reserved.