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New Features and Recommendations for Working

with Microsoft Office
OBIEE 11.1.1.7
May 2013

Contents
New Feature Summary ................................................................................................................................. 3
New Feature Recommendations .................................................................................................................. 4
Microsoft Office OBIEE Integration Features ................................................................................................ 4
Direction for Oracle Smart View ............................................................................................................... 5
Features supported by Oracle Smart View for OBIEE ............................................................................... 6
Oracle Smart View for OBIEE Limitations ................................................................................................. 8
OBIEE Analysis Export to Excel Functionality ENHANCEMENTS ............................................................... 9
Limitations of the OBIEE Export to Excel Functionality ............................................................................ 9
Features of OBIEE Export to BI Publisher................................................................................................ 12
Limitations of OBIEE Export to Publisher ................................................................................................ 12
Performance considerations for Microsoft Office features ........................................................................ 12
Performance guidelines for EXPORT of data .......................................................................................... 13
Estimation guidelines for formatted Export to Excel .............................................................................. 13
Performance Testing Results for excel downloads ................................................................................. 14
Machine Configuration ........................................................................................................................... 14
1. Single User RT with 61 column and 2,560 rows report....................................................................... 15
2. Single User RT with 61 column and 25,088 rows report.................................................................... 15
3. Single User RT with 61 column and 54,000 rows report.................................................................... 16

Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2013

New Feature Summary

The release of OBI EE 11.1.1.7 introduces several changes and improvements to the support of
Microsoft Office programs, including Excel, PowerPoint and Word. In addition, there are more general
improvements in the ability for end-users to export data provided by the OBI EE Server, and to use the
data in downstream analyses or processes.
These improvements include:

The introduction of Oracle Smart View as the strategic product for interoperation with
Microsoft Office products with OBI EE. Oracle Smart View provides the ability for Microsoft
Office users to connect directly to both the OBI EE Web Catalog and OBI EE Subject areas to view
and analyze data within Microsoft Office. The system also allows Microsoft Office users to set
up standard templates in Excel or PowerPoint that can be updated with fresh data as required,
and to create new Analyses that can be shared to other users via the OBI EE Web Catalog.

New capabilities to export entire dashboards or a dashboard page directly to Excel from a web
page, without the requirement for Oracle Smart View to be installed. The export capability is
improved over previous versions, and more closely matches the formatting of the originating
Dashboard layouts.

An updated approach to Analysis export to Excel and .CSV. This approach provides native Excel
format (.xlsx) and a drastic improvement in files size in comparison to earlier releases
(approximately a 90% file size reduction). This new approach also provides a more accurate
representation of the formatted Analyses (i.e., tables and pivot tables) into Excel. However,
there are limits to both the fidelity of the representation and the size (in terms of rows of data)
that can be supported.

A new capability to provide specialized printed views of Dashboards by using the Oracle BI
Publisher layout engine for pixel-perfect presentations. For example, a Dashboard can have an
alternate view for Executive Detail that re-formulates the dashboard for a detail view, and
potentially provides additional data not provided on the base dashboard. As of this release,
using the out of the box user interfaces provided, these specialized views are in .PDF only.
However, using an integration approach, IT teams can provide a similar specialized view that
provides higher detail presentation in native Excel format. The key to these integrations is that
as of version 11.1.1.7, Oracle BI Publisher now directly addresses the Oracle BI Subject Areas
and is tightly integrated into the Oracle BI user experience.

Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2013

New Feature Recommendations

OBI EE customer deployment situations vary widely; however, it is recommended that customers
consider the following rules of thumb for managing their deployments. Specific details or limitations of
the approaches are covered in more detail later in this document.
1. For power Microsoft Office users, or for repeated/updated Microsoft Office based analyses or
reports, use Oracle Smart View. Oracle Smart View is designed for these user unique needs, and
includes the ability to reformat charts and tables using Microsoft Excel formatting and to retain
these formatting changes by directly refreshing data against the server. A use case for this
integration would be to re-use Macros or linked spreadsheets for subsequent analysis.
2. For casual Microsoft Office users, and to download limited views/rows of data from the server,
use Export Dashboard or Export Analysis capabilities. The new capabilities do provide higher
fidelity representation of data than previous release, but should not be relied on for repeated
down-stream analysis (for example, the Macro example). There are limits to the data volume
that can be exported using these methods although memory configurations can be used to
increase these volumes. Note that .CSV formats operate more efficiently on much higher data
volumes than Excel formats due to formatting needs for the latter method.
3. For very large data exports up to 100K rows in Excel format or up to 10 Million rows in .CSV
format use the specialized layouts available through the new Oracle BI Publisher integrations.
These integrations make best use of the available memory on the servers, and provide a more
efficient experience for end-users (i.e., faster output).
We hope that customers make use of these new capabilities. Data export and streaming is a memory
and processor intensive operation, and there are server configurations for memory and processing that
should be considered before allowing large deployments of data export to end users. Oracle is
committed to continuing to improve both the fidelity and performance of these operations, and looks
forward to working with you as you deploy 11.1.1.7 to your end-users.
The sections that follow provide more details on specific use cases.

Microsoft Office OBIEE Integration Features

There are three methods to export data to Microsoft Office, and specifically Excel:
-

Use Oracle Smart View for Microsoft Office power users when deep analysis against Oracle BI
Server and updates or refresh of the data is required.

Use Analysis or Dashboard Export for casual Microsoft Office users that need small, quick
extracts of data from the server, and where refresh of the data into a document is not a critical
need.

Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2013

Use Oracle BI Publisher to set up high volume exports and downloads and leverage Oracle BI
Publisher's scheduling capabilities as needed.

DIRECTION FOR ORACLE SMART VIEW

Prior to the 11.1.1.7 release of Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE), the primary
facility for interacting Oracle BI Content with Microsoft Office has been the Oracle BI Office plug-in.
While the Oracle BI Office plug-in has provided a base line set of capabilities for OBIEE users, there has
been a movement to standardize on Oracle Hyperion Smart View for Office across the Oracle EPM and
Oracle BI product portfolios in order to provide a consistent foundation and user experience for
Microsoft Office based analytic features. Oracle Smart View provides Microsoft Office integration with
Oracle Essbase, Oracle Hyperion Financial Management, and Oracle Hyperion Planning. As part of the
11.1.1.7 release of OBIEE and the 11.1.2.310 version of Oracle Hyperion Smart View, full support for
OBIEE interoperability is also provided.

With Oracle Smart View, users can view, import, manipulate, distribute and share data in Microsoft
Excel, Word and PowerPoint interfaces. It is a comprehensive tool for accessing and integrating Oracle
EPM and Oracle BI content from Microsoft Office products. Oracle Smart View users share a single client
(Oracle Hyperion Smart View release 11.1.1.3.310 or later) for all application providers. The Oracle
Smart View client can be downloaded from the OBIEE home page or through the Oracle Technology
Network (OTN) web site. Users are able to leverage the shared functional capabilities of Oracle Smart
View which includes a common approach to connectivity, security, credential management, scripting,
development tools and the ability to federate data across multiple sources.
The Oracle BI Office plug-in will continue to be available as part of the 11.1.1.7 release of OBIEE with the
ability to download the client from the OBIEE home page. This version will be supported though limited
to fixing defects. An end of life process has been instigated for the Oracle BI Office plug-in with the
expectation of reduced availability in upcoming releases of OBIEE.

Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2013

FEATURES SUPPORTED BY ORACLE SMART VIEW FOR OBIEE

Oracle Smart View for OBIEE provides a broad set of capabilities to import content directly from the
OBIEE web catalog. The approach that Oracle Smart View takes in supporting imported content is to
leverage the central capabilities of Microsoft Office and ensure these features are accessible. This
includes:

Self-service modification of BI Views Modifying the chart type, chart layout and the design
properties associated with the visualizations. This ensures that end users can control the
formatting and representation based on business need or personal preference without the
involvement of IT or BI report designers.

Interactive analytic capabilities Users can make use of the full breadth of Oracle BI View
interactivity at the Microsoft Office level. This includes page and report prompts accessible at
the time of import and subsequently within the Microsoft Office component. The level of
interactivity ensures end users can build highly complex visual and table based analyses within a
page, document or workbook.

Oracle BI Customizations and View Standards - The Import of Oracle BI content can leverage the
customizations and view standards used within an OBIEE environment. All view designed
modifications such as conditional formatting, background colors or data configuration is
automatically translated to the Microsoft Office environment.

Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2013

Policy based import and lineage tracking Oracle Smart View for OBIEE provides the ability to
set preferences on how content is refreshed and updated. Through policy settings on a per view
basis, users can decide if a view can be updated based on data only, metadata changes or none
at all. In all cases users can control the behavior ensuring investments in local customization can
be retained or whether the standards from OBIEE and take precedence. This capability also
allows users to track the location of imported content.

Native Microsoft Power Point features Oracle Smart View enables the full support and
maintenance of Oracle BI Analyses in Power Point. Features unique to PowerPoint include the
ability to apply native templates and leverage core design features. This will allow end users to
build and maintain a consistent presentation adhering to appropriate business standards.

Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2013

Creation of New Analytics from with Microsoft Office Oracle Smart View for OBIEE enables
users to create new Views from all of the Microsoft Office components. This self-service
reporting capability permits users to connect to the OBIEE semantic layer, select dimensions and
measures, apply filters, page prompts, and totals and choose between OBIEE or Microsoft Office
based analytic view types. For example a business user who is comfortable working with native
Microsoft Excel pivot charts can build a new BI analysis, save it as a native Excel pivot and
leverage all of the capabilities that Microsoft Office has to offer including Pivot Charts. The
resulting analysis can be saved back to the OBIEE Web Catalog and shared through the standard
dashboard or distributed reporting mechanisms.

Oracle Smart View for OBIEE Limitations

As a first release of the Oracle Smart View for OBIEE product, there is a broad set of capabilities that are
targeted to meet the needs of a business and power analytic users. There are certain limitations for the
initial release including:

Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2013

1. Dashboard prompts OBIEE report and page prompts are fully supported as part of the import
process. Dashboards can be imported through Oracle Smart View on a per page basis or the
entire dashboard. Prompts are applied at the current state of the logged in user. Future releases
of the product will support dashboard prompts directly through Microsoft Office.
2. Full support of OBIEE Views Charts that are supported by Microsoft Office will be supported
through the Oracle Smart View process. Views that are not supported by Microsoft Office are
imported as images. As of the first release there are certain OBIEE Views that are not supported.
These include trellis charts, scorecard views, KPIs and geospatial maps.

OBIEE ANALYSIS EXPORT TO EXCEL FUNCTIONALITY ENHANCEMENTS

In version 11.1.1.7, the architecture for Analysis Export to Excel has been changed, and a new engine is
being utilized for the conversion. The key benefit to end users is that the format of the exported file is
now in native Excel format (.xlsx) which enables the retention of more elements of formatting, data
types and other features. In addition, the file size of the export .xlsx file is approximately 1/10th the size
of the previous format in 11.1.1.6 or earlier.
Limitations of the OBIEE Export to Excel Functionality

These are some known limitations of export to Excel. Users can use Oracle Smart View to avoid these
limitations.
1. Cells Merge in Downloaded file Some cells may merge in downloaded file when a compound
layout is exported to Excel.
2. OBIEE 11.1.1.7.0 supports native Excel format which reduces the exported file size but it
requires more time to export the content. It is recommended to use 2 GB or more java host
heap size for improved performance.
3. Users should use CSV format for export if the customization and layout are not required in the
exported file. This will give higher performance and smaller exported data file. This is
recommended format with large data-set (>1 M rows).
4. Action links are not exported to Excel (planned for the OBI 11.1.1.7.1 + Release)
5. Row Spanning in Table and Pivot table view Due to design changes, there is a change in default
behavior for row spanning in table and pivot table view in OBIEE 11g. A configuration parameter
is added in instanceconfig.xml to change the row spanning behavior in OBIEE 11.1.1.7.1+
release and 11.1.1.6.10+ patches. Use the following parameters in instanceconfig.xml to
change the default behavior:
<export type=excel>
<repeatRows>true</repeatRows>
</export>
Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2013

If the value is set to true then regardless of the setting in the editor, rows will always repeat.
If the value is set to false, the behavior will be the same as defined in the analysis editor.
The default value is false.
6. Pivot Table with Sections Misalignment of data columns may occur in the exported Excel
format. This is because every section is treated as a separate data table.
7. As part of the 11.1.1.7 release of OBIEE there are cases where hierarchies are not formatted
with indentation and with certain misalignments. These capabilities are planned to be supported
in future releases of OBIEE. Oracle Smart View for OBIEE can be used as an alternative to OBIEE
Export to Excel in these cases.

Export to Excel directly from OBIEE

Import using Smart View from OBIEE

8. The export to Microsoft Office through the OBIEE export facility enables end users to access
many of the complex Views supported by Oracle BI. These include Geospatial, Trellis and
Waterfall charts.
9. While OSSM Scorecards are supported there are limitations on the export of certain
visualizations including strategy trees. These features are planned to be supported in future
releases of OBIEE.

Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2013

10

Full support of complex BI Views including geospatial and trellis charts

Limitations on the export of OSSM Scorecard output

Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2013

11

FEATURES OF OBIEE EXPORT TO BI PUBLISHER

OBIEE 11.1.1.7.0 supports export of a dashboard to Oracle BI Publisher for printing in PDF. In addition,
this feature can be leveraged to export dashboard content to Excel when the content is migrated to BI
Publisher. The exported content in BI Publisher can be surfaced on the dashboard as an URL. This
approach supports passing of run-time dashboard prompt values while exporting the content to Excel.

This approach can also be implemented by manually creating a BI Publisher data-model and report for
the analysis that needs to be exported to Excel. The following steps describe this process:
1. Export a BI dashboard to BI Publisher using print options. Alternatively, manually create the BI
data-model and report for the analysis that needs to be exported to Excel.
2. Specify Excel as default output format for the BI Publisher report.
3. Embed the BI Publisher report to the BI dashboard as URL.
4. Use this URL for export to Excel at run time from the dashboard. This will in-turn invoke the BI
Publisher report behind the scene.
Limitations of OBIEE Export to Publisher

1. Hierarchical columns are not supported for export to BI Publisher in the initial release. Views
containing hierarchical columns will be removed in the exported report.
2. Some advanced visualizations (like Trellis, Funnel chart, Waterfall chart, Gauge) are not
supported in the exported report. They will be removed with the message as unsupported
object type.

Performance considerations for Microsoft Office features

Oracle OBIEE Analysis Export, Oracle BI Publisher and Oracle Smart View can all support the ability to
work with large data sets. In each case there may be reasons why one product can be used.
However, for large scale, repeated exports, Oracle recommends that customers use the capabilities of
BI Publisher to meet data volume and execution speed tradeoffs. With this release, BI Publisher is
tightly integrated with OBI EE, and is designed for such high volume reporting.
Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2013

12

Below are examples of guidelines and benchmarks that can be used as guidelines for deciding which
Microsoft Office entry point can be used.

PERFORMANCE GUIDELINES FOR EXPORT OF DATA

For general purpose use of OBIEE content, all three options outlined will provide adequate performance
and support. Recommendations are provided below

Oracle Smart View is designed to support analytical processing, but not intended for large
scale data export. Data exports of over 5000 rows of data should be avoided when using Oracle
Smart View.

OBIEE and BI Publisher have several export options. The following rules of thumb should be
used:
o

Exports for large data sets are most efficient when using .CSV export format. This is due
to not requiring the overhead to convert format content to the Microsoft Excel format.

Exports to .CSV should be used for data sets of >100K rows of data.

Do not use Excel formats for data sets larger than 100K rows of data.

Exports of >500K rows of data should only use BI Publisher capabilities.

Exports to .CSV of 1M to 10M rows of data should be scheduled using the BI Publisher
scheduler only, and delivered at a set time. For optimal performance it is recommended
that the BI Publisher Data Model go directly against the source database using a JNDI
connection. End users should not request large data set downloads on demand.

ESTIMATION GUIDELINES FOR FORMATTED EXPORT TO EXCEL

The export to Excel is dependent on the formatting of fonts, number types (currency, etc), conditional
formatting and other considerations.
The system performs as a roughly linear scaling system based on the total number of cells in the
exported data (# cells = #columns * #rows).
In testing within Oracle on commodity hardware, the following scenarios were tested

61 columns x 2,560 rows = 156,160 cells

61 columns x 25,088 rows = 1,530,368 cells
61 columns x 54,000 rows = 3,294,000 cells

In turn, the following time per cell download times were observed for Excel formatted export:

Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2013

13

All times are in seconds

OBIEE
Cells
Download Time
156,160
43.9
1,530,368 344
3,294,000 800

BI Publisher
Time per cell Download Time
0.000281
27.4
0.000225
240.01
0.000243
532

Time per cell

0.000175461
0.000156832
0.000161506

Therefore, one can use these results as a rough guideline to estimate the download times to be
expected for different combinations of rows and columns. The basic equations would be

OBIEE: #columns * #rows * .00025 seconds

BI Publisher: #columns * #rows * .00015 seconds

Therefore, the following scenarios can be anticipated for OBIEE & BI Publisher for formatted Excel
output of 100K rows (the maximum recommendation):
OBIEE: 20 columns * 100,000 rows * .00025 seconds = 500 seconds or 8.33 minutes
BI Publisher: 20 columns * 100,000 rows * .00015 seconds = 300 seconds or 5 minutes

PERFORMANCE TESTING RESULTS FOR EXCEL DOWNLOADS

More specific performance testing results on commodity hardware are provided below. Note that
running these tests on Engineered Systems such as Exadata and Exalytics should show more responsive
times.

Machine Configuration
Server

CPU(s)

Memory

OS (Version/Patch)

Application Server 2 x Intel Pentium 4

32GB

Linux64

DB

2 x Intel Pentium II

32GB

Linux64

Client

Intel Xeon 2.33Ghz

15GB

Windows server2003

Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2013

14

Scenario 1:
Single User Data for 2.5K, 25K & 54K Rows Report (61 Columns)
Purpose of the run
To compare the performance of Download to XLSX operation using BI Publisher (Interactive Viewer) and
OBIEE.
Transaction Flow

Bring up URL
Login into BIP
Click on Catalog
Go To Report Folder
View Report
Download to XLSX
Logout

A. Single User RT with 61 column and 2,560 rows report.

Report

BIP (Interactive Viewer)

OBIEE

Time to View Report in Browser 17.4 sec (includes interactive viewer loading)

2.6 sec

Download Time

27.4 sec

43.9 sec

Size of file

521 KB

588 KB

Max Temp Size

106 MB

505 MB

B. Single User RT with 61 column and 25,088 rows report

BIP Report Through

Scheduling

OBIEE

Time to View Report 1 min 7 sec

in Browser
(includes interactive viewer loading)

NA

15sec

Download Time

4.01 min

4 min

6 min 24 sec

Size of file

4.88MB

4.88MB

5.58MB

Report

BIP

Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2013

15

C. Single User RT with 61 column and 54,000 rows report

Report

BIP

BI

Time to View Report in Browser

3 min, 25 sec

40 sec

Time to Download

8 min, 52 sec

13 min, 20 sec

Size of file

11.03MB

12.51MB

Scenario 2:
Scalability Test Data for 20 simultaneous users for 5K Rows Report (61Columns)
Simultaneous Users - 20; Think Time - 30 Sec
Report

BIP

OBIEE

Average RT for Download (in sec)

31.70

50.92

Scenario 3:
Download to XLSX vs. CSV using BI Publisher
A. Single User Data for Download 2500 Rows Report (61Columns)

Download to CSV is faster than download to Excel.

CPU utilization(Download to CSV) is less when compared to download to Excel.

Report

Average RT (in sec)

Download to XLSX

25.5

Download to CSV

8.03

B. Scalability Test Result Download 2500 Rows Report (61Columns)

Simultaneous Users - 20; Think Time - 30 Sec; OBIS Cache - ON

Report

Average RT (in sec)

WLS Process CPU

Utilization

Download to XLSX

32.54

29%

Download to CSV

8.293

10%

Copyright Oracle Corporation, 2013

16

New Features and Recommendations for

Copyright 2013, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Working with Microsoft Office

May 2013

This document is provided for information purposes only, and the contents hereof are subject to change without notice. This
document is not warranted to be error-free, nor subject to any other warranties or conditions, whether expressed orally or implied in

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