iBot Configuration and Accessing Reports by (Casual) End Users

Here we will see an example of creating and scheduling iBots and assigning recipients to iBots. I tried to simulate a general production like scenario where the BI Admin, Scheduler Admin and the end user are all different.

The setup in the example below consists of OBI Administrator (default “Administrator” id that gets installed with OBI, OBI Scheduler Administrator (SchedulerAdmin), and a casual user (gvaidhya).
For the iBots to executed by the BI Answers framework, the BI Scheduler needs to be configured and running.
The following are the steps to configure BI Scheduler. I came across this nice article while browsing a forum. Though the article is not in English, the images should convey the message.

1. Create a new database schema or use an existing schema (If you wish). In my example, the DB schema that holds the objects is named bi_scheduler_admin.



2. Log on to the database as the schema owner and execute SAJOBS..sql

Now that the database schema to hold the scheduler db objects has been created, you can logon to OBI Administrator Tool to create the SchedulerAdmin user. This is the administrator user that will be managing OBI Scheduler.

Make sure that this user (SchedulerAdmin) is part of the Administrators Group.
While we are here, a casual user (gvaidhya) can be created as well. This user will be part of a “Casual User” Group.

Next step would be to setup the Configuration Options in the (Job Manager) Scheduler Tool.
Start Job Manager, and select Configuration Options.

Follow the screenshots below to setup the appropriate tabs. With this the scheduler services should be able to start.

But in order for the iBots to work properly:
1. The Scheduler Administrator credentials should be added to the Oracle BI Presentation Server, Run cryptotools to add the credentials to the BI Presentation server.
2. The BI Presentation Services must be configured to identify the scheduler credentials.

- You may want to encrypt the password, and when asked whether to store the PassPhrase in the xml file? Choose NO. (Recommended).

With this, all the setups needed to create and schedule an iBot is Complete.

In order for the Scheduler Admin to be able to have proper access privileges, Add Scheduler Admin user to the “Presentation Services Administrator Group” by going through
Settings-> Administration->Manage Catalog Administration Group and Users. You would encounter

nQSError: 77006 Oracle BI Presentation Server Error. Access Denied.
Error Codes: OKZJNL4

Login to BI Answers as Administrator, create an iBot and schedule it. Add “Casual User” as another Receipient.

In the Schedule tab, you can customize the scheduling of the iBots and other tabs will let you set Delivery Content, Destinations etc. Once scheduled, you should be able to receive iBots.

OBIEE Connectivity Errors

I recently was testing my new OBIEE setup in a Linux environment.

After the Repository creation (.rpd) file and successful export from Windows OBIEE Admin environment to the Linux environment, (more on some of the issues I faced in these steps later), one of the issues I faced had to do with the inability to run a simple report due to Oracle Library related errors.

Upon connecting to my Presentation Server, I try to pick some data points from my Presentation Catalog and when I tried to execute the report, I got:
















Upon reviewing my system settings, user profiles, environment variables I discovered the following to fix the problem. Obiee is the user that owns OBI binaries and ora10db owns the Oracle 10gR2 DB server binaries. The issue really had to do with the group settings for both the binary owners and also the LD_LIBRARY_PATH settings.

[ora10db@linux1 ~]$ id

uid=504(ora10db) gid=503(dba) groups=100(users),503(dba)

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/apps/10g/ora10db/product/10g/lib:/apps/obiee/OracleBI/server/Bin

PATH=$PATH:/apps/10g/ora10db/product/10g/bin

where /apps/10g/ora10db/product/10g/lib is pointing to the ORACLE_DB_SERVER_HOME lib, and

/apps/obiee/OracleBI/server/Bin points to the OBIEE installation path

And

obiee (user that owns OBIEE) was set to following group permissions

[obiee@linux1 ~]$ id

uid=505(obiee) gid=100(users) groups=100(users),503(dba)

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/apps/obiee/OracleBI/server/Bin:/apps/10g/ora10db/product/10g/lib

PATH=/usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/home/obiee/bin.

As a sidenote, if you encounter the following error:
















Check and make sure that you have the service name entries properly defined in the TNS_ADMIN location in the (db server) ORACLE_HOME/network/admin.