Connect Tableau Desktop to OBIEE Subject Areas With BI Connector Plugin - Step-by-Step User Guide

Modified on Mon, 14 Jun, 2021 at 8:54 AM

The following is a general tutorial for connecting from Tableau to OBIEE Subject Areas using the BI Connector plugin (beta version).

Pre-requisites

Follow the Step-by-Step Installation Guide for BI Connector Desktop Edition to install and configure BI Connector on your PC.

Install the BI Connector plugin in your Tableau Desktop by following the instructions here.

Best Practice

Follow these few simple mantras to quickly become an expert in the report creation for OBIEE data using Tableau and BI Connector.

For your first report, choose a simple report with one or two measures coming from one Fact table and one or two dimension columns coming from one or more Dimension tables.
As the first step, create the required report in OBIEE in your Dev/Test/Production environment and view the results. Note down the Subject Area, Fact table & required measures, Dimension tables & required columns.
Next, connect from Tableau using BI Connector to the same environment where you created the OBIEE report. This will ensure that you are able to do an apples-to-apples comparison of data and visualization in Tableau with the same report in OBIEE.
Use filters when appropriate to limit the data being queried by Tableau in OBIEE.

A few things you should not do:

Do not select a large number of tables (facts and dimensions) for your first few reports. Select only one fact table and one or two dimensions. By being selective, you can avoid mistakes such as combining unrelated star schemas. As you get proficient with the BI Connector and OBIEE data model, you can add more tables to your report.
Do not combine tables from different star schemas in the same report. This will result in errors both in Tableau and OBIEE.
Do not use "Update Now" in Tableau join area immediately after you drag and drop the OBIEE tables. "Update Now" will send a "Select * from" query that will query your entire Fact table and Dimension tables. This will be an expensive and time-consuming query. BI Connector has built-in optimizations to prevent "Select * from" queries to OBIEE.
Do not create a report by querying the entire fact table without any filters. This could result in an expensive query in OBIEE and you will hear back immediately from your OBIEE admins.

Connecting from Tableau to OBIEE Subject Areas

Launch Tableau. Select BI Connector by Guidanz from the list of Connectors.

Enter the DSN configured for connecting to OBIEE Subject Areas (e.g., OBIEE Prod) that you configured using BI Connector in the ODBC Data Source Administrator UI. Next, enter the OBIEE credentials for the DSN, and Click on Sign In.

You are now connected to OBIEE Subject Areas. Click on the Database drop-down list to connect to the required database.

Click on schema drop down and select search button to view the list of Subject Areas based on the filter you applied in the DSN or search for a particular Subject Area to search within the filtered list. Please note that search is case-sensitive. Select a Subject Area from the list.

In the table drop down box, select search button to view the list of tables in the Subject Area or search for a particular Subject Area. Please note that search is case-sensitive. Select a table from the list.

Drag and drop the Fact table in the Join Area. Drag and drop one or more dimension tables in the Join Area.

Go to Worksheet.

Note

All the Tableau queries will use the joins already modeled in OBIEE. BI Connector works behind the scene to display a logical join in the Join area in Tableau.

You will see the Measures and Dimension columns in the Tableau Worksheet.

Ignore the GZID field in the various tables. Do not use them to create reports. GZID is a temporary field used only by BI Connector. It is not used in queries to OBIEE.

As a best practice, uncheck the "Auto update of Worksheets" in the Worksheet. This will help you develop the report faster and minimize the queries to OBIEE.

Drag and drop the dimension fields into Columns, Rows and Filters as needed. If filter is not loading the date range or list of values, check Auto-Update Worksheet and create the filter again.

Drag and drop the measures into the worksheet and choose the desired visualization from Show Me. You have now successfully created your first Tableau Visualization for OBIEE data. Congratulations!

If you have any questions or issues creating a report, we are just a click away. Contact us at [email protected] or file a ticket at our support portal.