Following is a general tutorial for connecting from Tableau to OBIEE Reports through 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, review the required report in OBIEE in your Dev/Test/Production environment and view the results. Note down the Report names, Fact tables & required measures, Dimension tables & required columns.
- Next, connect from Tableau using BI Connector to the same environment which has 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 complex OBIEE report for your first few visualizations.
- Do not use "Update Now" in Tableau join area immediately after you drag and drop the OBIEE Report. "Update Now" will send a "Select * from" query that will query your entire report data. This will be an expensive and time consuming query.
Connecting from Tableau to OBIEE Reports
Enter the DSN configured for connecting to OBIEE Reports (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 Reports. 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 Reports based on the filter you applied in the DSN or search for a particular Report to search within the filtered list. Please note that search is case-sensitive. Select a report from the list. Do not skip this step.
In the Table drop-down box, select the Report from the list or search. Search is case-sensitive. Click on the search icon. The list of Reports will be displayed just like a Table.
Drag and drop the Report (Table) in the Join Area. You will see the columns of the report. Go to Worksheet.
You will see the Measures and Dimension columns from the OBIEE Report in the Tableau Worksheet.
As a best practice, uncheck the "Auto update of Worksheets" in the Worksheet. This will help you to develop the report faster and minimize the queries to OBIEE.
Drag and drop the dimension fields into Columns, Rows, and Filters as needed. If the 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 support@biconnector.com or file a ticket at support portal.