Junk Viz - When More is Less

There are examples of junk visualizations, and then there are examples of junk charts that just take your breath away.

The Indian news portal, FirstPost.in, which describes itself as a "trusted guide to the crush of news and ideas around you", published a story titled Shivraj set for massive victory in Madhya Pradesh: Survey | Firstpost, which has this chart (link to the image) - take a minute to study it. Then study it again. It is no optical illusion or card-trick being played here.

OBIEE 11.1.1.7.131017 Bundle Patch Now Available

A new bundle patch for Oracle Business Intelligence became available last week. This is OBIEE Bundle Patch 11.1.1.7.131017, and is available on the following platforms:

• HP-UX  Itanium
• IBM AIX on POWER Systems (64-bit)
• Linux x86
• Linux x86-64
• Microsoft Windows (32-bit)
• Microsoft Windows (64-bit)
• Oracle Solaris on x86-64 (64-bit)

It is applicable to all customers running OBIEE versions 11.1.1.7.0 and 11.1.1.7.1

HBR and Junk Charts

Even the best can get it wrong. Only sometimes though, one hopes.
The venerable Harvard Business Review gets data visualizations horribly wrong. They have a post on Facebook where they contrast the costs of cancer treatment in the US and India.

The cost in the US is $22,000 on average, while in India it is shown as $2,900 (I would dispute this figure, as it looks very low).
The ratios is 7.58:1 (22000÷2900)

BI Mobile HD App 11.1.1.7

Finally got around to writing my long overdue post on the new BI Mobile HD app. To get on with it, without much ado, not to loiter, and all that... here goes.

The new BI Mobile HD app, version 11.1.1.7.0.2094, can be downloaded from the Apple iTunes App Store (link to app preview page on iTunes).
If you already have the BI Mobile HD app installed on your iOS device, you should get an App Store notification on the availability of an upgrade. Note, that since this version is available only for iOS version 6 (and above), if you are running an older version of iOS, you will not get a notification, and will not be able to download it. If you check the Wikipedia iPhone page (link) you will see that the iPhone 3GS and later devices support iOS 6. As far as the iPad device goes, if you check the Wikipedia page (link), iPad 2 and later devices support iOS 6.

Creating your first app with the BI Mobile App Designer

While creating sophisticated mobile apps that provide a rich feature set takes time, expectedly, what is wonderful about the recently launched Oracle Business Intelligence Mobile App Designer is the fact that you can be up and running without requiring a week-long training and a Master's degree in Computer Engineering.

Here's a short video I recorded on creating your first app with the BI Mobile App Designer (the direct URL on YouTube). A note of caution, and an apology of sorts - the audio in last few seconds of the video dramatically jumps up in volume. This is because I recorded these last few seconds later, and used different audio settings. I should have normalized it. I live, and I learn.

Introduction to the BI Mobile App Designer

Oracle launched a brand new addition to its Business Intelligence Mobile solution - BI Mobile App Designer, which lets you create stunning, interactive mobile apps, literally within minutes. Apps created run on mobile devices running a reasonably modern mobile browser - that can handle HTML5 and jQuery - and are available on both smartphone and tablet form factors.

White spaces and Map Views

When working with Map Views, you can choose to collapse the map formats panel on the left.

When you do that, the panel is hidden, but white space is displayed on either side of the map view, where the panel used to be.

Currently there is no option to remove this white space through a UI setting.

OBIEE 11.1.1.6.12 Bundle Patch Now Available

Over the weekend, and this does happen to be a long weekend in the US, on account of Labor Day in the US, Bundle Patch 11.1.1.6.12 for Oracle Business Intelligence was released, and is now available for download from the My Oracle Support portal.

Using R to Unlock the Value of Big Data, by Mark Hornick

Using R to Unlock the Value of Big Data, by Tom Plunkett, Mark Hornick

This is a brief (approximately 80 pages) introduction targeted at users with an intermediate-level exposure of R and who want to get a quick look at working with R with Oracle's products. Strictly speaking, this is not an introduction to R, nor is this an R tutorial. It is, very specifically, an introduction to R as it integrates with and relates to the Oracle Database, the Oracle R Distribution, and the Oracle R Connector for Hadoop. The main chapters are "Using Oracle R Enterprise" and "Oracle R Connector for Hadoop", which have sixteen and seventeen examples, respectively, to help you get started.

Lying with Charts - Global Warming Graph

Global warming is a serious yet controversial enough topic without bringing in bad data visualizations practices into it. The Wonkblog on the Washington Post has an article titled, "You can’t deny global warming after seeing this graph". The post reproduces a chart prepared by the World Meteorological Association that plots global temperatures by decade. While the data shows that the last decade, 2001-2010, was the hottest on record, the graph uses a broken Y-axis that begins at 13.4°C instead of starting at zero. The chart does not hide this fact, and you can see that the chart's Y-axis starts at 13.4°C, but the most visually prominent piece in the graph is, well, the graph! And it screams the message that global temperatures are going off the charts - it's time to panic. There is no denying that we as a world need to get serious about investing in alternative and renewable sources of energy like solar, wind, and even nuclear, but this graph is just plain bad.

Smart View Version to use with OBIEE 11.1.1.7.1

Users who have downloaded the latest version of Oracle Business Intelligence 11g - 11.1.1.7.1, and wish to use the Oracle Hyperion Smart View for Office add-in to connect to Oracle BI, need to use the latest version of Smart View - 11.1.2.3 - that is available for download on OTN here.
After downloading this version of Smart View, if you want this version of Smart View to be available as a link from the Home Page of Oracle BI EE (the "Download BI Desktop Tools" dropdown under the "Get Started..." section), you need to follow the instructions (also see Installing and Deinstalling Oracle Business Intelligence Client Tools)
You can find more information in the BI documentation library (Business Intelligence Documentation for Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g (11.1.1.7)) or in the Oracle Essbase Documentation Library, Release 11.1.2.2.200

Happy Monday!
Abhinav,
Bangalore, July 08, 2013

BI Mobile HD Universal App Released

A new version (11.1.1.7.0.1879) of the Oracle BI Mobile HD App was released to the Apple iTunes App Store on Wednesday. This release has several new features of note. This updated version also fixes some issues that were reported in the update that went out late last week on the 28th of June.

• All users are recommended to upgrade to this version of the BI Mobile HD app. There were login issues with the iPad version of the earlier app and orientation issues with the iPhone app. Both issues were noticed almost immediately after the app went live on the App Store and development traced these to a problem with the configuration of the app uploaded to the App Store. 
• Users will notice that this is app now supports the iPhone (and iPod) device also. Therefore users will see this app on their iPhone when they search for it on the App Store. 

OBIEE 11.1.1.6.11 Bundle Patch Now Available

Last week saw the release of the OBIEE Bundle Patch 11.1.1.7.1 and on Friday bundle patch 11.1.1.6.11 for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition became available on the Oracle My Support Portal.

The tracking ids for the respective bundle patch components are:

• Oracle Business Intelligence Installer (BIINST): ID: 16747681
• Oracle Real Time Decisions (RTD): ID: 16747684
• Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher (BIP): ID: 16747692
• Oracle Business Intelligence ADF Components (BIADFCOMPS): ID:  16747699
• Enterprise Performance Management Components Installed from BI Installer 11.1.1.6.x (BIFNDNEPM): ID:  16747703
• Oracle Business Intelligence: (OBIEE): ID: 16717325
• Oracle Business Intelligence Platform Client Installers and MapViewer: ID: 16747708

Happy Monday to all!

Abhinav

Bangalore

OBIEE Bundle Patch 11.1.1.7.1 Now Available

Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Bundle Patch 11.1.1.7.1 is now available for download. The bundle patch id is 16556157 and can be downloaded from the My Oracle Support portal for Microsoft Windows x64 and Linux x86-64 platforms.

The ReadMe states "This Suite Bundle Patch is available for all customers who are using Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11.1.1.7.0."

OBIEE 11.1.1.7.0 Certified with Database 12c

Couple of updates in the world of Oracle, both related. The first is that the Oracle Database 12c is now generally available and can be downloaded from the Oracle Technology Network here (subject to the OTN Developer License Terms). Three platforms are supported - Linux x86-64, Solaris Sparc64, and  Solaris (x86-64).

You may want to take a look at the Plug into the Cloud with Oracle Database 12c White Paper. Coincident with the release, there is a series of events being organized. You can find one in your city or near it at Oracle Database 12c | Oracle Technology Day page.
The first place to begin to learn about this new release is of course the documentation library. Specifically, you should have the 2 Day DBA, 2 Day + Security Guide, the New Features Guide, and the Concepts guide bookmarked. I have, and my summer plan (monsoon plan here in India) is to go over these books.

The documentation library is also dedicated to the memory of Mark Townsend, who passed away unexpectedly in April 2012.

Contributor: The Oracle Database 12c documentation is dedicated to Mark Townsend, who was an inspiration to all who worked on this release.

The second update is that the Oracle Fusion Middleware Supported System Configurations page has an updated System Requirements and Supported Platforms for Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition 11gR1 matrix for 11.1.1.7.0, which now includes Oracle Database 12c as a supported database. Specifically, Oracle Database version 12.1.0.1 and above are now supported with Oracle BI EE 11.1.1.7.0 only. This certification does not extend to older releases of Oracle BI.