The May release of the Oracle Analytics Cloud (OAC) brought us new features in Service Management, Data Visualization, Pixel-Perfect Reporting, as well as a new feature for connecting to on-prem data sources. In the October update, there are updates to data replication and preparation, reporting, and many new features to improve your OAC experience.
In this blog post, we'll go over these new features, show you some video tutorials, and include a list of bug fixes in this update.
Administration
Cloud Console and My Services
Cloud Console and My Services Dashboard have been updated to provide a more unified customer experience. The Cloud Console is now called Infrastructure Console. The My Services Dashboard is now called Infrastructure Classic Console. These updates enhance and simplify managing your Oracle Cloud services, but the placement for several key navigational actions have changed.
Safe Domains
A redesigned page makes it easier for you to register your safe domains. See Whitelist Safe Domains.
Data Replication and Preparation
Support for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage
When you replicate data from Oracle Fusion Applications, you can load data from a bucket in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage or Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage Classic.
Support for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) Cloud 19.08 and later
This is one of our favorite new features, allowing EPM customers to take further advantage of OAC, using the preinstalled Analytic Data Modeling (ADM) driver to create enhanced reports. The driver supports:
- Generation of number columns that support filtering.
- Leaf indicator columns.
- Member Path columns and Alias Path columns (for filtering).
- Attribute dimensions.
- Enhanced performance features.
Split Columns Step for Data Flows
In your data flows, extract useful data from within columns using the Split Columns step. See Split Columns in a Data Flow.
Connecting to Remote Data Sources
Install Data Gateway on Linux and Windows using Oracle Universal Installer,
and also use Data Gateway agents to execute any SQL statement (in addition
to the default SELECT SQL statements). See Connect to On-premises Data Sources.
Oracle Analytics
Enhanced Homepage and Search Bar
Use the enhanced home page and search bar (example below) to quickly locate your analytics
content. See Find and Explore Your Content.
Delimiter Support
When creating a data set from a CSV or TXT file, you can specify a thousand
separator and a decimal separator. When you output data from a visualization, the outputted file uses the data delimiter for your computer's locale. See Add a Spreadsheet from Your Computer and Share a Visualization or Story as a File.
Trellis row (Y2 Axis) Improvements
Copy and Paste Between Projects
Review Location Matches for a Map Visualization
You can review mismatch issues between data and match results in map layers, such as when there are ambiguous or partial matches between words. See Review Location Matches for a Map Visualization.
Create custom data action plug-ins
You can create custom data action plug-ins to use in Analytics Cloud. See Create Custom Data Action Plug-ins.
Font Customizations
You can customize all title and label text in a visualization. Options include font (for example, Arial), type size, and emphasis (for example, bold, underline, or color). See Adjust Visualization Properties.
Create Database Connections with Kerberos Authentication
You can configure these database connection types to use the Kerberos network authentication protocol:
-
Apache Hive
-
Hortonworks Hive
-
IBM Biginsights Hive
-
MapR Hive
-
Pivotal HD Hive
See Create Database Connections with Kerberos Authentication.
Server-side SSL support
You can enable server-side SSL for these additional connection types:
- Apache Hive
- DB2
- Hortonworks Hive
- IBM Biginsights Hive
- MapR Hive
- Pivotal HD Hive
- Spark
- SQL Server
Use Remote Data Connections
You can use the Remote Data Connection option to access an on-premises
database for these connection types:
- Apache Hive
- Impala
- Spark
Pixel-Perfect Reporting
Alternate URLs to Access Publisher
Use these URLs to access Publisher:
- cloud_host/ui/xmlpserver
- cloud_host/ui/analytics
services/rest/*
URL to access Publisher's SOAP web services: cloud_host/public/xmlpserver/
services*
Mandatory Parameters in Data Models
In a data model, you can mark a parameter as mandatory. Publisher ensures that you provide values for mandatory parameters before you run a report online or schedule a report. See Add a New Parameter.
SSL Support for Web Service and HTTP Data Sources
Use SSL to secure your connections to web service and HTTP data sources. You can upload and apply an SSL certificate to a connection. See Set Up a Connection to an HTTP Data Source and Set Up a Connection to a Web Service.
OAC/OAC Classic Defects Fixed
29903250 - Usage Tracking not working after RPD is updated on OAC and requires manual restart to work around.
30124260 - Dashboards producing assertion failure error in some cases when dashboard conditions are present.
29720064 - In certain cases, changing data diagram in a Data Visualization project produces internal server error.
29817720 - In certain cases, when a combination of a Data Visualization date calculation and a count distinct metric are used in a visualization an unexpected value is returned.
30037734 - Clearing cache using SAPurgeAllCache API produces inconsistent results.
30012375 - Essbase parent-child hierarchy not represented correctly in an Analysis when there is an alternate hierarchy.
29937189 - In certain cases, use of multivalue row-wise init blocks in the RPD will cause slow login and navigation experience.
30022186 - Timeouts may occur when trying to upload a CSV file and a single row of data spans multiple lines in the file.
30053629 - When a Data Flow is used to create data in a database and the source data has a multi-byte column name, interaction within the data diagram in Data Preparation may produce a javascript error.
30173525 - Visualization appears to be waiting for data refresh even though the query has finished.
30295629 - When a Data Flow is used to create and Essbase cube and attempting to use the resulting cube a Data Visualization project an error may be thrown.
29767078 - Update maximum rows for table and pivot content paging to 5000.
29864715 - In certain interactions, the BI Administration tool crashes after loading Java Data source.
30015585 - Exporting a report to Excel using the formatted option converts a numeric field to text format.
29909784 - Internal assertion error is thrown by an Analysis in certain cases where cache is highly utilized.
30246233 - In some cases of high concurrent workload using Data Gateway, error is thrown with long running reports.
30063354 - Data Visualization interface becomes unresponsive when a large CASE WHEN expression is used in an underlying column.
29707013 - Dashboard prompt with autocomplete configured does not populate list of values depending on speed of keystrokes.
30180415 - “Invalid Request Type” error thrown with Smartview private connection.
30012375 - Clicking on a pie chart slice in Internet Explorer 11 changes the color of the slice.
Want to learn more about OAC and its user experience?
Take an in-depth tour of the platform...
