Learn how can you create Tableau dashboards for OBIEE data that provide you valuable insight from business critical data without wasting a ton of time.

1. Shankar Radhakrishnan, Co-founder of BI Connector
7 Best Practices To Become A
Tableau Ninja For OBIEE

2.  Connecting from Tableau to OBIEE
 OBIEE as a data source – What are the challenges?
 Demo - 7 Best Practices to follow
 Sneak Preview – Connecting from Tableau to OBIEE Reports
Key Concepts

3. Connecting from Tableau to OBIEE –The Challenge
Business has invested years and
millions into building out the
OBIEE RPD, security, and reports

4. Business Users love Tableau
Data
Discovery
Visualization Mash-ups Speed of
Change
Quick to
Learn
✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Tableau delivers the missing
self-service capabilities in
OBIEE, but unable to reuse
OBIEE metadata and
security model

5. Challenges with CSV/Staging
Area/Database Access
• Manual, Laborious, Inefficient
• Costly to maintain
• Data duplication
• Security issues
• Information inconsistency between
OBIEE results and Tableau results
Tableau Users Struggle to Connect to OBIEE
Native ODBC Driver
doesn’t work
• Connectivity issues
• Requires extensive changes
in OBIEE
• Primary keys not possible for
some tables

6. BI Connector Connects Tableau to OBIEE
Seamless
User
Experience
Secured by OBIEE
security model
No Changes to OBIEE,
Reuse OBIEE business
logic  Cost and Time
savings
Easy Installation
Quick visualization
Mash-ups
Information Consistency
Best of
Tableau +
OBIEE
OBIEE TABLEAU

7. OBIEE as a Data Source – Unique Challenges
OBIEE TABLEAU
OBIEE is unlike other data
sources
• Data Volume
• Meta data
• Complex schema
• Joins in OBIEE
• Security model

8. The 7 Best Practices to Follow
Know your
OBIEE data
model
Follow KISS
Principle
Stay within
Star Schema
Don’t
touch that
Update
Now!
Uncheck the
Auto-Update
Worksheet
Use Filters
First
Worksheet,
then Extract

9. 1. Important to know the OBIEE
data model and OBIEE itself
2. Follow this failsafe approach
until you are comfortable
1. Keep Tableau and OBIEE side
by side
2. View the report in OBIEE
3. Identify Subject Area, Folders
and Columns in OBIEE
4. Connect to the same OBIEE
environment from Tableau
5. Create visualization in Tableau
6. Verify the results with OBIEE
Know Your OBIEE

10.  OBIEE data models are
complex, so start simple
 Start with a small model
• Fact + 2 Dimension
including Time
 Tableau doesn’t support
Hierarchy, be aware.
 Gain experience with simple
data models, then
experiment with complex
visualizations
Follow KISS Principle

11.  Watch out for subject
areas with multiple star
schemas
 OBIEE doesn’t like join
across star schemas
 Select Tables only from a
single star schema
Stay within Star Schema
Subject Area
Fact 1 Fact 2
Dim 1
Dim 2
Dim 3 Dim 4 Dim 5 Dim 6
Dim 7
Dim 8

12.  Update Now is expensive
• Select * from Table query
 Hide unused columns
 Use filters
 Unexpected Error ?
• Reasons:
 Underlying OBIEE RPD
column errors
• Missing physical mapping
 Join of Tables from different
Star Schemas
Don’t Click That Update Now!

13.  Each drag and drop into
worksheet could be a
separate OBIEE query 
Expensive
 In worksheet, disable Auto-
Update Worksheet
 Drag and drop dimensions
and measures
 Update worksheet to get data
 Faster time to report
Un-check the Auto-Update Worksheet

14.  Millions of rows in OBIEE Fact
tables  Performance issue
 Use Filters to query only the
required data
Faster queries
Shorter report creation time
Use Filters

15.  Visualize in Tableau Worksheet
before extracting OBIEE data
• Visualization verifies that the data
is correct
 Verify in OBIEE if needed
• Extract only required columns
 Use Hide Unused Column
feature
 Eliminates OBIEE RPD errors in
unused columns
• Apply Filters to extract required
data
First Worksheet, Then Extract

16. Recap of 7 Best Practices

17. Benefits of 7 Best Practices
• Access OBIEE data in live or extract methods
• Access via browser or Tableau Desktop
• Visualize, mash-up, publish, consume
• Create “Governed” OBIEE data source for
Tableau
• No changes in OBIEE, No coding required
• Alleviate OBIEE performance issues using
Tableau/BI Connector
• Connect to OBIEE 10g, 11g, 12c
Business Users IT

18. Download free trial at
www.biconnector.com
Happy Analysis!
To participate in OBIEE Reports Beta Program
Contact: support@biconnector.com