Lesson 6: Additional Views

Exercise 6a: Narratives

In this exercise, you will use an analysis created in a previous exercise in creating and formatting a
Narrative View and assigning a custom No Results message. The Narrative view allows you to add
text to appear with the results to provide information such as context, explanatory text, or extended
descriptions. The custom No Results message, if specified in the analysis, is displayed any time an
analysis returns no rows of data.

The end result of this exercise will look like this:

1. Open the previously saved Worst Performance analysis, and select the Criteria tab, which
should look like this. Rearrange your columns to match this screenshot (if different).

2. Note the order of the columns. You’ll need to know the order of the columns when you build
the Narrative. For example, Fiscal Month is column #1, Applied Hours is column #4, and so
forth.

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 3. Select the Results tab.

4. In previous exercises, we’ve clicked the New View icon located on the Views header. This
icon creates the view and immediately opens it for editing, but does not automatically add it to
the compound layout.

5. Click the New View icon located on the toolbar above the Compound Layout.

6. From the dropdown list, select the Other Views option, and select Narrative as the view type.
The new Narrative view is created and automatically added to the Compound Layout below all
other views, but is not automatically brought into the editor.

7. Notice that the Narrative view is listed in the Views section at the left of the screen. Open this
view for editing, using either of the techniques learned earlier on page Error! Bookmark not
defined..

8. In the Narrative field, type the following:

@5 unbilled hours (@6) of @3 hours for @2 in @1.

The narrative is a combination of text and analysis column values. In this example, @3 refers to
the third column in the analysis (Corrected Hours), @2 refers to the second column
(Department), and so forth.

To highlight (bold) the selected column values in the narrative, highlight (mouse select) @5 in
the narrative and click the Bold icon. This adds bold HTML tags to the results. Also add
bold tags to all of the other column references in the same manner.

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 9. Below the entry fields, you’ll see the current results of the Narrative. Right now, there are no
line breaks, resulting in one long, difficult-to-read string. Move your cursor to the end of the
narrative text (the period) and click the Line Break button.

10. Your results should look like this:

Helpful Hint: You can include HTML tags in many of your view descriptions and
headings, including the Narrative, Title, and Static Text views. For example, you can
change font colors, styles, and so forth, by clicking the Contains HTML Markup
checkbox and typing any kind of HTML into the Prefix, Narrative, and Postfix areas of the
narrative view.

Helpful Hint: You can control the number of row values returned in the Narrative view by
setting a value in the Rows to display field. By default, all queried rows are displayed.

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11. Click Done to conclude editing the Narrative view. Since we used the Add View icon located
on the toolbar, it is already present in the Compound Layout.

12. Resave the Worst Performance analysis.

Helpful Hint: One excellent use for the Narrative View is as an alternative to the Title View.
You have the flexibility to include HTML in the Narrative View where that feature is not
available in the Title View.

In a Narrative View that is used as the title in a compound layout, consider using the HTML
“span” tag. The <Span> tag can be used to show the name of the analysis when a user moves
the mouse over the text of the Narrative. In the Example below, the text Corrected Hours by
Project will be visible in the Narrative view, while the name of the saved analysis, Corrected
Hours by Project (inside the <span> tag), will appear in a small popup box (i.e. hover) when
the user pauses the mouse on the Project Corrected Hours text.

Example
<font face="Arial" size="2"><span title="Corrected Hours by Project"><b>Project Corrected
Hours</b></span> </font>

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Exercise 6b: No Results message
When an analysis returns no results (for example, if there were no Departments with poor values of
Unbilled %, OBIEE would, by default, display a screen that says “The specified criteria didn’t result
in any data.” which might lead the user to believe that the analysis was faulty.

If there are no rows which meet the selection criteria, we’d like to display a controlled message.
That message is created using the No Results message.

This can reduce support calls: if a user gets NO data returned, they might be confused or
think there is an error. But using this technique, they’ll receive a message confirming
that there really should be no data.

1. The No Results message is a property of the Analysis. Click the Analysis Properties icon
from the toolbar above the Compound Layout.

2. In the Analysis Properties dialog, choose Display Custom Message from the No Results
Settings dropdown.

3. Type Congratulations! as the Headline, and No Departments had substandard values of

Unbilled % for this Fiscal Month. as the Text. Click OK to close the dialog.

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 4. So that we can see the No Results view in action, let’s force our analysis to return no rows.
Return to the Criteria tab, and add a test filter to the Unbilled % column, specifying a filter
condition of is greater than 1000.

5. Return to the Results tab. Since Unbilled % should never be greater than 100%, you should
see the custom No Results message.

6. Return to the Criteria tab and remove the test filter.

7. Resave the Worst Performance analysis.

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Exercise 6c: Column Selectors
Column selectors allow users to select from a group of columns, substituting and swapping columns in
their analyses for comparative analysis.

1. Edit the Presidential Recap analysis.

2. On the Results tab, use either of the New View icons (your choice) to add a Column Selector
view. The Column Selector view is located under the Other Views flyout option.

3. If necessary, open the Column Selector in the editor. Depending on which New View icon you
used (Views section or Toolbar), the Column Selector will have either:
a. Been added to the Compound Layout but not opened for editing (Toolbar); or,
b. Been opened for editing but not added to the Compound Layout (Views section)

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 4. Select the Include Selector option for Column 2, currently Division. The column will be
highlighted in yellow. Any columns that are added in the next step will be added to the yellow
highlighted column.

5. From the Subject Areas selection panel, drill into the appropriate folders and double-click on
each of the following columns to make them available in the Column Selector:

Folder Column
Org Department
Project Application
Project Project

Your Column Selector in the results pane should look like this:

6. Click Done to conclude editing the Column Selector view.

7. Add (or move) the Column Selector view above the Table view in the Compound Layout view,
using the techniques learned on page Error! Bookmark not defined..

8. Add the V-Bar Applied % view to the Compound Layout, between the Column Selector and
Table views.

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 9. Compare your results to this screenshot:

10. In the Column Selector dropdown, select a different value from the column selector, and notice
that not only does the table change, but the graph elements related to that column have changed
as well.

11. Resave the Presidential Recap analysis.

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Exercise 6d: View Selectors
In contrast to a Compound Layout that simultaneously displays ALL Views on a single page,
View Selectors “stack” the Views one “behind” the other, to allow users to quickly navigate between
the different Views, to display only one at a time. For example, you can view different graphs of the
same data or quickly navigate to a pivot table to do trend analysis.
1. Still working with the Presidential Recap analysis, add a View Selector view, located under
the Other Views flyout option (as were the Narrative and the Column Selector).

2. In the View Selector design workspace, select the Pivot Table, Line Graph, Vertical Bar
Graph, and V-Bar Applied % views in the Available Views field (you may use CTRL + Click
to select multiple views if you wish).
3. Click the Move Right icon to add the selected views into the Views Included field.

4. One at a time, highlight the views in the Views Included box, and use the Move Up and Move
Down buttons to arrange the views in the list as shown here:

5. Click Done to conclude editing the View Selector view.

6. Remove all views from the Compound Layout except for the Column Selector view by
clicking the close icon at the top right of their sections. Leave only the Column Selector
view in the compound layout.

7. Add the View Selector view to the Compound Layout.

8. Experiment with changing the Column Selector and the View Selector to various
combinations.

9. Resave the Presidential Recap analysis.

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