OBIEE Answers Vs Data Visualization: A Cage Match

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Oracle Data Visualization vs.
Answers: The Cage Match
5
MICHELLE KOLBE
medium.com/@datacheesehead @mekolbe linkedin.com/in/michellekolbe

Visualizing
data isn’t
only about
the ﬁnal
output…

…but also what you see along the journey

The New Question For OBIEE Owners
8
OBIEE
“Answers”
Oracle
Data
Visualization
(Visual Analyzer)
Why do I need both?
What do I use each for?
Who is the target user?

Time for a cage match

RULES! (OK, really just notes)
•Intent: to show both execute multiple analysis scenarios
•Caveat: this is a 30 minute session (check out the full session at
Collaborate and Kscope)
•Result: only one scenario will be shown today, and it admittedly
favors Oracle Data Visualization
•Scoring: 7 point will be awarded to the ﬁrst tool to answer the
objective question
•There are no timeouts and no challenges
10

Objective 1 Goal
• Why did Proﬁts decrease last quarter?
11

For those keeping score

The Takeaways
14
OBIEE Answers Oracle Data Visualization
In A Nutshell “Reports and Dashboards” “Ad hoc discovery”
Characteristics More ﬁne tune control Less ﬁddle and fuss
Typical Use Case Standard, reusable content What do I need today?
Target User Power developer for casual users True data analyst
Data Focus Curated content Curated content + data mashups

Multi-select ‘Month’ and
‘Proﬁt Value’ then right-
click and select “Create
Best Viz”

2. Change the
visualization type using
this dropdown
1. Proﬁts have dropped in
recent months and we
need to uncover why

Switch to a “Stacked Bar”
visualization

Let’s see how this breaks
down by quarter - drag
‘Quarter #’ to the “Color”
drop zone

The color formatting
allows us to easily see a
4th quarter drop this year
vs. a rise last year

Drag ‘Region’ to the
“Trellis Columns” to see
how this breaks out by
region

And drag ‘Brand’ to the
“Trellis Rows” to see a
further breakout by region
and brand

1. The largest drop-off
has been in EMEA for the
BizTech brand.
2. Click the “X” to remove
‘Quarter #’ from the color
zone

Right-click on ‘BizTech’ to
drill to a speciﬁc level in
the hierarchy

Let’s skip past LOB to
see the Product Types
within BizTech

2. We can see that the
largest drop-off was in the
Audio Product Type
1. Notice how a ﬁlter was
automatically applied for
‘BizTech’
3. Right-click on ‘Audio’ to
drill across into another
dimension

On the “Data Elements”
tab, search on ‘Channel’
and select the attribute to
drill

3. Let’s change back to a
line chart
1. Notice how a ﬁlter was
automatically applied for
‘Audio’
2. The problem is
deﬁnitely in the Store
channel

Is it a revenue or cost
problem? Drag ‘Revenue’
to the “Values (Y-Axis)”
zone

Drag ‘Variable Costs’ to
the “Values (Y-Axis)” zone

We can see a large spike
in costs in the 4th quarter
in our EMEA stores

Double-click ‘Month’ and
‘Proﬁt Value’ to add them
to the Analysis and click
the “Results” tab
Now let’s build the
same scenario in
Answers to compare

1. Answers automatically
creates a table view
based on the columns,
but we don’t want that
2. Add a new view to the
Compound Layout using
the “Best Visualization”
feature

A graph is added…
…but the table view is still
there, so delete it by
clicking the “X”

We can see the same dip
in proﬁts for the recent
quarter

To change to a bar chart
and color the quarters,
we need to edit the graph
view

We can use the
dropdown to change to a
bar chart…

…and we can drag
‘Quarter #’ to the “Vary
Color By” drop zone

Notice how Answers tries
to make room for every
possible quarter value by
narrowing the bars on the
chart
We can still draw the
same conclusion as
before about the trend
this year vs. last year

At this point, we can’t
create a trellised view
within the standard graph
view…

…so we have to click
“Done” to exit back to the
compound layout

Add a simple trellis to the
compound layout

We no longer want the
graph view, so delete it by
clicking the “X”

The trellis view isn’t
conﬁgured the way we
want, so we need to edit
it by clicking the pencil

First we need to drag
‘Month’ to the “Group
By” zone in the
Visualization

Now we need to drag the
‘Brand’ column into the
“Rows” zone…

And the ‘Region’
column into the
“Columns” zone

The view is closer to what
we want, but it’s a little
small, so we click the
“Trellis Properties” button

We can change the
“Graph Size” from
‘Medium’ to ‘Large…

…and click
“OK”

Now that we’re getting
there, let’s remove the
color formatting by color
by dragging ‘Quarter #’ to
the “Excluded” zone

Like before, we can see
that EMEA has a steep
decline in the 4th quarter
in BizTech

Right-click to drill
into ‘BizTech’…

…but since there is no
ability to skip a level, it
drills to LOB ﬁrst, which
requires us to right-click
to drill again

Now we display Product
Type, but we don’t need
Brand nor LOB, so we
drag ‘Brand’ to the
“Excluded” zone

Then we do the
same thing for the
‘LOB’ column

We have our Product Type
view, but now we can’t see all
of the types, so click the
“Trellis Properties” button
again

Let’s change ‘Large’ back
to ‘Medium’ to shrink the
graphs…

…and increase the total
height of the entire trellis
chart to 650 pixels, then
click “OK”

Now we can see the
steep decline in Audio
proﬁts in EMEA for the
4th quarter

Now we want to drill across to
our Channels, but we can’t do
that in Answers, so ﬁrst we
have to right-click on ‘Audio’
and drill to apply it as a ﬁlter

We can search the
subject area for the
‘Channel’ column and
then drag it to the “Rows”
zone

We don’t want Product
Type nor Product
anymore, so we drag
them both to the
“Excluded” zone

Finally after excluding a
lot of columns, we can
see that EMEA stores are
declining the most

Let’s change the
charts back to line
charts by selecting
‘Line’ in the “View as”
dropdown

Now we can drag both
the ‘Revenue’ column…

…and the ‘Variable Costs’
column to the “Color By”
zone to add them both to
the visualization

Now we can draw the same
conclusion that revenue is
ﬂat but variable costs have
increased, driving proﬁts
down

If we wanted to
share this, we could
click “Done”…

…and we now have a
nice trellis chart on our
compound layout…
…but we have a
few extra views we
don’t need…

…and a lot of extra
columns in our criteria
that we should clean up
for performance reasons

OBIEE Answers Vs Data Visualization: A Cage Match

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