Customizing OBI EE – GO URL Parameters
Posted by Venkatakrishnan J on July 30, 2007
While I was working on the data mining pieces, I got a request from a customer who basically wanted to completely customize OBI EE. Well, it got me thinking about the various customization options that we have with OBI EE. In my customer’s case, they wanted to integrate OBI EE into their web application. Let’s see what options we have with OBI EE customizations.
Using OBI EE GO URL parameters
Almost most of the functionality that a customer would need or expect out of OBI EE is available for them via URL parameters. One can leverage these URL parameters into their application. What this would do is that rather than having OBI EE as a separate reporting tool, it would enable an end customer to call various reports via iframes into their application.
A sample URL with the parameters for OBI EE would look like this
When one needs to use the URL parameters the fundamental part of the URL should include http://hostname:port/analytics/saw.dll?GO and following that options are to be entered. Lets look at the various URL parameters for OBI EE
1. &NQUser – Username for logging into Answers
2. &NQPassword – Password for login. One must realize that entering password directly into the URL is not very secure. Its recommended to use the post method wherein the password is not explicitly shown. (People who know discoverer, entering password, as a parameter is no more available. Only post method is supported)
3. &Options=mdfr – Each of the letters in mdfr have a specific function.
m – To include the modify report link under the report
d – To include the download link under the report
f – To include the printer friendly link under the report
r – To include the refresh report link under the report
All the above can be interchangeably used. For example &Options=md for including modify and download links alone.
4. &Action – This allows the developers to request specific formats for the reports. For example, &Action=print (can also have excel etc)
5. &ViewName – This argument allows one to specify a view. For example, &ViewName=Chart1
6. &Style – Specify a style sheet For example, &Style=Lime
7. &Format – Specify the format of the output, html or xml
8. &Path – Specify the path for the report. For example, &Path=/Shared/administrator/testReport
9. &SQL – Logical Sql – One can even issue logical sql via the URL parameter. For example, &SQL=select+region+from+Sales. Here Sales is the subject area.
The above are some of the parameters that you might find useful. But for more detailed and some parameters refer the Documentation here.
The above picture is actually a simple application that calls out 2 different reports based on the data entered. This kind of integration is very strong and infact the entire OBI EE is integrated into the Oracle Siebel CRM using this methodology. One can use Post methods; execute scripts etc using this type of methodology.
Following are some examples for simple HTML form elements using post method.
Access to Answers:
<form action=”http://hostname:port/analytics/saw.dll?” method=”post”>
<input type=”hidden” name=”Cmd” value=”Answers”>
<input type=”hidden” name=”nqUser” value=”Administrator”>
<input type=”hidden” name=”nqPassword” value=”Administrator”>
<input type=”submit” value=”Answers”>
</form>
To open a report in Answers (for edit), include the Path parameter:
<form action=”http://hostname:port/analytics/saw.dll?” method=”post”>
<input type=”hidden” name=”Cmd” value=”Answers”>
<input type=”hidden” name=”nqUser” value=”Administrator”>
<input type=”hidden” name=”nqPassword” value=”Administrator”>
<input type=”hidden” name=”Path” value=”/Shared/SH/Category analysis”>
<input type=”submit” value=”Open a Report for editing in Answers”>
</form>
To open BI Publisher use “AdvancedReports” as the Cmd value
<form action=”http://hostname:port/analytics/saw.dll?” method=”post”>
<input type=”hidden” name=”Cmd” value=”AdvancedReports”>
<input type=”hidden” name=”nqUser” value=”Administrator”>
<input type=”hidden” name=”nqPassword” value=”Administrator”>
<input type=”submit” value=”BI Publisher”>
</form>
Len said
Hello, Can you please explain how to pass parameter values in the url. For example, I want to run an answers query and pass into the url something like this: &Region=West
Venkatakrishnan J said
Yes, this absolutely possible. You can get the details from the Web Services guide since it has all the necessary examples and more explanation. Thats why i did not include it in the blog. You can get it from page 213 of the Docs http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B40078_02/doc/bi.1013/b31766.pdf
Ralph said
Hi Venkat,
Again, very informative entry, although some typos
like &Options instead of &mdfr and the picture in this entr
points to the web services stuff instead
of your sample application.
Venkatakrishnan J said
Thanks for the feedback Ralph. I have updated both.
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suresh said
Hi Venkat, When I use the GO URL for a request which contain the column filter prompt then the column filter prompt is not appearing, instead I am directly being directed to request. How do I make sure that , I get proper column filter prompt before displaying the data.
http://dev:9704/analytics/saw.dll?GO&NQUser=Administrator&NQPassword=&Path=/shared/OH/graph1
Venkatakrishnan J said
Use this sample Go URL for filtering columns http://localhost:9704/analytics/saw.dll?GO&NQUser=Administrator&NQPassword=Administrator&Path=/shared/Paint+Demo/Mapviewer/City+Sales&Options=md&Action=Navigate&P0=1&P1=eq&P2=”Dimension%20-%20Customer”.CITY&P3=”OAKLAND”
suresh said
Hi Venky,
I want use to use the prompt list to select the data rather then specifying the data in URL.
What I am trying to achive here is the a link in our application which will take the user to request and user should be able to select the data (, from prompt filter dropdown list )before displaying the table/chart.
Venkatakrishnan J said
In that case you can create a dashboard having a dashboard prompt and the report. Then in the link just have a go url to the dashboard.
Manohar said
Hi Venky,
How can we pass dashboard Group as a variable in the URL?
Manohar said
I meant dashboard Group as a Parameter in the URL
Venkatakrishnan J said
I dont understand what you mean by Dashboard Group. Do you mean Presentation Catalog Group?
Manohar said
Yes
Venkatakrishnan J said
No. Its not possible. They are not supported.
Raghuraman said
How Does External Authentication Work When You Do External Launch
That is Presentation Manager Lauches BI Publisher.
http://l000702057.hphc.org:9704/analytics/saw.dll?AdvancedReports&_scid=uFQ9jZvvsXM does not work
http://l000702057.hphc.org:9704/analytics/saw.dll?Answers&SubjectArea=%22Payables%20Operations%20Analysis%22&acf=450519630
Works
Vinayak said
Hi,
Is there a way I can specify which particular page in a dashboard should be displayed on clicking the url?
Like in my Dashboard I have the default page, then another for sales info , another for profits etc…
I want to provide separate links to each of these pages..
Is is possible?
-Vinayak
Vinayak said
Sorry, what I actually wanted to ask in my previous comment was that how can I specify to go to a required dashboard. Ex: If I have more than one dashboard, Dashboard1 and Dashboard2 along with the default one, how do I specify in the URL that I want to display Dashboard1 when I click?
-Vinayak
Venkatakrishnan J said
You should use Bookmark or Prompted links. Check my blog entries here https://oraclebizint.wordpress.com/2007/11/13/oracle-bi-ee-101331-bookmark-and-prompted-links-passing-prompt-values-to-dashboards/ and here https://oraclebizint.wordpress.com/2007/11/01/oracle-bi-ee-101332-hiding-banner-in-dashboards-using-go-url/
MahendraKumar said
Hi Venkat,
I created three repository. Now I want to create different url for different repository. How can I Create? Please help me out.
Regards
Mahi
Jelle said
Deear Venkat,
Is it also possible to use the parameters to authenticate via SSO. In the documentation I read something about SSO and HTTP Headers. Do you (or someone) else have experience on this topic?
Thanks and thumbs up for this nice OBIEE community
Best regards,
Jelle
juanc llanes said
How to Pass Parameters to external URL page. How to use Action Link with external url page?
Steve Jones said
I want to build a dashboard with two pages.
Page 1 will be a Chart view with drill capability, built from a very stripped down Answers Request.
Page 2 will be a different Answers Request, with a lot of detail. I built it with 4 “Is Prompted” filters.
I want users to be able to drill down to any level in the Chart on Page 1 and then navigate to Page 2.
The Page 2 Request will take the context from Page 1 at whatever level the user has drilled down
to in the Chart.
On my Page 1, I added a Guided Navigation Link. I set the Source Request to be the Page 1 Request.
I set the Target to be a URL, and I specified the Request on Page 2.
When I tried it out, I got an error: Path not found (/users/sjones/Quote+Counts/quote_count_SLAVE)
Here’s my URL:
saw.dll?Go&Path=/users/sjones/Quote+Counts/quote_count_SLAVE
&Action=Navigate&P0=4&P1=eq&P2=”Products.Business%20Group”&p4=eq&P5=”Products.Business%20Code”
&P7=eq&P8=”Products.Family%20Code”
&P10=eq&P11=”Products.Product%20Line%20Code”
First, is my design supported?
Second, what’s wrong with my Path?
Third, how do I dynamically pass values for the Prompts in the request on Page2?
— Steve
Aneesh said
Hi,
I am trying to display BI Portlet within webcenter, but it is giving an authentication error.
According to the guide – “Authenticate with administrative credentials — With this approach, the Portlet remembers the credentials of the Oracle BI Administrator (that is, user name and password) and passes them to Oracle BI Presentation Services along with the login name of the current user. Because Oracle BI Presentation Services knows the user name and password of the Oracle BI Administrator, it knows that it can trust that the login name of the current user is actually the name of the user
who was properly authenticated.”
Currently the application is not secured. I am not sure how it is trying to get the login info for the current user, so that I could mock the same.
It would be great if you could provide some input.
Thanks
Aneesh
Oracle BI EE 10.1.3.3/2 - Integration into External Applications/Portals « Business Intelligence - Oracle said
[…] EE 10.1.3.3/2 – Dynamic Column Headers using Presentation Variables, Sets and Conditional FormattingCustomizing OBI EE – GO URL ParametersUsage Tracking in OBI EEOracle BI EE 10.1.3.3/2 – Report Comments in Dashboards and Chat Options – […]
Kurt Wolff said
Actually, the doc and, echoing the doc, what is written here is incorrect on one point. The name of the view to display is the name of the view as found in the XML. For the first chart, this would be staticchart!1 (but check the XML to be sure), not Chart1.
Venkatakrishnan J said
You are right Kurt. In fact the docs are wrong on the Dashboard URL too. Dashboard URL will ignore all the parameters supplied to it. One has to use PortalPages parameter.
Ramana Reddy said
Hi Venkatakrishnan
My client has a requirement to navigation link to be setup from the values in report which are basically calculated metrics with a case statement. For example a report having SR Number, SR Status, # of SR’s. Here #SR’s has a case statement based calculation. Requirement is to have drill functionality on any number displayed for #SR’s to a report which shows a report with status as closed. I understand it might be possible with GO URL and pass parameters method. I would appreciate your guidence
Thanks
Ramana Reddy, Oracle
Shailen said
Hi Venky,
Shailen said
This feature of passing filters through GO URL is interesting but I am not able to implement it in my system.I tried dynamic sql and viewing a report with given path in the GO URL. But when I try filter with “&Action=Navigate&P0=1&P1=eq&P2=Markets.Region&P3=’CENTRAL%20REGION’”,
it doesn’t work for me.The report simply ignores the filter and comes as it is. I tried this with the paint demo and the url is here:
http://myComp:9704/analytics/saw.dll?GO&path=/shared/Paint%20Demo/Standard%20Reports/Geographic%20Sales%20Summaries/Share%20of%20District%20Sales&Action=Navigate&P0=1&P1=eq&P2=Markets.Region&P3=’CENTRAL%20REGION’
Please help me resolve this.
Anand said
Hi Venkatakrishnan,
Your blog is very informative, but I still have a question.
How can I access Dashboard input parameters (used in prompts) in my BI Publisher reports? Actually my requirements is that these input parameters must be printed in the BI Publisher reports.
Thanks
Anand
Rajesh Nadipalli said
Great blog and helpful for OBI developers like me. A question, I tried this for my dashboard and keep getting an error – any ideas?
Error Codes: IVL7WLMD:OQ78YWIW
Assertion failure: rDocument.getRootElement()->getName() == ksReport at line 719 of ./project/webreport/reportquery.cpp
Rajesh Nadipalli said
The GO URL can only be used for a report and does not work for the dashboard. This is an issue for my team as we present a collection of reports to our users. That said, GO URL is *not* a new feature for OBIEE, there is a hidden unsupported feature (Version 7.8.4 or higher) for the complete dashboard that does work, example –
http://server/analytics/saw.dll?Dashboard&Action=navigate&P0=2&P1=eq&P2=VERSION_DIM.VERSION_NAME&P3=XYZ&P4=eq&P5=TESTCASE_DIM.ACCOUNT_NAME&P6=ACCOUNT&Page=IOS+Version+Report&PortalPath=%2Fshared%2FQIS%2F_Portal%2F.QIS&NQUser=USERNQPassword=PASSWD
arghya roy said
I have this requirement where I need to pass 2 values (one is the YEAR (a Global dashboard prompt) and the other a column value of a column in an Answers report to an external application. Currently we pass the column value through a URL. How do I additioanlly pass the other YEAR parameter? Is it possible. As far as the documentation for GO URL is concerned, I havent seen a way where we can pass on multiple parameters to an external application.
Venkatakrishnan J said
Arghya – Yes very much. I have an example here https://oraclebizint.wordpress.com/2008/02/17/oracle-bi-ee-101332-drilling-on-measures-passing-multiple-parameters-during-drills-go-url-and-html-formatting/
Diego Anderiz said
Hi Venkatakrishnan,
Great blog.
We are trying to generate a chart that Oracle BI EE is not able to generate and integrate it into a dashboard.
To do this we need to use a product called Dundas that we understand can use the Oracle BI Server as an ODBC data source.
In Answers, a table is generated with the correct data and a narrative view is created where code is used to call an ASP page, where the Dundas created chart is generated.
We have to pass to this page the “logical SQL” generated by Answers for it to use against the ODBC of the Oracle BI server. This removes the processing of the large data set in the code in the narrative which is more efficient.
The asp page uses the return set of this query and renders the graph of the wind rose in the page, which appears embedded in the dashboard.
Has anyone done this type of integration before and Does it seem like a plausible workaround?
How do I get the “logical SQL” into the external app? Is it using tyhe GO URL statement?
Rajendra Prasad PV said
Hi Venkat,
Greetings. I wanted to know whether each time Go URL is used by passing NQUser & NQPassword as parameters, I think the presentation services create session each time. Is there anyway we can handle not to create more than one session?
Sandra said
Hi Venkat,
Is it also possible to use the &Options=mdfr directly in an answers-navigation?
I have a measure from where i navigate to another report. So i set the column property to navigate and set the path. However, when i add behind the path &Options=fr then i get an error message.
I’m trying to achieve that i also have a “printer friendly” button in the report I navigate to.
Thanks
Raph said
Hi, thanks for theses informations.
But I still have a question. How to add a return link (back) on a page?
I use “&done=…MyDashboard…” as parameter and it works to go to a specific page BUT how to implement a back functionnality? (what to enter after ‘&done=’ to go back to my previous page).
Do you know something about ‘stateid’ and ‘viewstate’ parameters?
Rajesh Nadipalli said
Raph,
1. The Back functionality of a standard browser will generally work unless you are looking for a data refresh (which can be done by user using the Refresh dashboard link)
2. The viewstate is like a session id and visible only for a short time and is dynamic. We have used this feature to copy the contents of a dashboard via a script. Example…
saw.dll?PortalPages&SearchID=ecqg5sp9klj8etmu9nfh457dkq&Page=Report_name
&PortalPath=/shared/_Portal/.Project&ViewState=76bo3dcaarop27bsn0e465odbm
&Action=print&Done=PortalPages
Raph said
Thanks for your answer Rajesh Nadipalli,
Point 1:
Indeed, you are right, the Back functionality of a standard browser works. I was just looking for a custom way of doing.
Point 2:
How do you “find/get/generate” the actual stateid of the current page? Do you use a function? (like getstate() for example!?)
Best regards,
Raph
Rajesh Nadipalli said
For “2” we had a Java servlet written that was first calling the dashboard using the parameterized URL (10.1.3.3 makes it real easy) and then scan for the text stateid and then replace the URL with a action=print command to finally generate an archived file that users can later view. I have been talking to Oracle regarding the lack of this feature and no success yet. OBIEE prompts work well for a single report but for a dashboard, it has several limitations.
Saraswathi said
Hi Venkat,
Could you plz let me know how to pass values from GCM to external application.To be more clear,I have few metrics for Initiatives which are not captured in GCM Analytics.So inorder to show those metrics,I need to pass these Initiative values from GCM to external application.
Could please let me know how do I accomplish this.
Regards,
Saraswathi
Srikanth said
How to pass the column selector values in url?
Srik
Surabhi said
Hi Venkat,
We have a dashboard report in that few requests has the last column “download” hyperlink. when user click on that link the report should download either excel or pdf format and sent to logged in user’s mail id.
Could you please explain me what is best solution to achive this functionality in detail.
Thanks,
Surabhi.
NH said
Hi,
I’m creating 4 different views that drill into one another.
Meaning- A into B. B into C, and so on.
After i drilled for the second time, i loose the filter
that was prompted on the first view, which creates wrong
info in the third view.
How can i keep the first prompt still relevant in the fourth
view?
Appreciate your help,
NH
Mustafa said
Hello,
i’m trying to supply an url to user without username & password to navigate reports. i log on the BI Server via webservice logon method, and i get a session id, then i generate the url like http:/…../saw.dll?NGID=sessionid….. format. But pages seems unformatted no color, no layout,etc. What’s wrong?
Regards,
Mustafa
SharePoint Integration with OBIEE « SureShotStrategies Blog said
[…] parameters and you can embed them into your portal by means of iframes. Check my blog entry here https://oraclebizint.wordpress.com/2007/07/30/customizing-obi-ee-%e2%80%93-go-url-parameters/ for an […]
Mallesh said
Hi Venkat,
We have an issue with GO URL. When passing the values as parameters to the URL, if there is any space in the values, the complete value is not getting to the URL and no results are returned as the value is in-complete. There was a BUG in 2003, i could not find the solution, though it was mentioned as fixed. Please help me if there is any solution for this.
Thanks,
Mallesh
Vashish said
Hello Mallesh,
I am having a similar problem. Did you find any solution for this? If you did, can you please forward me the same.
Thanks,
Vashish
sree said
Hi Venkat,
I am new to BI. I have a requirement as follows.In one of my Dashboard pages(is created with Dashboard prompt as asprompted and we are passing Monthlastdate and areaname).This report will display the quantity of sold items for that month for that area.
for the month 31-Jul-08 area Dallas( These two are coming from Presentation variables)
Item name quantity sold item number
AMN 200 1
AYZ 50 2
ABC 90 3
X 80 4
ZAB 70 5
When user clicks on AMN which is a row it should open another AMN detail report as
ItemName customer area itemnumber
AMN philip Dallas 1
AMN Derrik Dallas 1
AMN zang Dallas 1
if user clicks on ZAB
it should go to its detail report. Can you please give some idea how to do this.
Thanks in advance.
sree
sree said
Hi Venkat,
I am new to BI. I have a requirement as follows.In one of my Dashboard pages(is created with Dashboard prompt as asprompted and we are passing Monthlastdate and areaname).This report will display the quantity of sold items for that month for that area.
for the month 31-Jul-08 area Dallas( These two are coming from Presentation variables)
Item name quantity sold item number
AMN 200 1
AYZ 50 2
ABC 90 3
X 80 4
ZAB 70 5
When user clicks on AMN which is a row it should open another AMN detail report as
ItemName customer area itemnumber
AMN philip Dallas 1
AMN Derrik Dallas 1
AMN zang Dallas 1
if user clicks on ZAB
it should go to its detail report. Can you please give some idea how to do this.
Thanks in advance.
Jyotshna said
When we click on the link report the link goes to the page where the report is. Now theres a prompt and report in that page. I do as many operations in the page.
I want to Create a Button Which will take it to the previous page from where it came.I mean the page where the link was.
I have used html but it doesn’t works. Can u provide the solutions regarding this.
With Regards,
Jyotshna
Hermilo Quintero said
Hi Venkat,
do you know if OBIEE supports dynamic number of prompts? For example, if the user picks ‘States’ from the first prompt then only 1 other prompt would be displayed in the prompt area. If the user selects ‘City’ then 2 prompts (1 for zipcode and 1 for State) would show up. I’ve been working with Sales Analytics and now with OBIEE for the last 4 years and haven’t seen this implemented. Your help is very much appreciated. Thank you. Hermilo Quintero.
zed said
Hello,
What about print to PDF? If I have an URL on Dashboard and I want to print this in PDF I get the link and it is very ugly and usless. This is not visible in Dashboard but is visible when I go to PDF.
Neela Kumaran said
Hi Venkatakrishnan,
Good Day!!!
I am an ETL Developer and am into my current assignmnet to be a Report writer.
We are going to use, “Oracle Hyperion Performance Reporting Suite” as the front end.
I am not very sure what essentially does this suite consists of.
All that I have is Application server to be Oracle Hyperion 9.3
I got your mail id from one of my friends and approaching you.
Request you to clarify about the suite.
Please do the needful,
Thanks in advance,
bbizbor said
Поставьте Akismet
OBIEE Delivers/IBots - Custom link in an Email | Art of Business Intelligence said
[…] they are opening the report on the network or if you have it externally faciing. Venkat has a great article on the topic of using the GO attribute of the saw.dll URL to open reports […]
sandrar said
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog. 🙂 Cheers! Sandra. R.
VS said
hi venkat
i am trying to pass a value (ups tracking number) from my report to http://www.ups.com
What I need is when the user clicks the tracking # on the report, it should retain that value of the tracking # and pass it on to ups website
Sean said
Please some body help me
I want to show one dashboard calls cuadro1, whithin show the banner and menus.
Sid said
Is there a way to pass a column value from one request to another by clicking on it? For example, you have a request with a list of order numbers. You set the ‘navigate to’ option on the column order number. When you click on order number to navigate to the next request, can you pass the value of the order number you selected? Any help with be very appreciated.
Thanks,
Sid
Shiva said
Hi,
I need generic Go URL format i.e I can keep the IFrame code in any other system alsi it should wrk without changing the http//server:host/
Thanks,
Shiva
Sharmin said
Hi,
I am new to OBI, Is there any ways I can execute dynamic SQL in OBI?
For eg., I have a Configuration Table named “ConfigTable” and it has columns like
ReportType EmployeeType QueryType SQL
Report1 Manager Type1 SELECT FROM
and in one report, I will write the query “Select SQL from ConfigTable where ReportType=@ReportType and EmployeeType=@EmployeeType and QueryType=@QueryType”.
The resultant sql needs to be executed.
Any help would be appreciated
Thanks,
Sharmin
azob said
Hi,
I would like to put in the column headig column
instead of numbers 1,2,3, … should be the name of the month.
but so that they are dynamically changing. For a given condition I expect to get a name month instead number of months.
for example
I have column name 5 and instead 5 expected to be the column name oct
MONTHname(TIMESTAMPADD(SQL_TSI_MONTH, 5,CAST(‘@{year}{2009}/@{month}{05}/@{day}{01} 12:00:00 AM’ AS timestamp))) ..
(year,month,day) is presentation variable
Thanks, azob
Cédric said
Hi,
The GO URL looks like using a REST API.
I want to integrate presentation services features with our web applications (frontoffice+backoffice). I know solution depends on what exactly I want to do but what would be the best choice using GO URL or OBIEE webservices API ?
Thanks
Ram said
Hi,
Please some body help me
I need to show answer report in a pop up window using the Go Url Paramerts with post method(hide UID and PW).
Please do the needful,
Thanks in advance,
Ram
Dengdude said
Hi,
Can we hide the uid and pw when using the GO url in OBIEE? This cannot pass security department because user name and password is shown in url. Need this ASAP. Thanks in advance guys!
Deng
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lona said
In the data field of the column i used an hyperlink instead of the data.. the hyperlink was http://www.google.com. now i want the word “link” to be displayed in the data field instead of http://www.google.com… any idea how to do this?
lona said
In the data field of the column i used an hyperlink instead of the data.. the hyperlink was http://www.google.com. now i want the word “link” to be displayed in the data field instead of http://www.google.com… any idea how to do this?
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