OBIEE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

1 What is single LTS and multiple LTS? 10772

2
If we have 5 different dimension tables and we need to have hierarchies for only
one table, is it mandatory to have hierarchies implemented for all the tables?
7724
3
How is the Query repository tool used?
7170
4 What are opaque views in database? When is it advisable to create one? 6501
5
How does the user of Aggregate tables help you in speeding up query responses?
How OBI Server advantageous in this aspect?
5392
6
What is an implicit fact column?
6448
7
How can you map each of the reports across to the different tables that are
being accessed?
4496
8 How can you migrate the presentation layers across to different servers? 4455
9
How will you impose access limitation to the database according to the region of
access?
3830
10
Which is preferable? Creating the new logical column in the repository level or
the Dashboard level of view?
4109
11 What are the different deployment cases for the OBI server? 3965
12 What are the External table based and LDAP based security? 4336
13 Differentiate Object level security against the Data level security. 4478
14
What are the various levels of access authentications?
4029
15 What are the different types of caching? 5067
16 What are two main categories of variables overall? 3770
17 What are the different types of session variables that you are aware of? 3380
18 How can you use the OBI variables to cope up with dynamic data environments? 2754
19 How do you set the logging level as an administrator in obiee? 3017
20 In ORACLE BI, what are the logging levels used for? 3360
21 What is LBM? How are they helpful? 3647
22
How can you improve and quicken the way of dealing with summary query
reports?
2641
23 Explain the OBIEE Architecture. How is the analytical model generated? 2887
24 How does the data pass through the three layers of view? 2794
25
How can time series wizard informations be put into good use at the presentation
reports? What are the procedures followed ?
2507
26 Is it possible for inserting a new column in the BMM layer? How does it help? 2677
27
What would you do if you are provided with multiple dimensions and multiple
fact tables to connect to?
2620
28
What is meant by a connection pool? When do we create multiple connection
pools and why?
2840
29 What exactly are Alias tables? Give some uses for the same 2782
30 What are Alias tables and what is the use of Alias table? 5697
31 What is the life cycle of OBIEE? 11691
32 What is Repository in OBIEE? 6895
33 What is Business Intelligence? 5854
34 What are the uses advantages and benefits of OBIEE? 7614

What are single LTS and multiple LTS?
The logical table created at the BMM layer can be based on the data from a
single physical layer table, when it is called single Logical Table source. When the specific
logical layer table is dependent on the columns of different physical layer tables, it is called
Multiple LTS. Most of the time we will be dealing with Multiple LTS.
How is the Query repository tool used?
The Query repository tool gives the option to search and analyze the data from the database According
to the name, type and other attributes that are describing the database.
The relationship between the different view layer data and the corresponding the physical layer columns.

What are opaque views in database? When is it advisable to create one?
The opaque views are tables that are created with join or other query data that
contain SELECT query output. The opaque views make the logical understanding simple
for implementation but there are heavy performance constraints. They are only used when
there is no other way to get to the final solution.
How does the user of Aggregate tables help you in speeding up query
responses? How is ORACLE BI Server advantageous in this aspect?
The Aggregate tables are the ones that get values initialized in them as and when
the related fields in the other tables get updated. These types of automatic updates to
frequently used measures help you in speeding up the queries. If there is a column for
number of products produced for every month and you often want to have the summation
of the number per year and average for every year often for all the queries, the aggregate
table created will have the option to give you that value without computations every time.
ORACLE BI server gives the added advantage that the queries need not be aware of
the readily available aggregate table names. If this was the case the SQL queries and the
entire design might become complex.
What is an implicit fact column?
The implicit fact column is the one that is created due to the join, combinations from
the different data or columns from the different tables. There may not be the exact data in
form of the column in the result or even in the physical layer of database. These are implied
from different data and can just be a temporary layer which helps us in getting the required
result.
How can you map each of the reports across to the different tables that are
being accessed?
The Admin tool has the Manage Sessions tab which gives you the access to the
logs that are being generated for each session. After the report generation sessions, you
can easily view the log to map each requests to the corresponding tables and databases.
How can you migrate the presentation layers across to different servers?
The presentation layer is dependent on the database that is underlying in the each
server. Therefore the presentation layer alone cannot be migrated as a stand-alone aspect
of the database. What we can do instead is have a ODBC or similar database connection
established across from the different servers to the particular main system and then carry
over the presentation semantics from the other server with that database oriented changes
in the logic layer.
How will you impose access limitation to the database according to the region of
access?
The Data level security imposed according to data in certain column can be used to
limit access depending on the regions.
The Oracle BI admin tool will give you the control over user access to the different data
according to conditions supplied by you.
Which is preferable? Creating the new logical column in the repository level or the
Dashboard level of view?
Creation of the logical column on the higher level of dashboard will have effect on
the tables only on that view level and not on the other dashboards and other requests. The
logical columns created on the repository level will in turn gets its effect on all the other
requests and reports from different view levels. So it is always preferable to have the logical
column created at the repository level.
What are the different deployment cases for the Oracle BI server?
The Oracle BI server can be deployed as a standalone system or can be deployed as
an integrated server which interfaces and communicates to the different Analytics server.
What are the External table based and LDAP based security?
The user ID and password need not be stored in the repository of the Oracle BI
server. The external tables and LDAP offer the other possibilities. The userID and password
for user authentication are stored in the external table. The information on different tables
and the access information for each user are stored in this external table.
The other way is the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. This is similar to
imposing a access limitation to all the different directories and folders thereby having the
limitations to the data viewable for the different users.
Differentiate Object level security against the Data level security.
The Object level security is a higher level of security that allows/disallows the access
for user to specific table, row or column according to his access level. The Data level
security level is about restrictions that are concerned about the different data that are used
to generate the report of other view level information.
The Object level of security are permissions corresponding to the objects in the
database (like database reports, dashboards, folders etc) and such permissions are
set in the view level, logical level or data level. The Data level security mostly set
in the database level and related logic table level.
What are the various levels of access authentications?
There are four levels of authentication that can restrict access to the different tables
and databases:
Operating level authentication: This is the overall higher level access restriction to the
application. Without this one cannot get access to the application.
Table authentication: The table level authentication is the access permissions set for each
physical table.
Database authentication: The Database user and password, corresponding privileges can
let someone to access specific db or can just give him only partial access. This
authentication is the main thing for the application that coordinates different databases.
LDAP authentication.
What are the different types of caching?
The cache management can be done in three different ways:
Cache disabled: The NQConfig.INI file has the ENABLE parameter that can be set to
NO. This disables the cache for the server. After the change the server needs a restart. The
disable cache will prevent any queries to use/update cache. This may lead to slower
performances, but will be useful in the case of lesser accesses that are being expected.
Enabling of the cache will not be concerned about the cache updates and synchronization.
Caching set for each physical table: The admin tool has the option Make cache-
abble for the tables. You can click that and go into the general settings. This has the cache
persistence in the option. This will make the queries to and fro from the physical table to
use the cache. This can also be set according to specific time interval. This will help you in
getting a good interactive response on the view layer. Any table that is frequently updated
can have this setting on for reasonable amount of time.
Event Polling data: The event polling data table keeps track of the different updates
that are done on the different tables. The application is going to updated this event polling
table for each query of update into the physical table. This stand-alone table can get the
required frequency statistics for each table to maintain the cache policies as required.
What are two main categories of variables overall?
There are two types of variables, namely the session variables and the repository
variables. The session variables are pertaining to each session that is created for every login
of a user. They may be System or Non-system variables.
The repository variables are the ones that are specific to a repository/database. The
repository variables contain the parameters that are corresponding to different attributes of
the repository and queries. They are again classified as static and dynamic variables. The
static variables are the ones that are having permanent values throughout. The
administrator can change it whenever needed.
The dynamic variables are the ones that have values that are corresponding to the
SQL queries and data fetches. The dynamic variables can take up values depending on the
scheduled updates that are started by the administrator. They can also take up values fue
to the SQL queries that have been recently executed from the user side. Initialization blocks
run at specific time or triggered according to specific condition.
What are the different types of session variables that you are aware of?
There are 2 different types of variables that we deal with in the OBI architecture:
System variables: The system variables are the ones that are used by the analytics
server and web to manage and coordinate the sessions and related data. Such names
cannot be used for non system variables or other repository variables. You can try naming
such variables with a prefix to identify their nature and content. This will make it easier for
classification within each session.
Non-System variables- The non system variables are always used to have user-
defined aspects of data stored at a specific place. If you have a data called
numberOfPersons in a specific data from the user space, you can then use this to classify
the entire database according to the numberOfPersons etc.
When using the variables from the Analytics Webserver, you can just prefix the variable
name with NQ_SESSION. (Varaiblename) to narrow down the scope to the present session.
How can you use the Siebel variables to cope up with dynamic data environments?
The Siebel variables are the storage parameters that we can link within the metadata
and other configuration parameters in the Siebel. With the help of the variable manager, all
the configuration parameters can be loaded into the specific variable depending upon the
different environments we are trying to have. This can help us in making the administrative
tasks simpler.
How do you set the logging level as an administrator in Siebel?
The Oracle BI Sever has the Security configuration in the Manage section of the
admin tool. This dialog box has the settings for each user id. Click the specific user id. You
can then get the logging level selection inside these settings. You can choose the
appropriate level and save the changes.
Oracle BI, what are the logging levels used for?
The logging levels refer to the amount of information that has to be printed out for
the verification or informative purposes. A completely stable and well defined system need
not have the logging to be switched on at all. But when the administrator want to know
more about the activities from a specific user, he can set the logging level to be 1 or 2,
according to the depth of information he is requiring. We cannot set a logging level for a
group; it is pertaining to single user always.
What is LBM? How are they helpful?
The Level Based Metrics are the classification of the specific measure according to a
dimension. If we have number of products as one of the measures and timeline as one of
the dimensions we can have number of products per year or per month gotten out as a
LBM. We can do this by creating a logic column for the specific measure and then dragging
it onto the specific dimension say month or a year. The LBM can be pertaining to specific
dimension or intersecting dimensions. You can get comparative data against different levels
of the dimension.
How can you improve and quicken the way of dealing with summary query
reports?
Having indexes set out for the different values.
Implementing algorithms for joins at the business layers help you get a better speed.
Rewriting the views and other related queries according to your specific requirement.
The report designs should be pertaining what is exactly needed, nothing more and
nothing less.
Explain the OBIEE Architecture. How is the analytical model generated?
The OBIEE architecture which presents the OBIEE answers to the answer consists of
the following 5 parts:
clients.
Webserver for analysis.
Analytics server.
Analytics scheduler.
The database.
The Analytical model for the Siebel are created using the Oracle BI Administration tool.
How does the data pass through the three layers of view?
The three layers that are involved in the data accesses and modeling are:
Physical layer: This is the layer where the actual raw data is stored in the form
tables. These are very descriptive data and are meant for use by the business layer of logic.
Business layer: The more higher level of interface to the data sources, that makes the
logical interpretation much feasible and easy.
Presentation layer: This is what is given out to the user. All the processed and
categorized data give the clear picture of the real world entities using the raw/combination
of multiple data from the physical sources through the business layer logics.
How can time series wizard informations be put into good use at the presentation
reports? What are the procedures followed?
The comparative data between the different periods of time is of great importance in
the reports. You can compare the revenue, sales, pending status analysis across the
different sets of timeline. This can be obtained by the time series wizard. Here are the
steps:
First thing is to decide the time periods that have to compared.
Create the period tables with keys to the specific column data from the fact tables. Fact
tables are the ones that contain the total/cumulative data statistical information that we are
about to compare.
Create the Time series wizard in the business model.
Configure the Time Series wizard with appropriate keys from the period table and
intended measures for comparison.
After this setup, you can run the Time Series wizard and it will give you all the
processed information in the form of the logical table sources that have been created, the
period tables used and the alias tables that have been created and used and the comparison
details. These comparison details can then be used in the reports.
Is it possible for inserting a new column in the BMM layer? How does it help?
The new column can be added to the fact table in the BMM layer by right clicking the
specific table and selecting add New logical Column. This comes in handy when we are
dealing with same standard calculation for all the rows in the table. The data fetches can be
made quicker with the already stored calculated data in the logical layer.
LIFE CYCLE OF THE OBIEE.
The OBIEE life cycle consists of the following phases.
Requirement gathering phase.
The study of the different systems and platforms for databases.
Data Warehousing requirements and ETL (which has to be done when we database is
not available for access).
Defining and designing the entire repository.
Dashboard setup.
Security measures design.
The performance oriented tweaks to the system accesses including the correlation of
data etc.
Quality analysis and testing phase.
What would you do if you are provided with multiple dimensions and multiple fact
tables to connect to?
We create the logical fact table on the higher level BMM layer. This logical table will
have the source pointing to the multiple fact tables. This logical table will be used to be
connected with the multiple dimensions.
What is meant by a connection pool? When do we create multiple connection pools
and why?
Each database connection we establish from the application and the corresponding
information regarding the connection and link is stored in the connection pool. Physical
tables and databases are many in an application and we will be dealing with quick fetches
for every instance of every database. In such a case we create multiple database connection
pools. This will increase the interactivity as there are different connection pools for different
database accesses.
What exactly are Alias tables? Give some uses for the same
The Alias tables are more or less duplicates that we create for the tables in the
database. It is the concept of creating references or links to the tables and all the properties
of the original table like the columns, rows and other properties are inherited by the aliases.
When we are performing complex querying operations over the tables in the
databases, the alias tables come in handy- say, for example the inner joins.
The design of the business model and the physical layers can be made simpler if we
have the alias tables to reference a table multiple times.
What are Alias tables and what is the use of Alias table?
Alias tables is also a physical table but with the type of Alias. It is basically
a reference to the logical table source and it will inherit all the column definitions of the
logical table source.
An Alias can be a reference to any of the logical source systems such as stored
procedures, physical tables, sql statements etc.Alias tables are very important in designing
a physical layer.We use Alias table when we need to use an existing table more than once.
If you know sql inner joins, you will understand easily, how we use their same table like
sales a, sales b.Also we use alias tables when we need to use different column names, keys,
joins etc.
To help star or snowflakes structures in the Business model layer.
What is the life cycle of OBIEE?
Requirements gathering.
Identification of source systems.
We need to design he ETL for loading into Data warehousing if the source system is
not available.
Building a repository.
Building the dashboard.
Defining the security.
For performance, decide on aggregations / catching mechanism.
And finally quality (testing / QA)
If we have more than 1 fact table and dimensions, then how would you connect them?
In this case we create a Logical table (fact table) in BMM layer and then we connect
the other fact tables as logical source. And then to the logical table we connect
the dimensions.
What is connection pool?
Connection pool is a must for all physical databases. Connection pool
contains information regarding the connection to the database.
We can have multiple connection pools to avoid waiting and for better performance.
What is Repository in OBIEE?
Repository is one important term in ORACLE BI. It basically stores the meta data
information. Each meta data repository will store many business models.
What is Business Intelligence?
Business Intelligence or BI are the protocols / rules / techniques that are used to
finding out, digging and analyzing the current & historical business data. Most of the times it
is for sales data, revenues, different products related data, etc..
The important functions in any BI tool are reporting, analysis, Analytics, data
modeling, business performance, future analysis of the business.BI aims on better business
decision making. That is why it is also called as Decision support system.
BI uses many technologies, applications to analyze the data.
What are the uses advantages and benefits of OBIEE ?
There are many benefits / advantages of using OBIEE tool over other. But here we
will discuss few of them.
1)Excellent Business Intelligence (BI) functionality built on a unique infrastructure that
includes Interactive dashboards, Complex queries, Analysis, quite intelligent deliver and
alerting system, financial reporting, Online Analytical processing (OLAP), Presentation, Huge
volume reporting in production environment, and integrated with Microsoft.
2) It provides good in depth insight to everyone in the organization depending on their role.
3) Unified Business model as it is built on enterprise infrastructure.
4) Integrates very easily with any data source, extraction, transformation, ETL tool, major
business application, application server, security, portal, and many other front end tools and
also from database side, can integrate with IBM's DB2, Teradata, sql server, SAP business
information warehouse BW, flat files, xml etc.., .
5) Customer has flexible change management system, such as leverage the compliance of
SOX acts (Sorbanes oxley).
6) Good performance.
What is OBIEE?
Well, here we will discuss something about OBIEE.
OBIEE stands for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.
It is a complete suite of enterprise products of BI. This is mainly used for Analysis and
reporting solutions.
Oracle BIEE Plus bundles Oracles Hyperion's reporting products and this is mainly for
integrating oracles Hyperion financial applications.