BI Mobile Labs

Day by Day hit the App Stores for iOS and Android today and there are a ton of great new features here are just a few.

Multiple Bring Backs

Now you can set multiple bring backs on each card and have the card return to the top of your Smart Feed for multiple reasons.  Select ‘Bring Back’ on a card and simply tap Location, Schedule or Contacted by (Android only) option.

Bring Back when Contacted By (Android Only)

On Android, Go to the Bring Back screen and select the ‘Contact’ option which will walk you through selecting a contact.  When that contact calls or texts you the card you set it on will surface on the top of the Smart Feed and notify you.

Filter Within

The filter within feature allows you to constrain the data from the search results allowing users to adjust the result to meet their exact need.  It allows for the removal of dimensions, dimensions members, and any measure (fact) from the result.  All with a simple and consistent user interface.

Manage Bring Backs

The Smart Feed contains a list of analytics that should be meaningful to the user based on what’s going on in the business and their day. Over time users may want to see and manage why a card shows up on the feed.

Simply go to the settings page and tap the Bring Backs to edit any currently active bring backs.

Popular Search Leaderboard  

Over time Day by Day will proactively deliver analytics to users Smart Feed. The leaderboard is the first ‘system generated’ item that we push to user’s Smart Feeds.

Our Mobile consumption app for OAC and OBIEE just got a major update on iOS and Android.  This app has been and will continue to be the one stop shop to find, open and interact with all your existing analytic content regardless of source; including Answers, Dashboards, Scorecards, BI Publisher, and Data Visualization Projects.

This version aligns the app with the rest of our other killer apps Day by Day and Synopsis and unifies the Android and iOS experiences!  The app has been re-thought from the ground up but sill renders and adapts analytic content the way our users and customers have come to expect.

Here are a few highlights but check it out!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oracle.obi

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/oracle-bi-mobile-hd/id534035015?mt=8

Simplified Login - Just type your host and port and go!  We figure our all the complex stuff for you.  If you need you can still make changes in the advanced section but most user will never have to go here.

Breadcrumbs - Because no one likes to be lost!  With all the action link and drilling features in OBIEE being in an app (on a phone) can be hard when it come to navigation.  Well it just got easy...

Tab, Pages and Yes, Sub Pages - Full support for all the types of paging that Dashboards offer. Easy to find right in the title bar and easy to navigate!

Native Prompts all Around! - For years we have had native prompts on the iPad only.  Now they are available on any device regardless of size or OS! 

In case you missed it we have recently released Synopsis 2.0 for Android.  If you don’t have this app you need it!  It is a must have on the fly analytic app for all your data and analytic needs!

https://www.oracle.com/solutions/business-analytics/synopsis.html

These new features are available for Android today and coming soon for iOS.

Import Google Fit Data

Directly import fitness data giving you the power of Synopsis with a users analytic fitness history. 

Great to use as a sample project that contains Analytics the user can truly understand. 

Import Oracle Analytic Cloud Data Sets

Connects to the Oracle Analytics Cloud instance and allows a user to select any dataset they have created. 

Greatly expands Synopsis support for data sources as any Source in OAC is now supported for import on the users phone! 

Simple XLS and CSV always welcome! 

Chart Improvements and Additions

User can now start charts across multiple text elements like month and year. Just add more than one text element to a bar chart and tap the color by icon. 

Support for word clouds. 

Chart and Project Insights

Get basic insights on any chart with a simple tap of the info icon now shown on all charts. 

Perform device based Machine Learning on any project by tapping the processor icon in the project toolbar. 

Project insights appear with no user intervention and can be spoken the user. 

Calculated Numbers

Create calculated numbers on the fly! 

Calculations can be added and removed with easy and work just like any other number in a project. 

Hyper-fast creation with a custom calculator surface purpose built for the task. 

Import Data with Your Camera

Users can scan printed tables with the device camera and instantly create a project. 

Seeing a visualization in Augmented Reality allows a user to spot trends on printed data. 

Users can scan nutrition label and store and analyze nutrition data for your favorite foods, better informing daily health decisions. 

Project Merging

Allows user to combine projects with a simple drag and drop.  This is a really quick way to expand the data set in a project. 

Allows user to add data across time periods or regions and then merge the result into a single project. 

Simplicity, as always, is the key! Just drag the projects and we will tell the user if the merge is possible. 

Other New Features

Chart merging allows the user to combine charts with a simple drag and drop. This is a really quick way to analyze multiple data and text columns in one chart. 

Just drag and drop any chart in a feed on to another to create a new combined version of that chart. 

Back up and restore all of your projects.  This can be accessed is the application settings and works with the tap of a button. 

When helping customers with issue logs are key, and until recently getting logs from an iOS device has not been easy.  It required cords and a mac!  Well we have made this much easier and here is how it is done.

Using and iPad, open iOS Setting (note not our app settings, iOS settings)

Scroll to our app named Oracle BI HD and tap on it.  

There you can enable logging for our app.  We recommend leaving this setting turned off most of the time as it can impact performance.

Once enabled make sure our app is not running in the background by force quitting the app.  Here are instructions for this but iOS users typically know how it is done.

iOS 10 - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201330

iOS 11 - https://help.apple.com/ipad/11/#/iPad619935ea

Open our app and run through the scenario being tested and be sure to duplicate the issue that is being worked on.

Then goto our app settings and tap About.  At the bottom you should see a Share Logs option. 

Here you will be able to share logs to iCloud or other 3rd party storage along with email.  

OK my bracket is blown and at this point I wish I had used data and not my ‘Wisdom’ 😜.  After I made my pics and entered a contest with my wife and kids I saw this post.

https://blogs.oracle.com/analyticscloud/ncaa-mens-basketball-bracketology

This post has some great info and a link to some data (http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/seasons/2017-ratings.html), but I was on my phone and I quickly realized this was a job for Synopsis!  So I grabbed the data and loaded it up.  I quickly realized my pic of Wichita State might be a bad one.

As you can see all signs (based on history) point to Gonzaga and I have Wichita State beating them in the final.

We all know that the NCAA Tournament can be a data anomaly and thus “March Madness”, so I will keep my finger crossed!

Today Oracle Analytic Cloud (OAC) was launched and you can read all about that in the blog hop links at the end of this post, but I wanted to share some details on the many options for accessing BI content on OAC on your mobile device.

Mobile Web

To start with all of the Data Visualization projects you create using OAC support mobile web.  What that means is that they will respond and adapt to the device you are on.  So just open the same project using your Chrome or Safari browser on your phone or tablet and you are all set.  No need to redesign anything!

BI Mobile App

Our BI Mobile apps for iOS and Android will also support OAC for consuming all of your BI content including, Dashboards, Answers Reports, and DV Projects.  Keep in mind this app was build for consuming all your BI content and is backwards compatible with many OBI versions.

Download for iOS:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/oracle-business-intelligence-mobile-hd/id534035015?mt=8

Download for Android:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oracle.obi

Synopsis

Synopsis is the newest app from the Oracle Mobile Analytic Team that lets you quickly open and interact with your spreadsheets and business data in a visual, interactive and intuitive way. Right from email, and all while you are on the go!

Synopsis will scan your spreadsheets and business data and automatically figure how to summarize the information and present it to you in the most meaningful way possible.

Right now Synopsis supports Excel and CSV files, but coming soon, as part of the Oracle Data Visualization product family, Synopsis will allow you to connect to the long list of sources supported in OAC.

Best of all Synopsis is FREE for all to use with Excel and CSV files!

Find out more and download the app for Android and iOS:

https://www.oracle.com/solutions/business-analytics/synopsis.html

OH Yea - One Last Thing

This OAC launch introduces the infrastructure for our newest app (coming soon) called Day by Day.  Day by Day is an app that allows non-technical users to get quick answers to their day to day business questions.

We believe BI is not about charts and graphs, it is about affecting positive change in your organization. We are creating this app because we believe that by better informing your workforce about what matters at the right time then everyone will make better decisions day by day.

Coming Soon!

In summary there are options for any size deployment of OAC.  Covering consumption of pre-defined dashboards and projects, instant analytics on your device, and getting your data pushed to you based on context or just by asking a simple question.

It goes without saying that all our apps support iOS and Android and work on phones and tablets.

If you want to learn more about OAC, check out the blog hop participant posts below! What is a blog hop? A blog hop is a group of bloggers who all get together to blog on a particular topic. We share each others blog posts in an attempt to share a lot of great information in one place.  Enjoy!

Opal Alapat, interRel Consulting - https://womaninepm.com/2017/03/17/oac-series-finally-released

Stewart Bryson, RedPill Analytics - http://redpillanalytics.com/introducing-oracle-analytics-cloud/

Brian Dandeneau, interRel Consulting - http://integrationmadesimple.blogspot.com/2017/03/oac-metadata-management.html

Tim German, Qubix - http://www.cubecoder.com/essbase-cloud-for-the-on-prem-crowd/

Cameron Lackpour, ARC EPM Consulting - http://camerons-blog-for-essbase-hackers.blogspot.com/2017/03/head-in-essbase-cloud-no-1-blessed-event.html

Glenn Schwartzberg, interRel Consulting - http://glennschwartzbergs-essbase-blog.blogspot.com/2017/03/essbase-cloud-service-is-it-here-or.html

Summer Watson, interRel Consulting - https://epmsxsw.com/2017/03/17/you-down-with-oac-yeah-you-know-me

Sarah Zumbrum, Oracle - https://realtrigeek.com/2017/03/17/essbase-as-a-data-source-in-oracle-data-visualization

In the Android version of Oracle Synopsis you can leverage a great ‘newish’ Android feature called App Shortcuts to access your most important projects quickly.

Just long press on the Synopsis app icon for about a second and menu will appear along with a quick vibration.  Release, and simply tap any of the menu options to quickly access a current project or import a new file.

You can also tap and hold on any of the menu ‘handles’ (lines on the right side of the menu item) and drag that specific action anywhere on your launcher.

Notice the Excel looking icon that I am dragging on my launcher in the image above.

Now I can just tap the new icon and open a specific Synopsis project directly!

Did you know that with Oracle Synopsis you can import Google Sheets documents using the Sheets app.

In Android open the Sheets app and open a sheets document with data in a tabular format. 

Tap the overflow menu on the right (3 dots) and select Share and Export.

Tap Save As... and select Excel for the format.

Once complete open Synopsis and Tap the + floating action button to open the file explorer.  

Tap Drive and browse to the Excel version of the file you just saved and select it.

Once complete you will have your first Synopsis project from a Google Sheet!

In iOS open the Sheets app and open a sheets document with data in a tabular format.

Tap the overflow menu on the right (3 dots) and select Share and Export.

Tap Send a Copy and select Excel for the format.

The iOS sharing dialog will appear, on this dialog select Import with Synopsis.

Once complete you will have your first Synopsis project from a Google Sheet!

A more streamlined integration in Android allowing Google Sheets to be imported directly from the Synopsis app is coming soon!

We all have data and we all want to analyze that data, but most of us are not data scientists.  So we are working on a mobile app that allows any user, consumer or enterprise to analyze data.  The goal is simple; import data without bugging the user about layouts and formats, and present the user with the best visualizations based on the data.  

The app will be called Synopsis and internally it is code named Project Lens.

It is all about quickly and easily summarizing raw data in meaningful visualizations that a user can easily manipulate and share.  We are working hard on getting the product out, but I though share some screenshots.

Coming Soon!

Oh yea one more thing…

If you have not noticed our apps work just fine with both the major OS’s recently launched.  Yes our app works fine on iOS 10 and Android 7 (Nougat)!  The reason I am posting this is because we get a lot of support questions on this topic and I thought I would clarify how we look and new OS launches and how we release in preparation for them. 

We watch the news and rumors just like you do and as a lunch of a major OS becomes real we get engaged with the betas and try our app out.  Our first goal is to see if we are going to have any issue and if we need an update before launch.  If we do we try to make those changes needed early and get them out with a normal “bug fix” patch.  We also look at new features and work any new cool features or design changes into our next major release.  This usually comes after the OS update and can even be weeks or months later.

So if you were looking for an app update that calls out iOS 10 or Android 7 support you will not find that, but you will find that the apps work great on those  OS and, most of all, we support them.

If you want to check out our app you can download them on the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.

We are working on a big iOS release and it is just about ready to launch.  You will have to wait to try it, but I wanted to share some of the key new features.  All I can say about release date is; coming soon...

Full iPhone Redesign 

This update brings our app up to date with iOS standards and is awesome on your phone!  We are sure you will love it and using it will feel natural and in line with iOS standards.

Updated Immersive Mode on the iPhone

Spotlight Search Support for BI Content

Leverage iOS Spotlight Search to quickly find and open BI content in our app.  Once you have opened a report or dashboard one time it will be available in Spotlight Search.

Native iOS Sharing on iPad and iPhone

Now you can share like you do in any other app.  As always select links or images, but not you can share to other apps on your device not just email.  text, photo editing, AirDrop and more.

There are also a ton of bug fixes and stability improvements.  We truly hope you love it when it drops. 

Coming Soon! 

Oh yea one more thing...

Capturing iOS Console logs can we tough especially if you are on a PC.  If you are on a Mac and you are a developer with Xcode installed it is really not that difficult.  In fact Apple fully supports this and documents the process. 

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/qa/qa1747/_index.html

For others without Mac’s things can get complex and with every new release of iOS there seems to be less and less options.  See our old blog on this topic.  All of these non-mac options no longer work on iOS 9.

http://bimobilelabs.com/post/59787593753/enabling-console-logging-for-obiee-mobile-hd

We have been able to work this out with the help of some 3rd party tools so we thought it made sense to share how we do it.  Keep in mind that we do not make the rules on this topic and we by no means endorse or write any of these 3rd party tools.

To start on windows you will need to download and install a copy of a program called iTools.  It can be found at the link below and on many popular download sites.

http://itools-for-windows.en.softonic.com

Please note that iTools is 3rd Party software and you should read the disclaimer at the bottom of this post.

Once installed you can follow some basic steps to get the device console logs. If you are debugging an issue with our BI Mobile HD application be sure to enable console logging in settings for our app.

Settings | Oracle BI HD | Console Logging

Once enabled run the test in the app that you want to debug and follow the steps below using iTools:

Open iTools

Connect your iOS device via USB and ensure it appears in iTools

On the main screen in iTools select the ‘Toolbox’ tab

From here you can select ‘Real-time Log’ to display console log

Once you have the log file, you can attach it to an email or update an SR so that the logs can be analyzed.

Third-Party Software Disclaimer

Any links to third-party software available on this website are provided “as is” without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied and such software is to be used at your own risk.

We are playing a bit with our apps iOS immersive mode on the phone and I thought I would share.  Remember this is not out and may never be out, but we are pretty happy so far.

Keep in mind that standard stuff with this post...

If you deploy are apps with MDM or MAM in your organization you know all about out Mobile Security Toolkit, but you may be hitting an issue or 2 if you upgraded to Xcode 7 already.  Here are the details you need to get past these minor issues.  

Updated Deployment Target

First you will need to update your deployment target to iOS 8 or above.  Apple does not mess around with new OS versions and iOS9 is already at passing iOS8 for adoption .  To update this in your Xcode project simply change the deployment target on the general tab of the project settings to anything 8.0 or above.

App Transport Security

In Xcode 7 Apple added a security feature called App Transport Security.  This forces connection API’s like the ones we use to enforce strict security practices.  For us this translates to requiring HTTPs (SSL protected) connections.  Many of our customers OBI servers (especially testing servers) are not SSL enalbed so to be able to connect to our Demo server or any non-SSL server you need to implement the following.

On the info tab of the projects properties add a new Dictionary type called NSAppTransportSecurity and in that new property add NSAllowsArbitraryLoads = True as a Boolean.  Here is a screenshot:

If you only connect to SSL servers then you don't need this at all.  Also if you want to ‘white’ list specific domains you can do this as an alternative.  See the Apple Tech Note for details on how to create exceptions.

https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/technotes/App-Transport-Security-Technote/index.html

Disable Split Screen and Multitasking

This is optional but our app is not quite ready for multitasking and split screen so we recommend disabling this for now. To do this on the info tab of the projects properties add a new Boolean type called UIRequiresFullScreen and set it to true.  If you leave this off our app will work just fine but will simply not be optimized for multitasking.  We are working hard to support this new iOS feature so stay tuned.

So we just launched our latest Android update and has some great new features that are all about sharing content.  

Share Nearby

Share nearby allows nearby users to easily share content with each other.  This works exactly the same as our sharing via URL or by using NFC tap to share but this is even easier!  Receiving users simply have to have the app open and accept the incoming share request.

Presentation Mode

With presentation mode you can ‘cast’ your screen to any supported cast device including Google Chromecast.  Just open any report and app will detect any nearby cast devices and show the cast icon.  Just tap the icon to put the BI content on the screen.

Share as an Image

In our previous version you could share our content as a URL and now you can also share as a image.  This way you can leverage other apps on the device, and even markup the image before you share it with others.

In addition to these great sharing features we also introduced support for BI alerts and displaying those alerts as native device notifications.

iOS 9 is just days away and I know from history that many of you will update your devices the day it launches.  I bet you won't even tell us :(  Don’t worry we have been testing our app with the betas and everything will be just fine no update needed from us.  We will also do a bunch more testing the day it drops to make sure you will not be impacted.

We are looking into some of the cool features like multi-tasking and 3D Touch but support for things like that will come later.

Did you know our app supports voice searches? In fact you don't even have to open our app for this.  Just say ‘OK Google, Search BI Mobile for Keyword’.  Our app will open with a list of reports that match the keyword you specified.

Watch to see how it works.