AUTHOR: Ankit R Gupta

contents

Oracle Business Intelligence and Maps

OBIEE and Maps

Abstract.......................................................................................2
When and why the Map views are useful?...............................................3
Components for Building Maps............................................................4
Map Builder Tool.............................................................................4
Oracle Database for Spatial Information................................................5
Map Viewer...................................................................................5
Render Maps on Dashboard................................................................7
OBIEE & Map viewer........................................................................7
Conclusion....................................................................................8

Page 1 of 9

Abstract
A picture is worth a thousand words. This is particularly true when trying to capture the complexity of
interactions among people, resources, products, and business processes distributed over geographic
space. OBIEE 11g integrates Map viewer to show the bulk data onto Maps to capture and simplify
complex relationships, turning them into readily consumable, powerful packages of unambiguous
information.
For instance, business applications such as Field Service, Travels and Logistics, Product Lifecycle
Management, Human Resources and Real Estate can now render and visualize the massive amount of
data they control if there is a geographic component to the data.
In this paper we discuss about the services provided by Map Viewer, Map builder tool and its features
also, getting data onto Maps and getting maps onto Dashboard.

When and Why the Map Views are useful?

Geographical information is critical for organizations to understand how location impacts the business
performance. Maps provide a powerful solution for assimilating the location of assets (people,
customers, products, vehicles, etc.) and/or areas (zones, regions, etc.). The ability to see business
data with a location context, layered with the other relevant data naturally provides real insight. Maps
provide context that leads to better ways to prioritize, plan and execute your objectives.
When you combine your maps with time trends and other charts on a dashboard, the result is much
richer/thorough understanding of your information.
Maps are useful in following scenario:

Visualizing data related to geographic locations.

Showing bulk data in a relatively smaller area.

Showing or detecting spatial relationships and patterns.

To Drill down from a (map) overview to a detailed report, chart, or graph.

For e.g. how Retail chain stores could integrate Oracle Maps into OBIEE interactive dashboards to:

Visualize the sales performance of not just the entire store, but specifically the overall
performance of individual products across different geographic locations.

Provide high-level view of revenue generated during the Festive offer, holidays across various and
weekends.

Monitor the revenue generated by Store to analyse marketing performance by state, county and ZIP
Code

Components for Building Maps

Map Builder Tool

To assist with the creation and management of mapping metadata Oracle now provides a standalone
utility program, called Map Builder, as part of the Map Viewer kit.
For example, use this tool to create a style or to modify the definition of a style. Besides handling the
metadata, the tool provides interfaces to preview the metadata (for example, to see how a line style
will appear on a map) and also spatial information.

Styles
A Style is a visual attribute that can be used to represent a spatial feature. The basic map symbols
and legend for representing point, line, and area features are defined and stored as individual
styles.

Themes
A Theme is a visual representation of a particular data layer. Conceptually, each theme is
associated with a specific spatial geometry layer, i.e., with a column of type
MDSYS.SDO_GEOMETRY in a table or view.
To be more precise, when you define a theme, you are actually providing Map Viewer with the
following information: where and how to get the data & how to render and label the data.
o

For example, a theme named US_States might be associated with the GEOM column with
type MDSYS.SDO_GEOMETRY in a STATES table.

Base Maps
A Base Map consists of one or more themes to be used in rendering a map. If a base map is
specified in a map request, the themes in the base map are rendered, one on top of each
preceding one, in the order specified in the map definition. You can specify additional themes in a
map request, to be rendered on top of the base map (if one is specified).

Tile Layer
A Tile Layer is a map definition to be used in Oracle Maps applications. Each tile layer is associated
with a Map Viewer base map or an external map source. An Oracle Maps map tile layer which
assembles and displays pre-generated map image tiles from the map tile server.
The below screen shot shows sample of Tile layer:-

Oracle Database for Spatial Information

Oracle Spatial 11g, an option for Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition, provides advanced spatial
capabilities to support geospatial applications, location-based services and enterprise spatial
information system
You will need an Oracle Database for storing the "layers" (e.g. country boundaries) that are to be
rendered on top of your background maps. If you need to modify or transform any spatial data, then
the likelihood is that you'll need to purchase Oracle Spatial licenses on the database that performs the
operation.
Licenses for the Oracle Database are not included with the OBIEE 11g suite, so you will have to
purchase the database licenses separately.

Map Viewer
Oracle Fusion Middleware Map Viewer (or simply, Map Viewer) provides powerful geospatial data
visualization and reporting services. Written purely in Java and run in a J2EE environment, Map Viewer
provides web application developers a versatile means to integrate and visualize business data with
maps. It uses the basic capability included with Oracle11g (either Oracle Spatial or Locator) to manage
geographic mapping data.

Map Viewer complements the geographic data management capacity of the Oracle Database by
providing a generic web-based means of delivering and viewing any geographic data in the database. It
hides the complexity of spatial data queries and the cartographic rendering process from application
developers.
Map Viewer is installed and configured as part of the OBIEE 11g installation process. The only postinstallation configuration required is to configure Map Viewer to point to the source(s) that contain
your spatial data (Oracle Database) and provide you with background maps (Oracle Database, Oracle
eLocation, Web Map Service provider, Google Maps or Bing Maps).

It is deployed onto WebLogic in OBIEE 11g Suite

Default URL http://[hostname]:9704/mapviewer

No extra licenses required for OBIEE customers to render maps

Render Maps on Dashboard

OBIEE & Map viewer

Oracle Business Intelligence 11g has the ability to easily create dashboards that incorporate map views
and map views can display your key performance indicators. In OBIEE 11g, maps are simply a new type
of view just like tables and graphs. You can color-code a map based on some metric (e.g., show sales
regions color-coded by revenue), overlay graphs on a map (e.g., show revenue by product category for
each region of the country) and drill on a map (e.g., from sales regions down to sales districts).
There are certain task needs to be accomplished before visualizing a Map with data on dashboard.

Configuration of Map viewer to point to source data

Import Layers, background Maps, Images.

Associate map layers to BI columns to enable their display on maps.

Associate background Maps with map layer along with order of display on zoom in and out.

Create a report with Map view and include the column associated with map layer.

Below Screenshot shows Map Layer and background map config with OBIEE model.

Report developers have the power to build colourful and interactive maps within their BI Dashboards.
Simple configuration no coding or technical know-how required! Reports are created and ready to be
placed on dashboard.

Business Benefits
Conclusion
To survive and flourish in the Business, appropriate decisions have to be made. Decisions can't be made
in a vacuum! A lot of data has to be gathered, collated, classified and organized, such as to make job
easier for decision making.
The appropriate decision can be made when we Capture the geographic component(s) of any business
and unlock its enterprise information on Maps that will give more visibility and support.

Reference Material
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/mapviewer/downloads/index-100641.html

Abbreviations
BI- Business Intelligence
J2EE Java to Enterprise Edition
OBIEE Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition
Oracle11g- Oracle Database Enterprise Edition 11g
URL - Universal Resource Locator

About the author

About L&T Infotech

L&T Infotech offers domain-specific IT services and solutions. We are sharply focused on a set
of industries that include manufacturing, banking and financial services, insurance, energy
and petrochemicals and telecom (product engineering services). We are part of Larsen &
Toubro, a multi-billion dollar engineering and construction conglomerate. We leverage this
unique business-to-IT connect to offer the winning edge to our clients.
For more information, visit us at www.lntinfotech.com or email us at info@lntinfotech.com.