Oracle BI publisher works awfully bad with Answers type of datasource in at least two points:
- column names are created by answers formulas instead of column names, so if you have long formulae, it’ll be shortened to some 128 chars. And if first 128 chars of formulas are identical, you’ll get only one of them in publisher
- if columns return null in answers – they will not be available at all
- if columns return null in answers – they will not be available at all
We ended up using logical SQL generated in answers as a source for publisher reports, which works like charm up until you start changing repository or changing underlying data you’re using for filters.
- repository changes can be handled by adding aliases to columns being renamed
- data changes are way more difficult to tackle
For example when you change city name from ‘NY’ to ‘New York’ in geography dimension (this should be solved by BI 11 id\description feature) you have to change all formulas and filters using this value.
So I wrote a simple Python3 script, doing exactly that — replacing all needed strings in publisher xdo files. If there’s any need for that — mail me, I’ll send it over.
