OBIEE Tip: Sort a column based on another column

I was struggling with ordering Months in my Calendar Dimension. I wanted to show month names in my graphs and prompts and I wanted them to appear in temporal order (e.g. Jan-Feb-...-Dec). I could not use the Sort option beause it would sort values in alphabetical order.
Since in my dimension I have an attribute with the month number, it would have been great using it for sorting month names. Luckily OBIEE lets you do so, by selecting the column you need to sort in the Logical Layer and applying the Sort Order based on another column.

Tip: Scheduling OWB jobs using SQLPlus

Scheduling jobs in OWB 11g using the Calendar feature is possible only if you have bought the Data Integrator Enterprise Edition, which is not the case of the project I am currently working on.

Error you get when you try to create a new Calendar Module in OWB 11g without Data Integrator EE license

You can still schedule jobs by using a SQLPlus script which can then be called in a .bat or Shell script and scheduled using Windows Scheduler or Crontab in Unix.
In OWB 11g, we can find a SQL script ready to use in [OWBHOME]\owb\rtp\sql. The script you need is called: sqlplus_exec_template.sql
The script can be executed only by a Workspace Owner or a Workspace user with Execute privileges.
The script uses the following parameters:

• WORKSPACE 
Workspace in which the job is to run: e.g. MY_WORKSPACE Make sure you specify the right Workspace Name. You can check it by executing:  

SELECT * FROM ALL_IV_WORKSPACES

• LOCATION_NAME 
Physical Name of the Location to which this task was deployed: e.g. MY_WAREHOUSE  
• TASK_TYPE   
• PLSQLMAP - OWB PL/SQL Mapping
• SQLLOADERCONTROLFILE - OWB SQL*Loader Mapping
• PROCESSFLOW - OWB ProcessFlow
• ABAPFILE - OWB SAP Mapping
• DATAAUDITOR - OWB DataAuditor Mapping
• SCHEDULEDJOB - OWB Scheduled Job
• CTMAPPING  - OWB Template Mapping

• TASK_NAME
Physical Name of the Deployed Object.e.g. MY_MAPPING. Make sure you specify the TASK_NAME in the following format: [PARENT_TASK]/TASK_NAME

• SYSTEM_PARAMS { , | (name = value [, name = value]...)}
• CUSTOM_PARAMS { , | (name = value [, name = value]...)}

The following example shows how to call the DIM_ALL workflow under DIM_FACT workflow package deployed in WFS_LOCATION location in MYWKS workspace.

SQL> @sqlplus_exec_template.sql MYWKS WFS_LOCATION PROCESSFLOW "DIM_FACT
/DIM_ALL" "," ","

The script calls functions from the OWBSYS.wb_rt_script_util package so you may need to grant the right privilege to the OWB User.

Tip: DATE and DATETIME in OBIEE

I must admit that I am new to the OBIEE world and I really wish I can help people that are starting with this Oracle product to save some precious time when dealing with Calendar dimensions.

I have created a Calendar dimension in my database with a field "DIA" to be DATE. This dimension is meant to replace one that was already in place, same content, but more fields. I have imported the table in the physical layer, mapped it to the logical layer, but when I run the dashboard I kept on seeing date fields with DD/MM/YYYY hh:mm in the calendar prompts.

I spent quite a lot of time (call me dumb!) to find out that the answer was as simple as replacing the DATETIME field with DATE.