OBIEE 10G/11G - The (Web|Presentation) Catalog (Webcat)

The Web Catalog becomes in 11g the Presentation Catalog. Be careful not to confuse with the Old
Presentation Catalog term of the Presentation Layer from the repository in 10g
The Oracle BI Presentation Catalog stores the content that users create with BI Presentation Services in a
directory structure of individual files.
This content includes:

folders,

shortcuts,

Oracle BI EE objects (such as analyses, filters, prompts, and dashboards),

and from 11G KPIs, Oracle BI Publisher objects (such as reports and templates).

Each object is composed of two files:

its own file. For example, an analysis called Analysis 1 would be stored in a file named Analysis1.

a attributes file. For example, the analysis called Analysis1 would have a corresponding attributes file
named Analysis1.atr.

The attributes file contains:

the object's full name,

access control list (ACL),

description,

and so on.

To access an object in the catalog, users must have appropriate ACL entries for that object. All objects in the
catalog use ACLentries.
In 11g, the Everyone group has been replaced with the AuthenticatedUser role
The webcatalog is located:

on 10G: OracleBIData/web/catalog/

on 11G: $ORACLE_INSTANCE/bifoundation/OracleBIPresentationServicesComponent/catalog/

Directory structure

When opening a webcatalog, you will always find the following folders

The shared folder Contains content that is shared among catalog users. Dashboards that
are shared across users are saved in a Dashboards subfolder under a common subfolder under
the /Shared Folders folder.

The system folder Contains administrative elements of Presentation Services. Some of these
elements are distributed with the product, and others are set up by the administrator, such
as privileges.

The users folder Contains content that catalog users with the appropriate permissions have
saved to their personal folders, such as individual analyses. Includes a Subject Area
Contents folder where you save objects such as calculated items and groups.

Structure of a web catalog

A way to classify queries used in an analytic application is to group them according to their function:

analyses that appear on dashboards,

analyses that are navigation targets,

analyses that provide dimensional sets,

analyses that serve as triggers, and dashboard prompts.

It makes sense to structure the web catalog to reflect these five classifications. With a top level folder for each
subject area, the web cat folder structure looks like this:

Samplesales demo data set makes a difference between column prompt (to filter a column) and other prompt
purpose.

Catalog Administration
Web Catalog

Oracle BI Presentation Service provides a pure browser-based administration tool to administer a Web Catalog.
Administrators can:

control which users can access what dashboards

set user privileges

create and manage groups and roles

change group membership lists

re-name or delete catalog folders

and saved analyses,

and view and manage sessions.

Catalog Manager
The installation of OBIEE provides also a desktop tool: the catalog manager

Promotion
You can deploy a simple object (for example, a dashboard with privileges) to your production environment using
two different methods: OBIEE 10G/11G - Release (Promotion|Migration) - From Dev, Test to Production

Rename an Object
There are two ways to rename an object:

Rename without reference updates Renames the object and preserves the references to the original
name that other catalog objects might have.

Rename with reference updates Renames the object and changes references that other objects
might have to the new name (that is, original name references are not preserved). You must open the
catalog in offline mode.

Do not rename the My Dashboard dashboards in the Users folder (displayed as _portal in Catalog Manager).

full-text catalog search

Only on 11g A search engine can be configured to crawl and index the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog to be
ble to perform a full-text catalog search for objects and attachments. More

References: http://kpipartners.blogspot.com/2009/10/structuring-web-catalogfolders-for.html
http://learnallyeah.com/1-features-of-the-presentation-catalog/?ckattempt=1
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E14571_01/bi.1111/e10541/prescatadmin.htm#BIESG320