Oracle Magazine - March/April 2012

Database Developer
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE B Y MARK RIT TMAN

On the Road with BI
Oracle Business Intelligence Mobile gives your iOS device
the business.
ORACLE BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE MOBILE

In addition to accessing dashboards, analyses, and scorecards through Web browsers on laptop and desktop computers, many users of Oracle Business Intelligence solutions now want to access their BI content on the go—on smartphones and tablet devices. Oracle Business Intelligence Mobile, part of Oracle Business Intelligence Foundation Suite, provides the ability to deliver analyses, dashboards, alerts, and other BI content directly to mobile devices, enabling users to view and then take action on BI insights wherever they are.

Built on Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11 g Release 1 ( 11. 1. 1. 5), Oracle Business Intelligence Mobile delivers BI content to mobile devices such as the Apple iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. Oracle Business Intelligence analyses and dashboards do not have to be specifically formatted for mobile use, and no additional setup is required for your server installation before users can start accessing their data on the move. In this article, I show how you can configure your iPad and iPhone to access mobile BI content, and I access data and analysis from the Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11 g sample application (deployed via Oracle VM VirtualBox), available for download on Oracle Technology Network ( bit.ly/wZlptB).

You do not need to specially configure your BI installation to enable mobile access, but you must ensure that Oracle Business Intelligence Presentation Services is accessible to your mobile device ( typically via http://[server_name]:9704/ analytics or http://[server_name]). If your BI installation is behind a firewall, you can configure your iOS device to connect first, using a virtual private network, to your company network.

To create a connection with Oracle Business Intelligence Mobile on an iPad, follow these steps:

1. Start the Oracle Business Intelligence Mobile app, and if it is the first time you are using it, tap Accept to accept the end user license agreement.

2. The app then displays the list of available Oracle Business Intelligence servers. The first time you use the app, tap + (next to Add Server) to add your server to the list.

3. In the Server Settings dialog box, enter the following details:

Name: The name, such as SampleApp, that you will assign to this server.

Host: The hostname or IP address, such as 192.168.1.30, for the server.

Port: The port number for the server. This should typically be set to 7001 or 9704 if you have not enabled Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or to 443 if you have enabled SSL. If you are using the Oracle VM VirtualBox sample application image mentioned earlier, the port number will be 7001.

CONFIGURING YOUR MOBILE DEVICE Oracle Business Intelligence Mobile is currently available for mobile devices running Apple iOS, such as the Apple iPad and iPhone. To access BI information through your iOS mobile device, first download the Oracle Business Intelligence Mobile app from the Apple App Store to your iOS device and install it, and then create the connection to your organization’s Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11 g sample application installation or the product’s sample application deployed via Oracle VM VirtualBox.