OBIEE 11G - Action

About

Users can create actions in the Oracle BI Presentation Services user interface.

Actions provide functionality to:

navigate to related content
invoke operations, functions, or processes in external systems.

You can include actions in:

analyses,
dashboard pages,
agents (as the final step),
scorecard objectives,
scorecard initiatives,
and KPIs.

An action is an operation or process that can be invoked explicitly by a user clicking an action link for example, as they gain insight from analyzing data in analyses or from viewing dashboards.

Example:

book a meeting room

Articles Related

Actions

Action Type	Executed by…	Add to Analysis, Dashboard Pages, Scorecard Objectives, Scorecard initiatives, and KPIs	Add to Agents
Navigate to BI Content	Browser	Yes	No
Navigate to a Web Page	Browser	Yes	No
Navigate to EPM Content	Browser	Yes	No
Navigate to E-Business Suite	Browser	Yes	No
Invoke a Web Service	Action Execution Service	Yes	Yes
Invoke a Java Method (EJB)	Action Execution Service	Yes	Yes
Invoke a Browser Script	Browser	Yes	No
Invoke an HTTP Request	Action Execution Service	Yes	Yes
Invoke Server Script	Scheduler	No	Yes
Invoke Agent	Scheduler	No	Yes
Java Jobs	Javahost	No	Yes

Configuration

The Oracle BI EE installation contains a configuration file:

<Oracle Middleware Home>\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\config\fmwconfig\biinstances\coreapplication\ActionFrameworkConfig.xml

After you modify the configuration file, you need to restart the Managed Server in Weblogic that is hosting your Oracle BI EE environment.

Registry

A registry entry

enable a browsable list of action targets in the Web front-end.

In this file, the Provider-Class Element Values contains the valid values for the provider-class element

Related Action Type	Content Type	SPI Class
Navigate to EPM Content	EPM	oracle.bi.action.registry.epm.HDPRegistry
Invoke a Java Method (EJB)	Java	oracle.bi.action.registry.java.EJBRegistry
Invoke a Web Service	Web Services	oracle.bi.action.registry.wsil.WSILRegistry

Web Services

The location of the registry must point to a wsil file.

<registry>
	<id>reg1</id>
	<name>my Web Services</name>
	<content-type>webservices</content-type>
	<provider-class>oracle.bi.action.registry.wsil.WSILRegistry</provider-class>
	<description></description>
	<location>
		<path>http://myWebServiceHost:myWebServiceHostPort/myPath/myFile.wsil</path>
	</location>
</registry>

If you want to use a WSDL file, you must do it when you create an action and not in the configuration file.

EJB

<registry>
   <id>reg03</id>
   <name>Sample EJBs</name>
   <content-type>java</content-type>
   <provider-class>oracle.bi.action.registry.java.EJBRegistry</provider-class>
   <description>Custom Java classes which can be invoked as action targets</description>
   <location>
      <path/>
   </location>
   <custom-config>
      <ejb-targets>
         <appserver>
           <context-factory>weblogic.jndi.WLInitialContextFactory</context-factory>
           <jndi-url>t3://localhost:9704</jndi-url>
           <server-name>localhost</server-name>
           <account>WLSJNDI</account>
           <ejb-exclude>mgmt</ejb-exclude>
           <ejb-exclude>PopulationServiceBean</ejb-exclude>
         </appserver>
         <ejb-app>
           <server>localhost</server>
           <app-context>ActionSamplesEJB</app-context>
         </ejb-app>
      </ejb-targets>
   </custom-config>
</registry>

where:

the ejb-targets node tells the EJB registry specifically about the application server hosting the EJBs and the EJBs that should be exposed as registries from that server.
the account node refer to the account xml configuration

Account

If you have the following account defined in the configuration file, you need to enter a credential for JNDIUser into a map called oracle.bi.actions in Oracle's Credential Store Framework (CSF).

<account>
    <name>WLSJNDI</name>
    <description>Account used to access WLS JNDI.</description>
    <adminonly>false</adminonly>
    <credentialkey>JNDIUser</credentialkey>
    <credentialmap>oracle.bi.actions</credentialmap>
</account>

where:

the name node is an identifier
the credential map (directory) and credential key (id) are elements of the Oracle's Credential Store Framework (CSF) used to retrieve the credentials.

Credentials are security-related attributes used to authenticate or authorize users and systems requesting access to Oracle BI EE resources such as actions.

Support

Where to find the actionframework-common.jar library

MiddelwareHome\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\AdminServer\tmp\.appmergegen_1300959620515\ActionSamples.ear\n4ajlj\WEB-INF\lib
MiddelwareHome\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\AdminServer\tmp\.appmergegen_1300959620515_ActionSamples.ear\lib
MiddelwareHome\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\AdminServer\tmp\.appmergegen_1300959646312\ActionSamples.ear\n4ajlj\WEB-INF\lib
MiddelwareHome\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\AdminServer\tmp\.appmergegen_1300959646312_ActionSamples.ear\lib
MiddelwareHome\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\AdminServer\tmp\.appmergegen_1300959678359\ActionSamples.ear\n4ajlj\WEB-INF\lib
MiddelwareHome\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\AdminServer\tmp\.appmergegen_1300959678359_ActionSamples.ear\lib
MiddelwareHome\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\AdminServer\tmp\.appmergegen_1307033064419_bimiddleware.ear\lib
MiddelwareHome\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\AdminServer\tmp\.appmergegen_1307033120419\ActionSamples.ear\n4ajlj\WEB-INF\lib
MiddelwareHome\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\AdminServer\tmp\.appmergegen_1307033120419_ActionSamples.ear\lib
MiddelwareHome\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\AdminServer\tmp\.appmergegen_1307033454888_bimiddleware.ear\lib
MiddelwareHome\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\AdminServer\tmp\.appmergegen_1307036079294_bimiddleware.ear\lib
MiddelwareHome\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\bi_server1\tmp\_WL_user\ActionSamples\ktjwru\lib
MiddelwareHome\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\bi_server1\tmp\_WL_user\ActionSamples\y1vvni\war\WEB-INF\lib
MiddelwareHome\user_projects\domains\bifoundation_domain\servers\bi_server1\tmp\_WL_user\bimiddleware_11.1.1\udy1lp\lib

Documentation / Reference

Configuring for Actions with the Action Framework