Essbase Quick Reference

Essbase: Extended Spreadsheet - a multi-dimensional OLAP system.

Essbase database structure:
   Application
       Database
           Outline
Outline is created when database is created. Includes dimensions, members, aliases, properties, types, consolidation, and mathematical operators.

Following files are created when a database is created.
.db, .dbb, .otl, .esm, .tct

Following files are created when an application is created.
.instance, .app, .log


Intelligent Calculation: With this, Essbas calculates only update members and their dependent parents (dirty blocks) making calculation efficient. After full calculation, all data blocks are marked clean. We can turn the Intelligent Calculation feature on or off through calculation script or essbase.cfg file.

Keyword - UPDATECALC

Syntax (calc script) - SET UPDATECALC ON/OFF;
Syntax (essbase.cfg file) - UPDATECALC TRUE/FALSE

SET UPDATECALC ON;      Calculates only dirty blocks
SET UPDATE CALC OFF;    Calculates all data blocks


Essbase Security File - essbase.sec
Location - Arborpath/bin directory - eg: (\\EssbaseServer\d$\Hyperion\Essbase\bin)

Information stored in secfile:

• Filter Access
• Application Access type
• Application and database properties, substitution variables
• CalcScript access

essbase.sec file contents are encrypted. We can export it to a .TXT file and view the contents.
MAXL to export "essbase.sec" file:

• export security_file to data_file "e:\khoonks\essbase_security_file.txt"

Adding Items to Windows 7 Taskbar the hard way

Some programs/items are easy to be added to the Windows Taskbar for easy access – provided you see the “Pin To Taskbar” option on right-click. How about adding the item which does not have the option “Pin To Taskbar” when you right-click the item. You can add the item on the Taskbar the “hard way” so that you can access/open the program without having to browse through the file path.

In this example, I will show you how to add the EssbaseAdministration Console (EAS) desktop client to the Taskbar.

In the following illustration, we do not have “Pin To Taskbar” when we right-click the EAS icon. So I will go through the process of adding it to the Taskbar. We can do it with any other file in the same way.

I have this file ADMINICON.BAT on my desktop which is a shortcut of EAS. As I have mentioned above, there is no “Pin To Taskbar” option on right-click, nor can I “drag it to the Taskbar and drop it” – well this is another easy way of adding an item to a task bar.

What I can do now, however, is

• copy ADMINICON.BAT (Ctrl-C)
• Create a new folder with a descriptive name anywhere you would not happen to delete. In my example, I have created a folder named “eas_taskbar_shortcut” under the path “C:\Users\nshrestha\Desktop\nirmal”
• Paste the item you have copied (Ctrl-V) to the folder you just created.

Now, you should have ADMINICON.BAT file in your new folder.

• Right-click and COPY

• Right-click anywhere in a blank area within the folder (other than the ADMINICON.BAT file) -> New -> Shortcut

• The “Create Shortcut” pop-up window appears.
• Paste (Ctrl-V) in the space that says “Type the location of the item”

Important: Move the cursor all the way at the beginning of the path and type in “explorer and a space” so that it looks something like the one below:

Next
Type in a suitable name. In my case I have named it EAS_Shortcut.

Finish.

Right-click the brand-new item “EAS Shortcut” just created, and you will see the “Pin to Taskbar” option upon right-clicking it. You can also now see the “Pin to Start Menu” if you want to add it to the Start Menu. You can even drag the item to the task bar or Start Menu.

Rolling back an EPM oPatch

Oracle EPM oPatches or simply oPathes are supposed to fix bugs or issues. So, for example, if there are any defects in your existing version of EPM, Oracle suggests you apply certain patch so that the issue will be resolved. However, not all issues are guaranteed to be resolved, and while fixing some, it you may come up with new issues. For example, we recently applied the EPM 600 patch (Planning patch 14464109) which was supposed to fix the Internet Explorer 9 - related issue that we faced with EPM 11.1.2.1. This patch has a lot of pre-requisite patches, one of which is the patch 13904635. Therefore, we applied all the pre-requisite patches including the 13904635 and ultimately the main 14464109 patch. The IE9 related issue was fixed, however, the overall process damaged something else.

We had a Business Rules issue after the application of the patch where we would get an error every time we clicked "Business Rules" in EAS. The error message was 
"org/apache/xerces/parsers/DOMParser"

After some research, we found out that the patch 13904635 was the culprit. We decided to get patch 13904635 rolled back, so we went through the Rollback section of the README.

The following is the rollback syntax that is provided in the README
opatch.bat rollback –id 13904635 -oh D:\Oracle\Middleware\EPMSystem11R1 -jre D:\Oracle\Middleware/jdk160_21.

So, I opened the command prompt, got in to the oPatch folder and ran the script, however, I got a syntax error.
After putting up the question in Oracle Forum, one of the Aces - Celvin suggested me type in 

opatch.bat rollback -id 13904635 -oh D:\Oracle\Middleware\EPMSystem11R1 -jdk D:\Oracle\Middleware\jdk160_21

and it worked perfectly for me

The syntax looks exactly the same except for one slight difference "jdk" and "jre" and the "\". JRE works, as suggested by experts and so do JDK in this case. However, JDK worked for me.

So if someone is trying roll back a patch, make sure to try different syntax instead of just sticking with Oracle's README. I am not sure why, but they have some significant TYPOS that can get you nuts.