Working with Cubes in Spotfire®

Importing Data from Oracle Essbase

When you want to import data from an Oracle Essbase cube, it important to limit the selected data as much as possible.

Procedure

  1. On the authoring bar, click Files and data .
  2. In the Files and data flyout, click Connect to.
  3. In the list of connectors, click Oracle Essbase.
  4. In the Oracle Essbase flyout, click New connection.
  5. In the Oracle Essbase Connection dialog, specify the Server you want to connect to.
  6. Enter your credentials in the Username and Password text fields.
  7. Click Connect.
    Spotfire will connect to the specified server, and retrieve the names of the available applications.
  8. From the Application drop-down list, select the application of interest.
  9. Specify which database in the selected application you want to work with.
  10. In the Alias table drop-down list, select from which table the member names should be retrieved.
    An alias table maps the original member name to a more user friendly name, or they could contain long or short versions of a name.
  11. Optionally select the check box Show both the member name and the alias.
    The member name and alias name will be shown in the UI separated by comma.
  12. Click OK.
    The Data Selection in Connection dialog opens.
  13. In the left pane, click on the object of interest, and then click Add >.
    See Icon Descriptions for information about what the different objects represent. If you select the cube icon, you will get all data in the cube. When it comes to hierarchies, you always have to add the entire hierarchy to the list, but you can limit data further, see step 12.
    The selected data is added to the Data selection in connection list.
  14. Dimension columns and hierarchies can be further limited by clicking on the selected column or hierarchy in the Data selection in connection list and then, in the Settings pane, clicking Limit....
    The Limit Data dialog opens.
  15. Clear the check boxes for categories that you want to remove from the selection.
  16. Click OK to close the Limit Data dialog.
  17. When you are done with your data selection it is recommended to click the Estimate Import Size button to get a hint on whether this selection will be possible to import or not.
    The calculation may take a while. No measures are taken into account in the calculation, so if you have added many measures, you may be unable to import the selection even if the estimated number of rows and columns is small. The estimated import size may be of help if an import should fail. Then, the next time you try to import data from that cube, you should try to make sure that the estimated size is smaller than the previous time.
  18. When you are done with the data selection, click OK.
  19. The final step, the Add data to analysis flyout, is a summary view of the data tables that will be added to your Spotfire analysis. Make sure that the data table that is added from your connection is configured as Imported, for in-memory analysis.
    Tip: To change the load method of a data table to Imported, click the data table in the summary view, and then use the drop-down menus to select Imported.
  20. Click OK.

Results

If the data selection was small enough, the data is imported.
Tip: Do all of the data selection work in a shared data connection and save it to the library instead of adding it to the analysis directly. This way you can reuse the work you have done later, or share your selections with others.