Oracle Business Intelligence Dashboard Best Practices
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Table of Contents
Introduction and Overview ................................................................................................. 1
Planning Your Dashboard ................................................................................................... 1
Types of Dashboard ........................................................................................................ 1
Hierarchy of Metrics ....................................................................................................... 1
Role of Analytic Workflow ............................................................................................ 2
Planning for Dashboard Pages ........................................................................................ 3
Exception Page............................................................................................................ 4
Planning for Drilling ....................................................................................................... 4
Planning for Guided Navigation ..................................................................................... 6
Planning for Detailed Reports ......................................................................................... 6
Dashboard Design Standards .............................................................................................. 6
Dashboard Design Standards .............................................................................................. 7
Dashboard Layout Formats ............................................................................................. 7
Default Dashboard Template ...................................................................................... 7
Columns and Sections Layout .................................................................................... 7
Dashboard Prompts ..................................................................................................... 8
Dashboard Width ........................................................................................................ 9
Number of Dashboard Pages .................................................................................... 10
Layout of Front Page .................................................................................................... 10
Layout of Subordinate Pages ........................................................................................ 11
Data Formatting Standards ........................................................................................... 12
Headers and Footers ...................................................................................................... 13
Page Break between Sections ....................................................................................... 15
Naming Conventions .................................................................................................... 16
Naming Conventions for Dashboard ........................................................................ 16
Naming Conventions for Dashboard tabs ................................................................. 17
Naming Conventions for Dashboard Reports ........................................................... 17
Naming Conventions for Dashboard Prompts .......................................................... 18
Naming Conventions for Dashboard Alerts .............................................................. 18
Naming Conventions for Filters................................................................................ 18
Naming Convention for View Selector..................................................................... 18
Naming Convention for Column Selector ................................................................ 18
Report Design Standards................................................................................................... 19
Creating Formula within Reports.................................................................................. 19
Report Title ................................................................................................................... 19
Title Format .............................................................................................................. 19
Report Title Image .................................................................................................... 20
Report Width................................................................................................................. 21
Report Prompts ............................................................................................................. 21
Use of Chart and Tables ................................................................................................ 22
View Selector ................................................................................................................ 22
Column Selector............................................................................................................ 22
Select Metric to Display............................................................................................ 22
Select Dimension for Grouping Results ................................................................... 23
General ...................................................................................................................... 23
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Conditional Formatting ................................................................................................. 23
General Formatting Guidelines ................................................................................. 23
Advanced Conditional Formatting Guidelines ......................................................... 25
Standards for Tabular Reports .......................................................................................... 26
Standards for Charts .......................................................................................................... 27
General Chart Standards ............................................................................................... 27
Vertical Bar Charts ....................................................................................................... 29
Horizontal Bar Charts ................................................................................................... 29
Pie Charts ...................................................................................................................... 30
Line-Bar Combination Chart ........................................................................................ 30
HTML (Programmed) Chart ......................................................................................... 32
HTML Formula ............................................................................................................. 32
Additional Report Object Standards ................................................................................. 33
Other Best Practices .......................................................................................................... 33
Filters ............................................................................................................................ 33
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Introduction and Overview
Planning Your Dashboard
Types of Dashboard
Out of the box dashboards that will ship with OBIA Fusion Edition could be one of the
following types:
1. Functional Area Dashboard
o These dashboards address a sub-business process such as procurement
management, inventory management, financial analysis, service
management, etc.
o These dashboards could be designed to serve one or more types of
business users, including executive users, managerial/operational users, or
business analysts.
2. Role-based Dashboard
o These dashboards address the requirement of the target role such as CFO,
Plant Manager, Call Center Supervisor, etc.
o Executive-level, role-based dashboards would generally be cross
functional. For example, a Plant Manager would like to see financial,
HR, production, and order fulfillment metrics and reports in one
dashboard.
o On the other hand, dashboards for an operational role, such as Call Center
Manager, would be narrow in functional domain but deep in operational
details. These dashboards also require low data latency.
Hierarchy of Metrics
Hierarchy of metrics plays a key role in design of dashboard content layout and analytic
work flows.
Based on the role it plays in the detection-diagnosis-action framework, a metric could be
classified in three categories: Level 1 – Detection Level Metric; Level 2 – Diagnosis
Level Metric; and Level 3 – Action Level (or Detail Level) Metric
What is a detection-level metric in one business process could be a diagnosis-level metric
in another business process, or visa verse. (Note: The distinction amongst the three types
are not always cut and dry. There is some room for judgment)
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Level 1 (Detection) Level Metrics - These are high-level metrics that are
indicators of the health of a business or business process. These should be
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rendered on the front page (overview) of the dashboard, preferably in the KPI
section.
Level 2 (Diagnosis) Level Metrics – These metrics give an insight into a section
of the business process being analyzed. These should be rendered on the
subordinate pages of a dashboard or on detailed reports that the user could
navigate to from the dashboard
Level 3 (Action) Level Metrics – These metrics enable the users to take corrective
measures. They should either be displayed on the subordinate pages or be
rendered as a detailed report to which the user could navigate from the dashboard.
Level 4 (OLTP Pages) – In select cases, when access to the OLTP page is critical
fro taking action. path will be provided to access the transactional application
pages from the dashboard. These have higher utility in “Managerial BI.”
Demand
Volatility
Mfg
Perfect
Order
Detection Level
Metrics
SNO
Cost
Cycle Times
RM
Inspect
Req RM
To Prod
Asset
Performance
Mfg
Perfect
Order
Detail
Schedule
Adherence
Supplier
On-Time
Stage
Times
RFT
Qualit
y
Supplier
Quality
Diagnosis
Level Metrics
FG Sched To
Inspect Dispatch
Mfg
Schedule
Complexity Changes
RM, WIP + Schedule
FG
Cycle
Inventory Variances
Mfg
Cost
Detail
Action
Level Metrics
(Source: AMR)
Role of Analytic Workflow
Dashboard will be designed to support key analytic work flows that support a complete
process; from detection to action.
The entire work flow should be designed to take the user from detection of a problem to
action in less than four steps. A sample of work flow is provided below.
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Level 1 : Detect Problem
DSO is unacceptably high
Overdue Balance is trending up
Level 2 : Analyze Problem
For how long has the underlying
overdue balance been pending?
What customers are causing high
DSO?
Level 3 : Get Detail Information
Get Invoice details that are overdue
Take Action
Target collection efforts to
reduce overdue balances
Planning for Dashboard Pages
The Dashboard will be divided into up to eight (8) pages, including an overview page
and up to seven (7) subordinate pages. Samples of these are shown in the figure below
The Overview page should contain only the key (Level 1) metrics that are high-level
indicators of the business. These metrics/reports should be the ones that the user would
like to first thing in the morning when the user comes to work.
Subordinate pages are the dashboard pages behind the front, Overview, page. Each of
these pages should be organized around a theme that could be a business objective, a
sub-process of the business process addressed by the dashboard, etc. These pages contain
Level 2 (Diagnosis) and Level 3 (Action) metrics.
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Exception Page
In business processes that are managed by exception, include an exception page that
drives the user to time-critical issues. Examples of exceptions are the following:
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Top 10 Sales Orders that have not been filled by the scheduled date
Top 5 customers who are late paying their bills
Top 10 manufacturing work orders that have not been completed by the Required
Date
Top 10 purchase orders that are not filled past the expected date
Planning for Drilling
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Plan for in-place drilling along hierarchy to provide successive level of detail
along the dimensional hierarchy.
Values of KPIs will be cross-drillable to either a detailed report (as shown in the
figure below or to an appropriate dashboard page
Plan on including a Return button at the destination to return the user to the
origin. In the example above, the return button returns the user from the Contract
Utilization report to the Procurement KPI window.
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Drilling should be designed such that the user is taken from a detection-level
metric to the OLTP page in no more than four steps.
This navigation is enabled by making numbers drillable using “Value Interaction” as
shown in the figure below.
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Planning for Guided Navigation
Guided navigations will be utilized in the following cases:
 When navigating to a report or page on a different dashboard
 When navigation is subject meeting an exception condition
 When an embedded link (as shown in the figure above) is not intuitive
Avoid using more than 2 guided navigations per page as it clutters up the page.
Planning for Detailed Reports
Detailed reports should be planned carefully to enable action without having excessive
number of columns and dimensions.
The following is a good example of a detailed report because this report can enable a user
to narrow down the source of problem (e.g., high contract leakage for an item category
procured through a specific purchase organization, with a specific buyer) to the extent
required to take specific action.
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Dashboard Design Standards
Dashboard Layout Formats
Default Dashboard Template
Use the default design template “Oracle10”
Columns and Sections Layout
The Dashboard layout could have up to three columns, with a single column at the top,
stretching the length of the page for an embedded Dashboard prompt.
The figure above shows some typical layouts for dashboard pages.
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Each report will be placed into its own section, and each section will be set to
“Collapsible”, and will have the title of the report as the section title with the display
section name checked to on.
The section containing the prompt will be set to collapsible, and will have the section
name turned on. The default name for this section will be “Selections”.
Section default settings will include “Drill in Place” checked to on.
No layout shall result in horizontal scrolling or vertical of more than one page.
Border position and Border Style will be set to “Default”
Dashboard Prompts
Dashboard prompt will normally be placed in a single column at the top of the page, in its
own section.
The column containing the prompt will have Border Position set to “All.”
The section will not be collapsible when the filter fields are one-row high. Two- or
more-row high sections will be collapsible.
In the event that a prompt contains a single selection does not logically fit across the
entire page, the prompt can be placed in the left most column. Static-text filler can be
added to the top of the upper most report on the right; or more meaningful filler such as a
guided navigation box can be used, as shown in the thumbnail in the upper right of the
figure above.
The standard is that each Dashboard page does have an embedded prompt.
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Prompts will only have “Group” breaks if the prompt will extend past one screen
The section containing the prompts will not have a section title as it is not necessary but
causes unnecessary clutter.
A brief and business name of each prompt field will be displayed on top of the fields.
The “Go” button will be activated.
Although there is a consistency of prompts across the dashboard pages, prompts on each
page is specific to the page.
Dashboard Width
Dashboards will have zero scrolling from right to left, and a maximum scrolling of two
screens from top to bottom. This will require that report widths are appropriately sized to
fit into single, double, or triple column Dashboard layouts.
In the event that a report width will exceed the standard (one screen width), the report
should be handled using one of the following approaches:
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The report style should broken into multiple cross-tab views in order to make
the width fit into a single screen. For example, if a report requires 15
columns, and that causes the report width to be three screens wide, the report
can be broken into three, five column wide cross-tab views within the same
report. To the user, this will appear as a nicely stacked cross tab report with
three layers of metrics. This can be done by selecting all 15 metrics within the
criteria tab, adding three cross-tab views, and then including five metrics and
excluding 10 metrics within each cross-tab view. This style of report will still
allow the user to export all 15 metrics into Excel (since all 15 metrics are
included in the report); and it will allow them to view all 15 metrics on a
single screen (rather than scrolling from left to right); and if it is necessary to
scroll top to bottom to see all 15 metrics, the user can use the mouse roller
button to scroll from top to bottom. An alternative which will also save on
vertical scrolling space is to place the multiple cross-tabs into a view selector,
showing one cross-tab at a time.
In the event that breaking the report vertically is not an option, the report
should not be displayed within a Dashboard, and should only be accessible
through a directory listing of that report. The best method would be to access
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these large reports as already converted PDF files rather than displaying them
as HTML reports within the Dashboard.
When all metrics are not required to be displayed simultaneously, column
selectors should be used to allow the user to select the columns that they wish
to have displayed simultaneously, while limiting the total number of columns
to have zero left to right scrolling.
Additional space can be gained on the Dashboard by using the “Format
Column” and “Format Section” option in the Dashboard editor. Under the
“Additional Formatting Options” section, you may set the padding related
fields to 0 which will reduce the amount of space between columns and
sections. Try exploring the difference in setting the Top Padding and Bottom
Padding to 0 versus setting all padding cells to 0.
Number of Dashboard Pages
No more than eight (8) Dashboard tabs will be displayed within any given Dashboard,
and in no case, should the Dashboard tabs extend off the edge of the page. In the event
that more tabs are required, they should be broken apart into separate Dashboards.
Layout of Front Page
The front page of the dashboard will be titled “Overview.”
Include one or two alerts on the Overview page.
The section in the upper left corner, below the prompt section, will contain Key
Performance Indicators (KPI’s) that best represent the health of the applicable business
process. A sample of the KPI section is depicted below. The KPI section will have the
following characteristics:
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No more than six (6) KPI’s will be in the section
For each KPI, show the value, a benchmark such as target or Change from year
ago, and a conditionally-formatted indicator.
The KPI values will be linked to a detail tab or a summary report that will enable
the user to analyze the details behind the KPI values
Try to keep this section un-cluttered; provide additional information, if needed, in
the target page or the target report to which the user will navigate from the KPI
value
No legend for “Conditional Indicators.”
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The upper right section, below the prompt section, will contain a key metric that the user
would frequently track. It could be a set of dial charts or trend. A sample of this section
is shown below.
Up to three more reports could be included in the lower half of the page. These reports
should preferable contain high-level, high-value reports.
Layout of Subordinate Pages
Subordinate pages are the dashboard pages behind the front, Overview, page. Each of
these pages should be organized around a theme that could be a business objective or a
sub-process. Examples of these pages are in the figure below.
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The subordinate pages could have up to six reports under the dashboard prompt section.
All the reports on the page should center around the dashboard theme.
Data Formatting Standards
The following are the suggested standard for data types to be used in dashboard design.
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Percentages
o Treat Numbers As: Percentage
o Negative Format: Minus: -123
o Digits: 1
o Use 1000’s Separator: Y
o Resulting format: 90.1% or -90.1%
Large Number – Used for variables such as revenue, or PO lines, or quantity
ordered
o Treat Numbers As: Number
o Negative Format: Minus: -123
o Digits: 0
o Use 1000’s Separator: Y
o Resulting format: 90 or -90
Small Number – Used for variables such as DSO, ratios (production-to-plan),
linearity, etc.
o Treat Numbers As: Number
o Negative Format: Minus: -123
o Digits: 2
o Use 1000’s Separator: Y
o Resulting format: 1.49 or -0.51
o
Currency
o Treat Numbers As: Currency
o Currency Symbol: $ Warehouse Default
o Negative Format: Parentheses: (123)
o Digits: 2
o Use 1000’s Separator: Y
o Resulting format: $90.00 or ($90.00)
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These are just guidelines. You may want to have more or less digits for
Percentages and Numbers or you may want to have red parentheses for
currency.
Please save as the system-wide default for your specific metric.
DO NOT SAVE as the system-wide default for this data type. This can cause
formatting of other metrics to change and can cause a lot of rework.
Headers and Footers
NOTE: Headers and Footer will not be set on out-of-the-box OBIA dashboards. This
section is meant to guide the deployment team.
The standard is that all Dashboards have a header and footer configured. The
headers/footers will automatically be rendered when a Dashboard page is exported to
PDF via the Print to PDF feature. Basic tags such as: Bold, Italic, Underline & Line
Break are supported within this dialog. In addition, users can insert reserved system
variables such as: Saved Name, Author name, Date, Time, Page Number & Images
directly into the various header/footer textboxes. Notice there is also an option to expose
the header/footers with the online dashboards via the Display in browser when applicable
using the checkbox.
 The standard is to place the company logo in the center of the header; the page
number in the center of the footer, the date and time on the right of the footer, and a
confidentiality statement on the left of the footer.
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Example of both a Header and a Footer viewed from Adobe Acrobat:
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Headers & footers can also be applied at the individual report level from within
the Compound Layout view. This will enable a header/footer if the end user
decides to Print to PDF from the Print link under an individual report or from
within the Print Preview dialog.
Page Break between Sections
The standard is to add page breaks within the Dashboard editor, such that reports may be
printed in their entirety on a single page, when possible. Note the page break only works
when the user exports the dashboard to PDF.
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Naming Conventions
Naming Conventions for Dashboard
Role-based Dashboards
The naming convention is: <Role Name><Dashboard><Additional qualifier>
Examples:
 CFO Dashboard
 Plant Manager Dashboard
 Service Manager Dashboard – Consumer Electronics
Function-specific Dashboards
The naming Convention is: <Name of the business process or functional
area><Analysis>
Examples:
 General Ledger Analysis
 Procurement and Spend Analysis
 Customer Service Analysis
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Naming Conventions for Dashboard tabs
The dashboard tabs will have a short name that represents the theme of the dashboard.
Try to keep the name less than 20 characters long.
Naming Conventions for Dashboard Reports
Report name should accurately convey what the report does, without being verbose. It should
also preferably fit on one line in the Title view of the report when the report is rendered on a
dashboard.
First letter of each primary word is capitalized
Unlike static reports that have fixed dimensionality and “group by”, dimensions related to reports
on dashboards are dynamically changed. Hence, names like, “Product Line Revenue by Region”
or “Contacts by Time and Product Line,” while suited for static reports, do not make good choices
for reports on dashboard pages, unless filter and grouping conditions do not change much.
Major considerations in naming a report are summarized below:
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What is being measured – Report title should reflect the measure or measure group
(e.g., Revenue, Revenue & Expenses, PO Quantity, Etc.)
Special Characteristics of the report – If the report has major characteristics such as a
trend, Top-10, Pareto, compare to YAGO, etc., the report title should reflect the
characteristics (e.g., Revenue Trend.., Quarterly Revenue compared to Previous Year,
Purchase Amount Trend…)
How the measure is being grouped – If grouping is fixed, it should be included in the
report title (Service Calls by Account/by Revenue /by Region, etc.) Otherwise, it should
either not be included in the title or a list of dimensions used for grouping should be
included (e.g., Revenue by Region Customer and Business Unit)
Effect of Filters – If filters are used to impart a qualifier to the measure, the report title
should reflect the filter. For example, if the report only shows Purchase Requisition
Amounts that are larger than $50,000, the report title “List of PR’s larger than $50,000”
accurately represents the report
Industry Standards – Industry standards should priority over fact-and-dimension-based
names. For example, “P&L Statement” is more meaningful than “Yearly Record of
Revenue, Expenses, and Gross Margins.”
What does the report do – Sometimes, naming based on report purpose is more
meaningful than the fact-and-dimension-based name. For example, “Purchase Contract
Leakage Analysis” is more meaningful than a complex name based on facts and
dimensions
Some suggestions are presented below:
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Service Request 80/20 Analysis
Product Line Revenue 80/20 Analysis
Expected Revenue by Region Customer and Business Unit
Top 10 Products based on Orders
Top 25 Sales Reps based on Closed Revenue
Product Line Revenue and Expense over Time
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Naming Conventions for Dashboard Prompts
All prompts should be preceded by the word “Prompt:”, and include an abbreviated
list of the attributes included in the prompt.
Examples include: “Prompt: Year, Region Name, Store Name”
Naming Conventions for Dashboard Alerts
All alerts should be preceded by the word “Alert:” and use similar naming
conventions to reports. Examples include: “Alert: Stores with Declining Customer
Satisfaction for 6 or more weeks”
Naming Conventions for Filters
All filters should be preceded by the word “Filter:” and use similar naming
conventions to reports. Examples include: “Filter: Stores open for at least One Year”
Naming Convention for View Selector
View Selector control will be titled “Select View.”
Naming Convention for Column Selector
When the column selector is used to group data by different dimensions, the column
selector will be named “View By”
When the Column selector is used to select a metric, it will be named “Select Metric.”
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Report Design Standards
Creating Formula within Reports
Avoid creating new formulas within the reports themselves (e.g. CASE statements or
calculations), but rather ensure that these are defined as metrics for inclusion into the
metadata. This is simply to avoid duplicating effort recreating metrics which could be
reused.
Report Title
Title Format
The Standard is to display in “Title” view the name under which the report has been saved by
checking “Display Saved Name”. The saved name can be overwritten, if necessary, by editing
the “Title” view but this practice is not recommended because it adds to localization efforts.
The title format – color, font, etc., should follow the default set in OBIEE Fusion Edition.
The title should accurately depict the purpose of the report – see the Section on report naming
convention – and preferably fit on a single line when rendered on a dashboard. Therefore it is
important to know whether the report will be rendered in a single-, double-, or triple-column layout
on the dashboard.
If your chart or table is drillable, please add a subtitle like “(Drill on chart for details)”
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If the report is time sensitive, the 'Started Time' & 'Finished Time' can be set to 'Display date &
time' in the Report Title. Otherwise it is not a recommended standard because it can clutter up
the title.
Report Title Image
For each report that is embedded in a dashboard, find the image you wish to use below, and then
enter that images reference in the Logo field of the Title View on the report (these will always be
prefixed with “fmap:Images/”.
The image should appear to the left of the title. The purposes below are meant as guidelines,
please use whichever image seems most appropriate.
Image
Logo Field Entry “fmap:Images/___”
fmap:Images/report_account_appl.jpg
Image
Logo Field Entry “fmap:Images/___”
fmap:Images/report_good_value.jpg
fmap:Images/report_activities.jpg
fmap:Images/report_household.jpg
fmap:Images/report_agreements.jpg
fmap:Images/report_insurance_Policy.jpg
fmap:Images/report_automotive1.jpg
fmap:Images/report_insuranceClaim.jpg
fmap:Images/report_tradefund.jpg
fmap:Images/report_automotive2.jpg
fmap:Images/report_investigative.jpg
fmap:Images/report_bad_percentage.jpg
fmap:Images/report_invoices.jpg
fmap:Images/report_bad_progress.jpg
fmap:Images/report_bottomN.jpg
fmap:Images/report_location.jpg
fmap:Images/report_bad_value.jpg
fmap:Images/report_medicalResearch.jpg
fmap:Images/report_bankAccount.jpg
fmap:Images/report_mktShare.jpg
fmap:Images/report_bankBalances.jpg
fmap:Images/report_order.jpg
fmap:Images/report_call.jpg
fmap:Images/report_phone.jpg
fmap:Images/report_callcenter.jpg
fmap:Images/report_pillcount.jpg
fmap:Images/report_cautionary_percentage.jpg
fmap:Images/report_pipeline.jpg
fmap:Images/report_cautionary_progress.jpg
fmap:Images/report_reportsCatalog.jpg
fmap:Images/report_cautionary_value.jpg
fmap:Images/report_retailAudit.jpg
fmap:Images/report_comm1.jpg
fmap:Images/report_salesrep.jpg
fmap:Images/report_comm2.jpg
fmap:Images/report_scorecard.jpg
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fmap:Images/report_cust_sat.jpg
fmap:Images/report_service_profitibility.jpg
fmap:Images/report_email.jpg
fmap:Images/report_serviceRequest.jpg
fmap:Images/report_expiration.jpg
fmap:Images/report_targetActual.jpg
fmap:Images/report_forecasting.jpg
fmap:Images/report_tradepromo.jpg
fmap:Images/report_generic.jpg
fmap:Images/report_salesVolume.jpg
fmap:Images/report_trends.jpg
fmap:Images/report_geographical.jpg
fmap:Images/report_universal_queue.jpg
fmap:Images/report_good_percentage.jpg
fmap:Images/report_win_lossDeals.jpg
fmap:Images/report_good_progress.jpg
fmap:Images/report_topN.jpg
Report Width
Reports must be designed to appropriately fit into a single, double or triple column
layout. When using tabular and cross-tab report views, their report width should be set to
100% so that they expand to fit the allowed column space.
When using cross-tabs that have a drillable element in the columns, the standard is to also
allow a tabular view option using a view selector, which can be switched to in the event
that a drill-down causes the report to extend beyond the edge of the page.
Report Prompts
Any report appearing on a dashboard page will not have report-specific prompt selection
controls, as shown in the figure below
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If there is a need to analyze the report along a larger set of dimensions, provide a
duplicate report with more dimension selectors than what is on the dashboard page.
Use of Chart and Tables
View Selector
View Selector control will be titled “Select View.” The view selector will be placed
above the table/chart. If using the View Selector to allow the user to switch from
chart type to chart type, each chart should be named so as to be descriptive of its type.
Whenever there is more than one selector – column and view combined – the “Go”
button will be activated
Column Selector
Column selectors are used to save space and actively manipulate what is displayed on the
dashboard. It can be used to select metrics to display. It can also be used to select
dimension to change the grouping of data.
Select Metric to Display
Column selector can be used with a table view to save space. For example, if the report
has 9 metrics but there is space on the dashboard to display only 3, column selectors can
be used to display all 9 columns, three at a time.
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Do not use column selectors with compound charts such as Line/Bar combination chart
or Pie chart without understanding the implication of changing column selection on the
chart
Select Dimension for Grouping Results
If the report request has a choice of several dimensions, the column selector can be used
to view the data by different dimensions such as by PO Category or By Supplier or by
Operating Unit, etc.
General
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No more than 3 column selectors per report will be used. If more than one
selector is used, they will be in the same order as the columns they alter.
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The selectors will be displayed on top of the table/chart, preferably in a single
row.
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When a single selector – column + View - is used, the “Go” button should be
turned off (set within the properties of the column selector); when more than one
column selector is used, the “Go” button should be enabled so that the user can
make all of their selections before refreshing the report.
Conditional Formatting
General Formatting Guidelines
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If you wish to use graphics for highlighting, use only those displayed.
If you use graphics, remember to use the “null” images for the conditions that are not
met, so alignment of text and numbers is preserved.
When using conditional formatting, remember to include a legend in your report.
Conditional formatting allows conditions on other columns in your report and not just for
the same column with the formatting, i.e. if you are doing comparisons with historical
data, you can try using the red down arrows and blue up arrows to indicate trends.
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Advanced Conditional Formatting Guidelines
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An advanced conditional formatting is shown below. White bold text on red background,
Black bold text on yellow background, White bold text on green background.

Here’s the HTML for the legend box in the Static Text view:
<table class=oc bgcolor=#F7F7F7>
<td class=oc align=center><b>AHT (Sec)</b></td>
<td bgcolor=red class=oc width=50 align=center><font color=white><b>>
300</b></font></td>
<td bgcolor=yellow class=oc width=50 align=center><font color=black><b>240300</b></font></td>
<td bgcolor=green class=oc width=50 align=center><font color=white><b><
240</b></font></td>
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<tr></tr>
<td class=oc align=center><b>% Wrap, % Idle</b></td>
<td bgcolor=red class=oc width=50 align=center><font color=white><b>>
5%</b></font></td>
<td bgcolor=yellow class=oc width=50 align=center><font color=black><b>4.25%5%</b></font></td>
<td bgcolor=green class=oc width=50 align=center><font color=white><b><
4.25%</b></font></td>
<tr></tr>
<td class=oc align=center><b>Avg SR Resolution (Days)</b></td>
<td class=oc width=50 align=center><font color=red><b>>= 5</b></font></td>
<td class=oc width=50 align=center><font color=green><b>< 5</b></font></td>
<tr></tr>
<td class=oc align=center><b>Avg Email Resolution (Hours)</b></td>
<td class=oc width=50 align=center><img border=0
src="Res/s_Siebel7/Meters/icon/sm/Error.gif"><font color=red><b>> 8</b></font></td>
<td class=oc width=50 align=center><img border=0
src="Res/s_Siebel7/Meters/icon/sm/Msg.gif"><b>5-8</b></td>
<td class=oc width=50 align=center><img border=0
src="Res/s_Siebel7/Meters/icon/sm/spacer.gif"><font
color=blue><b><5</b></font></td>
</table>
Note: The above example presents a nice display using Windows named colors. You can
also use following three colors circled and mentioned below.
Hex colors to be substituted for green, yellow, and red
in above example.
Green: “#7EB679”
Yellow: “#F1E87D”
Red: “#CC3333”
Standards for Tabular Reports


In an individual report the parent attribute should always be located in the left-outermost column followed by the respective children (in hierarchical order) if there are
any.
If an Enterprise Analytics Applications has Logical Column Names that are identical
within the same Subject Area, rename and prefix both columns so end-users can
differentiate between the two columns (e.g. Finished Goods Product Name , BOM
Product Name).
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




Do not use Green Bar Shading in tables that are
o Less than 10 displayed rows or
o Have drillable columns
For tables larger than 10 displayed rows and no drillable column, use green bar
shading
Enable column sorting
Place paging control at the bottom
Stretch table view to 100% width
o The standard is to expand all table views to fit 100% within the available
space in the column, on the Dashboards where they are placed. From within
the Table View, click on the Table View Properties icon. Expand the
Additional Formatting Options and enter Width = 100% and press the OK
button. After you save the report and publish it to a dashboard the reports will
stretch to 100% of the available Dashboard Section. If the user exports the
report to PDF via the Print to PDF feature the report will also stretch to 100%
of the available PDF document.
Standards for Charts
General Chart Standards

Legend
o Legend should be placed on top of charts with rectilinear axis (Bar charts,
line charts, Area Graph, etc.)
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

o Legend for free-form charts, such as a Pie Chart, could be either on top or
on the left side, depending on the number of legend elements and available
space.
Data labels
o Data labels will be display will be set to “Default (On Rollover)” for all
charts except the Pie Chart. For the Pie Chart, it will be set to “Always”
unless the Pie chart has more than six (6) wedges or when the possibility
of an overlap exists (such as a pie chart with many small wedges).
o When reports are likely to be printed, and the standard dictates that data
labels are not displayed, the best practice will be to create a compound
report, and place a tabular or pivot table report under the chart; or allow
the tabular or pivot table to be selected using a view selector.
Number of Bars or Wedges Displayed
o Limit the number of measure groups in bar charts to 10 and in pie chart to
six (6) when combination of prompts and “View by” results in large data
sets to avoid illegible carts such as the one in the Figure below
o Number of bars or wedges could limited to 10 or 6 by applying filter
condition <some measure> “is in Top 10”
o This might pose a limitation if the chart and the associated table are
displayed in a compound view or a view selector in included for switching
between the two views. (Note: Number of data points charted will be tied
to the number of rows displayed in the associated table in a future
enhancement)
o If there is a large number of a data point, a better approach is to display
some meaningful summary of tabular data in the chart in a compound
view, as shown in the sample below. In this example, the pie chart
displays the ratio of amounts over the entire data set.
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
Chart Colors, Fonts, Backgrounds, Color Series
o The standard shall be to use the default colors, background colors and
fonts that have been established for charts. The only exception to this will
be resetting the color series of the chart when trying to “call out” a
particular part of the series, such as specifically coloring bars, pie wedges,
or clusters because they are an exception, or represent future dates, etc.
Vertical Bar Charts




Vertical bar charts will be used to display value by group or comparison of one
value to another (e.g., compared to previous year, or planned and actual
production by product group)
Data will be manipulated to limit the displayed data series to less than 10
Standard will be two-dimensional chart using “cylindrical” chart types. If more
than one vertical bat chart is displayed on a dashboard page, chart type other than
cylindrical could be used for some of them.
When a chart is drillable, it is the standard to provide a view selector to allow the
user to switch between the charted view and a table view. This convention is to
allow the user to switch to the table view of data in the event that their drill-down
has caused a chart display to become less legible, for example, if the user drilled
into a bar on a bar chart, and the chart returned with dozens of bars at the lower
level of hierarchy. The user could switch to the table view to once again have a
legible view of the data, and could switch back to the chart view if subsequent
levels of drill down have a more manageable number of elements returned.
Horizontal Bar Charts

Horizontal bar chart will be used to display a trend or sorting of data, when data
series has less than 10 values.
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Pie Charts
Line-Bar Combination Chart

The standard is to only use line-bar combo charts when the “line” is a metric
such as a percentage, with a minimum possible number of -100 or zero, and a
maximum possible number of 100; or a difference, index or ranking. Line-bar
combos should not place similar metrics as bars and lines, for example, dollars
this year as bars and dollars last year as lines should be avoided, because the
chart will automatically reset the maximum number displayed on each axis
based upon the actual data, and this may create an incorrect picture of the
data.
For example, the chart below shows an incorrect use of this chart type, by
using “Dollars” in both the bar-axis and line-axis. The charting engine has
automatically resized the right and left axis with different maximum numbers,
causing the line data to appear greater than the bar data, when in fact is it
lower. These maximums should not be manually reset, because when drilling
or filtering on this data, the maximums will be retained which will skew the
height of the bars and lines.
The example below shows a correct use of this chart, in that the bar-axis displays
dollars, and the line-axis displays a change from the previous year. This use of
the combination chart is much more meaningful because at a single glance, the
user can tell that while overall numbers are increasing, the change from last year
is inconsistent.
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HTML (Programmed) Chart
As a web-based product, OBIEE allows creative programmatic reports to be
created by programming HTML within the “Calculation” definition of any metric.
The following example uses the formula shown below to overlay two metrics
such as actual inventory versus inventory goal.
HTML Formula
The following formula uses a combination of CASE logic to allow an indicator to
be color coded based on severity, and HTML programming to overlay to metrics,
while fitting the size of the “bars” to fit within the given space. This formula was
added via the “Calculation” tab within the “Indicator” column.
CASE
WHEN (Measures.”Instock”) / Measures.”Instock Goal” < .5 THEN
'<table><tr><td style="padding-left:0" width=' ||
CAST(Measures.”Instock Goal” AS VARCHAR(20)) || '
bgcolor=#7F00FF height=16> <table><tr><td width=' ||
CAST(Measures.”Instock” AS VARCHAR(20)) || ' bgcolor=#FF6666
height=12> </td></tr></table> </td><td class=oc>' ||
CAST(Measures.”Instock Goal” AS VARCHAR(20)) ||
'</td></tr></table>'
WHEN (Measures.”Instock”) / Measures.”Instock Goal” < .7 THEN
'<table><tr><td style="padding-left:0" width=' ||
CAST(Measures.”Instock Goal” AS VARCHAR(20)) || '
bgcolor=#7F00FF height=16> <table><tr><td width=' ||
CAST(Measures.”Instock” AS VARCHAR(20)) || ' bgcolor=#FFFF7E
height=12> </td></tr></table> </td><td class=oc>' ||
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CAST(Measures.”Instock Goal” AS VARCHAR(20)) ||
'</td></tr></table>'
ELSE
'<table><tr><td style="padding-left:0" width=' ||
CAST(Measures.”Instock Goal” AS VARCHAR(20)) || '
bgcolor=#7F00FF height=16> <table><tr><td width=' ||
CAST(Measures.”Instock” AS VARCHAR(20)) || ' bgcolor=#76EE00
height=12> </td></tr></table> </td><td class=oc>' ||
CAST(Measures.”Instock Goal” AS VARCHAR(20)) ||
'</td></tr></table>'
END
Additional Report Object Standards
Other Best Practices
Filters



For dynamic customer data, default Enterprise Analytics Applications
analyses should only contain IS PROMPTED filters (i.e. nothing should be
hard-coded).
Saved filters should be used when you wish to filter a lot of reports by a set
number of filtered columns. For example, if you wish to filter to the current
year, create and reference a Shared Filter called “Current Year” instead of
Year = 1999, or create a Shared Filter called “Current Year Prompted” instead
of Year is prompted.
Here’s the list of repository variables that can be used in your filters:
o CURRENT_DAY
o CURRENT_FSCL_MONTH
o CURRENT_FSCL_QUARTER
o CURRENT_FSCL_YEAR
o CURRENT_FSCL_WEEK
o CURRENT_JULIAN_DAY_NUM
o CURRENT_MONTH
o CURRENT_QUARTER
o CURRENT_YEAR
o CURRENT_WEEK
o LAST_REFRESH_DT
o NEXT_FSCL_MONTH
o NEXT_FSCL_QUARTER
o NEXT_FSCL_YEAR
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
o NEXT_FSCL_WEEK
o NEXT_MONTH
o NEXT_QUARTER
o NEXT_YEAR
o NEXT_WEEK
o PREVIOUS_FSCL_MONTH
o PREVIOUS_FSCL_QUARTER
o PREVIOUS_FSCL_YEAR
o PREVIOUS_FSCL_WEEK
o PREVIOUS_MONTH
o PREVIOUS_QUARTER
o PREVIOUS_YEAR
o PREVIOUS_WEEK
To use repository variables in your filters, select Add -> Variable and type in
the variable name into the field.
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