Dashboards in Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence for Financial Reporting

Understanding dashboard functions

Dashboards offer custom views of corporate and external information. A dashboard can have one or more pages and will have at least one empty page for editing.When you open a dashboard, the dashboard content appears in pages with tabs to identify each page. This arrangement allows you to perform the following actions:

Alter the dashboard if you have the correct permissions and privileges.

Show different options for working with a dashboard page.

Carry out options with the Dashboard Builder.

Dashboard pages can show anything you can reach or open with a Web browser, such as the following:

Action links and action link menus

Agent alerts

Analysis results

Business Intelligence (BI) Publisher reports

Document links

Embedded content, including Web pages or documents

Folder views in the BI Presentation Catalog

Images

Text

Web site links

Analysis results are the output the BI server gives back that matches the analysis criteria. You can display these results in several ways, including a table or graph, where you can do the following:

Go through and analyze results.

Print the results as a PDF or HTML.

Save the results as a PDF or export them to a spreadsheet.

When exporting or printing, you can control settings, such as the orientation (landscape or portrait). You can also decide whether you want to include charts, images, and formatting. Additionally, you can include a header and footer.

Using the Dashboard Builder

You can use the Dashboard Builder to add new pages or alter existing pages in a dashboard. It also lets you include objects and manage the layout of dashboard pages. The following are objects you can include:

Dashboard objects: These are objects that you only use in a dashboard.

For example, segments to hold content, action links, and embedded content that appear in a frame in the dashboard

Catalog objects: These are items that someone saved in the BI Presentation Catalog.

For example, analyses and prompts for which you have the correct permissions

Embedding an analysis in a dashboard makes it automatically operate and show the most up-to-date results each time you access the dashboard. This gives you access to the latest results. You can also embed analyses you saved with the Dashboard Editor.

Accessing and updating dashboards

The Dashboard Builder lets you create or edit dashboards. When you create a dashboard, you have the option to add content now or later. If you want a dashboard to appear in the global header's Dashboard menu, save the dashboard in the Dashboards subfolder under a shared folder's first-level subfolder. The dashboard will not appear in the Dashboard menu list if you save it elsewhere.

The first time you attempt to save a dashboard within a first-level subfolder, the application will create a folder called Dashboard, and the Location field will automatically change to that folder. This Dashboard folder is required in these first-level subfolders for you to save dashboards in them. If you use a different level subfolder, the system will not create a specific dashboards folder.

Places you can add or modify content include:

A new dashboard in the Dashboard Builder, which has one blank page and is open for editing.

An empty dashboard that you establish but don’t show and for which you can include content at a later time.

Overview of Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence

Understanding types of reporting in Oracle Cloud

Oracle Cloud applications provide customers with generational reporting. There are three types of reporting in Cloud:

Financial Reporting Center

Embedded analytics

Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence (OTBI)

The Financial Reporting Center provides multiple reporting methods. Oracle considers it to be a self-service reporting tool. It provides you with the ability to conduct analyses against real-time accounting information. Embedded analytics allow users to view real-time updates of data, making it easier to access and see the impact of that data.

With traditional business intelligence (BI), data is usually historic in nature and looks backwards. In Oracle Cloud applications, BI works in real time. It is both historic and predictive, providing broad insight for improved decision-making.

From a solution perspective, there are three key components that make up BI:

The first is a real-time, self-service reporting and analysis capability. You can pull transactional-level details for ad hoc analyses that can be very granular.

The second is a historical, complex analysis that typically requires a data warehouse to do a complex cycle of analysis, historical trends, and year-over-year comparison.

Lastly, advanced analytics provide domain-specific analyses, leveraging the underlying BI foundation.

The key observation about these three components is that from an end-user perspective, they don’t look different. From a functional architecture perspective, there is integration between BI and Cloud applications.

Exploring OTBI key features

OTBI provides strategic insight to your business, addressing questions about operational responsibilities. The reports it generates come directly from transactional tables and allow you to see alterations happening in real time. OTBI shows transactional analytics in different forms, including the following:

Charts

Columns

Fields

Icons

Inserted rows

Labels

Tables

OTBI runs queries straight from Cloud tables and doesn’t need a data warehouse or a data source. OTBI is primarily an ad hoc reporting layer against the Cloud transactional tables and balances cube; it allows ad hoc analysis with the Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) platform. The main strength of this design is its ability to let you create unique reports and carry out ad hoc analyses.

OTBI includes the following interactive features:

Permits users to include graphs and build dashboards as well as establish ad hoc queries.

Uses OBIEE features, such as alerts.

Transfers data and contextualizes Cloud and BI.

Semantic model and extensible features

A semantic model is informational in that it allows the modeling of entities and their relationships. Extensibility is a principle of system design whereby the implementation considers future growth. OTBI supports consistency in the semantic model and in the extensible features. In addition, OTBI includes hierarchies that it transmits to BI from Cloud applications. It also contains a unified definition for key entities, including dates, invoices, and customers. The architecture uses Cloud application ideas (such as flexfield and trees) to extend functionality. OTBI also includes schemas optimized for reporting.

Integration with Cloud applications
OTBI can combine with different Cloud applications. You can navigate straight from Cloud applications with a single sign-on, and you can embed content from Cloud applications within OTBI. Since users' roles apply the same in OTBI as they do in the Cloud user interface, it has the same functional and data security as Cloud applications.

Additional features in OTBI
Oracle continues to add key features and functionalities to Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence for Financials.

The following list details some additional features for OTBI:

Budgetary Control: The Budgetary Control subject area supports receipt accounting information for reporting.

Cash Management: Legal Entity and Fiscal Period folders are available within the Cash Management subject areas. You can sort the Cash Management key performance indicators (KPI) according to Legal Entity and Fiscal Period. The External Transaction Accounting folder is available within the External Cash Transactions Real Time subject area.

Expenses: Credit card transaction data and expense report approval notes are available within the Expenses subject area.

Expenses: OTBI for Financials provides the capability to drill from an OTBI ad hoc report based on Expenses Transactions OTBI subject area to view Expense Report in Oracle Expenses.

Payables: The Payables subject areas contain the Supplier Site Address folder, which includes the Supplier Site Location Details and Supplier Site Contact Details subfolders. The Payables subject areas have the following additional columns and folders for Invoices:

Disbursements: approval iteration, header batch identifier, supplier alternate name

Holds: approval iteration, header batch identifier, purchase order status, supplier alternate name

The invoice header holds: hold identifier, hold date, hold release date, hold name, hold description, hold reason, held by, released by, hold details, hold release name, hold release description, release reason, invoice hold workflow status, invoice hold receipt number, hold creation date, hold created by, hold last updated date, hold last updated by

The invoice line level holds: line hold identifier, line hold date, line hold release date, line hold name, line hold description, line hold reason, line held by, line released by, line hold details, line hold release name, line hold release description, line release reason, line invoice hold workflow status, line invoice hold receipt number, line hold creation date, line hold created by, line hold last updated date, line hold last updated by

The Invoice Amounts and Invoice Line Amounts folders contain the following columns: line hold count, released line hold count, total number of holds, total number of active holds

Installments: header batch identifier, supplier alternate name

Prepayments: approval iteration, header batch identifier, purchase order status, supplier alternate name

Transactions: purchase order status, approval iteration, header batch identifier

Withholding: supplier alternate name

Revenue Management: The Revenue Management subject areas have the following additional folders and columns for customer contracts:

Customer Contracts Real Time: This subject area includes attributes that support reporting activity when the system automatically renews revenue contracts as well as suspends and reinstates satisfaction events for revenue contracts that are based on periods.

Revision Intent: Manual revenue required flag, add to existing flag, add to existing contract flag, add to contact action code, revision intent type code, latest version date, latest revision intent code columns are included in Promised Details. The Promised Details folder includes the Promised Detail Contract Revision Details subfolder and the Promised Detail Contract Revision Amounts subfolder. Latest version date and latest revision intent code columns are included in Performance Obligations and Customer Contracts. The Performance Obligations folder contains the Devolved Series, Series Details, and Series Amounts subfolders.

Contract and Performance Obligation Reference: Contract Identification Rules Details and Performance Obligation Template folders include the Columns Copy Reference flag and Reference prefix.

Unit Selling Price from source: The Promised detail source document line and the Source document line reference folders include Unit SSP and Net Unit SSP columns.

Clear Residual Account Balances: The Customer Details folder includes these attributes: residual balance adjustment status and exclude from automatic, write-off, last activity date, satisfaction, status, and contract full satisfaction date.

Contact Group Number: The Contract Details folder includes a Contact group number column. The Contract Identification Rules Details folder includes a Use as group number flag column.

Fixed Assets: The Fixed Assets subject areas let you access non-qualified segments and qualified General Ledger segments in the Depreciation Accounting Details folder. To see these fields, you must run the BI Extender.

Receivables: OTBI for Financials provides the capability to drill from an OTBI ad hoc report based on a Receivables OTBI subject area to Customer details (Collections Customer UI) in Oracle Receivables.

Receivables: The Receivables subject areas include an Email Recipients reporting attribute. The Receivables subject areas have the following additional reporting attributes for folders and subfolders:

Customer Accounts folder:

Subfolders: Customer Account Bank Account Details and Customer Account Debit Authorizations

Reporting attributes: bank account primary, bank account version number, bank account signing date, bank account cancellation date, bank account effective start date, bank account effective end date, bank account transaction type, bank account debit authorization method, bank account reason for amendment, bank account creditor identifier, bank account debtor, bank account debit authorization status

Customer Account Site folder:

Subfolders: Customer Account Site Debit Authorizations

Reporting attributes: site account primary, site account version number, site account reference number, site account signing date, site account cancellation date, site account effective start date, site account effective end date, site account transaction type, site account debit authorization method, site account reason for amendment, site account creditor identifier, site account creditor, site account debtor, site account debit authorization status

Customer Accounts folder:

Subfolders: Profile Credit and Collections

Reporting attributes: account profile credit analyst, order amount limit

Customer Account Site folder:

Subfolders: Customer Account Site Payment Details

Reporting attributes: site payment channel, site payment channel code

Receivables subject area: Miscellaneous Receipts Real Time and Miscellaneous Receipt Details

Folder: Miscellaneous Receipt Details

Reporting attributes: payment channel, payment channel code

Receivables subject area: Standard Receipts Application Details Real Time

Folder: Standard Receipt Details

Reporting attributes: batch identifier, batch status

Receivables subject area: Transactions Real Time

Folder: Payment

Reporting attributes: payment channel, payment channel code

Sample reports

The following list represents some of the available OTBI reports for Financials:

Account Analysis Report

Bank Statement Analysis Report

General Journals Report

Intercompany Transaction Summary Report

Payables Credit Memo Matching Report

Payables Discount Taken and Lost Report

Payables Invoice Audit by Voucher Number Listing

Payables Invoice Audit Listing

Payables Invoice Register

Payables Negative Supplier Balance Report

Payables Payment Register

Payables Posted Invoice Register

Payables Posted Payment Register

Payables to Ledger Reconciliation Report

Payables Withholding Tax by Tax Authority Report

Payables Withholding Tax Report

Receivables to Ledger Reconciliation Report

Trial Balance Report

Using the BI Administration Tool

Use the BI Administration Tool to set up the metadata called the Repository (also known as the Repository Protocol Design or RPD) and the repository files. The Repository consists of the following three layers:

Physical layer: Configures the database table structure and the relationships

Business Model and Mapping layer: Sorts information by business model, identifying the logical dimensions and facts

Presentation layer: Sorts the information by subject area, folders, and columns; represents the user’s view of the business model

In OTBI, you can use View Objects (VOs) via an application development framework (ADF) as the physical source rather than the database tables. The benefits to this are as follows:

It updates the same security model as Cloud applications.

It enhances the performance of the queries through SQL pruning. This pruning takes some of the partitions out of consideration while carrying out statement execution.

Using star schemas

You can set up star schemas for Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence analysis and reporting. The star schema is a data model, so named because it looks like a star, made up of several tables. Relational databases frequently use star schemas.

Key characteristics of star schemas include the following:

At least one fact table at the center

The fact tables link with several dimension tables, which make up the points of the star. The dimension tables store various transaction details.

A compound primary key that refers to various dimension tables

As an example, a star schema for analyzing receivables transactions may include the following dimension tables:

Accounting periods

Business units

Customers

Invoice details

Ledgers

Fact tables and dimension tables

A fact table is at the center of a star schema. The fact table has measures (or business facts) and connections to at least one dimension table. Within the fact table, the Foreign Keys column determine how it links with dimension tables. The measures columns within a fact table contain the data you are analyzing.

A dimension table contains additional data, which fleshes out the information regarding transactions. For example, a fact table may contain customer ID numbers for each transaction included in it. From this, the fact table links to a dimension table containing additional data about the person behind the ID number, such as their name, address, etc.

Creating a quick payment for an invoice

You will schedule an invoice payment from the Payments landing page. This will be a quick payment type, which is an individual payment that does not require submitting a payment process request. Quick payments allow you to create payments for invoices regardless of payment terms and due dates. 

Step 1

Select Right arrow.

In the live environment, you may need to select Right arrow multiple times in order to locate your desired work area.

Step 2

Select Payables.

Step 3

Select Payments.

Step 4

Select Tasks.

Step 5

Select Create Payment.

Step 6

Select Business Unit.

Step 7

In the Business Unit drop-down list, select BU

Step 8

Select Supplier or Party.

Step 9

Select Search....

Step 10

In the Party Name field, type Nonight.

Step 11

Select Search.

Step 12

In the Search Results table, select Nonight Corporation.

Step 13

Select OK.

Step 14

Select Disbursement Bank Account.

The Supplier Site and Address fields will auto-populate after selecting from the Supplier or Party drop-down menu. If it does not auto-populate, the drop-down menu will be available to manually add the supplier's information.

Step 15

In the Disbursement Bank Account drop-down list, select required Bank Account.

Step 16

Select Payment Process Profile.

After selecting the bank account, depending on how you configured the account, the Payment Method drop-down menu will auto-populate.

Step 17

In the Payment Process Profile drop-down list, select Mav Payment Process Profile Mav Payments Payment System Account.

Step 18

In the Invoices to Pay pane, select Select and Add.

Step 19

In the Search Results table, select BB2019.

In the Select and Add: Invoices to Pay table, you can select which invoices to pay. Sometimes, if there are few invoices that need to be paid for a selected supplier or party, their available invoices will be present without you having to search.

Step 20

Select OK.

Step 21

Select Save and Close.

Step 22

Select OK.

Step 23

Select Tasks.

Step 24

Select Manage Payments.

Step 25

In the Payment Date field, type 06/04/2020.

Step 26

Select Search.

Step 27

Select Done.

The Manage Payments page contains the payment that you created. This should serve as confirmation that your payment was successfully initiated.

Step 28

Select Home.

Payment creation options

Creating payments

The Create Payment page allows you to identify the business unit and supplier for the payment. The page also allows you to identify details about how you want to process the payment.

You must select a payment type for each payment. You can create the following:

Manual payment: A payment initially created outside the Payables application and manually entered into Payables

Quick payment: An individual payment you enter without submitting a payment process request

Refund: A negative-amount payment that lets you close a credit balance that is still outstanding

You must select a disbursement bank account and a payment method, which is the method that your company uses to pay supplier invoices, employee expense reports, or customer refunds.

Payment methods include the following:

Electronic methods

Example: Electronic fund transfers (EFT) and wires

Printed methods

Example: Checks

Oracle Cloud includes a number of predefined payment methods, but your organization can also create custom methods.

Understanding payment process profiles

Once you have selected the payment method for the payment, you must select a payment process profile. The payment process profile determines how Payments uses document payable, payment file, and payment during the steps for payment process. Payment process profiles are payment characteristics assigned to documents payable.

Documents payable indicates how Payments manages documents payable, payment files, and payments within the payment process.

Various details related to payment file formatting, transmission, and other information are in payment process profiles. The system uses the payment method and other details to assign payment process profiles to documents payable. Then, the payment process profiles determine the next steps for the payment process.

The following list details the main purpose and functionality of payment process profiles:

What?: The message content, contained in a data extract, is formatted according to a template.

Who?: The message is sent to a payment system. The relationship between sender and receiver is a payment system account.

How?: The values that instruct the system on how to process the message are in the transmission configuration.

Creating a funds disbursement payment method

You will create a funds disbursement payment method. This will define the process of paying creditors. A funds disbursement payment method is method through which a first-party payer (in this case, your company) disburses funds to a third-party payee. Creating this payment method will allow you to more easily create and manage payments, as well as streamline the process for future payments.

Step 1

Select Right arrow.

In the live environment, you may have to select Right arrow multiple times in order to select the Others tab.

Step 2

Select Others.

Step 3

Select Setup and Maintenance.

Step 4

Select Setup.

Step 5

Select Financials.

Step 6

Select Payments.

Step 7

Select Manage Payment Methods.

Step 8

Select Create.

Step 9

In the Name field, type Maverick Payment Method 2020.

Step 10

In the Code field, type MAVpayment.

This code is a unique piece of information that identifies this payment method.

Step 11

In the Business Units row, select Specific.

Step 12

Select Add Row.

In the next steps, you will configure usage rules for a business unit and process transaction type. These rules will assign this payment method to the Maverick Solutions Training business unit and payables documents.