Introduction

In one of the previous article (linkhere) we have seen how to display total no of rows fetched by an OTBI Analysis, Display Logged In User’s Application User-Name, Current Date and Time. But just to remind that these are not the only functions available to be used.

There are a whole gamut of functions categorized under:

Aggregate

Running Aggregate

String

Math

Calendar/Date

Conversion

System

Expressions

DB Functions

Time Series Calculations

One may find the list if one navigates to any of the Data Fields used in Analysis and then click on “Edit Formula”. A new popup window opens up and there is a Button Titled “f()..’ . Once we click on the same the following screen opens up:

Most of the functions perform some specific operations on the actual data rendered by the Analysis, however there are few functions which might be common to many analysis couple of example being displaying the Day Name, Day of Year, Day of Quarter, Username, Day of Month….etc etc

At this point one obvious question which might arise to many users would be what is the actual benefit / value-addition a business used will have if he/she is aware of these delivered functions. And while there could be many reasons for the same my answer is as below:

OTBI was originally designed for use by business users.

As such any business user at any point of time should be aware of the delivered functions.

Couple of advantages (with sepcific reference to the delivered function follows):

1. Logged in User Name

For an OTBI Analysis the data rendered is dependent on the logged in user(who runs the report). So while UserA may get 10 Purchase Order related details (for example), UserB will get 20 Purchase Orders. So the data rendered doesn't make any sense unless the logged in user details are provided.

2. Current Date

Unlike BI Report an OTBI Analysis always gives Current Date data. So Current Date should always be printed in an OTBI Report . Hence being aware of this function helps.

3. Current Year, Current Month, Current Quarter

These functions can be of importance while creating financial reports. Being aware of the function helps

And many more...

For this example we would use a couple of these functions and display them in a Narrative View.

Details of the functions below:

Once these details have been populated we would get the requisite data in the “Results” tab. We would need to create a new “Narrative View” and Navigation is View ->New View (using )

Screenshot below:

Next we need to choose Other Views -> Narrative View as shown

Once we do that we need to design the Narrative View. The details used are in the table below:

These details when populated in the application would appear as shown below:

We can now save the analysis. Remove the Title and Table views. Add this Narrative View and the results would appear as below:

Inference / Summary

So this is how one may use the delivered functions in a OBI Analysis. While I have used Narrative View here one may choose any of the other available ones too. Also apart from the functions used here there are multiple other functions which can be used.

That’s it from my side , have a nice day!

Hopefully the content was useful

Ashish Harbhajanka

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