Unlock the Auditing database with a new Universe and Web Intelligence Documents for BI4.1

An understanding for how your BI Platform is used and utilised will enable you as a BI Platform Administrator to take the necessary steps to improve its reliability, performance and adoption within your organisation.

The Auditing database coupled with a new comprehensive Universe and a set of Web Intelligence documents that I have developed will help give you that insight you need and this is what I'd like to share with you now.

My Universe and documents have been in development, on and off, for some time but they have now reached a maturity level where I’m happy to share them with a wider community.

I’m overall pretty happy with the Universe and the documents, however they need a little performance testing on large data sets. This is where you can help me, help you!

Please download my latest ‘build’ (available for a limited time) and give them a blast. They are provided ‘as is’. I’m looking for feedback on any defects, performance issues and also additional reporting/business requirements. If you can get back to me with your feedback I can improve the content for everyone else to benefit.  I may occasionally published a newer ‘build’ in the same container, so check every now and then for an update.

Once I’m happy with the amount of feedback and testing I will make the Universe and documents more widely and permanently available.

I have ported the universe to various databases and is currently available for:

• SAP HANA
• Microsoft SQL Server
• Oracle
• SQL Anywhere

Feedback on which database I should next port to would be helpful too!

There’s a large set of documents, each with a number of ‘reports’. The number of reports ranges from 1 to over 50 within a single document. So you can see I’ve been busy! They will take you some time to go through them all.

Here’s a list of documents:

1.     STA1 - Start here - Events over time.wid

2.     FRA1 - Fraud Detection - 1 machine more than 1 user.wid

3.     FRA2 - Fraud Detection - 1 machine more with multiple logon failures.wid

4.     LIC1 - License - 1 user more than 1 machine.wid

5.     LIC2 - License - Periods when sessions exceeded X.wid

6.     LIC3 - License - Users no longer using the system.wid

7.     SYS1 - System - Event Log.wid

8.     SYS2 - System - Delay in Recording of events to Audit Database.wid

9.     SYS3 x1 - System - Overall System Load Analysis (without Mode).wid

          SYS3 x2 mi - System - Overall System Load Analysis (Mode is Interactive Only).wid

          SYS3 x2 ms - System - Overall System Load Analysis (Mode is Scheduled Only).wid

          SYS3 x4 - System - Overall System Load Analysis inc Mode.wid

10.     SYS4 x1 - System -  Refresh Analysis (Mode is Interactive).wid

          SYS4 x1 - System - Refresh Analysis (Mode is Scheduled).wid

          SYS4 x2 - System - Refresh Analysis (inc Mode).wid

11.     USA1 x1 - Usage - Session Analysis.wid

          USA1 x15 u - Usage - Session Analysis (With Users, Without Mode).wid

          USA1 x2 mI - Usage - Session Analysis (Mode is Interactive Only).wid

          USA1 x2 mS - Usage - Session Analysis (Mode is Scheduled Only).wid

          USA1 x30 umI - Usage - Session Analysis (With Users) (Mode is Interactive Only).wid

          USA1 x30 umS - Usage - Session Analysis (With Users) (Mode is Scheduled Only).wid

          USA1 x4 m - Usage - Session Analysis (With Mode).wid

12.     USA2 - Usage - Large number of Data Providers.wid

13.     USA3 - Usage - Documents no longer used in the system.wid

14.     USA4 - Usage - Universe Objects usage. Identify infrequent used objects.wid

15.     USA5 - Usage - Universes no longer used.wid

Each document has an ‘About’ page that provides a few more details on its purpose.

The Universe is, of course, documented within itself. Every description box has a description! However I’ve not yet written supporting documentation for either the universe or the Web Intelligence documents. Feedback from you on what I should explain would be great!

Requirements: BI Platform BI 4.1Support Pack 5 or greater.

Instructions

1. Download the content.
2. Import one of the four 'Universe' LCMBIAR files into your system using Promotion Management (it will go into "BI Platform Auditing" folder)
3. Import the Web Intelligence LCMBIAR file (it will go into "BI Platform Auditing" folder)
4. Edit the connection that is imported (in "BI Platform Auditing" folder) with the correct login credentials.
5. Open the Web Intelligence document ‘STA1 - Start here - Events over time.wid’ as your starting point!

Please post your feedback here and I will do my best to comment back as soon as possible. (I’m on annual leave 24^th July until 17^th August 2015 so I won’t be able to reply during this time)

Matthew Shaw

@MattShaw_on_BI