1. Need for Business Analytics
Data is structured information saved in the organization database system(s), such as HR, Financial and Supply chain systems.
You need to process this data in order to have it as ‘analysed data’ to have more insights about the data.
1-Clarifies Business Needs:
Business analysis helps organizations to clearly define and understand their problems, opportunities and goals.
2-Supports Decision-Making:
By gathering, analysing, and validating data and requirements, business analysts provide insights that enable stakeholders to make informed and evidence-based decisions, reducing risks associated with assumptions or incomplete information.
3-Enhances Efficiency and Cost-Effectiveness:
Identifying the most effective solutions and optimal resource allocation
2. About Oracle Analytics Server
Oracle is recognized as a Leader in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Analytics and BI Platforms.
Oracle Analytics was recognized for the following key attributes:
- Business apps integration
- AI enhancements
3. Clients Using Oracle Analytics
4. Oracle Analytics Editions
Oracle Analytics Server (OAS) is an extension of Oracle legacy Business Intelligence tool, previously known as OBIEE (Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, Formerly Called Siebel Analytics), first released at the year 2000.
Since that date, OBIEE has been used globally by a large number of client segments in the banking, telecom, health and insurance sectors.
Hint: Another version of Oracle Analytics Server is hosted on the cloud as ‘Oracle Analytics Cloud’ .
A cloud-based analytics solution designed for businesses that require scalability, flexibility, and reduced infrastructure management.
| Oracle Analytics Desktop | Oracle Analytics Server |
Oracle Analytics Cloud |
|
· A standalone tool for data exploration and visualization |
maintain their data models and analytics capabilities on-premises.
offers AI/ML features that are not available in OBIEE |
|
Supported Platforms :
MacOS Sequoia (15.x) |
Supported Platforms :
MacOS Sequoia (15.x) |
Supported Platforms:
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|
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Hint: It is recommended to use oracle analytics platform, weather on premises or in cloud, in case you source / and or target applications are oracle technology or application based, like oracle ERP, CRM or Oracle Database.
In addition to getting high compatibility, performance issues troubleshooting can be easier to handle.
Oracle Analytics Server includes modern, AI-powered, self-service analytics capabilities for data preparation, visualization, enterprise reporting, augmented analysis, and natural language processing/generation
5. Who Can Use OAS?
Many features have been developed in OAS specially in the visualisation ease of development using low code which is perfect for all user levels (i.e. Developer, System Analyst, Business User)
OAS offers easy, low-code visualisation ideal for developers, analysts, and business users.
Hint : As a developer, you may use the desktop version in case you need to do hands-on using your local machine with no high resources (ram – cpu ).
Oracle Anafvlytics Desktop does not have a modeling tool or RPD (Repository for Production) for creating enterprise semantic models.
Instead, it is designed for standalone data exploration and visualization
You can export your work then to another server / desktop, cloud or inhouse server based.
|
CPU |
Memory |
Free Disk Space |
|
| Microsoft Windows x64 (64-bit) 11 | Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz, 2992 Mhz 2 Cores, 2 Logical Processors or faster | 4 GB Minimum | 2 GB plus space for any uploaded data files |
| MacOS Sonoma (14.x)
MacOS Sequoia (15.x) |
Apple Silicon (AArch64) | 2 GB plus space for any uploaded data files . |
You must have Administrator privileges to perform the installation
While the above figure shows that OAS gets datasets from Datawarehouse which is the best practice , the following figure shows that OAS can connect directly and get datasets from Source Systems
The third case is to connect OAS to Datasets combined from Source and Datawarehouse
The above graph shows that Data flows from sources system(s) as HR , CRM or Financial database to the target Datawarehouse Database, it is then read by the analytics server to get analysed and displayed in different relevant graphs to show insights .
The table below shows the Data Sources (Source Systems) Supported for Use with Oracle Analytics Server
| Database | Supported Versions | Datasets | Data Models – Semantic Modeler | Data Models – Model Administration Tool |
| Oracle Database | 12.1+
12.2+ 19+ 21c 23ai |
Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Oracle Analytic Views | Oracle Database 19c and later | Yes | No | Yes |
| Oracle Applications | 11.1.1.9+ or Oracle Fusion Applications Release 8 and later
Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Suite, On-premises Oracle BI Enterprise Edition deployments, Another Oracle Analytics service |
Yes | No | No |
| Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse | 18.2.4+
19c and later 23ai |
Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Oracle Autonomous Transaction Processing | 19c and later
23ai |
Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud | Current version | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Oracle Essbase | 11.1.2.4.0+
21c |
Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Oracle Hyperion Financial Management | 11.1.2.4+
11.2+ |
No | No | Yes |
| Oracle Hyperion Planning | 11.1.2.4+
11.2+ |
No | No | Yes |
| Oracle NetSuite | Release 2019.2 (JDBC Driver 8.10.85.0) | Yes | No | No |
| Oracle OLAP | 12+ | No | No | Yes |
| Oracle Service Cloud | Current version | Yes | No | No |
| Oracle Talent Acquisition Cloud | 17.4+
15b.9.3+ |
Yes | No | No |
| Oracle TimesTen | 18.1+*
22.1 |
No | No | Yes |
| OCI Object Storage | – | Yes | No | No |
| OCI Data Flow SQL Endpoints | – | Yes | No | No |
| Amazon EMR | 4.7.2* | Yes | No | No |
| Amazon Redshift | 1.0.1036 + | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Apache Hive | 2.3.0+
3.0+ |
Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Apache Spark | 1.6+
3.0 |
Yes | Yes | No |
| Aster Database | 5.0
6.0 |
No | No | Yes |
| Cloudera CDH | 4.6+
5.5+ |
No | Yes | No |
| Delta Share | – | Yes | No | No |
| DropBox | Current version | Yes | No | No |
| Google Analytics | V4 | Yes | No | No |
| Google BigQuery | Current version | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Google Drive | Current version | Yes | No | No |
| Greenplum | 4.3+ | Yes | No | No |
| Hortonworks Hive | 1.2+ | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| IBM BigInsights Hive | 1.2+ | Yes | Yes | No |
| IBM DB2 | 11.5+ | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| IBM Netezza NPS | NPS 6+
NPS 7+ NPS 11+ |
No | No | Yes |
| Impala (Cloudera) | 2.7+ | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Informix | 12.10+ | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| JDBC | – | Yes | Yes | No |
| MapR Hive | 1.2+ | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Microsoft Access | 2016 | No | No | Yes |
| Microsoft Azure SQL Database | Current version | Yes* | No | No |
| Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics | Current version | Yes | No | No |
| Microsoft Excel | 2016 | Yes | No | No |
| Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services | 2016
2017 2019 2022 |
No | No | Yes |
| MongoDB | 3.2.5 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MySQL | 5.6+
5.7+ 8.0+ |
Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MySQL Heatwave | 8.0.31+ | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| OData | 4.0 | Yes | No | No |
| ODBC | – | Yes | No | Yes |
| Pivotal HD Hive | – | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PostgreSQL | 9.0+
13 14 15 |
Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Presto DB | 0.149+ | Yes | No | No |
| REST API | – | Yes | No | No |
| Salesforce | Current version | Yes | No | No |
| Snowflake Data Warehouse | Current version | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Spark | 1.6+
3.0 |
Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SQL Server | 2016
2017 2019 2022 |
Yes* | Yes* | Yes |
| Sybase ASE (Adaptive Server Enterprise) | 15.7+ | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Sybase IQ | 16+ | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Teradata | 16.20
17.x |
Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Vertica | 9.x
12.x |
Yes | Yes | Yes |
Hint:You may start with Oracle Analytics Desktop locally on your machine as the system hardware requirements are not high :
- Operating System: Microsoft Windows x64 (64-bit) 11; Windows Server 2012 R2; MacOS Sonoma (14.x); MacOS Sequoia (15.x)
- CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz, 2992 Mhz 2 Cores, 2 Logical Processors or faster or Apple Silicon (AArch64) based Mac computers
- Memory: 4GB minimum memory
- Minimum free disk space: 2GB plus space for any uploaded data files
- User privileges: You must have Administrator privileges to perform the installation
6. OAS Architecture
OAS uses a **three-tier architecture**:
Oracle Analytics Server 2025 employs a three-tier architecture comprising a presentation tier, an application tier, and a data tier.
- The presentation tierprovides the user interface, enabling users to interact with the platform.
- The application tierhouses the core analytical engine, responsible for data processing, report generation, and data visualization.
- The data tierconnects to various data sources, providing access to the raw data used for analysis.
| Navigate To | Access URL format |
| Data Visualization – Home Page | http://host:9502/dv/ |
| Classic Analytics – Dashboards Page | http://host:9502/analytics/saw.dll?bieehome
|
| Weblogic Console Page | http://host:9500/console |
| Publisher Home Page | https://host:port/xmlpserver |
7. OAS Features
- Many data set source types can be used to build your workbook (analysis) as per the following certification matrix provided by Oracle :
Hint: In this workshop we are using datasets based on Oracle Database version 19.3 and excel sheet files.
| Database | Supported Versions | Datasets | Data Models – Semantic Modeler | Data Models – Model Administration Tool |
| Oracle Database | 12.1+
12.2+ 19+ 21c 23ai |
Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Oracle Analytic Views | Oracle Database 19c and later | Yes | No | Yes |
| Oracle Applications | 11.1.1.9+ or Oracle Fusion Applications Release 8 and later
Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Suite, On-premises Oracle BI Enterprise Edition deployments, Another Oracle Analytics service |
Yes | No | No |
| Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse | 18.2.4+
19c and later 23ai |
Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Oracle Autonomous Transaction Processing | 19c and later
23ai |
Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud | Current version | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Oracle Essbase | 11.1.2.4.0+
21c |
Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Oracle Hyperion Financial Management | 11.1.2.4+
11.2+ |
No | No | Yes |
| Oracle Hyperion Planning | 11.1.2.4+
11.2+ |
No | No | Yes |
| Oracle NetSuite | Release 2019.2 (JDBC Driver 8.10.85.0) | Yes | No | No |
| Oracle OLAP | 12+ | No | No | Yes |
| Oracle Service Cloud | Current version | Yes | No | No |
| Oracle Talent Acquisition Cloud | 17.4+
15b.9.3+ |
Yes | No | No |
| Oracle TimesTen | 18.1+*
22.1 |
No | No | Yes |
| OCI Object Storage | – | Yes | No | No |
| OCI Data Flow SQL Endpoints | – | Yes | No | No |
| Amazon EMR | 4.7.2* | Yes | No | No |
| Amazon Redshift | 1.0.1036 + | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Apache Hive | 2.3.0+
3.0+ |
Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Apache Spark | 1.6+
3.0 |
Yes | Yes | No |
| Aster Database | 5.0
6.0 |
No | No | Yes |
| Cloudera CDH | 4.6+
5.5+ |
No | Yes | No |
| Delta Share | – | Yes | No | No |
| DropBox | Current version | Yes | No | No |
| Google Analytics | V4 | Yes | No | No |
| Google BigQuery | Current version | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Google Drive | Current version | Yes | No | No |
| Greenplum | 4.3+ | Yes | No | No |
| Hortonworks Hive | 1.2+ | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| IBM BigInsights Hive | 1.2+ | Yes | Yes | No |
| IBM DB2 | 11.5+ | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| IBM Netezza NPS | NPS 6+
NPS 7+ NPS 11+ |
No | No | Yes |
| Impala (Cloudera) | 2.7+ | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Informix | 12.10+ | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| JDBC | – | Yes | Yes | No |
| MapR Hive | 1.2+ | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Microsoft Access | 2016 | No | No | Yes |
| Microsoft Azure SQL Database | Current version | Yes* | No | No |
| Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics | Current version | Yes | No | No |
| Microsoft Excel | 2016 | Yes | No | No |
| Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services | 2016
2017 2019 2022 |
No | No | Yes |
| MongoDB | 3.2.5 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MySQL | 5.6+
5.7+ 8.0+ |
Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MySQL Heatwave | 8.0.31+ | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| OData | 4.0 | Yes | No | No |
| ODBC | – | Yes | No | Yes |
| Pivotal HD Hive | – | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PostgreSQL | 9.0+
13 14 15 |
Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Presto DB | 0.149+ | Yes | No | No |
| REST API | – | Yes | No | No |
| Salesforce | Current version | Yes | No | No |
| Snowflake Data Warehouse | Current version | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Spark | 1.6+
3.0 |
Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SQL Server | 2016
2017 2019 2022 |
Yes* | Yes* | Yes |
| Sybase ASE (Adaptive Server Enterprise) | 15.7+ | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Sybase IQ | 16+ | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Teradata | 16.20
17.x |
Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Vertica | 9.x
12.x |
Yes | Yes | Yes |
Notes on using this table
- Version Numbers:
- “1.x” means any version starting with a 1 (for example, this includes version 1.4.3 but not version 2.0).
- “2.0.x” means any version starting with 2.0 (for example, this includes version 2.0.4 but not version 2.4).
- “1.6+” means any version starting with 1 and is greater than or equal to (>=) 1.6 (for example, this includes version 1.8 but not version 2.4).
- Use in Datasets– “Yes” means that you can connect to a data source for analysis by creating a connection from the Oracle Analytics home page.
- Use in Data Models– “Yes” means that you can connect to the semantic layer of a data source and model the data of that type. You can use the Console or Oracle Analytics Developer Client Tool to connect.
Using Workbook (Visualisations)
Analyses
Analyses are queries against your organization’s data that provides you with answers to your analytical questions. Analyses enable you to explore and interact with information visually in tables, graphs, pivot tables, and other data views. You can also save, organize, and share the results of analyses with others.
Examples :
Example 1:
As an HR manager, at your organization, you need to get a permission from the financial manager to give a salary increase for the different company departments.
In order to this, you have to get the sum of salaries’ figure for each department first so that you can discuss with the financial manager the possibility of salary increase ‘as per budget availability’ for each department.
As doing a manual research can take a long time, you can use the OAS to do the following analysis:
The following Bar Chart which is based on a dataset extracted from your HR database, would give you a whole overview that helps you to take the decision, where you can see that ‘Sales’ and ‘shipping’ departments are already having salaries more than 150 K.
So asking for a raise for those departments will need more investigation
While the IT, Purchasing , Marketing , Public relations , HR and Administration salaries are less than 50K
Now by doing more investigation, you can share the results with financial manager, you could get a raise to employees with a very low salaries.
Example 2:
Using Horizontal Bar Chart to Analyse employee termination reasons
This horizontal bar chart uses horizontal bars to describe quantitative variables. The length of the bar is linearly proportional to the value of the measure.
It shows the number of terminations by job level and termination reason for the employees who voluntarily resigned. Regardless of job level, career progression is the primary reason for resigning.
Example 3:
This Scatter Plot graph shows the Employee Perf Rating, Tenure, and Salary stacked scatter category visualization with Tenure in months on the Y-Axis and Perf Rating 100 on the X-Axis. Career progression appears is the reason most employees with the least tenure resign. Those employees are also top performers.
This Scatter Plot Diagram created by selecting the Best Visualisation Option shows the tenure months (duration spent by employee in the company) versus performance rating, grouped by :
Employee ID , Termination reason (in 5 Colors) :
The term “tenure months” refers to the duration of time an employee has been continuously employed by a specific company or organization, measured in months.
It is a metric used to gauge the stability and loyalty of an employee within a job, often expressed alongside years of service
Example 4 :
Using Stacked Bar graph, the example shows the number of calls made by Male and Female for 4 telecom operators in India :
- Machine Learning Ready Algorithms :
Create and Use Oracle Analytics Predictive Models
Oracle Analytics predictive models use several embedded Oracle Machine Learning algorithms to mine your datasets, predict a target value, or identify classes of records. Use the data flow editor to create, train, and apply predictive models to your data.
Example :
Using Naïve Bayes machine learning classification algorithm to show predicted analysis of employee attrition in a dashboard (Canvas). Dashboards are used to collect more than one analysis / graph in the same time .
- Using Dashboards for Runtime and Delivery to Users :
One of the ways to present the analyses is using Dashboards, it can be printed or emailed to specific users (delivered)
- Integration With Oracle XML Publisher (Oracle Analytics Publihser):
OAS integrates with Oracle most used reporting tool that integrates with many applications and data sources :
Oracle Analytics Publisher (xml publisher) enables you to author, generate, and deliver all types of highly formatted documents and operational reports.
You can use familiar office desktop tools to create rich text format (.rtf) documents and reports against any data source. You can view reports, schedule them to run, and distribute them to predefined destinations.
Reports consist of one or more .rtf layouts, a reference to a data model, and a set of properties. A report may also include style templates and subtemplates, which allow reusability of functionality and maintain consistency of design. In the logical architecture depicted in the figure, the report includes a data model and a layout, and the layout references two style templates in the catalog which in turn reference subtemplates.
In the Analytics Publisher logical architecture, the data model accesses data sources and the layout and its optional style template and subtemplates determine the formatting of the report output, which can include email, print, fax, or files, and others. The layout is designed using common office applications, for example Microsoft Word and Excel and Adobe Acrobat and Flash, among others.
Hint: Publisher reports can be embedded into Analytics Dashboards. You can export the result to excel or PDF format
The following are examples of Publisher Reports :
8-References :
Certification – Supported Data Sources
How to Use the PowerPoint Template
