Oracle BI 12c – Easy upgrade, nice features

Improved User Experience

The improvements for end users can be divided into two categories, the changes that the users will touch and feel and the changes behind the interface that increase the benefits of the output that BI 12c delivers.

In the first instance, Oracle have delivered a consistency of visual experience across Oracle BI cloud service and Oracle BI 12c. It claims this delivers a visual experience unmatched amongst its competitors. While this may be the case when talking about SAP, Oracle needs to remember that they are not the only ones seeking to improve the user experience.

Both Infor with their Hook and Look UI and Workday deliver a consistent experience. The former offers ERP solutions across many vertical industries while the latter has been winning market share from Oracle in large enterprises on HCM solutions for several years.

The new interface is both intuitive and intelligent, Oracle allow users to drag and drop data elements, changing visual modelling views immediately both with the user and potentially among colleagues using collaboration tools. This enables users to quickly deliver insights that previously required models to be developed before data could be released into them and insights drawn.

The user interface has been improved, with a new keyword search, simplified homepage layout and HTML5-based graphics, delivers improved rendering for users. The mobile platforms for both iOS and Android have been updated. The iOS version has been completely redesigned while the Android version allows sharing between devices and the ability to use GoogleCast to project dashboards. There is however no mention of a Windows mobile version.

Behind the user display there are other advances with the capability for users to access new data from from local, Oracle, and Big Data sources. This includes direct access into Hyperion Financial Management, Hyperion Planning applications and ODBC access to Cloudera Impala.

There are also improvements to the predictive analytics capabilities but the details of these are generally sketchy in terms of how much they have been improved. What BI 12c does include though is the ability to run the free Oracle R distribution on the BI Server, this enables the use of R scripts that can point to any external engine, including R, Oracle, Database and Spark without needing to change the BI RPD to deliver results.

Conclusion

This is a full featured release by Oracle and the first sight by one customer, gives an indication of the level of improvements offered. Arvinder Singh, BI solutions architect, Land O’Lakes commented: “We were impressed with what we saw in the Oracle Business Intelligence 12c Beta program.

“Data mashup is a big win for the business, allowing people to upload Excel data and combine results with existing OBI data for quick analysis and data visualization means users can quickly create meaningful, versatile dashboards without getting too technical.”

By leaving some of the claims against its competitors out of the release Oracle would have been able to spend more words revealing the improvements behind what is a significant upgrade for their BI platform. In considering the upgrade path from the outset this will help Oracle retain customers in an analytics market where the newcomers are delivering advantages that some companies will find hard to ignore if it gives them a competitive edge.

While it is disappointing that the crux of the improvements are not analytics based the opening up to a wider set of external data and the improvements to  predictive analytics (even though these are not qualified) is welcome.