OBIEE Metadata Dictionary Features

One of the new feature introduced in OBIEE 10.1.3.3 is Metadata Dictionary whichc is a handy web based information to map the answers objects across business layers to Physical layers . The information extracted from below link as “this Metadata Dictionary can now be accessed directly from the Oracle BI Answers selection pane where specific metadata information will be shown to guide report construction. Once this Oracle BI Answers-based functionality has been enabled as described in this section, an icon will appear next to each Subject Area, Table name, and Column shown in the selection pane for that Subject Area. The Subject Area icon is always displayed, whereas the Table name and Column name icons are only displayed on mouse-over. Clicking on the icon will open up a specific Metadata Dictionary page to show information for that element and links to related repository information” .

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E10415_01/doc/bi.1013/e10416/metadatadict.htm

BI metadata repository is available through the Metadata Dictionary (a set of XML documents), which contains information across the entire BI metadata repository, ie from the presentation layer , through the business model (including dimensions, their levels and hierarchies, and join their types, calculations and used expressions, aggregation rules and functions, etc.) to the physical layer (including the names of the physical tables and columns of data types, all the links, the type of database, supported db properties, setting Connection Pool, etc.). In addition, there are all the initialization blocks, variable system, user groups and their privileges…

Metadata Dictionary is available from version of OBI 10.1.3.3 onwards:To configure this functionality, a Metadata Dictionary should first be generated using the Oracle BI Administration Tool, as follows:

1. On the machine where Oracle BI is installed, launch the Oracle BI Administration Tool.

2. Log in to the desired repository in “Offline” mode.

3. Create the dictionary using: Tools -> Utilities -> Generate Metadata Dictionary.

You can save the metadata anywhere in your directory and then move to particular destination .For my case the the rpd name is test.rpd and metadata directories have been  created as below under ..\test .

For IIS WebServer
Move the test dir to “D:\OracleBIData\web\res\dictionary”  location
So finally you have :

 Now create a entry in your instanceconfig.xml under tag <ServerInstance> to include below :
<SubjectAreaMetadata>
<DictionaryURLPrefix>/analyticsres/dictionary/</DictionaryURLPrefix>
</SubjectAreaMetadata>

For OC4J Container

Move the test dir to “D:\OracleBI\oc4j_bi\j2ee\home\default-web-app\dictionary” location .

So finally you have :

Now create a entry in your instanceconfig.xml under tag <ServerInstance> to include below :
<SubjectAreaMetadata>
<DictionaryURLPrefix>/dictionary/</DictionaryURLPrefix>
</SubjectAreaMetadata>
So the instanceconfig.xml looks like as below :

Restart Oracle BI Presentation Server
Start BI Answers, select a target area, and then for each component, the item or the whole area will be available in a preview of Metadata Dictionary (book icon – for components and items will appear after the mouse cursor hovering to it).

The right to inspect Metadata Dictionary may not have any user. Authorization shall be governed by the presentation services – in the BI Dashboadu enable access to metadata dictionary to selected users (BI Dashboards> Settings> Administration> Administration approval> Access).

Clicking on Subject Area SCOTT redirect to below :

Click on the presentation object to navigate across the tree like metadata objects .