Creating Alerts Using Siebel (OracleBI) Delivers - Siebel Analytics 7.8

Post date: 13-May-2010 07:38:10

First of all, assuming you’ve installed Siebel Analytics 7.8 and your license

key includes Siebel Delivers, you need to configure a database account to store

data that the Siebel Scheduler uses. This can be in an Oracle database, and

therefore I created an account called S_NQ_SCHED (the recommended account name)

and ran some provided scripts to create the necessary tables:

SQL> conn system/password@ora10g Connected. SQL> create user s_nq_sched   2  identified by password   3  default tablespace users   4  temporary tablespace temp   5  quota unlimited on users   6  /

User created.

SQL> grant connect   2  ,     create table   3  ,     create view   4  ,     create procedure   5  to    s_nq_sched   6  /

Grant succeeded.

SQL> conn s_nq_sched/password@ora10g Connected. SQL> @c:SiebelAnalyticsSchemaSAJobs.Oracle.sql

Table created. 

... 

Commit complete.

SQL> @c:SiebelAnalyticsSchemaSAACCT.Oracle.sql

Table created. 

Index created. 

Index created. 

Index created.

My database, Siebel Analytics and Siebel Analytics Web installations are all

on the same (virtual) machine, by the way, running Windows XP SP2.

Next I need to set up a TNSNAMES entry to point to the user account I’ve just

set up, like this:

Now, I set up an ODBC System Data Source to point through to

this user, using the TNSNAMES.ORA entry I just created.

The final configuration step is to go into the Siebel Analytics

Administration tool, and choose Configuration Options from the Job Manager:

Using this screen, I entered the name of the data source, passed

across the username and password, and that was more or less it.

Now we’re at the point where we can put an alert together. The

next step then is to go into the Siebel Analytics Web client, and create an

exception report, in my case one that returns all those Warehouses that have

sold less than 20,000 units.

This report tells me which warehouses have sold less than 20,000

units; I’m now going to set up an alert that runs this report, and if any

warehouses fall below the 20,000 limit, have the scheduler send the report out

to anyone who subscribes to the alert.

The next step then is to click on the "Delivers" link at the top

of the page, and create what’s called an iBot. An iBot is a process that runs to

a schedule and performs a task, which can be as simple as running my alert, or

as complex as anything I can put together as a script. iBots are also the way

you pre-seed the cache - you run iBots that then run commonly accessed reports

after you’ve done a data load, and then the data your users will require will be

in the cache when they come to run their reports;

Once Delivers is running, it’s time to create the iBot. The

Delivers home page gives you a list of availalble iBots on the left-hand side,

and options to create new iBots, customise subscriptions and so on in the main

area of the page.

The obvious next step then is to create a new iBot, and so I

click on the first link. I’m then presented with the elements that make up an

iBot process.

For this simple example, I leave the priority as standard, and

the data visibility as personalised, so that the alert subscriber will only see

the data they’re scoped for, as opposed to the data the iBot creator can view.

The interesting bit is the "Conditional Request" section though, as this is

where we create the test condition for the alert.

The way you accomplish this is to select a Siebel Answers report

(or a "request" in Siebel Analytics jargon) which will be run when the iBot

executes. If the report returns one row or more, the iBot condition is satisfied

and the process runs. Therefore, like the report I picked earlier, you want one

that runs and has a filter that corresponds to the alert you want to create.

Once the request has been defined, the next step is to define

the iBot schedule, the recipients (the default is just you), the delivery

content, which is usually the request that you selected earlier, and the

destinations.

Then, after waiting for the iBot to start up, I check back on my

dashboard page, and yes, the alert is there, just under the tabs and also up on

the top right-hand side of the page, along with the other Siebel Analytics

application names:

When I click on the alert, I first get a page that lists out all

of my current alerts, and then when I click on one, I can see the figures that

triggered the iBot.

If I’d got a mail server set up, I could have delivered the

alert as an email, but for the time being, this will do. It wasn’t all that

difficult to set up (once you’ve gone through the scheduler configuration

process) and as long as you’ve got the reports on hand on which to base the

alerts, it doesn’t take all that long to get up and running.