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Every day, as I talk with Oracle E-Business Suite customers regarding reporting, replacing Discoverer or Business Intelligence, I hear the same misconceptions, usually something along the lines of “OBIEE is hard.” I asked customers why they thought OBIEE was difficult and there were several comments that kept popping up, which I will debunk, line by line.
Top 7 explanations Oracle E-Business Suite customers gave when asked why “OBIEE is hard”
1. That’s what we’ve been told.
2. We just can’t afford OBIEE.
3. We tried to implement OBIEE and failed.
4. Our IT department implemented OBIEE but it didn’t solve our needs.
5. OBIEE is way more complicated than Discoverer.
6. OBIEE takes too many people to support.
7. OBIEE requires a data warehouse.
1. “That’s what we’ve been told”
When it comes to OBIEE, you may hear from customers that had a bad implementation or even from Oracle competitors that OBIEE is hard, expensive, etc. If you’re told the same thing over and over, you’ll tend to believe it, but that doesn’t make it true. In this case, the opposite is true. You can learn how to build and support your own OBIEE environment in less than a week. We’ve done it countless times for customers. Don’t let people who’ve wrongly implemented OBIEE sway you, OBIEE is easy when done smartly.
2. “We just can’t afford it”
OBIEE can be expensive if you believe that you need to build a huge data warehouse and/or purchase the Oracle BI Applications content for OBIEE. In reality, neither are necessary for Oracle EBS reporting and OBIEE is more cost-effective than you think. Customers can save time and money over any other solution by leveraging OBIEE properly (which means not spending money unnecessarily).
3. “We tried to implement OBIEE and failed”
An OBIEE implementation can go south quickly if you get help from the wrong places or try doing it yourself. However, a little OBIEE expertise can go a long way to making your project successful, and more efficient (see: cost-effective). Taking a 6 month implementation and achieving it in a week sounds too good to be true, but it’s not magic, it’s expertise.
4. “Our IT department implemented OBIEE but it didn’t solve our needs”
You can’t just build out reports in OBIEE and hope users will adopt them, EBS reporting efforts need to be focused. This means that first and foremost, reports need to solve the needs of users. Add the bells and whistles later. Keep it simple.
5. “OBIEE is way more complicated than Discoverer”
Actually, OBIEE is very similar to Discoverer, both in how it is configured and how it functions. OBIEE does have exponentially more features but don’t let them distract you from the core reporting functions you need when replacing Discoverer (i.e. keep things simple). Focus on migrating the core reporting from Discoverer to OBIEE, then impress users with the new features of OBIEE.
6. “OBIEE takes too many people to support”
It only takes one implementer who has the right expertise to do more Oracle EBS Reporting than a full team of “experts” who take a misguided approach. The problem is typically over-thinking a solution. The “experts” always suggest a data warehouse, ETL, and many other complicated ideas that typical Oracle EBS reporting solutions don’t need. Complicated solutions require more resources to support (which means more money, time, etc…), but if you keep it simple you can build a solution you can support.
7. “OBIEE requires a data warehouse”
Most people believe that OBIEE requires a data warehouse. That is simply not true. Traust’s MeasureIT Analytics Solution for OBIEE is 100% LIVE reporting for Oracle EBS in the BI Cloud. Like Discoverer, the data warehouse is optional.
MeasureIT Analytics Solution , a Traust Consulting strategic tool, makes OBIEE easy, because it is. OBIEE is no different to support than your legacy Discoverer environment. Stay tuned for some real-life success stories. Don’t be afraid to get in touch with Traust Consulting for us to prove it with a demo. Let’s Talk!
About the Author: John Hendrickson is the creator of Traust’s MeasureIT Analytics for Oracle E-Business Suite. John is a long-time Oracle E-Business Suite implementer and a ten year veteran of EBS reporting using OBIEE.
Email: jhendrickson@traust.com
Web: www.MeasureITSolutions.com
Email: wwenzel@traust.com
Web: www.Traust.com
