Mobile BI - The Oracle Way
The suomoto of business intelligence is having access to the right information at the right time. It matters a lot when the decisions are required to be made on the fly - anytime, anywhere. The latest and real time intelligence accelerates right decisions. Mobiles are everywhere, so is the scope for mobile business intelligence!
As per Morgan Stanley's Mobile Internet Report in 2010, there are 5,000 Million plus mobile internet users. Mobile BI is not necessarily for everyone. The senior or top-level management who need to access information on the move are the prospective customers. The interest is growing. Technology companies understand the importance of making information available on finger tips. All of "Google's" 2011 Strategic Initiatives are 'Mobile'. As per Google, in April 2011, there had been over 3 billion Android apps installed.
Mobile BI market has evolved over the last few years. Evolution from paper based reports to web based and now the portable and interactive mobile way. The new generation of mobile applications, networks and mobile devices encourage the users to leverage the latest and advanced features.
A glance at some key players - Actuate, Tibco Spotfire has a native iPad applications while Cognos has platform-native applications for both iPhone and iPad. MicroStrategy and RoamBI have native applications for Apple and BlackBerry devices. SAP BusinessObjects has native applications based on Flash. Business Objects and Microstrategy support the Research in Motion (RIM) BlackBerry platform. QlikTech relies on browser-based viewing.
Oracle Business Indicators are iPhone-native applications developed by Oracle for delivering Oracle business information as Oracle Business Intelligence Mobile applications for the Apple iPhone. Intuitive features such as browse, search, and favorites is possible using the business applications. The application provides mobile business users with real-time, secure access to business performance information. Custom reports and analyses using OBIEE can be created and results can be viewed on iPhones with Oracle Business Indicators. Users can easily browse through a catalog of pre-defined reports with a touch or just few taps. As the application is developed on the Apple IOS, device-specific rendering is used to display BI content. Mobile-only versions of reports and dashboards need not be created (advantage of device-native mobile apps over browser-based approach). Individual charts and graphs are displayed in full width and can be scrolled.
The latest version of OBIEE 11.1.1.5 has full support for the Apple iPad and iPhones (supported devices are iPhone 3GS, 4, iPad). Oracle BI Mobile 11.1.1.5.0 is built on OBIEE Foundation and employs an embedded dashboard approach providing support to Oracle Analyses, Dashboards, BI Publisher reports, Action Framework, Scorecards, Alerts, Catalog Search. Oracle promises a zero training to interact with data on mobile devices (such as gestural interactions, orientation recognition and layout optimizations for tablet and smart phone platforms).
Some key features of Oracle Business Intelligence Mobile 11.1.1.5.0 are -
* Webkit layout engine is wrapped in a native iOS shell.
* Mobile Layout property: When this is set to 'OFF', the layout of the dashboard or analysis is the same as that of the full-browser version and does not affect other object types, such as BI Publisher reports, scorecards or alerts.
* The OBIEE Security using SSL(Secure Sockets Layer) and SSO(Single Sign-On) can be leveraged.
* The bookmark feature allows any BI content that you view or want to revisit again to be marked as favorite(s)
* Alerts badge/icon: A red-circled number appears in the tab bar indicating the number of unread alerts you have
* Keyword Search: Search can be performed on BI catalog object names and descriptions but restricted to the objects that are viewed in Oracle BI Mobile.
* Console Logging: This setting can be enabled in the Settings screen but may impact performance
Oracle Business Intelligence Mobile for Apple iPad and Apple iPhone can be downloaded free from the app store.
Oracle also plans for similar ERP, CRM apps and 'Approvals' app that provide in-context analytic information around specific transactions. Oracle's strategy on mobile apps for Android or BlackBerry devices is not revealed. Access to Oracle BI from Blackberry, HTC, Android, Windows Mobile, and Palm PDAs & Smartphones can be achieved by third party vendors.
The BI Vendors meanwhile will continue their pursuit on how to benefit from the usage trends, drive higher adoption rates in user community overcoming the challenges. Next generation mobiles will certainly accommodate features that would further promote mobile BI and may revolutionize the overall use of BI.
The Oracle BI practice at Infosys has proven track record of successful BI implementations. We observe interest from several existing customers to leverage Oracle BI Mobile. The excitement is high within our BI Mobility Lab and looking forward to help more customers leverage the benefits of intelligence on mobiles - the Oracle Business Intelligence Mobile way.
