It’s safe to concede that “appifications” in the mobile space (thanks to Apple’s world of Apps!) are driving trends and innovations in the BI marketplace. Per Gartner (surveyed 1,364 organizations that use BI tools), here is a summary of the key Mobile BI statistics that have the potential of dramatically changing the experience of every existing BI consumer as well as diversifying existing business models to create organizations with a set of highly informed, interested and empowered BI users.
- 8% are actively using Mobile BI
- 13% are currently running Mobile BI pilots
- 33% have plans to deploy Mobile BI in 12 months
The trends that are increasingly determining where the Mobile BI market is heading to, are as below:
- Native BI Apps vs. Multi-purpose Apps
- Consumption vs. Creation
- Mobile Touch UI vs. Desktop Point (Click UI)
- Outside Firewall vs. VPN Tunnel
- Free vs. Licensed
Available Solutions for Oracle BI:
- Device Native Browser (e.g., Safari for the iPad)
- Build Mobile Website for OBIEE
- Native App Oracle
- Native App-3rd Party (Roambi, SurfBI)
- Native App-Custom
With the release of OBIEE 11.1.1.6, options 1, 3 and 4 have emerged as the primary solutions for Mobile BI on the Oracle platform.
1) Device Native Browser
What Works
i) Table/Pivot Table View
ii) Hierarchical Columns
iii) Column/View Selectors
iv) BIP Reports
v) Map Views
vi) Print PDF
vii) Master Detail
viii) Action Framework
ix) Drop-down prompts
x) Objects rendered by Flash
xi) Scrolls
What DOES NOT Work
(1) Objects that have a hover
(2) Objects that require a right click
(3) Exporting
(4) Dashboarding pivot
With the latest release of Oracle BI Mobile App: 11.1.1.6.2 BP1, you can:
i) Easily connect to OBIEE environment
ii) View reports, dashboards, alerts and scorecards
iii) No special configuration required for charting
iv) hover over and do chart dill downs
v) Leverage Touch UI from Dashboard prompts
vi) Format it nicely to fit on the iPad (IOS support only – iPad and iPhone only)
vii) Apply additional customization to a dashboard from an iPad
Thanks to Roambi and SurfBI, there has been a ton of innovation around providing richer “views” on the iPad to enhance the overall Mobile BI experience for the users. Oracle takes advantage of these products and allows for integration with these 3rd party products.
I will provide an overview of Roambi and SurfBI in my next blog.