Actions were introduced in OBIEE 11g. Actions are operations or processes initiated within OBIEE that provide extensible functionality to an end-user or the Oracle BI system. They can allow straightforward functionality such as providing a navigation option to other areas or reports in OBIEE or they can, with varying levels of complexity, invoke external systems. Using the most complex of capabilities, one could leverage OBIEE as part of a full business process workflow.
Let's go through a couple of examples for basic navigation using Actions. We will then briefly talk about the possibilities that exist in invoking other system functions.
The most basic Action is that of navigating from one OBIEE object to another. We have already covered drilling using RPD hierarchies and Master-Detail linking in one of the previous chapters. Navigation Actions can be changed for an analysis column heading or value area via the Interaction option on a column's Column Properties in the...