Tuesday, September 6, 2016

BICS - Deliveries

Recently I signed back into BICS to work on an internal project and decided to poke around to see what is new.  I am bad at reading the "What's New" and tend to just jump in and see what changed with the latest maintenance update for August 2016.
 
One thing I noticed is the new feature within the Console interface.
 

This feature harkens back to OBIEE 10.x feature labeled "Delivers" which was renamed to "Agents" in 11.x.
 
Funny how old names are recycled...
 
In this case the two are not equal.  Deliveries, like most new features in BICS versus on-prem OBIEE, is a scaled down version of the on-prem counterpart.  Like its name "Deliveries" suggests, it is a way to send the output of a report/analysis to a recipient where as Agents has many more features and options available.

Deliveries is a great first step into scheduled email delivery of content to users.

Within the BICS Catalog view of Analyses there is a new "right click" menu item - Email.




On-prem OBIEE we have "Schedule"



This is where I have the biggest frustration...Why difference in names over similar features...

On-Prem there are Analyses and Dashboards...in BICS we have Analyses and Dashboards.

So why "Schedule" for on-prem and "Email" for BICS?

Yes, I understand that OBIEE on-prem there is not full parity of features with BICS for Analyses and Dashboards yet the names are the same.  So then why the difference for sending of OBIEE/BICS content to someone via email?


OK, I will get off my soapbox...


The Deliveries option within BICS is a very simplified version of OBIEE Agents/Scheduler.

First the interface; much more simplified and limited options in BICS.



versus the Agent options within on-prem OBIEE which allows for conditional logic and delivery options.

 
This new feature is very much welcome.  It allows BICS content to be shared with others who may not have BICS license.  Though, a feature that I wish was added is the ability to add content into BICS users Home Page or Header like within OBIEE Agent Destinations tab.

From an Administrative perspective I do like the interface to see the status of "Deliveries".


While BICS Deliveries has a long way to go to match OBIEE Agents; it is a welcome first step.