Oracle Business Intelligence Cloud Service (BICS) is the cloud based version of Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition. The Cloud BI service brings a low-cost, enterprise-class analytics environment, with built-in mobile capabilities, to users across an organization, regardless of technical level.

“Oracle Business Intelligence Cloud Service, with built-in mobile capabilities, will speed and improve decision-making across the organization by lowering the barrier to entry for all users, providing secure and comprehensive information access with the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of the cloud,” said Oracle’s senior vice president, analytics and performance management products at Oracle.

Oracle refers to “agile” business intelligence due the fact there are no on-premise infrastructure, on both BI tools and database, which speed up the whole implementation process. In addition, on BICS you don’t need to buy perpetual or one/two year term licenses for BI tool, instead of that, BICS price model is based on named users (monthly) and storage sizing. Last but not least, BICS provides incredible user oriented tools, which provides an agile environment where users can create cloud-based dashboards and analysis, upload data with minimal or zero IT dependency.

Oracle BI Cloud Service Puts Insights at Your Fingertips

BICS is based on the standard OBIEE 11g, with an enhanced web interface that is expected to be available on on-premise OBIEE in the next release and the standard Analysis Editor, Dashboard Editor and repository (RPD) under the covers. Your initial OBIEE homepage is a modified version of the standard OBIEE homepage that lists standard developer functions down the left-hand side as a series of menu items, and the BI Administration tool is replaced with an online, thin-client repository editor that provides a subset of the full BI Administration tool functionality.

Visual Analyzer

Visual Analyzer is of one of the most expected features in OBIEE12c that is going to be released soon, as is 12c’s ability to allow users to upload spreadsheets of data and join them to existing subject areas in Answers. Visual Analyzer provides a single-pane-of-glass, Tableau-type environment for analysing and visualising datasets stored in Oracle Cloud Database and modelled in BICS’s cut-down web-based data-modeller.

Proven Platform for Powerful Analysis and Reporting in the Cloud

Based on proven Oracle BI technology that is relied upon by millions of users, BI Cloud Service makes agile analytics immediately available, at any scale. Because BI Cloud Service is designed to be used by every employee, organizations can better leverage more of their workforce, to drive more rapidly to new insights through:

• Robust Interactive Reporting – Providing full ad hoc query and analysis capability, BI Cloud Service enables users to create new analyses from scratch or modify existing analyses in dashboard pages. Users are insulated from data structure complexity through the metadata layer, which offers a logical view of OLAP Groupings, selections, metrics, hierarchies, and calculations expressed in understandable concepts.
• Dynamic Dashboards – The starting point for analysis and insight, BI Cloud Service empowers users to quickly and easily create interactive dashboards and reports with a rich variety of visualizations. Users can drill, pivot, and filter their data directly on a dashboard, while a comprehensive set of prompts and powerful right-click interactions offer even more advanced analysis capabilities. With so many visualizations available, the “Auto-suggest” feature will recommend the best option for particular queries.

Instant Mobile
Mobile access shouldn’t take extra effort. BI Cloud Service enables mobile analytics on any Android or iOS device with no extra development or configuration. Users can download the Oracle Bl Mobile app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store and have instant access to dashboards, analyses, reports, and more, securely, via a full range of touch gestures. There is also off-line access, complete with fine-grained security.

 

Easy Data Loading

BI Cloud Service makes it fast and easy for users to import files and start their analysis right away. The web-based File Loader enables users to import data from multiple sources, no matter their location, allowing users to quickly combine different data sets.

Market Leading Oracle Database

Integrated with BI Cloud Service, Oracle Database Schema Service delivers all the power of the Oracle Database in the cloud. Oracle Database Cloud Service includes multiple data loading tools, RESTful Web Services, the Oracle Application Express proven development environment, and full SQL and PL/SQL support. BI Cloud Service integrates this rich functionality for comprehensive data import and easy data access, and to provide rich options for extending the breadth and depth of analysis.

 

Robust Data Integration
BI Cloud Service enables organizations to integrate information from a wide variety of systems, including on-premises and other cloud solutions, through rich data integration options:

• SQL Developer for interactive data loading and administration
• PL/SQL web services data import
• REST API to define custom programming interfaces

This allows organizations to integrate information into their analytics from on-premises systems, as well as from other cloud solutions and 3rd party applications. Regardless of source, the data is presented in a single semantic layer, meaning users don’t have to know anything about the underlying data structure to quickly create meaningful BI applications. The semantic layer also propagates consistent definitions across the enterprise, supporting corporate governance and data stewardship.

Written by Danilo Mozeli, Head of BI/App Team