Virtual columns, Virtual Teams and Absolute news

I just saw a very concise post on the AMIS technology blog about virtual columns being created on tables. Given how well it is put forward there, I don't see the need to regurgitate their post, so take a quick peek and learn how cool and easy this feature is. I have a few times felt the need for a feature like this one, especially in the domain of BI. Back in the day, when I was still rather indoctrinated in 3NF, I always had this little reservation against adding columns in to fact tables that could be derived as calculations from other existing columns, on-the-fly. The reason for still going ahead and adding a 'physical' column with the calculated values could of course be many and divers, but here we have a way of pleasing both sides of the coin :)

My first trip to Qatar is now coming to an end. I have been working pretty much every day since I got here and now it's time to head back home to 'sunny Brussels'. As a member of the RittmanMead Virtual Team I will be returning out here in a two weeks time with two other consultants to finish the project; a proof of concept involving OWB, Portal and Discoverer.

Hopefully we will see an article from a new author on this blog very soon. My friend Nicolas De Brabanter has been cooking up an interesting how-to on using the 'act-as' feature in OBIEE: Allowing authorized users to run reports and view dashboards with 'borrowed eyes'. Looking forward to reading it.