Becky's BI Apps Corner: OBIA Back-to-Beginnings - Naming Conventions and Jargon
It's easy to talk about a technology using only jargon. It's much harder to talk about a technology without using jargon. I have seen many meetings between business and IT break down because of this communication barrier. I find it more discouraging when I see this communication breakdown happen between advanced IT staff and new IT staff. For those of us in any technological field, it's easy to forget how long it took to learn all of the ins and outs, the terminology and jargon.
During a recent project, I had another consultant shadowing me to get experience with OBIA. (Hi, Julia!) I was 'lettering' a lot so I decided it was time to diagram my jargon. My scribbles on a whiteboard gave me the idea that it might be helpful to do a bit of connecting the dots between OBIA and data warehousing jargon and naming conventions used in OBIA.
BI Applications Load Plan phases:
SDE - Source Dependent Extract
SDE is the first phase in the ETL process that loads source data into the staging area. SDE tasks are source database specific. SDE mappings that run in the load plan will load staging tables. These tables end with _DS and _FS among others.
SIL - Source Independent Load
SIL is the second phase in the ETL process that takes the staged data from the staging tables and loads or transforms them into the target tables. SILOS mappings that run in the load plan will load dimension and fact tables. These tables end with _D and _F among others.
PLP - Post Load Process
This third and final phase in the ETL process occurs after the target tables have been loaded and is commonly used for loading aggregate fact tables. PLP mappings that run in the load plan will load aggregate tables ending with _A. Aggregate tables are often fact table data that has been summed up by a common dimension. For example, a common report might look at finance data by the month. Using the aggregate tables by fiscal period would help improve reporting response time.
For further information about any of the other table types, be sure to read Table Types for Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse. Additionally, this page has probably the best explanation for staging tables and incremental loads.
Source System Acronyms
Since the SDE tasks are source database specific, the SDE mappings' names also include an acronym for the source system in the mapping name. Below are the supported source database systems and the acronyms used in the names and an example for each.
- Oracle E-Business Suite - ORA
SDE_ORA_DomainGeneral_Currency
- Oracle Siebel - SBL
SDE_SBL_DOMAINGENERAL_CURRENCY
- JD Edwards Enterprise One - JDEE
SDE_JDE_DomainGeneral_Currency
- PeopleSoft - PSFT
SDE_PSFT_DomainGeneral_Currency_FINSCM
- Oracle Fusion Applications - FUSION
SDE_FUSION_DomainGeneral_Currency
- Taleo - TLO
SDE_TLO_DomainGeneral_Country
- Oracle Service Cloud - RNCX
SDE_RNCX_DomainGeneral
- Universal - Universal
SDE_Universal_DomainGeneral
This wraps up our quick "Back-to-Beginnings" refresher on naming conventions and the jargon used in relation to ETL and mappings. Let me know in the comments below if there are other topics you would like me to cover in my "Back-to-Beginnings" series. As always, be sure to check out our available training, which now includes remote training options, and our On Demand Training Beta Program. For my next post I'll be covering two new features in OBIA 11.1.1.10.2, Health Check and ETL Diagnostics, which are the missing pieces you didn't know you've been waiting for.