Oracle Retail Insights Release Notes Release 15.0 E65649-01 December 2015 This document highlights the Release 15.0 of Oracle Retail Insights. Overview Oracle Retail Analytics has transitioned to a new on-premise deployment offering known as Oracle Retail Insights, with an increased emphasis on role-based and prescriptive dashboards. Oracle Retail Insights delivers mobile-enabled insights for retailers who want to leverage data-driven insights powered by retail science to improve business performance. Oracle Retail Insights is comprised of the following products: Oracle Retail Merchandise Insights (ORMI) Oracle Retail Customer Insights (ORCI) This family of solutions is based on the Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (BI EE) and the Common Enterprise Information Model (CEIM), and employs Fusion-standard technology such as ODI and OAA. Under the product family name of Retail Insights (RI), ORMI and ORCI provide: Coverage of commerce, planning, and supply chain domains A 360-degree view of the customer A consistent analysis of a customer's entire Commerce Anywhere experience Retail-specific historical analytical data repository and business intelligence (BI) metadata that is consumable by operational and planning applications The ability to subscribe to Oracle's common enterprise information model for cross-domain analysis, including: retail and enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) Oracle Retail Insights supports customizable presentation and configurable data management, and employs a complete, open, and integrated Oracle technology stack, from storage-to-scorecard. Features The following is a summary of some notable Oracle Retail Insights features. For more details, see the Oracle Retail Insights User Guide. Robust data model The Oracle Retail Insights data model is based on Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) applications and is extended to support a retailer's business intelligence data 1
needs. It is designed to maximize performance with Oracle Data Integrator and Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition. Prepackaged, high-performance integration Retail Insights provides packaged integration with select Oracle Retail source systems through Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) modules for extract, load, transform and aggregation processing. Parallel processing capabilities are built in to ensure high performance, and batch shell scripts are provided for easy use with batch scheduler tools. Flexible aggregation Retail Insights provides a flexible aggregation framework that can be easily customized after implementation to achieve an aggregation strategy that satisfies batch and reporting performance requirements. Dashboards and rich, high-performance metadata Retail Insights is packaged with approximately 70 dashboards, 2000 metrics, and 550 attributes. Retail Insights metadata is built to optimize reporting performance, and it provides the following subject areas (catalogs) in the same Oracle BI instance: - Retail Merchandising Insights As-Was (historical) - Retail Merchandising Insights As-Is (current) - Retail Customer Insights As-Was (historical) - Retail Customer Insights As-Is (current) For more information, see the Oracle Retail Insights User Guide. Support for multiple currencies Retail Insights supports up to five different currencies. Based on user selections, metrics are calculated accordingly. Support for multiple languages Retail Insights supports data for 18 different languages. The user interface is also translated into 18 languages. Role-based security Retail Insights is packaged with sample user roles that leverage the Oracle BI EE security framework to manage dashboard and report access. Flexibility and extensibility Retail Insights ETL and reporting logic can be customized and extended by Oracle Retail Consultants to fit retailer-specific needs. Functional Areas The following are summaries of the functionality included in this release. Retail Insights provides a wide breadth of data to enable a detailed analysis of retail management and operations. For more details on the functional areas included in Oracle Retail Insights, see the Oracle Retail Insights User Guide. 2
Facts Inventory position Inventory receipts Markdowns Market basket affinity Net cost Net profit Planning Pricing Promotion actual Promotion baseline Promotion budget Sales (including wholesale) Sales forecast Sales packs Sales promotion Sales promotion forecast Stock ledger Supplier compliance Supplier invoices Trial and repeat Franchise Customer Order Demand Customer Order Fulfillment Customer Order Status Customer Order Payment (tender) Market Dimensions Calendar Customer Customer segment Employee Household Loyalty score Organization Product 3
Promotion Retail type Season phase Supplier Time of day Customer Order Location Clusters Consumer Trade Area Fulfillment Channel Demand Channel Market Item Category Management Group Functional Enhancements The following are functional enhancements for Oracle Retail Insights 15.0. Customer Segment Analysis Retail Insights introduces two new Customer Segment pages as additions to the Chief Marketing Officer dashboard. On the Customer Segment Sales Trend page, users can select the customer segment and date range to be analyzed. The item image, item name, and the item s corresponding Net Sales Amount, Net Sales Quantity, Average Price, and Net Profit for the selected date range are displayed, along with a line graph of the item's Net Sales Amount over time. The second Customer Segment report, Promotional Sales, enables analysis of the sales due to promotions by item and customer segment. The item image, item name, and the item's corresponding promotional sales metrics for the selected date range are displayed, along with a line graph of the item's Net Sales Amount over time. For more information on Customer Segment analysis see the Oracle Retail Insights User Guide. Similarity Score Analysis Retail Insights introduces a Similarity Score dashboard page as an addition to the Chief Marketing Officer dashboard. The Similarity Score dashboard page consists of two complementary analyses positioned side by side. This first is a scrolling display of items and their images, alongside the most and least similar items and their images. The appropriate similarity rate is displayed with the two comparison items. The second display is a table that displays a list of attributes and their corresponding Similarity Rates. The selected attribute is displayed at the top, and 4
the attribute values are displayed along the top and down the left side of the table. Where the attribute values meet, their Similarity Rate is displayed. For more information on Similarity Score analysis, see the Oracle Retail Insights User Guide. Technical Enhancements The following are technical enhancements for Oracle Retail Insights 15.0. Note: The list below announces the addition of Oracle Retail support for the technology described. See the Installation Guide requirements section for critical information, such as whether the enhancement below replaces previous versions or is supported in addition to already existing versions. Security Technologies Oracle Retail Insights 15.0 is supported for use with the following security technologies: Oracle Access Manager (OAM) 11.1.2.3 Oracle Identity Management 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.9) Oracle Retail Data Extractor for Merchandising Retail Insights includes integration with the new Oracle Retail Data Extractor for Merchandising module in the Oracle Retail Integration Bus product suite. This packaged integration solution is based on Oracle Data Integrator with Oracle Retail Insights staging tables and provides standardized extraction of Retail Merchandise System data for loading into Oracle Retail Insights. For more information, see the Oracle Retail Data Extractor for Merchandising Release Notes, and the Oracle Retail Insights Implementation Guide. Chief Marketing Officer Dashboard Retail Insights includes an enhanced Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Dashboard Demand Insights analysis capability, including a geographical visualization using mapping hierarchy data from Navteq, Map Data 2015 HERE. Known Issues The following are known issues in this release of Oracle Retail Insights Cloud Services. Known Issue/Defect Universal Adapter Script (uafsde.ksh) fails with generic error when no input parameters are specified. This issue is currently in development. Defect Number 19796625 5
Known Issue/Defect Reducing the number of threads for Retail Insights Cloud Services fact extract programs can cause duplicate data loading. When users lower the maximum thread number in the C_ODI_PARAM table for an Retail Insights Cloud Services fact extract job, the job cannot truncate a partition whose HIGH_VALUE is between the previous maximum thread number and the new maximum thread number. This causes previous-day data to remain in the staging table and be aggregated redundantly. A workaround exists for this issue: users can manually truncate affected partitions for any facts where the maximum thread number has been lowered. This issue is currently in development. An issue can occur after partitioning tables where primary key indexes are erroneously defined as being Global rather than Local. This causes the load process for those tables to fail due to "ORA-26026: unique index Schema.IndexName initially in unusable state." To resolve this issue, the index in question must to be dropped and recreated as a Local index. Due to an OBIEE 11.1.1.9.5 base issue, drilling into dashboard result will not function when certain combinations of prompt selections are made. This will be addressed by a yet to be released OBIEE 11.1.1.9.5 patch. Defect Number 20125579 221288954 22121666 Related Documentation For more information, see the following documents in the Oracle Retail Insights 15.0 documentation set: Oracle Retail Insights Implementation Guide Oracle Retail Insights Operations Guide Oracle Retail Insights Security Guide Oracle Retail Insights User Guide Oracle Retail Data Extractor for Merchandising documentation set Supplemental Training on My Oracle Support The following document is available through My Oracle Support. Access My Oracle Support at the following URL: https://support.oracle.com Release Readiness Transfer of Information (TOI) Recordings (Doc ID 732026.1) Online training is available to Oracle supported customers at product release. These online courses provide release-specific product knowledge that enables your functional and technical teams to plan, implement and/or upgrade and support Oracle Retail applications effectively and efficiently. Note that Oracle Retail products with minor updates often do not have an associated TOI. 6
Previous Releases For information on previous Oracle Retail Insights release enhancements and additional information, refer to the release notes and documentation that accompany the previous releases. Documentation Accessibility For information about Oracle's commitment to accessibility, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program website at http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=docacc. Access to Oracle Support Oracle customers that have purchased support have access to electronic support through My Oracle Support. For information, visit http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=info or visit http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=trs if you are hearing impaired. Oracle Retail Insights Release Notes, Release 15.0 E65649-01 Copyright 2015, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This software and related documentation are provided under a license agreement containing restrictions on use and disclosure and are protected by intellectual property laws. Except as expressly permitted in your license agreement or allowed by law, you may not use, copy, reproduce, translate, broadcast, modify, license, transmit, distribute, exhibit, perform, publish, or display any part, in any form, or by any means. Reverse engineering, disassembly, or decompilation of this software, unless required by law for interoperability, is prohibited. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice and is not warranted to be error-free. If you find any errors, please report them to us in writing. 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It is not developed or intended for use in any inherently dangerous applications, including applications that may create a risk of personal injury. If you use this software or hardware in dangerous applications, then you shall be responsible to take all appropriate fail-safe, backup, redundancy, and other measures to ensure its safe use. Oracle Corporation and its affiliates disclaim any liability for any damages caused by use of this software or hardware in dangerous applications. Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Intel and Intel Xeon are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation. All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. AMD, Opteron, the AMD logo, and the AMD Opteron logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group. This software or hardware and documentation may provide access to or information about content, products, and services from third parties. Oracle Corporation and its affiliates are not responsible for and expressly disclaim all warranties of any kind with respect to third-party content, products, and services unless otherwise set forth in an applicable agreement between you and Oracle. Oracle Corporation and its affiliates will not be responsible for any loss, costs, or damages incurred due to your access to or use of third-party content, products, or services, except as set forth in an applicable agreement between you and Oracle. Value-Added Reseller (VAR) Language Oracle Retail VAR Applications The following restrictions and provisions only apply to the programs referred to in this section and licensed to you. You acknowledge that the programs may contain third party software (VAR applications) licensed to Oracle. Depending upon your product and its version number, the VAR applications may include: (i) the MicroStrategy Components developed and licensed by MicroStrategy Services Corporation (MicroStrategy) of McLean, Virginia to Oracle and imbedded in the MicroStrategy for Oracle Retail Data Warehouse and MicroStrategy for Oracle Retail Planning & Optimization applications. (ii) the Wavelink component developed and licensed by Wavelink Corporation (Wavelink) of Kirkland, Washington, to Oracle and imbedded in Oracle Retail Mobile Store Inventory Management. (iii) the software component known as Access Via licensed by Access Via of Seattle, Washington, and imbedded in Oracle Retail Signs and Oracle Retail Labels and Tags. (iv) the software component known as Adobe Flex licensed by Adobe Systems Incorporated of San Jose, California, and imbedded in Oracle Retail Promotion Planning & Optimization application. You acknowledge and confirm that Oracle grants you use of only the object code of the VAR Applications. Oracle will not deliver source code to the VAR Applications to you. Notwithstanding any other term or condition of the agreement and this ordering document, you shall not cause or permit alteration of any VAR Applications. For purposes of this section, "alteration" refers to all alterations, translations, upgrades, enhancements, customizations or modifications of all or any portion of the VAR Applications including all reconfigurations, reassembly or reverse assembly, re-engineering or reverse engineering and recompilations or reverse compilations of the VAR Applications or any derivatives of the VAR Applications. You acknowledge that it shall be a breach of the agreement to utilize the relationship, and/or confidential information of the VAR Applications for purposes of competitive discovery. The VAR Applications contain trade secrets of Oracle and Oracle's licensors and Customer shall not attempt, cause, or permit the alteration, 7
decompilation, reverse engineering, disassembly or other reduction of the VAR Applications to a human perceivable form. Oracle reserves the right to replace, with functional equivalent software, any of the VAR Applications in future releases of the applicable program. 8