OWB 10gR2 - some enhancement requests

Question

Hi, I've been working with OWB 10gR2 for approximately a week now, and I've come across a few (minor) bugs, as well as a list of enhancements that I think would make the tool better. I'd like to surface these in this forum so they can be either disagreed with or have workarounds suggested, as well as getting this list in front of Oracle. Also I'm new to the tool, so maybe there are ways to accomplish what I want.
p.s. as a side note - please don't take these as criticisms of the tool. I'm actually very impressed with OWB 10gR2, but just want to surface some ideas that I think would make the tool better.
Thanks,
Scott
---Bugs:
1.     If I enter a quote character in one of the business description fields (i.e. for a cube or dimension), it causes the DDL scripts to blow up. It probably mentions the list of valid characters in the users guide somewhere - but if a character isn't legal, it should be flagged when I try to enter it originally – not when deploying
2.     I can enter illegal strings in an expression operator that fail validation there, but the whole map still passes validation. For instance, I put in an expression (for a varchar2 field) using a single quote at the start, but mistakenly with a double quote at the end. I didn’t bother to validate this within the expression. The whole map validated fine, but (of course) blew up with the illegal syntax when generating the code.
3.     I get the following error when trying to browse a cube (ROLAP, not MOLAP) through OWB, but I'm able to pull the cube up fine using either the excel add-in or biBeans: CubeDV_OLAPSchemaConnectionException_ENT_06952???
---Enhancement Requests:
1.     Add a “deploy” button in control center next to the to “default actions” and “reset actions” buttons
2.     Allow an option to have dimensions and cube defaults set to either “deploy all”, “deploy data only”, “deploy catalog only”, “deploy aggregations” (for cubes). Also, why is the default set to “deploy data only”? Does deploying the CMW2 metadata involve huge performance impacts or something? It seems like the CMW2 is almost “free” – so it should be turned on by default. Its a pain to use the dimension wizard, but then have to go in to each dimension afterwards to set this option.
3.     When using “configure” on dims and cubes in control center, the first time the “configuration properties” dialog pops up, everything is fine. However, when you try to configure the 2nd object, the “background focus” switches from control center back to design center. This makes navigation very slow if you have lots of items to change. I've noticed this behavior in a few other places as well.
4.     Some dialogs do not have maximize buttons (i.e. dimension wizard dialogs), and default to a very small size. It is possible to have size of dialogs dynamically scaled to screen resolutions, and attempt to size columns so they fit properly. Or better yet, have each dialog remember how large it was last time, and automatically open up to that size?
5.     When generating the “autobind” relational table while creating a dimension, it seems to be “randomizing” the order of the attributes within a level (although it does sort the “top level” attributes first, followed by lower level attributes), at least when using the dimension wizard. It would be nice if the attributes in the relational table came out sorted in the same order as they are specified in the attributes tab.
6.     When using a “unmapped” display set– there doesn’t seem to be a way to refresh the set (i.e. remove the items that have since been mapped) unless you select “all” and then “unmapped” again. Would be nice if you could simply choose “unmapped” again and have it refresh the object
7.     While doing a mapping, right click on canvas allows option to “generate”. Would be nice to also add the “validate” option to this menu
8.     Validating mappings takes a decent amount of time – would be nice if a “busy” icon was displayed to let user know that OWB hasn’t locked up.
9.     default size of “job details” dialog is too small, and even if I maximize I still have to go through and manually adjust the size of each pane. Similar to enhancement #4
10.     Horizontal size of operators in mapping seems to be determined by the length of the operator name, instead of tying directly to the icon. Looks strange. Very minor
11.     When displaying dimension objects in a mapping:
a.     For the “surrogate key” columns – add an icon to indicate this attribute is a surrogate key. Likewise, since its not legal to map anything to this column, remove the little “arrow” next to it (the one that turns gray when something is mapped to a column), or perhaps don't even show this column at all.
b.     For the “business key” columns – add some type of icon to show which attributes represent the business natural key (or make color different, etc.)
12.     Similar to #11, for the cube operator in a mapping:
a.     For the “surrogate key” columns – if they can’t be mapped to, then don’t show them
b.     For the “business key” columns – add some type of icon to show which attributes represent the business natural key
c.     Separate the “measure” columns from the dimension columns
13.     For the “Aggregation” operator – can you move the “<None>” default operator to the top of the list. At the bottom, it means you always have to scroll to use the most common operations (which are at the top of the list), i.e. sum and avg, etc.
14.     In the log on prompt, if I choose SQL*Net connection, every time I start it up it defaults to the details being shown (even when I chose no detail last time), with cursor in the “host” box. I should be able to have the details hidden, and this dialog should ALWAYS default to having the active cursor in the password box on startup
15.     When printing in a mapping, the “page setup” print dialog is very slow. Also, the “print setup” dialog shows margins, but you can’t adjust them. It would be nice if this could be changed here
16.     Add a “print preview” icon to all of the toolbars. Printer icon is there, print preview should also be.
17.     In the dimension attributes, we need a way to tag an attribute as being the “insert record” date or the “update record” date. The corresponding MERGE SQL should be updated to use these attributes.
18.     It would be nice if the mapping canvas defaulted to an unlimited size…i.e. when I want to add new operators and the screen is already full, I either need to shrink the zoom factor down to the point where I can’t read the icons anymore, or I have to pick up the new operator and “drag” at the bottom / right side until it scrolls enough to drop it where I want. If the canvas had an unlimited size, I could simple use the scroll bars to scroll to where I want.
19.     Scroll wheel functionality to zoom in / out (and have it zoom in around the currently selected object)
20.     Option to have operations automatically resize when longer attribute names are added to them (can workaround by mimimizing and then maximizing, but would be better to have the operators automatically adjust size to fit)
21.     Ability to sort output attributes in an operator (just like table column sort functionality). If I create a new operator, it would be nice to group it with related operators instead of always having it at bottom.
22.     re: column sort functionality – drag and drop instead of up/down arrows would be nice
23.     It would be nice if, when adding output attributes to (for example) the expression operator, it would choose the default data type the same way the dimension attribute wizard works (i.e. if it sees “ind” in name, automatically choose char(1)
24.     Change the “zoom in” button so that it zooms in on the currently selected operator – i.e. if I click on a particular table and then hit the zoom in button, it should keep the table I selected centered
25.     When in a mapping, clicking on a line should highlight the attributes on both the source and target operators (to allow easier visual ID of where data is coming from / going to)
26.     AWM has a feature where table attributes can be sorted so that mappings between them don't have "crossed" lines. Similar functionality in OWB would be very appreciated. It may be harder to automate this, but even manual drag and drop of attributes within an operator would be nice.

Answer 1

if you could copy/paste this whole thing into the submission form (see feedback option under the numbers menu). The more people that request these features, the more likely we are to see them in an update or the next version.
Jason