Note: ODS is secondary to the P6 EPPM Extended Schema. The P6 EPPM Extended Schema is the primary resource for operational reporting.
Operational reporting covers the day-to-day reports used by project managers, resource managers, and other tactical personnel. When using operational reporting, you must consider the scheduling and delivery of reports. The combination of the spread data persistence in the P6 EPPM schema and BI Publisher addresses the scheduling, execution, and delivery of the reports. On a day-to-day basis, the reporting load will be fairly consistent. You need to answer the following:
When will reports run? Users may need to execute on demand. Or they may need reports prior to the start of the work day. These considerations will affect the timeliness of the data. You can run it one or more times per day and limit the duration of each run (which is proportional to the data volume and date range selected by the users).
How will reports be delivered? You must get the right reports to users at the right time. BI Publisher offers multiple ways to deliver reports from the P6 EPPM Extended Schema. These include email, HTTP, WEBDAV, and direct printing. The logistics of setting up these delivery methods must be considered during the planning process. Moreover, any leading third-party reporting tools can be utilized to generate and deliver the reports.
What will the reporting load be on Oracle ODS Database? One of the major considerations affecting subsequent decisions will be the load on the reporting server.
Queries will execute against the Oracle ODS database to fulfill reporting requests. You must consider that this usage will peak during specific times. Since the exact types of queries are unknown at this point, you should analyze:
How many users are accessing the database at the same time? This will determine the maximum load on the database server.
Is the reporting on individual projects or across the entire database? Aggregate queries will put more load on the server than project-specific queries.
Is the reporting done in batch or interactively? More interactive reporting will increase the demands on both the server CPU and I/O subsystem.
Note: The BI Server component is capable of robust caching of query results, which can mitigate performance concerns. The effectiveness of caching depends on how much users share security. If every user's project access is distinct (including the level of access to cost fields) then the cache will only be effective for each user individually.