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Discoverer
Chapter 2
Discoverer Components
Overview
Oracle Discoverer is an ad hoc query tool that operates in the Caltech data warehouse
environment. Discoverers desktop-reporting features provide users the ability to
generate financial reports and analyze financial information easily and quickly.
Discoverer has three main components:
User Edition: the end user component; it provides the graphical interface utilized
by users on a day-to-day basis to generate reports and analyze data.
Administration Edition: the administrator component; it is the tool used to design
and present the hierarchy of financial data known as the business area which is
accessed by users from the User Edition.
End User Layer (EUL): the metalayer that shields users from the complexity of
the relational database from which Discoverer retrieves data. Conceptually, the
EUL resides between the database dictionary (table definitions) and the User
Edition. Physically, it is comprised of a number of database tables and views
organized into business areas (i.e., Finance, Human Resources, etc.)
Figure 1.0 illustrates how the three Discoverer components are integrated.
User Edition
The Oracle Discoverer User Edition is an easy-to-use, read-only data access tool. It
provides logical and intuitive access to financial information in the data warehouse.
Administration Edition
The Administration Edition builds and maintains the End User Layer. Its design
determines how users access and view data. This is where the administrators define the
business areas used by the User Edition.
The Application login and System Status link from the Caltech Support provides a
detailed explanation of how up-to-date the information is in WEBSTER and Discoverer
each day.
2.