OBIEE 11g Release 11.1.1.7 – Best Practices for Customization of Messages

OBIEE 11g Release 11.1.1.7 allows to customize text elements in the Analysis editor, the agent’s editor and on dashboard pages. Examples of text elements include the content of text strings, the text for prompts such as the names of links and buttons, and the text of error and informational messages that are displayed to users as the result of their work.

The text elements are contained in external message files (XML format), language dependent message files are located at ORACLE_HOME\bifoundation\web\msgdb\l_xx\messages (xx is language identifier) while language independent files are located in the ORACLE_HOME\bifoundation\web\msgdb\messages directory.

More and more clients would like to change the text elements for OBIEE 11g implementation. One should not edit the message files directly because any changes would not be retained with installation of newer version or service releases.

This blog is an attempt to discuss structure of XML message files and propose the best way to achieve desired message customization.

 Structure of XML Message Files

Message File

The name of a message file indicates the kind of the content that it holds. Some of the examples of the message files are as below. 

Within each XML, there is a webMessage Name and value as shown below.

Note - Messages related to copyright information and product names etc are protected and can not be changed. The productmessages.xml file contains text preceding the WebMessage elements that indicates that the associated names cannot be changed.

Customizing XML Messages

The following steps explain how to customize the content of unprotected messages. During initialization, WebMessge name default text is replaced with text from equivalently named elements in any customized xml file.

Directory Location

ORACLE_INSTANCE\bifoundation\OracleBIPresentationServicesComponent\coreapplication_obipsn\msgdb\l_xx (where xx is language identifier), for more than one language we have to create

Create Directory 

Name of directory should be ‘’customMessges’’

File

Create one or more XML files in ’customMessges’’ directory. I would prefer to create one file custommessages.xml rather than multiple files to maintenance ease.

Messages

Create message identifiers with similar names and customize their text

A sample example for custommessages.xml which I have taken from BI Sample is as below.