As you can see in the final screenshot, we have covered a lot of ground in this chapter. This will be enough to get a developer going on any project, yet we hope that this material has opened your eyes to the vast amount of development options within the RPD, and also the massive scope for you to gather further experience and knowledge. Be patient. Learning new functionality and skills takes time to sink in. Also, some of the topics covered in this chapter, for example, variables, will make a lot more comprehensive and cohesive sense once we show you how to make dashboards and reports and use those objects.

In summary, we went through setting up a new project from importing physical tables to adding extensive business logic, and then through to configuring the presentation for our end users. We created advanced objects, adding layer upon layer of complexity, each time iterating and building upon a previous piece of development. Again, don't be overawed by the amount of options, but take time to experiment and read up on all of the topics that we have discussed in this chapter.

Once you are up to speed in running queries (as we will show you later in this book), you can use OBIEE's query log (NQQuery.log) to check how the logical and physical SQL changes as we make RPD changes. This will strongly enhance your understanding of RPD development.

We also talked a lot about best practices. If you wish to become a valuable developer, take the time to develop your projects with this in mind. It is very easy to just drag a bunch of objects in quickly without thinking about the future iterative cycles and requirements. OBIEE has very powerful options, but do not be tempted to just put everything into the RPD.

Take time to understand whether something should be developed in the RPD or pushed down to the ETL or database.

Many times, an advanced metric or solution may perform better in a lower level of the system. Also keep in mind that advanced functionality can add a lot to the server load of your OBIEE installation. Although it can be difficult in a pressurized project, liaise with your ETL and database experts to try and reach the best and most performant solution for your overall system rather than grasping for the easiest option straightaway.