OBIEE to Twitter... and Beyond

Have you noticed the extraordinary evolution of Twitter as an entirely unique medium of communication? I have. And I've also been having daydreams (call me an OBIEE geek) about coming up with a simple and brilliant way to create a Twitter feed from a scheduled OBIEE report, using something along the lines of either BI Publisher or iBots. Looking into the Twitter API documentation, I started getting excited by the fact that their API follows the REST protocol which essentially uses HTTP requests and responses for the exchange of data. Wow, I thought, I could use the HTTP Delivery method that is new to OBIEE 10.1.3.4 ! How exciting! (OK fine, I truly am an OBIEE geek.)

So we should be able to try a quick and simple test to send a notification to my Twitter profile upon completion of a scheduled BI Publisher report! Awww, not so fast: BIP's HTTP Delivery option implements the "GET" method -- the REST protocol, and likewise the Twitter API, calls for any data update to be made using the "POST" method. Maybe in future versions of OBIEE we'll be able to configure the HTTP Delivery option, and, who knows, even the parameter/values that are sent. For now, this feature won't work with Twitter.

I wonder what iBots can do for me? Perhaps 10.1.3.4 also added HTTP Delivery to "Destinations"? Argh, no such luck -- I'm sure we'll see something interesting in 11g but until then we're out of luck. But what the heck, let's take a poke at the "Advanced" features... Well isn't that interesting! I can call another iBot, a custom script, a Workflow or -- behold -- a custom Java application! Moreover I can even call one or more of these entities in any combination, both when iBot conditions are satisfied AND when no records are returned by the conditional request. The mind reels! And look at the options I have when calling a Custom Script or Java Program -- in addition to the obvious ability to specify the program itself, but I can also specify whether to pass to this program the results of the conditional report (and what format to use) OR the content itself OR simply nothing at all. Moreover I can send any number of additional custom parameters.

Clearly, with just a little bit of work, one could achieve my original objective by writing a simple Java program that reads the incoming parameters and/or dataset and POSTs the relevant information to the Twitter API.

But the real ramifications are much more profound: By using iBots to invoke Java interfaces into external ERP or CRM systems -- many of which offer a rich set of public Java APIs -- the OBIEE platform can become a powerful and flexible system for an enlightened business to coordinate automated actions in richly nuanced response to the variety of heterogenous data made availble to the user's fingertips by OBIEE. I understand OBIEE 11g is taking active integration between OBIEE and business processes to a whole new level with its Action Framework -- but until then, the Custom Java Program feature gives us plenty of possibilities to chew on.

Now, who's ready to write that Java Twitter interface?