Include custom links in OBIEE Global Header

By default, the global header in Oracle BIEE contains menus and options that allow you to navigate easily among features. You might like to customize the global header and the Get Started section of the Home page to better meet the needs of users by disabling certain links or including your own links. Changes that you make to the Get Started section do not affect the Help menu in the global header. For custom links, you can specify various attributes, including the following:

·         The text for the link (either a static string or a message name to use for localization).

·         A URL to access.

·         Whether the page from the URL replaces the current page or opens in a new tab or window that you can name.

·         The relative ordering of links in the header.

Update the customlinks.xml file to specify customizations to the global header

1)      To include Gmail before Catalog link, insert the below mentioned code in the customlinks.xml (ORACLE_INSTANCE\bifoundation\OracleBIPresentationServicesComponent\coreapplication_obipsn)

<link id="l5" name="Gmail" description="gmail" src="http://www.gmail.com" target="blank" iconLarge="common/gmail.png" >

   <locations>

      <location name="getstarted"> /

      <location name="header" insertBefore="catalog" />

   </locations>

</link>

Before custom links are visible on the Home page, you must edit the instanceconfig.xml file to include the CustomLinks element and the Enabled element within it (whose default is true).

2)      Open the instanceconfig.xml file for editing

3)      Search for the ServerInstance section, in which you must add the CustomLinks element.

4)      Include the elements and their ancestor elements as appropriate, as shown in the following example:

<ServerInstance>

   <CustomLinks>

      <Enabled>true</Enabled>

      <filePath>c:/mydir/mysubdir/customlinks.xml</filePath>

   </CustomLinks>

</ServerInstance>

5)      Save your changes and close the file.

6)      Restart Oracle Business Intelligence.