Harnessing the Power of BI Publisher
Presented By : Venkat
Munukutla
Copyright © 2007 Idha Software Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
• The abstract for this presentation currently reads as follows: 'This
Presentation is an introduction to the advanced features of BI Publisher
and takes a deep dive to explore it's intricate features that could be
harnessed to satisfy the reporting requirements for most organizations.
Further, this presentation also discusses the road map of BI Publisher as it
is ordained to work in conjunction with Release12. With this new
reporting Paradigm being introduced with the Release 12 of Oracle ERP,
this presentation discusses how BI Publisher could potentially encompass
the entire gamut of the Organization’s reporting requirements and this is
supported with examples. This presentation also fathoms the multidimensional features of this tool to explain how it's versatile enough to
share reporting services across organization while keeping tabs on control
, compliance and visibility of the reports.'
Copyright © 2007 Idha Software Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Presenter
Venkat Munukutla
• Over 12 years of experience in Oracle and Technology.
• Worked in various technical, functional and management roles involving
ERP and technology solutions (Extensive use of SOA and Oracle Fusion
technologies).
• MS from University of Texas, Dallas
• Currently Working as Sr. Consultant for Oracle ERP and Technologies
practice, Idhasoft (www.idhasoft.com), a $120 mil IT solutions provider
Copyright © 2007 Idha Software Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Topics
BI Publisher
• Why BI Publisher
• BI Publisher Enhancements
• BI Publisher for 11i Customers
• 11i – R12 Reports Conversion Process
• Advanced Features of BI Publisher in R12
• Implementing New Features – Technical Perspective
• Applications
• Question and Answer Session
Copyright © 2007 Idha Software Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
BI Publisher
• Oracle BI Publisher (Formerly XML Publisher) is the next generation open
standards tool for reporting.
• Enhanced Reporting Functionality :
BI Publisher is a great reporting
tool inside the E Business Suite but the greatest value is that offered by
the products that use it and provide enhanced reporting functionality to
their users.
• Tool of choice for eBusiness Suite (EBS) customers
• According to Oracle, the next release of EBS i.e. 12i has almost 80%
reports that are BI Publisher (XML Publisher) based
Copyright © 2007 Idha Software Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
BI Publisher: What you have all been waiting for
–
–
–
–
–
Super Extracts with Related Information
Data and Layout Abstraction
Additional Templates
Powerful Layout Editing Features
Enhanced Reporting Options
Copyright © 2007 Idha Software Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
BIP Customizing Templates
Initial Versions 11i10 in HRMS, Purchasing, Contracts, Advanced Collections. In the case of
Advanced Collections they jumped in a the deep end and based all of their reporting on
XMLP including document delivery.
• R12 More teams taking advantage of the reporting gains XMLP
• E.g. The new Payments team are standardizing on a single extract and then providing you EFT
formats (EText templates),
• Check formats (RTF Templates),
• The Global Financials teams have reduced the number of extracts they have and are shipping
you layouts.
• The number of out of the box templates now available, roughly 870 templates across 60 or so
teams means that there is a high chance the product as now developed the template you are
interested in. So it should be a simple case of getting their template, copying it, customizing it
and then deploying it - done.
Copyright © 2007 Idha Software Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
11i customer what do I get?
•
•
Well one of the carrots to come to R12 is the better reporting and the number of
templates available.
There are tentative plans to build a Template Bank on Metalink to allow you to
download development delivered templates
Copyright © 2007 Idha Software Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Migrating from 11i – R12
•
•
•
Migrating Reports from 11i – R12
What of your own custom reports, how can you migrate those? Well in R12 there
are a set of libraries to help you move your Oracle Reports to a data template
(extract) plus a layout template (RTF) ...
The libraries are being used internally to convert the canned reports
Copyright © 2007 Idha Software Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Converting Reports from Oracle Reports to Oracle BI Publisher
• Oracle BI Publisher provides a utility for converting reports from
Standard Oracle Reports to Oracle BI Publisher.
• Report Definition and Layout Templates
In Oracle Reports, the data model (SQL query or extraction logic) and
layout are contained in a single file. In Oracle BI Publisher the data
model and the layout are separate objects.
• The conversion utility generates several files that will make up your
report in Oracle BI Publisher.
E.g.: PL/SQL specification and body containing the data for the report.
• The utility will generate a report definition file and a layout template file
that will be uploaded to the Oracle BI Publisher repository.
Copyright © 2007 Idha Software Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Conversion Process
The overall flow for the conversion process is as follows:
• Run the conversion utility.
• Load the PL/SQL package into the database.
• Upload the report to the Oracle BI Publisher
repository.
• Test the report and check the conversion log files to
identify any manual modifications needed to
complete the conversion.
Copyright © 2007 Idha Software Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
BI Publisher is here to stay Release 12
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
870 templates for more than 60 modules included with baseline R12
Oracle is current migrating the remaining reports to XML Publisher
2000 templates expected to be available
Used across entire division from Financials to SCM to CRM.
More than 450 templates will be translated for customers
HRMS uses government form to a high degree
Payments team uses XMLP for all payments
Financial Applications consolidates many reports
R12.x project to move remaining reports across
Copyright © 2007 Idha Software Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Overview: New and Enhanced Features for BI Publisher
•Data Extraction Engine
•Bursting Engine
•Consolidated Document Publishing
•Template Enhancements
•Delivery Manager : Distributed Delivery
•Template Manager
•Integration
Copyright © 2007 Idha Software Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
R12 Oracle BI Publisher PowerPoint Output
•
•
•
Oracle BI Publisher 10.1.3.3 adds support for PowerPoint output. This enables you
to get report data into your key business presentations.
In this initial version of this functionality, the PowerPoint document generated is a
simple export of the formatted data and charts to PowerPoint.
In a future release, there will be more sophisticated integration that allows for
direct embedding and refreshing from within PowerPoint.
Copyright © 2007 Idha Software Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Other New Features
• Support for Digital Signatures in PDF Documents
• Support for PostScript Printers
• Oracle BI Publisher Web Services
Copyright © 2007 Idha Software Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Integration with Oracle BI Discoverer
• In this release BI Publisher accepts Discoverer worksheets as report data
sources. To facilitate building reports from the Discoverer worksheets, the
Template Builder enables you to connect to Discoverer, browse
worksheets, and load data to the Template Builder directly from
Discoverer.
Copyright © 2007 Idha Software Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Editing Fields on Templates
• Edit code in the form fields in a single window in the BI Publisher
Properties dialog.
• Template Builder generates the code for you !!
Sample Additional Dialogs simplifying insertion and editing :
• Data field Properties
• Repeating Groups
• Conditional Formatting
• Conditional Regions
Copyright © 2007 Idha Software Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Flash Templates for Oracle BI Publisher
• Appying Adobe FLEX Templates
This new feature enables report authors to develop Adobe FLEX templates
that can be applied to BI Publisher reports to generate highly interactive
Flash output documents.In this release,
Oracle BI Publisher offers support for Adobe Corporation's new document
format for building interactive forms and reports, called Flex. You can build
Flex templates, test them on your desktop, and deploy them to the BI
Publisher server to generate Flash output.
Copyright © 2007 Idha Software Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Sample Applications for BI
• Oracle Financials
• Oracle Payments
Copyright © 2007 Idha Software Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Oracle Financials
Business Requirements
•Generate High Fidelity Output
•Allow end user customization
•10000+ page output
•No change for report consumers
Implementation
•RTF Templates
•Scalable transformation
•Concurrent Manager Integration
Copyright © 2007 Idha Software Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Oracle Payments
Business Requirements
•Generate Electronic Funds Transfer files
•Support 160 formats Very large input data Deliver via FTP, HTTP
Implementation
•eText Templates
•Delivery Manager
Copyright © 2007 Idha Software Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Q&A
Copyright © 2007 Idha Software Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.