04 Oracle BI Publisher Architecture
Table of Contents
What Is Oracle BI Publisher? ......................................................................................................................... 2
Classic Reporting Paradigm ........................................................................................................................... 3
Oracle BI Publisher Paradigm........................................................................................................................ 4
Flexible Deployment Options........................................................................................................................ 5
Oracle BI Publisher for Applications ............................................................................................................. 6
Oracle BI Publisher Standalone..................................................................................................................... 6
Oracle BI Publisher Desktop.......................................................................................................................... 7
Oracle BI Publisher Architecture ................................................................................................................... 7
From Data to Destination ............................................................................................................................. 9
Government Forms ..................................................................................................................................... 10
Extract Once, Publish Many Times.............................................................................................................. 11
Report Bursting ........................................................................................................................................... 12
Consolidated Document Publishing ............................................................................................................ 13
Distributed Delivery .................................................................................................................................... 13
Inbound Document Capture ....................................................................................................................... 14
Data Sources ............................................................................................................................................... 15
Oracle BI Publisher Data Engine.................................................................................................................. 15
Oracle BI Publisher Technology .................................................................................................................. 15
Oracle BI Publisher Technology .................................................................................................................. 16
Performance and Scalability ....................................................................................................................... 16
Security ....................................................................................................................................................... 16
Internationalization and Language Support ............................................................................................... 17
Translation .................................................................................................................................................. 17
1
What Is Oracle BI Publisher?
Oracle BI Publisher is a Java-based product available within the technology stack of the E-Business
Suite which
provides users with:
• A template-based, easy-to-use publishing solution
• A tool to rapidly develop and maintain report formats
What is Oracle BI Publisher?
Oracle Oracle BI Publisher is a new Java-based product within the technology stack of the e-Business
Suite. It is an easy-to-use, template-based publishing solution that enables customers to rapidly develop
and maintain report formats.
It is build on standard, well-known technologies such as XML and allows customers to take advantage of
using tools they are familiar with such as Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat.
It consists of:
• A library of APIs
• An integrated architecture with the E-Business Suite
• A reporting tool providing “rich” output options
• A friendly solution that provides control of the report design layout to the
customer to decrease the overall costs associated to customizations and
maintenance
2
Classic Reporting Paradigm
Classic tools include such products as Oracle Reports.
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Oracle BI Publisher Paradigm
Separate data, layout, and translation
Oracle BI Publisher Paradigm
While it may appear that splitting the report into data, layout, and translation components is more
complex, the tools and techniques used actually simplify the process.
4
Flexible Deployment Options
5
Oracle BI Publisher for Applications
Oracle BI Publisher for Oracle E-Business Suite
• Integrated with concurrent manager
• Tightly integrated with all E-Business Suite modules
• Central repository for managing data and layout
• Translation and configuration management
Oracle BI Publisher for PeopleSoft Enterprise
• Integrated with process scheduler and report manager
• Publish PeopleSoft queries and row sets
• Report bursting
• Security join tables
• Template manager with effective dates support
Oracle BI Publisher for JD Edwards Enterprise
• Integrated with Enterprise One queries
• Support queries saved through data browser
• Row and business unit security
Oracle BI Publisher Standalone
Oracle BI Publisher Embedded: Custom Development
• Powerful formatting engines
• High-performance data extraction engine
• Batch processing, and bursting
• Delivery API for e-mail, fax, printing, FTP, and AS2
• Based on open standards: Java, XML, XSL, FO, RTF, PDF
Oracle BI Publisher Enterprise
• Easy and fast deployment
• Any J2EE container
• Configure repository on XMLDB or file system
• Data from multiple DBs in the same report (Oracle, DB2, and others)
• Multiple output formats and multiple delivery options
• Document repository, scheduling, archiving
• Database and Application Server independent
• Advanced security and administrative options
• Pluggable Services, Web Service APIs
6
Oracle BI Publisher Desktop
Functional user’s tools:
• Functional users can create reports using familiar desktop applications.
• Oracle BI Publisher for Word
• Oracle BI Publisher for Excel
• Oracle BI Publisher for PDF
Consultant’s or IT department’s tools:
• Consultants create data sources and reports using expert tools.
• Oracle BI Publisher Builder
• Oracle BI Publisher Viewer or Debugger
Oracle BI Publisher Architecture
Oracle BI Publisher Architecture
Oracle BI Publisher is made up of the five modules:
• Data Handled: Data engines are registered with the data handler. Can be any
XML source or any engine that generates XML such as Oracle Reports.
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•
Template Manager: The Template Manager is a friendly user interface that is
built over a collection of APIs that enables customers to register and maintain
their Data Definitions and Templates. Layout templates to be used for the final
output are stored and managed in the Template Manager. Templates are
created using familiar desktop tools such as MS Word, MS Excel, or Adobe
Acrobat.
• Document Processor: The Document Processor allows the user to build single
documents from multiple data source and template combinations or
individual documents for each combination. Passing XML that contains
multiple data sources and templates to Oracle BI Publisher will result in the
generation of multiple output documents.
• Translation Handler: The Translation Handler provides users with ability to
register and maintain Data Definitions and Templates in a friendly user
interface. Increases ease and flexibility of maintaining everyday reports and
business documents. (This will be supported in a future release.)
• Delivery Server: Takes the output document and delivers it to the printer
Oracle BI Publisher offers a new concurrent program, XML Report Publisher, that will apply a userselected template layout to generated XML data. The new concurrent program is accessible at the
Concurrent Manager and can be executed at the Single Request Submission screen. New concurrent
program is executed at the familiar Concurrent Manager Request Submission screen.
• Provides flexibility of choosing a layout template from a list of registered
templates associated to the selected XML generated data source
• User is able to apply multiple layout templates to the same XML data without
having to run the XML generating program more than once.
Output is a friendly viewable PDF document. Prerequisite is to register data definition and template.
Four parameters in the report: XML data, Template, Language, and Currency.
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From Data to Destination
An Oracle BI Publisher report can consist of one or more sources that feed a template created by any
supported method. The resulting output of the report can be sent to one or more outputs and
distributed to one or more destinations.
9
Government Forms
Download PDF forms from the government Web site.
Send back the exact form filled with data.
10
Extract Once, Publish Many Times
11
Report Bursting
12
Consolidated Document Publishing
Generate consolidated documents:
• Briefing books
• Shipping documents
• Others
Either Oracle BI Publisher or third-party PDFs:
• Page numbering
• Bookmarks
• Start and end pages
• Overlays
Distributed Delivery
13
Inbound Document Capture
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Data Sources
Any database or multiple databases
• Distributed queries
• Oracle BI Publisher Data Engine
Any ERP system
Any XML data server
• Oracle Reports
• DB packages in SQL or XML
Any XML Web service
Oracle BI Publisher Data Engine
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Fast, scalable extraction engine
Integrated into concurrent manager
Migration tools available from Oracle Reports
Offers all that Oracle Reports offers, 30–40% faster
– Multiple queries and joins
– Event triggers
– Flexfield support
– Formula/Summary columns
– Java API layer for Oracle Applications Framework (OAF) support
– Data bursting (5.6.1)
– Distributed queries (5.6.1)
Oracle BI Publisher Technology
Open-standard technologies:
• W3C XSL:FO implementation
• Pure Java
• Pluggable data in XML
• Output formats in PDF, PS, RTF, and HTML
• Support for Internet Printing Protocol, WebDAV, Internet Fax Protocol, and SMTP
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Oracle BI Publisher Technology
Industry Standard Templates
Using desktop applications
• Word
• Excel
• PDF
• XSL Editors
Template Builder Add-ins
Performance and Scalability
Stream-based implementation:
• Reduces memory footprint
• Handles large XML input files
• Is the fastest XSL-FO implementation
Users can design layout templates using familiar desktop applications such as Adobe Acrobat and MS
Word. There are now many XSL editors available on the market for the user to take advantage of.
Security
Printing from MS Excel is not accepted by financial auditors.
PDF security levels for:
• Read only/editable text
• “Copyable” text
• Printable text
• Password protecting text
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Internationalization and Language Support
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•
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No need for expensive language-specific printers
Oracle BI Publisher ships with a full set of Unicode fonts.
Scalable fonts embedding, with CID mapping tables
Oracle BI Publisher supports
– CJK
– BiDi
– Unicode
– MLS
Communicate with partners around the world.
Create a template for any language or territory.
Translation
Communicate with partners around the world.
• No dependency on installed languages
• No dependency on database character set
Create a template for any language or territory.
• Translate template or send to third party
• Support for XLIFF
Recognizes any combination of:
• 185 language codes
• 244 territory codes
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