Bi Publisher 11g: Only good news

BI Publisher 11g : Only good news

Eng. Edelweiss Kammermann

UKOUG Conference - Birmingham December 2011

Who am I ?

• Computer engineer, BI and BPM specialist with over 15 years of consulting and project management experience in Oracle technology.

• Oracle University Instructor of many courses, included OBI, BPM, Warehouse Builder and ODI.

• Co-founder and Vice President of Uruguayan Oracle User Group (UYOUG)

• Emails: [email protected]

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

Uruguay?

Agenda

• What is BI Publisher?

• Report Architecture

• Building a report: step by step guide

• New Features version 11g (11.1.1.3)


• Migrating BI Publisher from 10g to 11g: Things that you need to keep in mind.

• Conclusions

Agenda







• Conclusions

What is BI Publisher?

• Oracle BI Publisher is an enterprise reporting solution for authoring, managing, and delivering all types of highly formatted documents.

• Combine data from multiple and different data sources

• Separate the three report design components(data, layout, translation), obtaining:

• Flexibility

• Reduced maintenance

• Provide multiple output formats

• Has very user-friendly tools to create different layouts

Install Options

•As standalone product • As part of OBIEE

Agenda







• Conclusions

Report Architecture

Agenda







• Conclusions

Building a report: step by step guide

1. Create data model

2. Create layout(s)

3. Set Report Properties

4. (optional) Add Translations


1- Create data model: • Data Model defines data that is used by a report .

Components:

• Data Sets

• Parameters

• Lists of Values

• Bursting

• Event Triggers

• Flexfields

2- Create layout(s): • A layout defines how the data is presented in the report

• A report can include multiple layouts

• Consists of a template file and a set of properties.

• Types of templates: – Predefined (basic templates)

– User defined

• BI Publisher supports templates created from many

sources including Microsoft Word, Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Excel, Adobe Flash, and BI Publisher's new layout editor.


3- Set Report Properties

• Enable control of generation, formatting and display aspects

4- (optional) Add Translations:

• BI Publisher allows translations for: – A particular layout

– All translatable words in the layout, data model and the report metadata.

• Support s over 150 languages


Defining Data Sources (Administration Page)



Defining Data Sources (Administration Page)

Agenda







• Conclusions

New features 11g: New Data Model Editor

• Combine Multiple Data Sources

• Allows query, structure and aggregate data

New Data Sources: • Excel • LDAP • ADF View Object

New Data Model Editor

• Filter and structure data

• Define alias for columns to create user friendly names

New Features 11g: New Layout Editor

Web Design Editor WYSIWYG

New Layout Editor

Interactive HTML Output format

New Features 11g: Style Templates

• Is an RTF file that contains layout formatting detail.

• Is applied to RTF Layouts at run time to manage style information (font type, text color, or table styles)

• Template useful for :

– create consistent Look & Feel through organizational reports.

– Avoid the need to apply changes to each report.

• Supported styles

– Table

– Paragraph

– Header/Footer

New Features 11g: Sub templates

• A Subtemplate is a piece of formatting functionality .

• Can be defined once and used multiple times within a single layout template or across multiple layout template files.

• RTF or XSL file.

New Features 11g: Sub templates

• Common uses:

– reusing a common layout or component (header, footer, or address block)

– Handling parameterized layouts

– Handling dynamic or conditional layouts

– Handling lengthy calculations or reusing formulas

• In 11g, subtemplate is an indepent object in the catalog.

New Features 11g: Tighter BIEE Suite Plus Integration

• Web catalog integration

• Home page integration

• Security integration

New Features 11g: Scheduling & Bursting Enhancements

• Recurrence patterns:

– Hourly

– Annually/Monthly

– Specific Dates

• Multiple Outputs


• Manage Job History


Agenda







• Conclusions

New Features version 11.1.1.5

• List Component

• Local Excel Data Source

• Native and Web App for iPad & iPhone

• Excel 2007 Output

• Faster Interactive Reports

• Excel Templates


List component


Local Excel Data Source

Agenda







• Conclusions

Migrating BI Publisher from 10g to 11g: Things that you need to keep in mind.

To upgrade Oracle BI Publisher you have to run Upgrade Assistant in two steps:

• For Oracle BI Publisher Repository (Reports and Configuration Files)

• For BI Publisher Schema

BI Publisher Repository Upgrade

• When you upgrade the BI Publisher repository, 10g reports are upgraded and placed in the 11g repository

• The most important change in the report definition (from 10g to 11g), is the separation of the data model as an independent object in the catalog.

• The upgrade from 10g to 11g splits the 10g report object into a report definition file (.xdo) and a data model file (.xdm)


Security Model Changes

• If you will upgrade a standalone installation of BI Publisher, the security model does not change.

• In Oracle Fusion Middleware Security, you manage users and roles from the Oracle WebLogic Administration Console

• If BI Publisher is integrated with Oracle BI EE, then users and groups are migrated from the 10g repository file to the default 11g identity store ( Oracle WebLogic Server embedded LDAP server).

. Migrating BI Publisher from 10g to 11g: Things that you need to keep in mind.

Enhanced Catalog Object Security

• In 10g granting access to catalog objects was performed in the Administration Roles and Permissions page. Giving access to the folder which the report was.

• In 11g, the granting of permissions is performed within the catalog using the Permissions task.


Enhanced Catalog Object Security • Permissions for folders:

– Full Control

– Modify

– Open

– Schedule Publisher Report

– View Publisher Output

– Traverse

– No Access

– Custom


• Permissions for reports:

– Full Control

– Modify

– Open

– Schedule Publisher Report

– View Publisher Output

– No Access

– Custom






• For a user to run a report, he must have the read permission granted for every object that is referenced by the report. (For example: data model, style template)

• In 11g, all roles that access a data source (even only for viewing reports) , must be granted access to that data source. (This task is performed in the Administration Page)


• Discoverer Workbooks are not longer supported as a Data Set Type


• Compatibility between 10g and 11g Reports – Cannot download reports from 10g and try to upload and run them in

11g. All the reports from 10g, have to be upgrated using the Upgrade Assistant.

– The same from 11g to 10g

– You can use a template that was created in 10g for a 11g report.

– You can use the BI Publisher Template Builder for Word 11g to design reports for 10g, setting the option: Backward Compatible.


Agenda






• Security in BI Publisher

• Migrating Bi Publisher from 10g to 11g: Things that you need to keep in mind.

• Conclusions

With BI Publisher you can:

• Obtain data from almost any source

• Combine data from different data sources

• Reuse your data models

• Easily create many layouts in different output formats for the same report.

• Generate multiple documents from the same report, and deliver each document to a different destination (bursting).

• Schedule reports and manage the job history

Conclusions

Advantages:

• Reduces complexity: Most intuitive tool to create, deploy and deliver reports

• Has quick learning curve: Only one tool to create any type of report

• Reduces time in reports generation. (Optimizations for PDF and to handle large documents.)

• Reduces total cost , including develop and maintenance because of objects reuse (data models, style templates)

Conclusions

Additional Information

• http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-

publisher/overview/index.html

• http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-publisher/learnmore/index.html

• http://blogs.oracle.com/xmlpublisher/

• http://forums.oracle.com/forums/forum.jspa?forumID=245

• www.rittmanmead.com/blog

• New book: Oracle BI Publisher 11g: A Practical Guide to Enterprise Reporting

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-publisher/overview/index.html



http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bi-publisher/learnmore/index.html



http://blogs.oracle.com/xmlpublisher/

http://forums.oracle.com/forums/forum.jspa?forumID=245

http://www.rittmanmead.com/blog

Q & A

Technology

Bi Publisher 11g: Only good news