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Working with Oracle BI Publisher Reports


Oracle BI Publisher creates highly formatted, printable reports. Oracle BI Publisher is integrated with Oracle Business Intelligence, and you access Oracle BI Publisher from the Oracle BI Answers, Delivers, and Interactive Dashboards application. BI Publisher reports are built directly against a subject area available from the Oracle BI Server, or reports can be based on an Answers request. BI Publisher reports can be added to Dashboard pages. BI Publisher and Oracle BI integration also provides single sign-on capability so that when users log into the Oracle BI, they are also simultaneously logged into the Oracle BI Publisher application.

If your organization uses Oracle BI Publisher, you can run, view, and interact with an Oracle BI Publisher report in a dashboard page. When included on a dashboard page, the Oracle BI Publisher toolbar offers the option to select a layout template, change the Oracle BI Publisher report's output format, export the Oracle BI Publisher report, send the Oracle BI Publisher report to an available destination (for example, printer, fax, email, or FTP), schedule the Oracle BI Publisher report, and analyze the data.

NOTE:  A dashboard page can only contain one Oracle BI Publisher report. Also, Oracle BI Publisher reports cannot be created or modified in Oracle BI Answers, used in Oracle BI Delivers, or saved in Oracle BI Briefing Books. The Add to Briefing Books and Printer Friendly buttons are disabled for a dashboard page that displays an Oracle BI Publisher report.

Within Oracle BI Publisher, you can also view and schedule reports, as well as launch BI Publisher Analyzer for Excel, develop report queries and data models, translate reports, and perform Oracle BI Publisher-related administrative tasks.

Use Oracle BI Publisher to create and save an Oracle BI Publisher report to the report repository. To add an Oracle BI Publisher report to a dashboard, you must browse to the repository and select the Oracle BI Publisher report.

For more information about creating or scheduling an Oracle BI Publisher report, see the Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher User Guide

This section contains the following topics:

NOTE:  For information about adding an Oracle BI Publisher report to a dashboard page, see Adding and Displaying Content in an Oracle BI Interactive Dashboard Page Using the Dashboard Editor.

Accessing Oracle BI Publisher

You can access the Oracle BI Publisher application from the Oracle BI Answers, Delivers, and Dashboards application.

For more information about using Oracle BI Publisher, see the Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher User Guide.

  • From the Oracle BI screen, click More Products and select BI Publisher.

    The Oracle BI Publisher application appears in a new browser window.

Selecting an Oracle BI Publisher Report for a Dashboard Page

Since reports may be scheduled, you might want to choose a specific run of the report that you want to include on the dashboard. The report run that you select also determines whether dashboard prompts can be used.

When a report that is not scheduled or has no previous history is included on the dashboard, the report will be executed and generated when you access the dashboard page. You can use the dashboard prompts to re-generate the report and display updated data.

When adding a report that is scheduled or has historical runs to a dashboard, you may specify either a specific historical run of the report or the latest version of the report. Since this report has been run via the scheduler, you cannot use the dashboard prompts to regenerate the report from the dashboard.

NOTE:  For information about adding an Oracle BI Publisher report to a dashboard page, see Adding and Displaying Content in an Oracle BI Interactive Dashboard Page Using the Dashboard Editor.

Using the Oracle BI Publisher Toolbar on a Dashboard Page

The Oracle BI Publisher toolbar appears on the dashboard containing an Oracle BI Publisher report. The options that are presented to the user depend upon the user's permissions.

To use the Oracle BI Publisher toolbar on a dashboard page

  • Access the dashboard containing the Oracle BI Publisher report that you want to view. For more information about the various functions, see the Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher User Guide.

    The toolbar functions are described in the following table:

    Function
    Description

    Template

    If multiple report templates are available they will display in the Template list. Select a new template and then click View.

    Output Type

    If multiple output types are available, select the desired output type (HTML, PDF, RTF, Excel, data) from the list and click View. The output will be rendered in your browser.

    View

    Select a template or specify an output type and click this button to view the Oracle BI Publisher report.

    Export

    When you click this button, you are prompted to save the Oracle BI Publisher report or to open the appropriate application for the output type.

    Send

    When you click this button, the Destination dialog screen appears. From this screen, select the delivery destination (for example, Email, Printer, Fax, FTP, or Web Folder) and enter the appropriate information. You can select multiple delivery destinations.

    Schedule

    Click this button to schedule the Oracle BI Publisher report. For more information about scheduling a report, see the Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher User Guide.

    Analyzer

    If you have been assigned permission to access the Online Analyzer, click this button to create a pivot table of the Oracle BI Publisher report's data. For more information about using the Online Analyzer, see the Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher User Guide.

Using Dashboard Prompts with Parameterized Oracle BI Publisher Reports

You can use a dashboard prompt to filter the results of embedded parameterized Oracle BI Publisher reports to show only results that match the prompt criteria. How you set up the dashboard prompts depends upon how the Oracle BI Publisher report was set up to retrieve data.

To use dashboard prompts with parameterized Oracle BI Publisher Reports

  1. Create a new dashboard prompt that is appropriate for the parameter in the Oracle BI Publisher report that you added to the dashboard. Before creating dashboard prompts for reports, note the following requirements:
    • An Oracle BI Publisher report that receives its data from an Answers request must have the report columns that you want to filter on set to "Is Prompted" in the Answers request. This type of report supports the full range of dashboard prompt expressions, but the Oracle BI report cannot contain parameters.
    • An Oracle BI Publisher report may receive its data from the Oracle BI Server or some other data source such as an Oracle database. This type of report can contain parameters with default values. To properly set up the dashboard prompts, you must define the Presentation variable for each prompt, and the name of the presentation variable must match the report parameter name. Because the dashboard passes the prompt's value to the report's SQL query, the dashboard prompts operator must be set to "is equal to/is in."

      For more information on creating dashboard prompts, see Creating a Dashboard Prompt for Filtering Oracle BI Requests. For more information on creating Oracle BI Publisher reports, see the Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher User Guide.

      NOTE:  Dashboard modification is reserved for users with the appropriate permissions and responsibilities.

  2. In Oracle BI Interactive Dashboards, navigate to the dashboard that contains the parameterized Oracle BI Publisher report and click the Dashboard Editor link.

    The Dashboard Editor appears.

  3. From the selection pane, in the Saved Content area, navigate to the folder that contains the dashboard prompt you want to add.
  4. Drag and drop the dashboard prompt into the section in the dashboard page that contains the Oracle BI Publisher report.
  5. Click the Save button.
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