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9-Page White Paper Excerpt

Bursting Reports from BI Publisher Enterprise

Bursting Reports from BI Publisher Enterprise

By Brent Lowe, Manager of Product Development, STR Software

Bursting
Bursting is the act of taking an entire report and breaking it up into logical sub documents for delivery. In our example, it would not be a good idea to send the entire report to all sales reps. Instead we would only want to send sales reps the information that pertains to them. Bursting allows us to break up the report into individual documents for delivery to individual destinations.

Figure 1: Bursting

For our working example, we will burst the Sales Rep Report document by sales rep and deliver to the email destination found on the sales rep record in the sales_rep table.

Delivery and Bursting with BIP11g

2011 STR Software

The bursting definition is set up on the data model for a report. Multiple bursting definitions can be defined in a data model, however a report can only be assigned one of them. Setting up bursting is a two step process. 1. 2. Define the bursting criteria on the data model Associate bursting definition with report

Define the Bursting Criteria on the Data Model

To setup bursting, navigate to the data model and click on the Bursting node.

Figure 2: Setting up Bursting

Create a new bursting definition by hitting the + icon and name the bursting definition Burst by Sales Rep and Deliver. Type should be set to SQL Query (the only option) and Data Source should be the data source we setup at the beginning of the exercise (Demo Sales Dashboard).

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Figure 3: Add a New Bursting Definition

Decide how the report is to be split using the Split By field. This field will be pre-populated with the structure of the XML data created by the data template. Because we want to split (or burst) the data by sales rep, choose:

/SALES_DATA/TERRITORY/SALES_REP/REP_ID

We are choosing this field, because rep_id in the database is a unique identifier for a sales rep. Splitting on this field will ensure that each document that is created from the entire report will only be for a single sales rep.

Decide what value to go back to the database with to find the email information using the Deliver By field. Similar to the Split By field, this field will be pre-populated with the structure of the XML data created by the data template. Because we want to determine delivery information by sales rep, choose:

/SALES_DATA/TERRITORY/SALES_REP/REP_ID

We are choosing this field because rep_id in the database is a unique identifier for a sales rep. Because our table structure allows us to determine email information by rep_id, this field is the most logical choice for Deliver By.

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Delivery and Bursting with BIP11g Input a SQL Query that returns the following information for each sales rep 1 :

2011 STR Software

Column KEY

Description This column must match the value returned by the Deliver By field above. In our example, the Deliver By field is returning the sales rep id. This means that this column must return sales_rep.rep_id in order for BIP to find a match and use the rest of the information returned from this query. Template is the name of the layout template to apply. Remember that multiple templates can be applied to the same data model creating a different look and feel. Locale is the template locale, for example en-US Output format is the report output format. For example, HTML, PDF, RTF, EXCEL The actual delivery method, i.e. EMAIL, FAX, FILE, FTP, PRINT, WEBDAV The timezone to use for the report The calendar type to use for the report Name that will be assigned to the output file in the report job history. This also becomes the name of the attachment when emailed. True or false, whether or not to save the burst output Depends on the DEL_CHANNEL see below Depends on the DEL_CHANNEL see below Depends on the DEL_CHANNEL see below Depends on the DEL_CHANNEL see below Depends on the DEL_CHANNEL see below Depends on the DEL_CHANNEL see below Depends on the DEL_CHANNEL see below Depends on the DEL_CHANNEL see below Depends on the DEL_CHANNEL see below Depends on the DEL_CHANNEL see below

TEMPLATE

LOCALE OUTPUT_FORMAT DEL_CHANNEL TIMEZONE CALENDAR OUTPUT_NAME

SAVE_OUTPUT PARAMETER1 PARAMETER2 PARAMETER3 PARAMETER4 PARAMETER5 PARAMETER6 PARAMETER7 PARAMETER8 PARAMETER9 PARAMETER10

Figure 4: Information to Return in Bursting Query

Note, the majority of this information was taken directly from BI Publisher Help documentation. 4 More from BI Publisher University

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Parameter Parameter Parameter Parameter Parameter Parameter Channel 1 2 3 4 5 6 Email Email address cc From Subject Message Body

Parameter Parameter Parameter Parameter 7 8 9 10 BCC

Attachment Reply-To (true/false) Note that if your output format is pdf, you must set this parameter to "true" to attach the pdf to the email. Print Range

Printer

Printer Group Fax server Name

Printer

Number of copies

Sides

Tray

Fax

Fax Number Username Password Remote Directory Remote File Name Authorization Type

WEBDAV Server Name

File FTP

Directory Server Name

File Name Username Password Remote Directory Remote File Secure Name true to enable SFTP

Figure 5: Specific Values for Specific Delivery Channels

Delivery and Bursting with BIP11g

2011 STR Software

Because this information is pulled from a database via a query, bursting is an extremely powerful feature of BIP. Having this information returned in a query means that individual sales reps can have different settings. For example, Sales Rep A may want to have the report delivered via email in PDF format using a specific layout while Sales Rep B wants the same report delivered via Fax with the standard layout.

For the purposes of our example, the following query will be used:

Figure 6: Bursting Query

This query will return the following data for our Sales Reps:

Sales Rep KEY TEMPLATE LOCALE OUTPUT_FORMAT DEL_CHANNEL TIMEZONE CALENDAR OUTPUT_NAME SAVE_OUTPUT PARAMETER1 PARAMETER2

Kent Brockman 1 Sales Rep Report en-US PDF EMAIL Null (use default) Null (use default) Kent Brockman.pdf true brent.lowe@strsoftware.com

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PARAMETER3 PARAMETER4 PARAMETER5 PARAMETER6 PARAMETER7 PARAMETER8 PARAMETER9 PARAMETER10

brent.lowe@strsoftware.com Sales Report for Kent Brockman Dear Kent Brockman, Please see your sales report attached. True brent.lowe@strsoftware.com

Figure 7: Return Values from Bursting Query

Once the query has been input (note no final semi-colon is necessary), save the changes.

Associate bursting definition with report

Now that the bursting definition has been setup, it must be associated with a report in order to be used. Edit the Sales Dashboard and Rep Report and view the Properties. By default, the bursting definition associated with the data model for your report will be selected in the Advanced section of the report properties. The drop down beside Enable Bursting allows you to select which bursting definition to use for the report. Remember, you can only use 1 bursting definition in a single report.

Figure 8: Enable Bursting on Report Parameters

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Delivery and Bursting with BIP11g

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Scheduling a Report to be Burst

To schedule a report to be burst, create a new Report Job and schedule as normal, except on the Output tab check the checkbox labeled Use Bursting Definition to Determine Output & Delivery Destination. When this box is checked, the output and destination input fields are hidden as all delivery information is expected to come from the bursting query.

Figure 9: Scheduling a Report to be Burst

The results of the bursting should be individual documents for each sales rep.

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Delivery and Bursting with BIP11g

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Figure 10: Burst Email Results

Viewing the status of the job will also display the documents that were burst and the current status. Note that as mentioned before, the status of Success is only an indicator that BIP handed off the document to the delivery channel, not necessarily that the document was actually delivered.

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