BI Publisher and APEX The Next Dimension of Oracle Reports

September 20, 2018 | Copyright © 2018 CogniByte
??!!
Madi Serban
BI Publisher and APEX September 20, 2018
The Next Dimension of Oracle Reports DOAG Big Data Days Dresden
Who We Are & What We Do
Madi Serban Florin Serban

Co-Founder, CogniByte Co-Founder, CogniByte
Oracle R&D, Project Management Oracle DB, Forms, Reports, Java: Architecture,
Oracle Forms and Reports Migrations Performance Tuning, Migration and Upgrade
Master of Science Applied Mathematics Master of Science Informatics

MBA Technology Management Project Management Professional, PMI
AGENDA
Reporting future
- Trends and technologies
- Oracle BI Publisher and APEX positioning
3 technologies side-by-side
- About Oracle BI Publisher and APEX
- Strengths and weaknesses
Migration
- Typical wishes, features we do not want to lose, challenges
- Case study: 3 reports, 3 technologies
- Beyond migration: What comes next
Where is the Reporting market going?

Gartner Business Intelligence & Analytics Magic Quadrant
2014 2015 2017 2018
Oracle
Where to go?
- High fluctuation of reporting and business intelligence solutions
- Previous main players out of chart
- Changing needs:
- ease of use, visual-based data discovery, augmented analytics, cloud-based deployments
- from IT-centric system of record (SOR) reporting to business-centric, self-service agile analytics
https://www.gartner.com/doc/3861464/magic-quadrant-analytics-business-intelligence
What do we need from our reports in the future?
More interaction
- Business users need to interact with the data, search, rearrange
- Data may be presented as a web page, or available to download as a spreadsheet
- Less dependence on the IT department
- Modern UI, visualization as interactive charts, maps, ..
- Eliminate duplicates by combining related reports into common interactive reports
Less paper (printed, conventional reports)

- Still needed for specific standard forms, legal and financial documents or compliance
with specific formats
- Here a PDF output is mostly needed
- Pixel-perfect capabilities are mandatory in some cases
Zero obsolete reports

- If not used anymore, then we do not need to migrate them! Yes!
Why Oracle Application Express
Free + Simple to use/ learn

• Included with the Oracle database, at no additional cost.
• Easy mock-ups and web apps, even without knowing HTML, CSS, JavaScript.
• Offers a rich, browser-based, intuitive development interface.
• Enables business users to easily search, sort data, add custom filters, generate charts.
• No special software needed on client machines, other than a supported browser.
Scalable, Powerful, Portable, Proven

• Thousands of applications worldwide, for various industries
• Applications can scale across the enterprise
• Highly secure web applications out of the box.
• The most vibrant, global, and growing communities Oracle has to offer. “easiest way possible for developers
• Runs on the Oracle Cloud, on-premises, or anywhere we have an Oracle DB. to build great-looking apps against
• Includes native functionality to integrate with REST and SOAP Services. their data”
Disadvantages
• Oracle-dependent
https://apex.oracle.com/en/platform/why-
• Particular attention needed for source control and team development oracle-apex/
Why Oracle BI Publisher
Enterprise Oracle reporting solution

• Easily integrated with Oracle products (including APEX)
• + virtually any other data source with a JDBC connection
Data extraction separated from layout

• Flexibility, reuse - multiple layouts for a single dataset
Layout templates with MS Word/ Excel, Adobe Acrobat, or browser

• Highly formatted and interactive, pixel-perfect reports
• Multiple output formats (PDF, RTF, Excel, HTML, etc) and languages from 1 template
• Scheduling + bursting – multiple destinations/ multiple output formats delivery
• Drag and drop style web-based layout editor
Disadvantages
• Not free at all :)
Case Study 1: Orders - Grouped Table - Oracle Reports
most-used
components in
Oracle Reports
grouped queries
conditional
formatting
summary/ formula
columns
Case Study 1: Orders - Grouped Table - Oracle APEX
Interactive reports/ grids

= modern, customizable onscreen reporting - End-users can show/ hide
columns, perform calculations, filter etc.
How to get a high level/ pixel perfect formatting?

Define an external reporting server such as Oracle BI Publisher
• Install BI Publisher Desktop
• Create the report query as an APEX shared component
• Create report layout in Microsoft Word
• Upload report layout to APEX as a shared component
• Add links to run the report
What if we need to quickly print/ download the information?

• Download as PDF, RTF, MS Excel, CSV files - without custom layout/
control breaks/ conditional formatting/ computation/ aggregation
• Or print directly from browser – using custom CSS to eliminate
headers, menus and improve overall layout. DEMO
Case Study 1: Orders - Grouped Table - Oracle BI Publisher
= Data (XML):
+ Layout (RTF):
DEMO
Case Study 2: Invoice - Oracle Reports

Case Study 2: Invoice - Oracle BI Publisher
= Data (XML)
+ Layout (RTF) (manual redesign) ->
How does the Oracle automated

conversion look like? ->
In this particular example the effort of adapting
the automated conversion would be higher
than the manual redesign effort.
Case Study 3: What about really complex reports? Oracle Reports
What can be really complex about the Oracle Reports?
Many components:
lots of queries, groups,
triggers, program units,
SRW package, text_io, events
 Not scary, just more work
& refactoring
 Good that PL/SQL
can be reused!!
Complex components,
such as matrixes
 Let’s see a matrix demo 
Case Study 3: What about really complex reports? Oracle APEX
Matrix with Oracle APEX?

No problem, for example
the IR Pivot.
Naturally!!
DEMO
Case Study 3: What about really complex reports? Oracle BI Publisher
Matrix with Oracle BIP?

Again, absolutely no problem
= Data (XML):
+ Layout (RTF):
DEMO
??!!
Thank You! Madi Serban

September 20, 2018
Q&A DOAG Big Data Days Dresden

BI Publisher and APEX The Next Dimension of Oracle Reports

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September 20, 2018 | Copyright © 2018 CogniByte

Who We Are & What We Do

Madi Serban Florin Serban

Master of Science Applied Mathematics Master of Science Informatics

Where is the Reporting market going?

What do we need from our reports in the future?

Less paper (printed, conventional reports)

Zero obsolete reports

Why Oracle Application Express

Free + Simple to use/ learn

Scalable, Powerful, Portable, Proven

Why Oracle BI Publisher

Enterprise Oracle reporting solution

Data extraction separated from layout

Layout templates with MS Word/ Excel, Adobe Acrobat, or browser

Case Study 1: Orders - Grouped Table - Oracle Reports

Case Study 1: Orders - Grouped Table - Oracle APEX

Interactive reports/ grids

How to get a high level/ pixel perfect formatting?

What if we need to quickly print/ download the information?

Case Study 1: Orders - Grouped Table - Oracle BI Publisher

Case Study 2: Invoice - Oracle Reports

Case Study 2: Invoice - Oracle BI Publisher

+ Layout (RTF) (manual redesign) ->

How does the Oracle automated

Case Study 3: What about really complex reports? Oracle Reports

What can be really complex about the Oracle Reports?

Case Study 3: What about really complex reports? Oracle APEX

Matrix with Oracle APEX?

Case Study 3: What about really complex reports? Oracle BI Publisher

Matrix with Oracle BIP?

Thank You! Madi Serban

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