Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher: Create Reports and Data Models Part 1 - Layout Editor Pradeep Kumar Sharma Senior Principal Product Manager, Oracle Business Intelligence Kasturi Shekhar Director, Curriculum Development, Oracle Business Intelligence Kevin McDermott Senior Principal Technical Support Engineer
Table of Contents Introduction...2 Prerequisites...2 Create a Report...3 1. Launch the Report Editor...3 2. Creating a Report Template Using the Layout Editor...9 3. Adding Charts...12 4. Populating the Table with Data...21 5. View the Report...26 6. Schedule the Report...29 Introduction Release 11g of Oracle BI Publisher introduces a new type of layout that you can create directly in your browser. BI Publisher Layout Templates are created using the BI Publisher Layout Editor - a design tool that provides a WYSIWIG, drag and drop interface for creating pixel perfect reports that can be output to PDF, HTML, RTF, Excel, and PowerPoint. It also provides dynamic HTML output that supports lightweight interaction through a browser. Prerequisites To create a report, the user must have one of the following roles: BI Administrator BI Author Page 2
Create a Report 1. Launch the Report Editor a) Sign in to BI Publisher with the Username weblogic and Password welcome1. b) From the Home Page, select Create > Report. Page 3
c) The Create Report dialog box is displayed. Select Use Data Model. Page 4
d) In the Data Model field browse for Salary Parameter Datamodel under Shared Folders\Samples\1. Overview\Data Models. Click Open. Page 5
e) Select Use Report Editor and click Finish. Page 6
f) The Save As dialog box is displayed. g) Create a new folder under My Folders. Make sure you have selected My Folders. h) Name the folder OOW HOL and click Create. Page 7
i) Enter Departmental Salary Report for the report name and click Save. Page 8
2. Creating a Report Template Using the Layout Editor Once in Report Editor, you are presented with several starting templates. Using one of these boilerplates makes creating reports easier and faster. a) On the Create Layout section, under Shared Templates, select Chart and Table. Page 9
This will launch the Layout Editor as shown below. Static Tool Bar Dynamic Tabbed Tool Bar Accordion Pane To select Data Source, Layout Components and Properties of selected component Page 10
b) Double-click to highlight the boilerplate text Report Title and type DEPARTMENTAL SALARY REPORT over it. Change the font size to 20pt. Page 11
3. Adding Charts For this example, you will create a report layout with two charts and one data table. This template has only one chart therefore you will need to modify this template to include two charts. a) Delete the chart and Chart Title text object included in the boilerplate. To delete an object, click on the object to select it, and then select it from the Delete drop-down list. Page 12
b) From the Insert ribbon, drag Layout Grid in the row as shown below. c) Insert a layout grid that is 2 rows x 2 columns. Use Grids in your layouts to have pixel perfect control of placing objects like table, charts, data fields and text. Note that an empty row has been kept between the inserted Layout Grid and the Table Title to allow gap between the charts and the table title. d) Insert a Chart in the left Grid Layout cell. You can insert a chart by performing one of the following actions: Page 13
Drag and drop the Chart object from the Insert ribbon to the layout. Set the focus in the grid cell by clicking inside the cell, and then click the Chart object on the Insert ribbon. An empty chart object is added to the layout. Page 14
e) To populate the chart, drag and drop Annual Salary to the Drop Value Here target on the chart, and Department to Drop Series Here. f) The default chart type is Bar Chart. You can use the Chart Types and Chart Styles options to change chart types and styles. Optionally, turn off 3D Effect and set style to Regatta. Page 15
g) Select Annual Salary in the chart, and then select Average from the Formula drop-down list. h) Insert a second chart in the grid cell to the right of the vertical bar chart. i) Drag and drop Annual Salary to Drop Value Here and Department to Drop Series Here. ii) Change the Chart type to Pie. iii) Optionally, turn off 3D Effect and select Regatta for the chart style. Page 16
With any of the charts selected, open the Properties Panel in the accordion pane to the left of the layout canvas. Note that this property pane is context sensitive to the selected object just like the ribbon tool bar. You can set dozens of different properties from this Property pane. For this exercise, we will change the Legend Location under Chart Legend to display on Top of the chart. Repeat the same for the second chart. Page 17
i) Select Save As from the upper right corner and name your layout as My Layout and click Save. j) Insert a text object in each of the grid cells in the second row and use them to add titles to the two charts. Enter Average Salary by Department and Salary Distribution by Department as the chart titles. Change the fonts of the titles to 12pt. Page 18
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k) You can preview the report layout at anytime. Click on the Preview menu choice and Preview the report in PDF. Close the Preview and continue. Page 20
4. Populating the Table with Data a) Highlight the Table Title boilerplate text and enter the title Departmental Salary Details. Change the font to 12pt. b) Set focus on the Data Table. Page 21
c) From the Data Source pane, drag and drop the following data fields into the Table: Department Manager Full Name Title Annual Salary You may have to adjust the column width to fit all the columns. d) Group above by Department by dragging the Department column above the table. This creates a repeating group of detail data for each Department. Page 22
e) Group Left by Manager: Select the Manager column. On the Table Column Header ribbon, set Grouping to Group Left. This groups all employees with their manager. f) Apply number format for Annual Salary and grand total Annual Salary for each department. Select the Annual Salary column value, on the Column ribbon, set the Data Formatting to Currency. This will apply the currency format to both the Annual Salary and the Grand Total. Page 23
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g) Adjust table column widths to fill the entire width of the page. h) Save the layout, and then click on the Return button. This takes you back to the Report Editor page showing a thumbnail image of the layout. Page 25
5. View the Report a) After you save the report, click the View Report button to run the report. By default, the report is rendered in interactive output format. Interactive Viewer enables you to view reports online and interact with the report data. For example: 1. Mouse over pop-up chart details 2. Table column sorting & filtering 3. Group filtering 4. Region Collapsing 5. Scrollable tables 6. Automatic Table Column Totaling Page 26
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b) View the report in PDF format (HTML, PPT, RTF etc. if time permits). Observe the page break in PDF output. Page 28
6. Schedule the Report a) In Report Viewer, from the action menu, select Schedule. The Schedule Report Job page is displayed. The Departmental Salary Report is selected by default. b) Keep the default parameters under General Tab. Page 29
c) Select the Output tab and select PDF for the output format. You can give a name to the output which is helpful when you have multiple outputs defined based on different combination of Layout, Format, Locale, Time zone and Calendar. Normally, you will also select a destination type for delivery. For this Hand-On Lab exercise, we will submit the job to just run on the server, we will not choose any destination. d) Select the Schedule tab. The default frequency is set to Once and Run Now. For this Hand-On Lab exercise, keep the default schedule frequency. Page 30
e) Click the Submit button in the top right hand corner. f) On the Submit Job dialog, enter Departmental Salary Report, as the report job name, and click OK. g) Click OK when Job Departmental Salary Report successfully submitted. message appears. Executed report jobs appear in the Job History page. Page 31
h) From the Home Page, select Report Job History to view the report job history and job history details. i) On the Report Job History page, you can use the Filters to search for the job, or you can sort the columns by report job name or processing time to help you locate your jobs. Since you submitted the job just now, it will show up at the top. Page 32
j) Click on the Job Name to view the Job History Details. k) To view the Output, click on the report Output Name. Page 33
Congratulations! You just completed the Hands-on Lab Session on BI Publisher Report Creation. Page 34