R12 Reporting without the upgrade

Some upgrading to R12 have mentioned what a benefit the enhanced reporting is. Guess what? This enhanced reporting comes from BI Publisher and you can get all this from 11i. Moreover there are a couple of surprises with reporting when you upgrade to R12.

It’s wonderful to hear of R12 users sharing my enthusiasm about BI Publisher. Those who have heard me speak on it will know how and eager I am for others to experience the benefits. However, you should be aware that you can get pretty well all of the Financials reporting functionality in 11i just by installing the correct patch.

• See metalink note Note:422508.1 May-2007 for comprehensive information on Oracle XML Publisher Release 5.6.3 (which I think equates roughly to standalone 10.1.3.3!). This includes the patch path for 11i and the patches for XML publisher desktop add-in.

There are a couple of points to note if you are thinking about upgrading to R12:

1. Many “standard” reports in R12 are wholly replaced by BIP reports.
   Ironically this means that if you aren’t familiar with BIP and you experience problems, you won’t be able to revert to the old text based output. (A common problem is not enough processors and threads assigned to the OPP).
2. ADI client/desktop doesn’t work with R12.
   You’ll have to use Web ADI or Reports Manager (which doesn’t seem to be very well liked) or for FSG’s convert them to produce in BIP (but then you won’t get the spreadsheet tabs for each page).

My conclusions are:

• R12 is coming to us all eventually, so get up to speed on BIP now so you’re not wrong footed.
• If you’re not planning on upgrading soon, install the patch and get yourself some clean attractively formatted, impressive and versatile reporting functionality.
  (…but of course I would say that, especially since we’ve just starting running some great one day training courses).

This entry was posted on 06/08/2009 at 09:45 pm and is filed under BI Publisher, 11i to R12 Upgrade. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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