Converting FSG’s and Discoverer reports to run in BIP

There’s great news for FSG users and Discoverer users – you can emulate the functionality of these packages using BI Publisher.  Not only does this mean you get great output, but you apply some of the cool BIP functionality too (such as “bursting”).

Following on from an earlier presentation at the UKOUG (where I think I rather missed the point) I recently did a fresh presentation at the UKOUG on converting FSG’s and Discoverer reports to run in Oracle BI Publisher.  Loads of people ask me if it is possible to convert FSG’s and discoverer reports to run in BIP.  Well you can, sort of, using data templates.  Read on… 

Not only can Oracle BI Publisher transform existing reports to produce impressive attractive output, but you can write completely new reports too.  Data templates are part of BI Publisher and enable to extract anything at all out of Oracle applications by writing your own SQL and presenting the output as a BI Publisher report.  In BI Publisher, you can include your own parameters and can apply some of the more interesting BIP technology such as bursting reports to email overnight.

One particularly compelling solution is the replace some of your dull routine FSG or Discoverer reports with impressive BI Publisher output (PDF, Excel, HTML, RTF).  You’ve got the SQL already, you just have to lift it into your data template.

We’ve recently converted FSG reports into burstable PDFs or spreadsheets with run time parameters for one client.   For other client’s we’ve replaced routine discoverer reports with attractively formatted impressive scheduled BIP reports. 

Click here to download the presentation and let me know if you’ve got any questions http://oracle.belife.co.uk/UKOUG%20-%20Transforming%20Discoverer%20and%20FSG%20Report%20v1.0.zip

The presentation focuses on data templates and what can be done rather than exactly how it is done.   (Warning BIP is not well suited to ad hoc queries).  If you want to read about data templates in general, you might also like to check out an earlier post of mine (http://blog.belife.co.uk/2009/08/03/data-templates/).

This entry was posted on 07/06/2010 at 08:52 pm and is filed under BI Publisher. 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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