BI Publisher Training Topics

This is an 8 hours training curriculum.
The training material is practical, fast-paced and aimed at professionals.
It caters to Oracle R12 and above, and BI Publisher reports are explained with Oracle Apps. Note, this training does not cover Peoplesoft, Siebel or other Oracle products.
Below are exact topics details.

Introduction (1 Hour)

• Business Needs
• Components
• Performance
• Advantages
• Features
• Benefits

Roll up your sleeves (0.5 Hours)

• Releases & Patches
• Development - Data Template, RTF Template, BI Publisher Tags
• Setup & Concurrent Program Executables
• Deployment

Development (3 Hours)

• Data Template
• RTF Template Builder
• RTF Template Tags
• Setup
• Deployment
• Requirement 2: Converting Oracle Reports to BI Publisher Report
• Other than RTF Templates
• XML
• Delivery & Bursting
• Example of printing on cheque

BI Publisher Internals (1 Hour)

• Publishing Methods
• Debug Methods
• Intrusive Methods

Important Examples & APIs (2.5 Hours)

• Example 1
• Example 2
• Example 3

Note

Labs will be covered during course of training along with their related topics
Prerequisite: Oracle applications basic e.g. creation of concurrent program & submission of requests,
XML and Java basic concepts,
Installation of desktop BI software and any XML editor or Textpad 

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What is BI Publisher ?

BI Publisher earlier called XML Publisher, is now part of Business Intelligence products of oracle apps. BI Publisher is a reporting tool, with flexibility in handling various aspects of report building, both by developer and by the product. Prior to BI Publisher reports, Oracle reports was used, which was a traditional method of manufacturing reports. With BI its just a matter of fitting pieces that makes bulk report generation lot easier. For an end user, the flow does not change a bit. Example user submits (in oracle apps) a concurrent program with parameters. A pdf output is generated. There is no change here, and the product already started with a good score in evaluation.

There are some minor changes in setup. For concurrent program a particular executable name should be used or using a matching short name, and setting output to XML. A data definition need to be setup for the source query, and many templates can be setup for output format. Each template can be specified with multiple language formats. These give options to scale a single data source into multiple presentations in various languages. Any day, the data definition, template or language translations may be used in a different manner by minor tweaking. BI Publisher allows to develop various kinds of reports by single product, easy to maintain setup of source and formats. This greatly reduces the maintenance and expertise cost for integration.

BI Publisher Report developer can easily code the data source as XML, execute triggers, and accept parameters from concurrent program. The presentation template could be an RTF with customized logo, or an org specific logo, complex layouts cab be designed as per MS word capabilities, table rows or values conditionally formatted, headers and footers included. And you need not know XML to come up with a simple report.

BI Publisher is a java based tool, using XML data. At the end of process is a delivery manager that can send prepared document for purpose printing, distribution via emails or to fax. Some modules of oracle apps use java concurrent program, which calls XML Publisher specific Java APIs, to manually read data (example  based on PL/SQL), then prepare XML on the fly or fetch from CLOB table columns, fetch a template, generate PDF using the XML data and template. Finally a delivery of the document can be done to finish the process.

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Oracle apps technologies Learning (Part 2)

Currently oracle 11i, R12 are being used at most clients and some are in the process of adopting oracle fusion. To newbies, what are these 11i, R12 and fusion? Well, these are versions of oracle apps (oracle applications), with improved ways of doing things in different versions. This can be a new process in industry, enhanced understanding of an existing process (example collections using strategies), change in concept (example ledger instead of set of books), or most importantly using new technologies (example SOA or ADF) (which we shall later see, leads to a new level of integration).

If you have already gone through the functional understanding of oracle apps, you will understand that oracle apps (whichever version) is an application to carry out certain tasks of ERP. Any application will be built using technologies and some coding that constitute the software. An traditional client server application will have a database server and front-end screens. Oracle database is used for storing back-end data while the screens are provided in oracle forms or web pages. Note here that enabling ERP as web pages accessible to outside world, makes ERP e-business for purpose of e-commerce. The actions of users on the screens involves APIs to make changes to the data in database. These APIs are implemented using oracle pl/sql or java or mix of both. Hence as a technical developer you must start gaining skills in either PL/SQL or java. And also working on a database needs gaining SQL skills.

If you start on the skills of SQL, PL/SQL and or Java technologies, you are ready to move to the next level of technologies involved in oracle apps. The screens are implemented in Oracle forms and OAF pages (or ADF in oracle fusion). Oracle forms have rich oracle apps specific menus in the screen apart than fields and buttons. The rich menus allow changing to related screens, perform complex actions, or actions that are common to most screens and for editing, viewing, traversals, saving etc. OAF are web pages are developed using  oracle Jdeveloper tool. New screens and additions in oracle apps are generally carried out in OAF rather than Oracle forms. In Fusion ADF is used instead of OAF.

We saw that screens are used for purpose of forms. An application, apart than processing, should also be able to present data to user, example as forms. The same forms could be used to take user inputs, edit the saved data or just display that data. However on a single topic users may need multiple views with different subset of data. Hence it is easier, more presentable, maintainable and more easily printed and customized, to build reports. Oracle reports had been used prior to the powerful XML Publisher (aka BI Publisher, since R12). Report is a very common requirement. Consider different sales report that should contain sales per quarter for managers, or hide prices and only show regions for regional operators, provide differential growth w.r.t previous year for analytics etc. For these purpose oracle's OBIEE has emerged as a hot product for Business Intelligence, again since R12.

It is common for clients to have varied applications, example a billing system, a logistics system and also employs oracle apps or Peoplesoft or Siebel as one of the main ERP system. Hence it becomes necessary to integrate various systems to interface data from one system to another, example synchronize customer data, or to call API on another system, example to create Payables Invoice. Note Oracle acquired over last few years many products including Peoplesoft, Siebel and Glogs. Fusion is the best from these composite systems that can collaborate using SOA. SOA is a very hot concept being used among competitors. From technical learning point of view, in simplest terms SOA is a clean and robust usage of XML.

Start learning XML and Java early if you want to work on OAF, ADF, SOA, BI Publisher or OBIEE.
Not all processing can be committed immediately to database. There could be time intervals, manual interference or some external factor that can trigger further processing. For this there is Oracle workflow and more recently in SOA, BPEL and Worklist. These are as important as reporting apart than the main technologies of PLSQL and SQL. So now you can find out what training you are looking for oracle technical skills.

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Oracle apps functional Learning (Part 1)

Many oracle apps professionals thrive working in different aspects of technology, domain, module, tools, administration, consulting, reporting and intelligence, development, customization, extension, integration and more. All these are Oracle. It has acquired many products and heading towards Fusion. Freshers looking for a career in Oracle also have a very good prospect, and can participate in the suite of products. Below is an understanding of the product that can be very useful for training for both professionals and freshers.

Foremost it should be understood that the overall product is like an application, where data can be stored (e.g. Items in Inventory), some operation can be performed (raising a purchase order for a purchasable item), viewing results (e.g. a BI report of BOM configuration) or viewing monthly sales and production of the manufacturing plant. Company may identify sources for purchasing from Suppliers.

I have considered here a company that purchases items from Suppliers via sourcing, assembles them to form larger units for selling. Some parts may be manufactured and can undergo planning for efficient production. Costing may be applied to keep track of expenses. Pricing can be applied in order to assign selling price and discounts based on conditions. Finally the customers can place orders on the finished or assembled good. This is what is typically a SCM (supply chain) process flow in a manufacturing company. There may be different kinds of industries requiring different aspects of SCM. Customers may further want services on the sold goods asking for a CRM system. Company may want to track the expenses and gains, and compute financial data of the whole company on periodical intervals and at end of financial year. This constitutes the Financial system. A software to provide SCM, CRM and Financial services to a company (along with its human resource management) is called an ERP software. (Historically ERP has been formed out of MRP and Manufacturing concepts)

Today, ERP provides much more and is a very complex system, that is intended to automate processes of a company (e.g. Receipt to Invoice matching), provide automatic decisions based on fed data, preferences and calculations (e.g. check credit limit of customers or select preferred suppliers for purchasing). This is pretty much the functional knowledge needed to understand what oracle apps is and what is does. It's release 12, commonly called R12 is the latest version of product that is being employed in various clients. Trainings in R12 will be useful for aspirants looking to gain or expand functional knowledge in a domain or module.

For freshers it would be important to point out that SCM, CRM, ERP and HRMS are concepts that encompass business processes at a very high level dealing with different departments of a company. E.g. HRMS is for employees of a company and their payroll and benefits. SCM is for Suppliers and their relationships, Items that need to be purchased or entire items repository, identify costs related to purchases, and Customer orders.

Next we shall discuss about that which would take our understanding towards Oracle fusion. Till now you have seen and understood what comprises R12.

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