The steps for creating a BI Publisher Report

The steps for creating a BI Publisher Report

This is a brief post that outlines the steps for creating a BI Publisher (Published Reporting) report that may serve as a pre-introduction to the tool.

BI Publisher is a great tool for creating and publishing pixel-perfect reports – for documents such as statements, letters, etc. It has a lot of great features that will take some time to master but getting started is fairly straightforward.  In OBIEE 11g, BI Publisher can be accessed directly from the main web interface that you see when you log into OBIEE, and you can get started directly from there.

Here are the steps …

1. Create a Data Source (if not already created) – or in other words, create a connection to a Data Source (such as an Oracle database)

2. Create a Data Model or select an existing one – defines the data used by reports (data will come from the Data Source above). The Data Model will include …

• 2b. Create one or more data sets in the data model – the actual data selected
• 2c. Create one or more List of Values (LOVs)  –  primarily for use in drop down lists
• 2d. Create one or more parameters – to add flexibility to your report
• 2e. Save Sample Data to data model (optional but important – report previews will display better when creating layouts)

3. Design one or more layouts for the report data (template file and set of properties for rendering template file) Layout can be created using MS Word, Adobe Acrobat, MS Excel, Adobe Flashm and BI Publisher Layout Editor). BTW, a report can include multiple layouts.

4. Configure properties for the report – this includes properties that affect the formatting and output of the report.

5. Add translations (optional) – this allows you to add translations for any text that is translatable in your report.

6. View the report using the report viewer – to make sure it looks good and is formatted correctly.

7. Schedule the report and set its destination (basically creating a Report Job) – set the time and report output type.

If you would like to get more details, a tutorial on Getting Started with BI Publisher can be found here on OLL.