This preface describes changes to Oracle BI Publisher report designing features for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher 11g Release 1 (11.1.1).
This preface contains the following topics:
New Features for Oracle BI Publisher 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.9)
New Features for Oracle BI Publisher 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.7)
New Features for Oracle BI Publisher 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.6)
New Features for Oracle BI Publisher 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.5)
New Features for Oracle BI Publisher 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.3)
New features and changes in Oracle BI Publisher 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.9) include:
For RTF and BI Publisher layout types you can now enable Word as an output. The Word output type generates your report document in the docx file format. To enable Word output for an RTF or BI Publisher layout, select Word from the Output Formats options list in the Report Editor. See Section 2.7, "Configuring Layouts Using the List View."
Three output processing properties have also been added to support the DOCX output:
Enable change tracking
Protect document for tracked changes
Default font
For descriptions of these properties, see Section 10.10, "DOCX Output."
New features for report designers in Oracle BI Publisher 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.7) include:
Connect Directly to Oracle BIEE Subject Areas to Create Reports
PDF to PCL Conversion for Embedding PCL Commands in RTF Templates
You can now create BI Publisher reports that use a direct connection to an Oracle BI server subject area without having to build an additional data model in BI Publisher. For more information, see Section 2.4, "Creating Reports Using a Direct Connection to a Subject Area."
The Excel Template Builder now supports automatic insertion of fields and repeating groups removing the requirement to manually assign defined names to cells. You can also connect directly to the BI Publisher server to download sample data, create new reports in the catalog, and upload templates from your Excel session. For more information, see Section 6.3, "Using the Template Builder for Excel."
Enhancements added to the layout editor are:
Time series axis formatting
Hide axis option
Independent axis formatting
For more information about these, see Section 3.9.4, "Using Advanced Chart Features."
The Create Report guide is enhanced to assist report designers with the process of creating a report from selecting the data model to configuring the report layout. For more information, see Section 2.3, "Creating Reports."
BI Publisher now provides a PDF to PCL converter. Using this utility, you can embed PCL commands in an RTF template and, after generating PDF output, the delivery manager converts the PDF to PCL before sending it to the printer to enable support for PCL printers. This feature is provided to support check printing. For more information, see Section 4.25, "Embedding PCL Commands for Check Printing."
In versions of BI Publisher earlier than 11.1.1.7, the PDF utilities required that all PDF input documents be PDF version 1.4. Starting with this release users can pass PDF documents of later versions to the BI Publisher PDF utilities. The instructions in Chapter 7, "Creating PDF Templates" have been revised, removing this requirement. For more information about BI Publisher's support for PDF 1.7 see Appendix F, "PDF Version Support."
New features for report designers in Oracle BI Publisher 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.6) include:
This release streamlines the report creation process introducing a process flow to better guide report designers. For more information, see Section 2.3, "Creating Reports."
Enhancements to parameter display options include:
Support for radio button and check box display of values
Parameters that are defined as a menu in the data model can now be configured to display the menu options as a list of radio buttons or check boxes. Parameters configured to support one value support the option to display as radio buttons. Parameters configured to support multiple values support the option to display as check boxes.
New options for placement of parameters in the report viewer
Previously the report viewer always displayed the parameters in a horizontal region across the top of the viewer. In this release. the display of the parameter region can also be configured in one of the following ways:
In a vertical region along the right side of the viewer
As a dialog
As a separate full page
New report viewer toolbar button to show or hide parameters
This release adds a toolbar button to the report viewer to enable users to hide or show the parameter region. This enhancement complements the new parameter display options. When report parameters are configured to display as a dialog or in a separate full page, the parameter display region is dismissed when the viewer displays the report. Use the Parameters button to redisplay the parameter region to make new selections.
Search added to menus
All parameter menus having more than a specified number of options provide a Search option.
Option to remove the Apply button
Reports can now be configured to remove the parameter Apply button. In these reports the action of selecting a new parameter value automatically reruns the report.
For more information about these enhancements, see Section 2.8, "Configuring Parameter Settings for the Report."
You can now convert stored XHTML to XSL-FO to display the HTML formatting from your data in your generated report. The XHTML data must be extracted wrapped in a CDATA section. Specific syntax must also be used in the RTF template to render it. See Section 4.24, "Rendering HTML Formatted Data in a Report" for more information.
PDF/A is a variation of the PDF standard optimized for long term archival of documents. PDF/X is a variation of the PDF standard optimized for professional grade printing. BI Publisher now supports these two types of output. For more information, see Appendix E, "Generating PDF/A and PDF/X Output."
New features in Oracle BI Publisher 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.5) include:
An Excel template is a report layout that you design in Microsoft Excel for retrieving enterprise data in Excel. Excel templates provide a set of special features for controlling the display of data and providing specific formatting instructions. Excel templates support the following features:
Define the structure for the data in Excel output
Split hierarchical data across multiple sheets and dynamically name the sheets
Create sheets of data that have master-detail relationships
Use native XSL functions in the data to manipulate it prior to rendering
Use native Excel functionality
For more information, see Chapter 6, "Creating Excel Templates."
BI Publisher provides a downloadable add-in to Excel that enables you to preview the Excel template with sample data. This facilitates design by enabling you to test and edit the template without having to upload it to the BI Publisher catalog first. The Template Builder for Excel is installed automatically when you install the Template Builder for Word. The tools can be downloaded from the Home page of Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher or Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition as follows:
Under the Get Started region, click Download BI Publisher Tools.
For more information, see Section 6.1.5, "Desktop Tools for Excel Templates."
The list component displays all values of a data element in a vertical or horizontal list. When viewed in interactive mode, clicking an item in the list updates the results shown in the linked components of the report. The list enables the report consumer to quickly see results for each item in the list by clicking the list entry. For more information see Section 3.14, "About Lists."
The formula dialog in the BI Publisher layout editor has been redesigned for better usability. For more information, see Section 3.15, "Setting Predefined or Custom Formulas."
New features in Oracle BI Publisher 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.3) include:
The user interface has undergone major improvements in several areas, including a new Home page and redesigned editors and panes. These improvements are intended to make working with Oracle BI Publisher easier and more consistent. For information about working in the new interface, see Oracle Fusion Middleware User's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher.
For installations of BI Publisher with the Oracle BI Enterprise Edition, BI Publisher now shares the same catalog with Oracle BI Presentation services. For information about the improved catalog, see Oracle Fusion Middleware User's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher.
This release introduces a new type of layout template and design tool. The Layout Editor is launched from within BI Publisher and provides an intuitive WYSIWIG drag-and-drop interface for designing report layouts. For a complete description, see Chapter 3, "Creating BI Publisher Layout Templates."
For reports created with the new BI Publisher layout editor, a new interactive output type is available. The interactive viewer enables pop-up chart details, scrollable tables, table filtering, table sorting, and propagated filtering across different components of the report. This interactivity is achieved simply by designing the report in the layout editor, no additional coding is necessary. For more information, see Section 3.1, "Overview of BI Publisher Layouts."
Previously subtemplates had to be stored outside of the BI Publisher catalog and called at runtime from the external directory. In this release RTF and XSL subtemplates can be saved and managed as objects in the BI Publisher catalog. For more information, see Chapter 12, "Understanding Subtemplates."
A style template is an RTF template that contains style information that can be applied to RTF layouts. The style information in the style template is applied to RTF layouts at runtime to achieve a consistent look and feel across your enterprise reports. Style templates are saved and managed in the BI Publisher catalog. For more information, see Chapter 11, "Creating and Implementing Style Templates."
This release introduces a feature to split a large PDF output file into smaller, more manageable files, while still maintaining the integrity of the report as one logical unit. When PDF output splitting is enabled for a report, the report is split into multiple files generated in one zip file. The output type is PDFZ. For easy access to the component files, BI Publisher also generates an index file that specifies from and to elements contained in each component PDF file. For more information, see Section A.2, "Generating Zipped PDF Output."