Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher Administrator's and Developer's Guide

Introduction

Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher (BI Publisher) offers you the most efficient, scalable reporting solution available for complex, distributed environments. It provides a central architecture for generating and delivering information to employees, customers, and suppliers—both securely and in the right format. Oracle BI Publisher reduces the high costs associated with the development, customization and maintenance of business documents, while increasing the efficiency of reports management.

Administering BI Publisher requires setting up and maintaining the following system components:

BI Publisher security
Data source connections
Integrations with other Oracle products
Report delivery options
Runtime configuration settings
BI Publisher Scheduler configurations
System maintenance options

About the Security Model Options

BI Publisher offers the following security options:

BI Publisher Security

Use BI Publisher's Users and Roles paradigm to control access to reports and data sources.
Integration with your LDAP server

Set up the BI Publisher roles in your LDAP server then configure BI Publisher to integrate with it.
Oracle E-Business Suite

Upload a DBC file to recognize your Oracle E-Business Suite users. .
Oracle BI Server

Set up the BI Publisher roles in your BI Server Administration tool then configure BI Publisher to integrate with it.
Oracle Database

Set up the BI Publisher roles in your Oracle Database and then configure BI Publisher to integrate with it.
Oracle's Hyperion Common Shared Services

If you plan to run BI Publisher inside of Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Workspace, you must use this security model.

For more information on the supported security models, see Defining a Security Model.

About Integrations with Other Oracle Products

Oracle BI Publisher enables you to integrate with the following Oracle products:

Oracle BI Presentation Services

This integration enables you to use Oracle BI Answers requests as data sources for your reports.
Oracle BI Discoverer

This integration enables you to use Oracle BI Discoverer Worksheets as data sources for your reports.
Hyperion Workspace and Shared Services

This integration enables you to access BI Publisher from within the Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Workspace.
Oracle Smart Space Client

This integration enables you to set up a link to the Oracle Smart Space download page. This will enable all BI Publisher users to easily access the Oracle Smart Space client download page from their BI Publisher session.

For more information on supported integrations, see Setting Up Integrations.

About the Data Source Connections

BI Publisher reports rely on XML data. BI Publisher supports a variety of data sources from which you can supply XML data. The data can come from any of the following sources:

Database connection

BI Publisher supports direct JDBC connections and connections through a JNDI pool
HTTP XML feed
Web services
OLAP cube
An existing XML file that is stored in an accessible location

If you have integrated your system with Oracle Business Intelligence and Oracle Discoverer you can also take advantage of the following data sources:

Oracle BI Answers Request
Oracle BI Discoverer worksheet

For more information on setting up data source connections, see Setting Up Data Sources.

About Report Delivery Options

The BI Publisher delivery manager enables you to set up connections to support the following delivery channels:

Print
Fax
Email
HTTP notification
FTP
WebDAV

For more information on setting up the delivery options, see Setting Up Delivery Options.

About Setting Runtime Configuration Properties

Use the Runtime Configuration page to enable configuration settings for your system. The properties include settings that

Control the processing for different output types
Define bursting options
Enable digital signature
Tune for scalability and performance
Define font mappings

For more information on setting configuration properties and font mappings, see Setting Runtime Properties.

About the System Maintenance Options

BI Publisher administration also includes a set of system maintenance settings and tasks. These are:

Defining your reports repository
Setting general properties for the BI Publisher server, including caching and debug level
Configuring the database for your Scheduler schema
Refreshing the server metadata

For more information on these tasks and settings, see Setting System Maintenance Options.

Flow of Tasks for First Time Setup of BI Publisher

If you are setting up BI Publisher for the first time, following is the recommended flow of tasks:

Define a Local Superuser

Set up this Superuser to ensure access to all administrative functions in case of problems with the current security setup. For more information, see Defining a Local Superuser.
Determine your security model
Set up your chosen security model and test
Set up your data sources and test
Set up integration services and test
Set up your scheduler and test
Set up your delivery options and test

Introduction to Oracle BI Publisher Administration