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Accessing and Working with an Oracle BI Request in Microsoft Excel

If your organization uses the Oracle BI Microsoft Excel add-in, you can open saved requests and work with the results from within Microsoft Excel. The add-in adds an Oracle BI toolbar to your Excel application that allows you to navigate to a request saved in the Oracle BI Presentation catalog, open it in Microsoft Excel, and work with, save, and refresh the results.

NOTE:  You may not be able to download results into an Excel spreadsheet if your organization is using certain security features. For more information, contact your Oracle BI administrator.

Using the Oracle BI Toolbar in Microsoft Excel

This section explains how to use the Oracle BI toolbar in Microsoft Excel. Figure 4 shows an example of the Oracle BI toolbar, in US English.

Figure 4. Example of the Oracle BI Toolbar in Microsoft Excel

When you first access a saved request in Microsoft Excel, you are prompted for your Oracle BI Presentation Services user ID and password. You can instruct Microsoft Excel to include your Oracle BI user ID and password with your saved Excel workbook so you do not have to supply your login credentials each time you access the workbook. If the workbook is shared by other users, you would not typically instruct Excel to save your login credentials.

When you open a saved request in Microsoft Excel, you can choose from two data formats:

• Unformatted Data

  This format is the data view of the criteria for the request. The data view shows the underlying request data only, exclusive of any report formatting that was applied or any views that were assembled using the compound layout view in Oracle BI Answers. You can use Excel functions to add additional rows and columns, such as dividing one value by another value.

• Formatted Results

  This format shows the Microsoft Excel version of the compound layout view assembled for the request in Oracle BI Answers. This format includes items that are compatible with Microsoft Excel such as column formatting, grand totals, and views included in the compound layout view.

  NOTE:  Any Oracle BI Chart views for the request cannot be included in the Formatted Results view in Microsoft Excel.

You can save Microsoft Excel workbooks that contain Oracle BI content using Excel's save functions.

The following procedures provide the steps to perform various functions using the Oracle BI toolbar.

To open a saved request from within Microsoft Excel

1. Click the Select Analysis button on the Oracle BI toolbar.
2. Type your user ID and password and click the log in button to submit your login credentials.

   A window appears from which you can select a saved request from the Oracle BI Presentation Catalog. The window shows you your personal content and shared content to which you have access.

3. Navigate to the saved request, click it to select it, and click OK.

   The additional options dialog box appears.

4. Make your selection for the data format.
5. To allow Microsoft Excel to include your login credentials with the saved Excel workbook, select the option to remember your user ID and password.
6. Click Continue.

   The request appears within Microsoft Excel.

To refresh Oracle BI data included in a Microsoft Excel workbook

• Perform one of the following actions:
  • Click the Refresh All button on the Oracle BI toolbar.
  • Right-click in the data area and select the Refresh Data option.