Oracle Fusion Middleware User's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher Release 11g (11.1.1) Part Number E18861-01

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Creating Report Jobs

This chapter covers the following topics:

• Navigating to the Schedule Report Job Page
• Setting General Options
• Setting Output Options
• Defining the Schedule for Your Job
• Configuring Notifications
• Submitting and Monitoring the Job
• Creating a Bursting Job
• Advanced Topics

Navigating to the Schedule Report Job Page

Use the Schedule Report Job page to schedule a report job.

Navigate to the Schedule Report Job page in any of the following ways:

• From the Home page: From the Create region select Report Job

• From the catalog: Navigate to the report you wish to schedule, then select the Schedule link.

• From the Report Viewer: Click Actions then click Schedule.

• From the global header: Click New then click Report Job.

The Schedule Report Job page contains four tabs to define the options for your report job: General, Output, Schedule, and Notification.

Setting General Options

The General tab is shown in the following figure:

Enter the following general information for your report job:

Setting Output Options

The Output tab has two regions: Output and Destination. Each scheduled job can have multiple output files with distinct characteristics. Each output file can have multiple destinations. The Output tab is shown in the following figure:

Make selections for the following options:

Adding Outputs

The Output Table enables you to create multiple report documents for one or more layouts using a combination of output format, locale, time zone and calendar. To add outputs for this job, click the Add toolbar button to add an entry to the table.

Adding Destinations

Enter the delivery details in the Destination region. To deliver a report document to multiple destinations, select the Add Destination button and continue adding destinations as needed.

Note: Delivery servers are set up in the Administration interface. For more information, see Setting Up Delivery Servers, Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrator's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher.

If you do not require a destination, leave this region blank. Select the Save Output check box to view the output from the Report Job History page. See Viewing Report History.

For each destination you add, select from the Output list which documents to send to this destination.

Then enter the appropriate fields for each destination type:

Email

Enter multiple e-mail addresses separated by a comma. Enter any Message text that you want to include with the report.

Printer

Select the Printer Group and the Printer, enter the Number of copies, and select Single sided or Double sided (the printer must support duplex printing for this option to take effect), then optionally select the printer Default Tray from which to print the report, and the Print Range pages to print if you do not wish to print the entire report.

Fax

Select the Fax server to deliver the report and enter the Fax number to which to send the report.

FTP

Select the FTP Server the server to deliver the report and enter valid Username and Password credentials.

Remote Directory - enter the directory to which to deliver the document (example: /pub/). If no value is entered, the document will be delivered to the login directory.

Remote File Name - enter the file name for BI Publisher to assign to the delivery document on the remote server. (Example: myreport.pdf)

To assign a file name dynamically using a date expression, see Defining a Destination File Name Dynamically Using a Date Expression.

Use Secure FTP - select the box to use secure FTP.

Web Folder

Select the Web Folder Server where you want the report delivered and enter valid Username and Password credentials.

Remote Directory - enter the directory to which to deliver the document (example: /pub/). If no value is entered, the document will be delivered to the login directory.

Remote File Name - enter the file name for BI Publisher to assign to the delivery document on the remote server. (Example: myreport.pdf)

To assign a file name dynamically using a date expression, see Defining a Destination File Name Dynamically Using a Date Expression.

Defining the Schedule for Your Job

Use the Schedule tab to define the frequency for your report job. The Schedule tab is shown in the following figure:

Defining Schedule Times

Choose from the following recurrence pattern options:

Once

Select Run Now or use the date selector to enter the specific Start date and time.

Hourly/Minute

Every - select Hour(s) or Minute(s) and enter the appropriate integer value for the increment.

Start - use the date selector to enter the date and time to start running this job.

End - (optional) use the date selector to enter an end date and time for this job.

Daily

Every - enter the increment in days. For example, to run the report every day enter 1; to run the report every other day, enter 2.

Start - use the date selector to enter the date and time to start running this job. The time selected will determine the time that the job is executed each day it runs.

End - (optional) use the date selector to enter an end date and time for this job.

Weekly

Every - enter the increment in weeks and select the desired day or days of the week. For example, to run the report every Tuesday and Thursday, enter 1, then select Tuesday and Thursday. To run the report every other Wednesday, enter 2, and select Wednesday.

Start - use the date selector to enter the date and time to start running this job. The time selected will determine the time that the job is executed for each run.

End - (optional) use the date selector to enter an end date for this job.

Monthly

Every - select each month that the job will execute.

On - select either a day of the week, for example: 1st Monday of every month; or select a specific day of the month, for example: 15.

Start - use the date selector to enter the date and time to start running this job. The time selected will determine the time that the job is executed for each run.

End - (optional) use the date selector to enter an end date for this job.

Annually

Every - enter the increment in years that the job will execute.

On - select either a day and a month, for example: Day 1 of January; or select a day of the week of the month, for example: First Monday of January.

Start - use the date selector to enter the date and time to start running this job. The time selected will determine the time that the job is executed for each run.

End - (optional) use the date selector to enter an end date for this job.

Specific Dates

Add Date - use the date selector to enter the specific date and time to run the job. Add multiple specific dates as needed.

Configuring Notifications

A notification is a message that a job has finished processing. BI Publisher supports three notification statuses that you can subscribe to:

• Completed

• Completed with warnings

• Failed

BI Publisher supports two methods of notification: e-mail and HTTP.

Adding Notifications

Use the Notification tab to configure notifications for a job.

Email

To enable an e-mail notification.

Select the report completion status or statuses for which you want to be notified, and enter a comma-separated list of addresses to which to send the notification.

HTTP

To enable an HTTP notification:

Select the report completion status or statuses for which you want the notification to be sent. Select the server to which to send the HTTP notification. Enter the user name and password for the server, if required.

Note that the HTTP server must be set up as a delivery option by the Administrator for the HTTP notification to be available. For more information, see Adding an HTTP Server, Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrator's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher.

Submitting and Monitoring the Job

Submit the Schedule Job

Select Submit. This will invoke the Submit Job dialog with confirmation details for you to review. Enter a name for this job and click Submit.

To suspend or delete a job, navigate to the Manage Report Jobs page as follows: On the global header, click Open and then click Report Jobs. See Viewing and Managing Report Jobs.

To monitor a running or job see the results, navigate to Report Job History page as follows: On the global header, click Open and then click Report Job History. See Viewing Report Job History and Saved Output.

Creating a Bursting Job

Note: Bursting is the splitting of the report data into multiple blocks based on a key field in the data and then applying specific parameters for the layout and delivery for each block of data. For example, a customer invoice report can be burst to deliver each customer's invoice to their own e-mail address. A bursting definition for a report is set up in the report's data model. For more information, see Adding a Bursting Definition, Oracle Fusion Middleware Data Modeling Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher.

If your report has been enabled for bursting, the Use Bursting Definition to Determine Output & Delivery Destination box on the Output tab will be enabled. If you select this option, the Output and Destination options for the job will be disabled because output and destination details are supplied by the bursting definition.

Enable a report to use a bursting definition on the Report Properties dialog of the report editor. For more information see Configuring Report Properties, Oracle Fusion Middleware Report Designer's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher.

Advanced Topics

This section includes the following topics:

• Incrementing Date Parameters

• Defining a Destination File Name Dynamically Using a Date Expression

Incrementing Date Parameters

If your scheduled report includes date parameters, when you enter the values for the dates for the schedule, these values are not updateable. Therefore, every time a scheduled instance of the report is run, the same date parameters will be used. If you require that the date parameters be incremented for each run, then you can enter an expression in the date parameter field of the scheduler to calculate the date each time the report job executes.

For example, assume you create a schedule for a report that runs every Monday to capture data from the previous week. Each week you need the date parameters passed to the report to increment to the first and last days of the previous week.

Enter one of the following functions using the syntax shown to calculate the appropriate date at the scheduled runtime for the report:

• {$SYSDATE()$} - current date (the system date of the server on which BI Publisher is running)

• {$FIRST_DAY_OF_MONTH()$} - first day of the current month

• {$LAST_DAY_OF_MONTH()$} - last day of the current month

• {$FIRST_DAY_OF_YEAR)$} - first day of the current year

• {$LAST_DAY_OF_YEAR)$} - last day of the current year

The date function calls in the parameter values are not evaluated until the report job is executed by the Scheduler.

You can also enter expressions using the plus sign "+" and minus sign "-" to add or subtract days as follows:

• {$SYSDATE()+1$}

• {$SYSDATE()-7$}

For our example, to capture data from the previous week, each time the schedule runs, enter the following in the report's date parameter fields:

• Date From: {$SYSDATE()-7$}

• Date To: {$SYSDATE()-1$}

Note: The date functions can also be set up as default parameter values in the data model. In this case, every time a user views the report from the report viewer, the date parameters will be calculated according to the expression supplied for the default value. See Adding Parameters, Oracle Fusion Middleware Data Modeling Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher.

Defining a Destination File Name Dynamically Using a Date Expression

When entering the remote file name for a Web folder or FTP destination you can enter a date expression to have BI Publisher dynamically include a date expression in the file name. The date is set at runtime, using the server time zone.

The supported date expressions are:

Examples

Creating a File Name That Appends a Date

To create a file name that appends the day, month, and year, such as:

myfile_01_11_2010.pdf

Enter the following:

myfile_%d_%m_%y.pdf

Creating a File Name That Prefixes a Date and Appends a Time

To create a file name that prefixes the day, month, and year and appends the hour and minute, such as:

01_01_2010_myfile_22_57.pdf

Enter the following:

%d_%m_%y_myfile_%H_%M.pdf

Note: If your file name includes an undefined expression, such as my_file_%a%b%c.pdf, the file will be created as named: "my_file_%a%b%c.pdf".

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