Understanding BI Publisher and the BI Publisher Classes

Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher (BI Publisher, formerly XML Publisher) enables you to separate the data, layout, and translation layers of a report from each other. This can improve flexibility, as well as reduce maintenance. You need to create report definitions, define templates, and so on, using BI Publisher. The BI Publisher classes enable you to access the runtime portions of the XML publishing process programmatically—that is, after the templates and reports have been created.

The BI Publisher classes are divided into the following categories:

  • Report manager definition classes

  • Report manager search classes

  • Engine classes

BI Publisher Report Manager Definition Classes

To create a report with BI Publisher, you first create a report definition using the Report Definition page. The report definition includes report properties, output formats, templates to be used, report security, and so on. At run time, the ReportDefn class uses these attributes to process the report. The ReportDefn class itself can be invoked from a batch process or a page PeopleCode. For example, the report can be scheduled from the Query Report Scheduler page, or viewed from Query Report Viewer page.

See ReportDefn Class.

BI Publisher Report Manager Search Classes

After you've published a report, it is stored in the report repository. Using the report manager search classes, you can search for a report based on defined search keys, or even add additional search keys for searching.

See Report Class.

See ReportManager Class.

See SearchAttribute Class.

BI Publisher Engine Classes

Use the BI Publisher engine classes to combine PDF files into a single PDF file, and to specify page numbers and watermarks on merged PDF reports.

See PageNumber Class.

See PDFMerger Class.

See Properties Class.

See Watermark Class.