Overview of Using BI Reports in Payroll Flows

Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) Publisher delivers a number of reports that you can use directly or configure to suit your business or statutory reporting requirements.

Using BIP reports in payroll flows involves the following:

1. Access these reports from the BI Catalog folder.
2. Copy the report or create your own report or copy if required.
3. Integrate the report into a best practice flow to achieve end-to-end payroll processing.

For example, you may want to edit the predefined payslip report template to include legislative requirements as mandated by your country or territory. You may want to add your company logo to the template or add additional parameters to the data model.

A BI Publisher report consists of these components:

• One or more .rtf layouts that determine what and how data is displayed on the report output. Each report has at least one layout template. Each report may include a style template and a sub template.
• Data model for the report that defines the data source, data structure, and parameters for the report. Multiple reports can use the same data model.

Consider the following while working with BIP reports.

BI Catalog

To create or edit reports, open BI Catalog and find your report or data model in the Folders pane. To open the BI Catalog, navigate to Tools > Reports and Analytics and click Browse Catalog. Navigate to /Shared Folders/Human Capital Management/Payroll/Regulatory and Tax Reporting to view the delivered reports. The data sets associated with the report are available in the Data Models subfolder within the same folder as the report.

BI Roles and Permissions

This table lists the BI roles and their responsibilities.

BIP Reports Roles and Privileges

Business Intelligence Role	Privileges and Responsibilities
BI Consumer Role	Runs BI reports.
BI Author Role	BI Author Role inherits BI Consumer Role and can also create, edit, and run the reports.
BI Administrator Role	Performs administrative tasks such as creating and editing dashboards and modifying security permissions for reports, folders, and so on.
BI Publisher Data Model Developer Role	Creates and edits BI Publisher data models. BI Publisher Data Model Developer Role is inherited by the Application Developer role, which is inherited by the Application Implementation Consultant role. Therefore, users with either of these predefined job roles can manage Business Intelligence Publisher data models.

If you have either the BI Administrator or BI Author roles and privileges, the Permissions menu is enabled. Click More > Permissions for a report in the BI catalog, to verify your permissions for the report. You should have permissions to Read, Traverse, Run Publisher Report, Schedule Publisher Report, View Publisher Output Custom Permissions. If you don't have these privileges, add it manually from the Permissions dialog box.

Create or Copy a Report

You can use any of these options to use BI reports in payroll reports.

• Use the BI Publisher's Create Report option from the Data Model editor page. The Create Report option uses the sample data that's saved to the data model. Drag and drop fields from the data model into the report table in a preferred sequence. If sample data isn't attached to the data model, the selected column headings display without data.
• Use the Customize function to create an exact copy of the delivered report template.
• Use MS Word which has the BI Publisher plug-in integrated to create an RTF template. If you have chosen to build RTF template yourself in MS Word then use the Upload Spreadsheet option to upload the report layout while creating the report.

It is recommended that you use the Customize function because of these advantages:

• Retains the same privileges as the original report.
• Creates the necessary folder structure and keeps the same name as the original report.
• Ensures that the copied report is placed in the same folder structure under the 'Custom' folder and the BI Publisher automatically chooses to use this modified report.
• Retains the delivery options of the original report and you don't have to add or make any changes. If you choose to copy the template, you must manually add the delivery options.

It is recommended that you save all the user-defined or configured reports in the Custom catalog folder under Shared Folders. Any reports created outside of the Custom folder isn't migrated and is lost during a patch update or upgrade.

Each report has a Report ID that's tied to the BI catalog path:

Custom/<Family Name>/<Product Name>/<Report File Name>.xdo.

Data Model

A data model defines the source of data for the report. It contains a set of instructions for the BI Publisher to retrieve and structure data for a report. Each report has a data model. Data models reside as separate objects in the catalog.

A simple data model can have a single data set that retrieves data from a single data source, or a complex data model can be a complex set of multiple data sets, sourcing information from multiple data sources.

A Data Set includes predefined list of view objects and parameters associated with the report.

Copy the data model into the Custom folder and edit the copy. Don't edit predefined data models.