7 Using the Reporting Framework

This chapter includes the following sections:

• Introduction to the Reporting Framework

• Choosing a Reporting Technology

• Developing BI Publisher Reports

• Developing Enterprise Manager Information Publisher Reports

Introduction to the Reporting Framework

The powerful reporting framework of Enterprise Manager makes information about your managed environment available to audiences across your enterprise. Reports are used strategically to present a view of enterprise monitoring information for business intelligence purposes, and they can also serve an administrative role by showing activity, resource utilization, and configuration of managed targets. IT managers can use reports to show availability of sets of managed systems. Executives can view reports on availability of applications (such as corporate e-mail) over a period of time. Enterprise Manager ships with over 100 reports addressing these various needs; additionally you can create your own customized reports.

Choosing a Reporting Technology

You can develop new reports using either BI Publisher or the Enterprise Manager Information Publisher (IP) reporting framework based on your product requirements. However, Information Publisher reports are deprecated from release 12c Release 1, therefore Oracle recommends using BI Publisher.

BI Publisher reports have the following advantages:

• Highly formatted, professional quality, output-only reports, with pagination and headers and footers.

• PDF, XLS, and HTML output formats.

• Enterprise Manager repository access model supported through Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) data source and per-process function for Virtual Private Database (VPD) (VPD is set as a logged on BIP user). Supports select statements and pipelined PL/SQL functions available to the MGMT_VIEW account.

• BI Publisher report access model using “foldering" and granting access to folders.

• Scheduling capabilities and delivery mechanisms (FTP and others).

• Ability to edit formats separately from the report definition.

• Ability to parameterize with BI Publisher parameter capabilities as a report is generated.

Enterprise Manager Information Publisher reports have the following advantages:

• Reports that looks like Enterprise Manager console pages (no tight control over layout).

• Tightly coupled with Enterprise Manager Oracle Management Services (OMS) and repository.

• Integrated Dashboards.

Developing BI Publisher Reports

BI Publisher reports have data model, layout, and translation components. The data model component is modeled using the BI Publisher UI. The report layout is generated using RTF templates. RTF templates are authored by BI Publisher report developers using the BI Publisher Desktop application, which is delivered as a Microsoft Word Plug-in.

A complete example of a BI Publisher report ships with the BI Publisher integration. This includes a data model and a report definition.

When a report has been developed and tested, all of these components can then be exported from BI Publisher as files and packaged as part of the plug-in.

For more information about the report development and packaging process, refer to the Programmer's Reference.

Developing Enterprise Manager Information Publisher Reports

Enterprise Manager Information Publisher reports are defined in XML and packaged with the plug-in. These report definitions specify the layout and content of the report. You should use the BI Publisher interfaces to develop new report definitions. You should not utilize the Enterprise Manager Information Publisher PL/SQL APIs.

These APIs are still supported for reports included in plug-ins created before Enterprise Manager 12c Release 1 (12.1.0.2), but are converted to 12c Release 1 (12.1.0.2). These APIs are not supported for the development of new reports.