About Planned Outputs

A Planned Output is a placeholder for a file to be generated by a Program during execution.

There are three types: Primary, Secondary, and Error File. You can define any number of any type of Planned Output.

Planned Outputs are not required; you can create Programs whose purpose is to transform and write data to a Table rather than to produce a report.

You must create a different Planned Output for each file you want to generate. If you want to create the same report in two file types, define a Planned Output for each of them (in that case you might also want to use a Parameter to determine which one to produce at runtime).

The source code for the Program must specify how to create each Planned Output defined in the Program and refer to each one by the name appropriate to the development environment (for example, Oracle or SAS).

Primary Output: A primary output is a report on data generated during the successful execution of the Program. The purpose of the Program is to produce one or more primary outputs (and may also transform data). You must write source code that produces the report you want, and refer to the primary Planned Output by name in the source code.

You can define more than one primary output for a single Program. For example, you could create two primary Planned Outputs to present the same information in two ways, such as a table and a graph; or you could divide the data results into two or more categories for presentation, with a Planned Output for each category.

Secondary Output: A secondary output is one that is not defined as either Primary or Error File; for example, a log file. The execution engine produces a log file for every execution of an Oracle Life Sciences Data Hub Program, but you may or may not need to define a Planned Output as a placeholder for the log file:

• The system automatically creates one secondary Planned Output for each SAS-type Source Code definition, to hold the log file. SAS log files therefore appear in the Reports tab navigation tree.

• You can view the log file for Programs of all Oracle types from the Job screen. If you want to have the log file appear as an entry in the Reports tab navigation tree as well, you must create a secondary Planned Output for it.

Error File: An Error File Planned Output is a file generated automatically by the system if a Program execution fails to generate a primary output defined as Required. To define an Error File Planned Output you must also define at least one primary Planned Output as Required in the same Program definition.

The very existence of an error file as an output indicates a failure.

Classifying Planned Outputs: You can classify Planned Outputs. The system assigns the same classification values to the actual output when the Program generates it. Users find report outputs by their classifications in the Reports tab of the Oracle LSH user interface. See Defining Planned Outputs and Classifying Outputs.

Report Sets and Planned Outputs: To use a Planned Output as a report in a Report Set, you must create an instance of the Program that generates the Planned Output in a Report Set Entry in the Report Set.

All the primary Planned Outputs generated by the Program are included in the Report Set Entry, in the order in which they are displayed in the Program. If there are more than one primary Planned Outputs and you want to be able to choose which one(s) to include, you should create the Program with an input Parameter for this purpose.

Secondary outputs and error files are not included in the Report Set's table of contents.

The Report Set produces the output in the file type you specify as part of the Planned Output definition. If you have Publishing Light installed and want to use those features for this Report, you must specify a file type of PDF.