1. Visualizing Data and Building Reports in Oracle Analytics Cloud
  2. Visualize Data
  3. Use Data Actions
  4. Use Data Actions to Connect to Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher Reports

Use Data Actions to Connect to Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher Reports

A data action link can pass context values as URL parameters in Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher reports.

When you click a link to open a BI Publisher report, the link might include attributes associated with the column selected in the visualization.

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About Creating Data Actions to Connect to Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher Reports

You can create a data action to link to an Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher report.

You configure a data action to pass selected column values from a visualization to display in a BI Publisher report.

  • You must store your BI Publisher report in a local folder.

  • When the BI Publisher report uses the analysis as the data model, prompts in the underlying analysis must have User Input value set to Choice List to enable selected values to pass to prompts in the BI Publisher report.

  • You can pass lists of values and list filters to display as prompts in your BI Publisher report. However, you can't pass number filters, date filters, or expression filters.

Create Data Actions to Connect to Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher Reports

You can create an analytics data action link to transfer selected data points from an Oracle Analytics workbook to an Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher report.

The Oracle Analytics workbook, BI Publisher report, and analysis can be in different folders.

  1. On the Home page, select a workbook that uses the data model used in the BI Publisher report, click Actions, and then select Open.
  2. Click Menu and select Data Actions.
  3. Click Add Action and enter a name for the new navigation link.
  4. Click the Type field and select Analytics Link.
  5. Enter a name for the data action in the Name field.
  6. Click the Target field, select Select from Catalog, then browse to select the BI Publisher report that you want the data action to pass data to, and click OK.
  7. Verify that Parameter Mapping is set to Default.
  8. Verify the Pass Values field value is set to All.
  9. Click Supports Multiple Selection to set the value.
    • On - The data action can be invoked when one or multiple data points are selected.
    • Off - The data action can only be invoked when a single data point is selected.

      This setting is particularly useful when the selection of multiple data points might result in an error (for example, with some third-party REST APIs).

  10. Click OK.
  11. Select data points in the visualization and choose the data action to test that the values are passed to the BI Publisher report.

Create Custom Column Names in Data Actions to Pass in Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher Report URLs

You can create a data action link that passes custom column names in the URL of an Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher report.

  1. On the Home page, hover over a workbook, click Actions (Actions menu ellipsis icon), then select Open.
  2. Click Menu and select Data Actions.
  3. Click Add Action and enter a name for the new navigation link.
  4. Click the Type field and select Analytics Link.
  5. Enter a name for the data action in the Name field.
  6. Click the Target field, select Select from Catalog, then browse to select the BI Publisher report that you want the data action to pass data to, and click OK.
  7. Click Parameter Mapping and select Set Custom Mapping to specify custom column names to pass as URL parameters to the BI Publisher report.
  8. Click Add Row and click Select a Column for each column that you want to pass to the BI Publisher report using a custom name.
  9. Click Enter Parameter and enter a custom name for each column name that you want to replace.

    The custom name passes to the BI Publisher report in the URL.

  10. Verify the Pass Values field value is set to All.
  11. Click Supports Multiple Selection to set the value.
    • On - The data action can be invoked when one or multiple data points are selected.
    • Off - The data action can only be invoked when a single data point is selected.

      This setting is particularly useful when the selection of multiple data points might result in an error (for example, with some third-party REST APIs).

  12. Click OK.
  13. Select data points in the visualization and choose the data action to verify that the custom column names are displayed in the URL of the BI Publisher report.