1. User's Guide
  2. Smart View and Narrative Reporting
  3. Authoring Doclets
  4. About the Author Phase Process

About the Author Phase Process

Report packages are made up of subcomponents called doclets. There are three doclet types: doclets, reference doclets, and supplemental doclets. A report package owner assigns authors and approvers for each doclet of all types in a report package. The authors and approvers provide and approve content for the doclets.

The author phase follows this process:

  1. The report package owner initiates the author phase in the Narrative Reporting web interface.

  2. Notification messages are sent to authors to begin their work.

  3. In Oracle Smart View for Office, authors open and then check out Office-based doclets of any type. They provide content, add content to reference files, embed available content from reference doclets, Reports, and reference files, and then check doclets back in.

    Authors use the web interface to check out and check in PDF doclets and supplemental doclets of non-Office type. From Smart View, authors download PDF doclets and non-Office supplemental doclets.

    See About Doclets and Variables for more information.

  4. When authors have finished their work, they submit doclets of all types for approval, if required.

  5. If doclet approval is specified, notification messages are sent to approvers to review and either approve or reject doclets.

  6. The report package owner marks the author phase complete.

As an author, in Smart View or in the Narrative Reporting web interface, you can work with:

  • Doclets in Word, PowerPoint, Excel, or PDF format

    Office doclets can be regular doclets or linked regular doclets.

  • Reference doclets in Excel, from which you embed content in Word doclets

  • Charts and tables created in the Reports web interface, from which you embed content in Word doclets

  • Excel doclets in PDF-based report packages

  • Excel-based reference files, which contain content that you may want to embed in a Word doclet

  • Office-based supplemental doclets with the appropriate Office application

  • PDF doclets and non-Office-based supplemental doclets, such as PDF or TXT files, which you download and open with the appropriate application (using the web interface to check out, upload, and check in)

The topics in this section discuss authoring and working with doclets, reference doclets, supplemental doclets, and reference files in Smart View.