Oracle BI Publisher Blog

Many of you know that publisher requires some 'extras' to get your document to a printer in a legible format. There are now printers that can handle the PDF format natively but the majority of printers need to have the PDf converted to either Postscript (PS) or Printer Control Language(PCL). We have recommended a couple of converters to help you out with this.

Ghostscript, offers both PS and PCL converters the other product we recommend is xpdf from foolabs and we have many of you using both products very successfully. In spite of their robustness many of you have expressed concern - 'it's another moving part in the whole document generation process' - 'and it's not owned by Oracle' -  both fair comments and I can understand the concern - however we have faith in these solutions and will help you to use them.

For BIP Standlaone users there is some good news, we have now built our own Postscript libraries to convert from PDF to PS. Very easy to use when setting up your printers in the user inteface.

As you can see its simple to use and if you want to continue to use another converter thats simple too. There are some caveats and limitations:

This release of the PDF to PostScript converter has the following limitations:

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  Only PDF version 1.4 or earlier is supported. This is also the currently supported version of the Oracle BI Publisher PDF output.

  
  
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  CID fonts, which are used mainly to support languages with large sets of glyphs like Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, are only supported when embedded in the PDF.

  
  
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  Transparent and half-tone renderings are not supported.

  
  
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  DeviceN color space is not supported.

  
  
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  Shading patterns are not fully supported.

  
  
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  Vertical writing is not supported.

Not forgetting you EBS and other apps users out there - this functionality will be coming to an application near you later this year (for EBS) and next year for others.

There was a question on our internal mailing list today on our translation methods - the answers are in the user guide but the interesting thing was a mail from another BIPper. Microsoft have released a pretty decent XML editor at last. Last time I tried it, it was not a good experience, there still seem to be some niggly issues but overall its pretty useful.

Its not a style sheet editor but if you need to do some work with XML - I seem to spend my life doing this, debugging templates, building demo XML, etc. I get to use the great but expensive, XMLSpy but considering the features I use, the MS solution is pretty good. Get it here:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/xml/default.aspx

Here's another 'Open XML Editor' - pretty good, not quite as sophisticated as the MS offering. And another from Peter, better than the Open XML and more on a par with MS.

Of course, if you have jdeveloper installed you get an XML editor included - but if you do not have it anyway, its a bit of an overhead if all you want to do is work with XML files.

I just sat through a really nice Siebel CRM / BIP integration demo - the CRM folks have built some very nice integration with BIP in their app. There has been some migration work to move some of the more important reports from the existing Actuate formats to the BIP format that Siebel delivers to you the customer. The best piece in my mind is the integration in the user interface - you Siebel folks are used to context sensitive reports being a coulple of clicks away but for other apps customers its a great feature.

The list of reports are context sensitive to the page and the data you are currently looking at. You can also punch out to other BIP reports you have access to in the system or that have been scheduled.

If you run the report from the UI, its executed and the result returned to you in the format you desire.

You get to manage the templates and reports via a layer of Siebel interface to the BIP server just like PeopleSoft, JDE and EBS.

It's not quite yet available but will come with the 8.1. release later this year. Because of this I need to state the following:

The blog post above is intended to outline the general product direction. It is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described for Oracle痴 products remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.

Well its that time of year again ... and I dont mean taxes. Saying that you better have got them done by the time Collaborate rolls around again this April. There are lots of opportunities to check out BIP/XMLP related content.

This year it's in my home'ish town - so rather than stare at the four walls of a non descript hotel room. I get to help my kids with their homework face to face rather than down a phone and I get sleep in my own bed every night. The drawback is I have to get my sorry backside up to Denver everyday but the upside is that there is loads to see and listen to when it comes to Publisher.
Here's what I have found so far:

I'll be digging around a bit more in coming weeks but there are some great looking sessions in there and if time allows I'll be at every one. Best laid plans and all that, it will no doubt snow and the trains will fail and I'll miss them but I'll being doing my damndest to get there. 

If you're coming, look out for me lurking at the back of sessions. Apart from mine of course, on Thursday @8.30am, the morning after the party - I'll try and not be too energetic and loud!

We had a customer issue a few weeks back ... 'really Tim, I never would have guessed' :0) Yeah, we get some issues sometimes. This was a JD Edwards customer that had developed an encoding class for a barcode. Lost? Check out the Advanced Barcode Support article. Basically, some barcodes need the data encoded, calculating stop bits and such like, prior to applying the barcode font. To support this, we allow you to create a java class that implements a Publisher interface to encode the data values. This can then be called from the RTF template layer using commands - check the user guide people!

The encoding class needs to be in the classpath on the server be it JDE, EBS or standalone - this is straightforward enough but how about being able to test on the Template Builder for Word interface?

It can be done, no support directly in the tool but with a little jiggery pokery we can get the class tested. The list of jar files that the builder will load at runtime is limited but the main one we can highjack is the xdocore.jar. You'll find it under the jlib directory under the Template Builder install directory.

You can open the jar file using something like WinZip, with it you can see the structure of the contents,

The class you developed will no doubt have a package declaration in it e.g. oracle.apps.xx.xmlp.barcode - this needs to map to the path in the jar file. To get it into the jar in the right place just get the class into the directory path on your local drive.

Then, in the case of Winzip, open the jar, then drag and drop the class and ensure the 'Use Full Path Info' option is set to get the class into the correct path that will map to your package specification.

Now, you can test to your hearts content in the comfort and relative speed of MSWord.

Starting to actually feel human again - Im amazed how 'flu' here in the US is so debilitating. I dont remember feeling this bad since I caught some 'bug' in N Africa when I spent far too long traveling when I was younger. My brain is still trying to burst out of the front of my head but the hacking cough that makes you wince, it hurts so much is not so bad. One great side effect, for my kids at least, is that my voice has almost disappeared so they really can claim they did not hear me calling them.

The error in the title is not a nice error to see! It evokes lots of questions, how much data are you processing, how complex is the template the list goes on. Now, Im not a great fan of metalink - there is a mass of useful information in their but getting at it is nigh on impossible.

I was in our Ohio office last week meeting some of our new team Noelle, Dave and Jen. Noelle had installed BIEE and BIP and was getting an error when she tried to connect - I had not seen it before, googling it brought nothing useful so it was on to Metalink. When I usually resort to metalink I try and get as specific a string as possible cos no matter what you enter you get 100s of hits. I was amazed when we entered our string in the advanced search to only get 4 hits - excellent! Then we realized that the 4 hits were nothing to do with OBIEE or BIP ... dang! Noelle ended up falling back on the age old solution - re-installing - it worked like a charm.

If you can get past the search engine on Metalink there are some real document gems. For the error mentioned in the title go to

                            Note:315477.1 : XML Report Publisher Fails With java.lang.OutOfMemoryError

Its a good solid document with some useful information. I think Pieter from the support team wrote, thanks Pieter!

Theres a new version of the Enterprise release training now available, its a 3 day instructor led course, looks pretty good if you're just starting out with BIP.

Oracle BI Publisher 10g R3: Fundamentals (Data Warehousing and Oracle Business Intelligence)

There is also the 5 day E Business Suite course being run all over the place, fancy a trip to Alaska? I hear Anchorage is a great place to visit. Alternatively pack the kids and get to Orlando, they can check out the mouse while you use your nouse!

11i Oracle XML Publisher Fundamentals (NAMER) (E-Business Suite)

There is also the PeopleSoft training course for XMLP

XML Publisher for PeopleSoft Enterprise PeopleTools Rel 8.48 (PeopleSoft Enterprise)

Its a one day affair but boy do they pack stuff in for it - I mentioned it in more detail here. You can also study from the comfort of an armchair at home using the CD-ROM option.

Last but not least is the JD Edwards  training

EnterpriseOne Embedded BI Publisher Rel 8.97 - RWC (JD Edwards EnterpriseOne)

Its a self study course rather than instructor led but again looks to be good. I have also heard rumor of hands-on labs for JDE XMLP at OpenWorld this year - more news as I get it.

All the courses are introductions to the various flavors of XMLP/BIP, I have no doubt that there will be a Siebel CRM course coming soon. But thats it, introductions to get from a 'noob' to an intermediate but no further, after that its time to hit the docs and the forums for answers. I did enquire as to the possibility of an Advanced class but its a no no ... historically they have not been worth it for OU, just could not get the numbers of folks to fill the classes.

I have talked about doing a regular 'public' session on XMLP/BIP where we can take things a bit further and look at more advanced features, case studies, etc but you guys are just too quiet - I got maybe one or two emails saying 'yes please!' - any one else out there interested?

If you cant email then get over the mix.oracle.com and click - they are currently allowing you to vote for or suggest sessions for OOW08. I have posted the idea of providing an 'Advanced Publisher Techniques' session but its currently languishing in 50-60th place - get over there and vote for it - https://mix.oracle.com/ideas/27984-advanced-techniques-for-bi-publisher

Even if we dont get to the top we can maybe do a session in the 'unconference' on some of the more advanced stuff or maybe one of you could, I'll stand at the back and clap and cheer loudly!

I mentioned the new demos that were being built a while back. We have now got enough of them to make them available. We are starting off with about 10 of them - they cover 'templating' for the most part. Its been a team effort, kudos to Noelle, Dave and Jen for putting the demos together.

There are some of the newer features we have in the Template Builder for Word, PDF template building and other tips and tricks. Its going to be a growing collection of demos over the coming weeks and months covering all things Publisher. I'll also be begging our PeopleSoft, JD Edwards and Siebel brethren for content to mount. If you have requests let us know.

You can get at the catalog here:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/xml-publisher/demoshelf/Shelf.html

For those that are interested in the delivery vehicle - its good ol Adobe Flex - we have to thank Ely Greenfield from Adobe and www.quietlyscheming.com for the Flex Shelf component - its a great component that we leverage to get away from the boring HTML formatted list.
Make sure you visit the catalog frequently to get the latest and greatest.

Long'ish on and off exchange with 'Super Support Man' aka Kevin M over IM this morning trying to sort out a frustrating check printing issue a customer was having. Their bank had provided a specification sheet showing the required layout for the check including the the 'where' and 'how' the MICR string should look.

A commercial font was being used and it was not rendering correctly, basically the string was too long for the space allocated by the bank. It looked like a spacing or scaling issue on BIP's part. I had been scratching my head over it for a while - too long in fact. I can fully understand the pain and misery of not being able to cut checks - they still have to be one of the most mission critical documents for an organization today.

While chatting (typing) to 'Super Kev', I was idly trying some of the other MICR fonts I have on my machine in MSWord against the customer's font. Naming no names here are the results.

Not huge differences but enough that over a 25 character MICR string they will be significantly different enough for certain banks to reject test checks because of the length of the string.

Its not a completely fair image, two of the fonts are 'free', one of those is the MICR font included with Publisher. There are a few commercial fonts in there too but just using the vanilla font flavor.

If you want to use Publisher to generate checks and you purchase a commercial font, please check out the user guides. Im not a 'user guide' type of guy - strange considering how much effort I put into the BIP docs with Leslie. Writing documentation yourself gives you a whole new appreciation for the pain and misery folks go through writing it and then no one reads it. But I digress ... again!

Typically, the commercial vendors don't just provide a single font. They provide a range of them and a test document for you to print. From that printed document, you can then match the correct font to your bank's specification requirement.

If you use Publisher's font you should be good for spacing but there is an enhancement request out there to help you to tweak the character spacing if you need it.

Hopefully, in this case, things will now be resolved quickly and the customer can at last start cutting checks. Good luck to you with check printing and don't forget, RTFM :0)

Multiple questions lately on working with dates, how can I work out the number of days between two dates? How can I create a list of consecutive dates, the list goes on. I have mentioned the lack of native date support in BIP ... it still uses a hybrid of XSL1.0 and 2.0, that's a whole other story.

To plug some of those gaps there are a bunch of data functions that are available now, couple of the more interesting ones can help to answer the two questions above.

There is an extension function you can use, from the javadoc and as Leslie has reminded me, the user docs:

date_diff

public static long date_diff( format, fromDate, toDate, locStr, tzID)

Method to get the difference between two dates in the given locale. The dates need to be in "yyyy-MM-dd" format. This function supports only Gregorian calendar.

Parameters:
format - the format to which the difference is required; allowed formats are y (for Year), m(for month), w(for week), d(for day), h(for hour), mi(for minute), s(for seconds) and ms(for milliseconds)
fromDate - the first date
toDate - the second date
locStr - locale string -> lang-Territory
tzID - timezone ID ->http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/util/TimeZone.html
Returns:
the difference in dates in the desired format

For example

<?xdoxslt:date_diff('d','2009-09-14', '2009-09-20','en-US',1)?>

gives a result of 6!

You can substitute in columns for the dates, just remember the date format required.

The other question deals with generating a list of consecutive dates. Could solve it with a nice recursive template function, bleeeuuch! BIP has a nice 'for...next' loop function. Gotta thank 'Vetsrini' for jumping on this in the forum.

<?for-each:xdoxslt:foreach_number($_XDOCTX,2,10,1)?>
Hello - <?position()?>  = <?xdoxslt:sysdate() + position()?> = <?xdoxslt:ora_format_date_offset('2009-06-03',position(), '+')?>

The first line is the for...next loop, specifically the xdoxslt:foreach_number($_XDOCTX,2,10,1) command. By the numbers, 2 is our starting point, 10 is the stopping point and 1 is the step. Any of these can be substituted with column data values.
We have the loop to generate the list of numbers, now we want to generate consecutive dates by adding each number to a date. The following command

<?xdoxslt:ora_format_date_offset('2009-06-03',position(), '+')?>

does the business. We are starting with a fixed date (XSD format) but you could equally use a column value.

Running the command gives us:

Hello - 1 = 90917 = 2009-06-02T00:00:00.000+00:00
Hello - 2 = 90918 = 2009-06-03T00:00:00.000+00:00
Hello - 3 = 90919 = 2009-06-04T00:00:00.000+00:00
Hello - 4 = 90920 = 2009-06-05T00:00:00.000+00:00
Hello - 5 = 90921 = 2009-06-06T00:00:00.000+00:00
Hello - 6 = 90922 = 2009-06-07T00:00:00.000+00:00
Hello - 7 = 90923 = 2009-06-08T00:00:00.000+00:00
Hello - 8 = 90924 = 2009-06-09T00:00:00.000+00:00
Hello - 9 = 90925 = 2009-06-10T00:00:00.000+00:00

Cool huh? Yep, you get long XSD date formats, but you can format those quite easily.
Groovy Baby!

... nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." Don't know if it's still true for the US Mail but, the Publisher team was on the go despite the "epic" storm in San Francisco today.

Siva Ramanathan from MasterCard and Noelle

gave a great session on Publisher in E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Siebel, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, and JD Edwards World.

Siva gave a great demonstration of using the BI Publisher Template Builder. He also told the story of how it used to take a business analyst, an IT developer, and a consultant from the vendor of their 3rd party tool THREE MONTHS to create a new PO or modify an existing one (like changing the signature) - and this was happening across 50 operating units. Now, using BI Publisher, it takes a business analyst only THREE DAYS to create a new PO or implement changes and does not require the intervention of IT nor anyone else. Imagine ... 30 times faster implementation time with 1/3 the people to create or edit a Purchase Order ... Priceless.

Noelle, the superwoman of many hats, covered each Application's integration with Publisher and an update of what's new and planned for each. The audience was hanging on her every word when they weren't laughing at her jokes.

There was a little less traffic at the demo pod today ... possibly due the storm but, Fethiye, Leslie, Noelle, Alin, Klaus, Nikos and Pradeep kept the demos going all day long. And of course, Osama-bey, the inspiration behind the innovation, was there to pitch in as needed.

Also saw a presentation packed with lots of great details on using Publisher in PeopleSoft by Millie Babicz and Todd Kummer of SpearMC Consulting.

Coming up on Wednesday::

• S308767 Innovations Using Oracle XML Publisher
  Manoj Chitre, Claremont Graduate University
  Moscone West L3 Room 3005
  1:45 pm - 2:15 pm


• S310889 Creating Custom Siebel Reports, Using Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher
  John Bedford, Oracle; Pradeep Sharma, Oracle
  Moscone West L2 Room 2009
  1:45 pm - 2:15 pm
  


• S311667: Modernize JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Reports with Embedded Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher
  Gurbinder Bali, Oracle; Jeff Erickson, Oracle; Michael Zheng, Oracle
  Marriott Hotel Golden Gate A1
  5:00 pm - 6:00 pm
  

More from my journey of Siebel- BIP integration discovery last week. It was a steep learning curve but none the less very useful.
Firstly, there are 3 levels of integration available to Siebel 8.1.1 users

Level 1

• Siebel stores and manages the templates and manages data generation via integration objects


• At runtime, Siebel calls BIP via WS to process data+template to generate output and returns the document to the user.


• BIP just acts as a publishing service for Siebel

Level 2

• BIP stores the templates and a report definition. The report uses complex Siebel web services as its data source.
• At runtime, BIP is called via a button or menu item (custom), it then calls Siebel back via a WS to fetch the data (integration object)
• BIP then generates output and returns the document to the Siebel UI
• This is the recommended integration as user security can be applied to the data being returned by Siebel

Level 3

• BIP stores the templates and a report definition. The report uses SQL or stored procedure calls to retrieve data from the underlying database
• At runtime, BIP is called via a button or menu item (custom), BIP fetches data from Siebel DB
• BIP generates output and returns to Siebel UI

More details in a great white paper from John on the Siebel PM team, Siebel - BI Publisher Integration Concepts

If you are looking for info on how to migrate your existing Actuate reports in the context of Siebel - check out Kan's article over at the BIP Consulting Blog Once you have downloaded the migration assistant check out the viewlet and accompanying white paper.