Table of content

What is Oracle BI Publisher?

Key features of BI Publisher
Data extraction in Oracle BI Publisher
Components of BI Publisher Reports
Benefits of Oracle BI Publisher
Connect Power BI directly to Oracle BI Publisher data models
Conclusion

Oracle BI Publisher: Everything You

Need to Know
Most organizations have different ways of generating reports and documents, such as
invoices and purchase orders. They also require data in different output formats with multiple
delivery destinations, such as email or fax. With traditional reporting tools, this process tends
to be time-consuming and uses vast amounts of space.

Oracle BI Publisher, formerly known as XML Publisher, is a complete enterprise-level

reporting solution from Oracle that streamlines report and form generation. It is a part of the
Oracle Business Intelligence or Analytics platform and helps organizations to efficiently
create, manage, and deliver highly-formatted reports and documents.

Through this blog, we explore Oracle BI Publisher, its features, benefits, and different
components in a report. We also look into how BI Connector provides an easy way to directly
connect Power BI to BI Publisher reports.

What is Oracle BI Publisher?

With Oracle BI Publisher, users can create customized reports from numerous data sources,
including databases, BI servers, web services, REST services, and any local Excel file, and
combine them in a singular data model for multiple reports.

BI Publisher enables users to utilize common desktop applications such as Microsoft Word
and Adobe Acrobat. The reports are available in multiple output formats such as PDF,
HTML, MS Office (Excel, PowerPoint, and Word), and XML. It can then be delivered via
email, fax, FTP, or web portal.

This approach dramatically reduces report maintenance, enabling users to adjust report
templates without the involvement of IT resources. Further, BI Publisher reports can be
integrated with Oracle BI products to provide better flexibility and performance for users.

The reporting solution finds application across multiple industries, such as healthcare,
finance, and manufacturing. BI Publisher can be used to publish any type of reports and
documents, including invoices, checks, government forms, and performance reports.
Key features of BI Publisher

Pre-built templates
BI Publisher provides a wide array of pre-built templates that can be used to create reports for
common use cases such as invoices, financial statements, checks, and purchase orders.

Customizable interactive reports

The design layout templates can be customized to set a consistent look for reports in an
organization in terms of logo, font, and existing design. You can also have Excel features
such as filtering and sorting data when viewing the report.

Supports multiple data sources

It merges multiple data sources and supports numerous layouts per report so you can format
and display data in desired ways. The output can then be viewed or printed as per customer
requirements.

Scheduling option
BI Publisher enables you to create reports and schedule them to be sent to stakeholders at
regular intervals.

Bursting capability
Bursting is another feature of BIP that allows users to generate reports for specific fields and
deliver them to end users associated with the field value. For instance, project budget reports
can be split into multiple reports based on numbers and sent to different project managers for
review.

This auto-distribution and delivery approach helps save time and resources.

Enhanced layout features

BI Publisher offers a complete range of layout features such as conditional formatting,
charting, use of formulas and functions, watermark, and drill down support, making it highly
efficient and scalable.

Security
BI Publisher enables users to implement advanced security by using features such as
password protection, role-based access, digital signature, and single sign-on options.
BI Publisher Connector:
Connect Power BI directly to Oracle BI
data models in minutes
Click to learn more

Data extraction in Oracle BI Publisher

Oracle BI Publisher is part of many Oracle products such as Oracle BI Suite Plus, Oracle BI
Foundation, Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence (OTBI), Oracle BI Enterprise, and
Oracle Analytics Cloud (OAC) as well. The solution is also available for Oracle Fusion
applications (HCM, SCM, ERP, and CX).

Extracting data from the Oracle applications can be done through different methods such as
querying, SOAP Service, REST APIs, and File extract. Fusion Analytics Warehouse, Export
Management, HCM Extracts, Item/Product Data Publication, and many more possible
connectivity options are also available.

Components of BI Publisher Reports

A BI Publisher report generally consists of a data model, a layout template, and some
properties. A report may also include a style template and a set of translations. Let’s look into
each of these components.

Data model:
Data models define the relationships between the data elements in a report. You can use the
data model editor to create required data models.

Report layout:
BI Publisher provides several options for designing report layouts. The Layout Editor is a
web-based design tool for creating and viewing interactive reports. BI Publisher also

Offers a plug-in utility for Microsoft Word. The different formats include RTF, XLS, PDF,
and Flash.

Style templates:
A style template in a BIP report is an RTF template with style information to be applied to
RTF layouts during runtime, providing a consistent look for enterprise reports. It helps users
to include similar company logos, headings, fonts, and other elements across all reports.
Sub templates:
It is essentially a formatting functionality (in RTF or XSL format) that can be defined once
and used multiple times within a single or multiple layout template files. For example, an
address block that needs to be reused in all reports.

Translations:
BI Publisher supports translation in two methods: Catalog and template translation. It enables
translation to any language supported by Unicode and does not require a special algorithm for
rendering.

Benefits of Oracle BI Publisher

Pre-integrated with Oracle

Oracle BI Publisher is seamlessly integrated with Oracle BI solutions, including Oracle E-
business suite, Oracle BI Suite Plus, Oracle BI Foundation, and PeopleSoft Enterprise.

Enhanced user experience

Users can generate pixel-perfect reports using intuitive drag-and-drop style layout editor
tools. BI publisher also supports multiple layouts for a single dataset which helps reduce the
number of reports.

Increased efficiency
BI Publisher can handle extensive data, thousands of documents per hour, using low CPU and
memory levels, making it efficient and scalable.

Increased flexibility
BI Publisher has separate data logic, layout, and translation capabilities, which makes it
easier to maintain and improves flexibility.

Language support
It supports multiple languages and territories along with translated user interface, so it can be
used as a single global instance model.
Connect Power BI directly to Oracle BI
Publisher data models
For Oracle users who visualize data in Power BI, bringing BI Publisher reports to the data viz
tool enables numerous benefits.

1. Error-free reporting and data visualization

2. Time and cost savings with direct connection
3. Better user experience
BI Publisher Connector is a unique product in the market that allows users to enjoy all these
benefits and many more.

You no longer have to rely on time-consuming Excel extracts and writing queries.

The solution helps connect Power BI directly to Oracle BI Publisher data models and
visualize data with just a few clicks. It’s easy to set up and requires only a few minutes to
complete installation.

Here’s a step-by-step guide showing how to connect Power BI to Oracle BI Publisher data
models using BI Publisher Connector.

1. Select Get data option in Power BI and choose BI

Connector.

2. Next, select the data source type as ‘data model’ and

enter the BI Publisher URL.
 3. Finally, enter your BI Publisher credentials. You can start
visualizing now.

To know more, check out here.

Conclusion
Oracle BI Publisher, formerly known as XML Publisher, is a complete enterprise-level
reporting solution from Oracle that streamlines report and form generation. The reports are
available in multiple output formats such as PDF, HTML, MS Office (Excel, PowerPoint,
and Word), and XML. BI Publisher helps deliver these reports to multiple devices, including
email, fax, FTP, or web portal.

The key features of BI Publisher include pre-built templates, customizable interactive reports,
layout features, scheduling, and bursting capabilities with advanced security. It is a highly-
scalable and flexible solution that helps users better manage their reports.

With numerous features and benefits, BI Publisher is a holistic reporting solution that
mitigates the challenges of traditional tools and paves the way for adopting future
technologies.