BI Publisher and BI Publisher Integration with OBIEE

BI Publisher: This tool can be summed up in 3 words:  it makes reports.  That means finance reports, HR reports, invoice statements, reports with pictures or graphs, reports from database data or reports from BI Answers.

Here are some screenshots of sample reports that get installed along with BI Publisher.  This will give you an idea of what BIP is really capable of.

Balance sheet

Editable PDF Expense Form

Wage Statements

As this is an introductory post about BI Publisher (BIP), I will be giving a whirlwind crash course of an end to end implementation. In this blog I will create a BIP report using OBIEE Answers report data as input to demonstrate the integration between BIP and OBIEE.

Topics covered in this post:
1.    Installing BI Publisher (along with OBIEE)
2.    Installing the Word integration tool (called Template Builder)
3.    Creating a BI Publisher report in Word using OBIEE Answers report data
4.    Uploading the BI Publisher report to BIP Server so it is visible
5.    End off with showing you some more complex samples that came with BI Publisher

Install BI Publisher

Environment Requirements

The Oracle BI Publisher installer supports the following operating systems:

*      Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
*      Microsoft Windows 2003 Server R2 (32 bit)
*      Oracle Enterprise Linux 4, Update 4
*      Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.x
*      Novell SUSE Linux 9.x

The BI Publisher server is supported in any J2EE application server that supports Java 1.4.2 or Java 5.0 (1.5). The following lists the application servers for which BI Publisher has been certified.

*      Oracle Application Server 10.1.3.1
*      Oracle Containers for Java 10.1.3.1
*      Apache Tomcat 5.5.x
*      IBM Websphere 6.0, 6.1
*      Sun Java System Web Server 6.1, 7.0

Note: The Basic installation provides a standalone Oracle Containers for Java (OC4J) 10.1.3.1.

Database Requirements

Note: The database is optional, but required for the scheduler schema.

BI Publisher is supported to run against any database that supports JDBC based on Java 1.4.2 or Java 5.0 (1.5). BI Publisher has certified against the following databases as a source of data as well as a database to install and run the BI Publisher Scheduler schema:

*      Oracle Database 9i or 10g
*      Microsoft SQL Server 2000, 2005
*      IBM DB2 for z/OS 8 (NFM mode)
*      IBM DB2 for UDB EE 8.2
*      Sybase Adaptive Server
*      MySQL 4.1, 5.0

Web Browser Requirements
*      Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0, 7.0
*      Mozilla Firefox 1.5.x, 2.0

BI Publisher’s hardware and software requirements are the same as basic OBIEE but BIP’s desktop tools require certain prerequisites to be installed:

Client Operating System
•    Windows 2000/ 2003 SP1 (32-bit only)/ XP SP2 and later

Template Builder for Word Add-in
•    Microsoft Word 2000/2002/2003
•    Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
•    Java Runtime or JDK 1.5 or later

Excel Analyzer
•    Microsoft Excel 2000/2002/2003
•    Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0

You can get additional details here:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E10091_01/doc/bip.1013/b40084/T434820T487781.htm

BI Publisher Installation

Choose your install location and installation type.  When I installed I selected “Basic Security” using OC4J.  This means OC4J should be running in the background whenever we want to run BI Publisher.

Select the BI Publisher option during the install process.

Browse to your Java JDK location and choose an oc4jadmin password.

Note: I have the required prerequisites installed on my laptop, and that includes; a database, BI Server, Presentation Server, and BI Publisher.  If you have these installed on separate computers you will likely have to configure the following page under Admin:

Note: it is assumed that you have your database and RPD set up and have sufficient knowledge of OBIEE to make Answers reports.  Those Answers reports will be the source data for the BIP reports we create

Install the Template Builder for Word Add-In

The Template Builder is the tool used to create the BIP report.  It’s a plugin for MS Word that lets you do BI Publisher report development in MS Word.  Pretty neat when you consider you don’t need to install a 3rd party report editor tool.

To install the Template Builder, log into BIP with your admin password, go to the Reports tab and click on the “Template Builder” link.  It will prompt you to download the installer.  To follow best practices, I created a Test folder to store the report I will create during this exercise.

Make a Report Then Upload It

After the installation, fire up Word and you’ll get some new menu and toolbar items.  At this point, everything should be set up and you can start making some reports
1.    In Word, log on to BIP.  Oracle BI Publisher -> Log On

2.    Click Oracle BI Publisher -> Open.  Select Oracle BI in the Workspace dropdown.  Then, choose an Answers report.  The data from that report will be used as input for your BIP Report.  I chose a simple Answers report called Store Info which brings up 3 columns from a dimension table.

Incidentally this is what the report looks like in BI Answers.  The BIP report will look similar and contain all the same data.

3.    Once you double click the source Answers report, it will ask you to pick a BIP folder.  This is where the BIP template you are making will be saved.  I chose the Test folder, which I created earlier.

4.    From the toolbar, click on Insert -> Table Wizard.  Click through and just bring in all the columns.

5.    Notice how BIP put the field placeholders into this document.  Next you’ll want to see the report you just made; in order to do that, click Preview -> PDF from the toolbar.

6.    You will be prompted to save the template at this point.  Go ahead and do so.
7.    Here is what my report preview looked like:

8.    Once you’re happy that the report looks as it should, it’s time to upload the report to the BIP Server. Go to Oracle BI Publisher -> Upload Template As…

9.     Name the report accordingly.
10.  That’s it, you’re done!
11.   To see your report in action go to the BIP web interface under Reports and just click on the report under the Test folder (or wherever you put it).  Here is what mine looked like:

Here is a sample form that you can make with the same data.  I’ve created a simple customer feedback form with store region and locations on it.

Conclusion

You should now know how to:
•    Install BI Publisher
•    Install the Template Builder plugin for MS Word
•    Point to a BI Answers report for data
•    Create a report template in Word
•    Upload that template
•    View that template through BIP web interface

Now that you’ve seen some of the advanced reports that are possible, you’re on your way to creating more complex reports that leverage the advanced features and power of BI Publisher.  It also means learning to work with a different, and much larger data sets.  Both are key topics that will be explored as they come up in future BIP blog posts.  Stay tuned.