Save $$$ with XML Publisher

Posted by iBizSoft in Uncategorized

After having worked with Oracle Reports in the last so many years, I have found that Oracle Reports is not a developer friendly tool and formatting of report take lot’s of time ( and money) especially reports like

• Invoicing
• Check Printing
• Forms and labels
• Contracts etc

And most of the customers have implemented 3rd Party Reporting tools. However these tools are really expensive, maintenance hassles, labor intensive, there are licensing and integration issues.

But with the introduction of the XML Publisher, Oracle done a great job for developer community especially for e-Business Suite developer and hence the development cost involved.

Oracle XML Publisher is a template-based publishing solution delivered with the Oracle E-Business Suite. It provides a new approach to design and publish reports by integrating familiar desktop word processing tools with existing E-Business Suite data. XML Publisher leverages standard, well-known technologies and tools, so you can develop and maintain user defined (custom) report formats.

With XML Publisher
• We can use desktop tools like Microsoft word, excel, acrobat etc to design our Templates.
• It supports data from the multiple sources e.g. Oracle, Sql Server, People soft, Java etc.
• Print the output in pdf, rtf, Excel, HTML etc .format.
• Route the report to Fax, email, printer etc.
• Once we have a Template, with one Template we can have multiple outputs.
• We can print the Forms in pdf.

It not only supports outbound, but also supports the inbound data from the various documents like word, excel, PDF by receiveing the data, converting the data into XML and feeding it back to the database.

Oracle E-business (11i10) is fully integrated with the XML Publisher and almost all modules from HR to Order Management are utilizing the XML Publisher.

Below is example of how to design and publish CUSTOM/Standard report with XML Publisher for Oracle Ebusiness.

1. Download and Install the XML Publisher tool from Oracle website on your windows client machine
2. Once the template Builder has been installed on your computer an additional toolbar (Template Builder) will be displayed in Microsoft Word
3. You are ready to design the layout of the report in RTF format, for eg. you can add all types of fonts, colors, table logos, Barcode, pictures etc. This will form the template for the report.
4. Create a program to generate the XML data .XML data can be generated from multiple sources. But in this document we will take the case when XML data will be generated by Oracle Application Concurrent Program (for Oracle Reports). Store the XML data in the local computer.
5. Once the Layout/Template of the report and XML data in available Map the XML with the layout.
6. Register the XML Data definition and XML Template with Oracle application.
7. Run the Report.

Now, let’s take a look at each step in detail with pictures.

Step1/2: Install the XML Publisher tool.

After the tool installation, we can see additional tabs in Microsoft word.

Step3: Design the Layout in Microsoft word in RTF. (This layout is about how you want to generate your report). You can add all types of fonts, colors, table logos, Barcode, pictures etc.

Step4: Create a source to generate the XML Data. In our case this can be a Concurrent Program for Oracle Reports as shown below.

1. By creating an Oracle Report we can elimate the need to do any formatting.
2. Move the file to respective APPL_TOP and register the report as concurrent Program
3. Above 2 steps are required if you want to create new report, but in case you want to convert existing Oracle report into XML Publisher report, query the concurrent program

Concurrent Program Responsibility– > Application Developer –> Navigation –> Concurrent program

Query for a Report, as shown in the example below