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11i and Oracle Reporting Tools – Solving the Reporting Challenge
Colin Futeran
Red Rock Consulting
Introduction
The popularity of ERP systems has resulted in organisations spending a great deal of time capturing data about
their business. However, this data tends to be trapped in the database. Decision makers find that they have no
easy way of converting this data into the information they need to run their business. Information officers find it
difficult to distribute relevant information to the right people throughout the organisation.
Most Oracle Applications sites have a backlog of reporting requests or have frustrated users who know that the
information they want is in the system but they just cannot get to it. The information systems department
requires a business case and cost benefit analysis to create the required report and it all becomes too hard for the
user to proceed. Reports that are available are under utilised. Managers do not want to trawl through lists of
reports under different Oracle responsibilities. The information they need should be available to them directly
from their desktop.
Oracle has a number of offerings to solve the reporting issues facing your organisation. Some of these tools are
part of Oracle Applications 11i and others are Oracle products that utilise the data stored in the Oracle
Applications database. These tools allow you to leverage your investment in Oracle Applications to get the most
benefit from all the information you have captured.
The reporting tools that will be addressed by this paper can be divided into two types: Content Provision and
Report Publishing.
Content Provision:
• 11i Applications Reports (Standard, Variable, FSG)
• Custom Reports
• Discoverer (Ad Hoc Queries)
• Business Intelligence System (BIS)
Report Publishing
• Workflow Notifications and Alerts
• Request Centre
• Report Manager
• 11i Homepage
• Portal
Some of these tools, such as standard reports, FSGs and custom reports, are well known and widely used. This
paper will not deal with these tools in detail but will rather concentrate on areas that are generally under-utilised
by Oracle Applications users.
The paper first covers the tools for providing content, concentrating on Variable Reports and Discoverer. The
Business Intelligence system will be discussed at a high-level to provide an indication of the type of content that
it provides. The paper then covers the methods of publishing reports to provide access to multiple users
throughout the organisation.
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Copyright  2000 Colin Futeran
11i Reporting Tools – Solving the Reporting Challenge
Reporting Building Blocks
The best way to view the reporting options available is as a set of building blocks.
Report Manager
Business Intelligence System
Discoverer
Oracle Database
Applications Reports
Standard Variable FSG
Request Centre
Oracle Database - the repository for all your 11i data.

Standard Reports – fixed format reports delivered with the 11i application
Variable Reports – variable format reports delivered with the 11i application
FSG Reports – general ledger reports defined by applications users
Discoverer – end user custom and ad hoc reports
Business Intelligence System – Key Performance Indicators and decision support reports
Request Centre – report monitoring and publishing
Report Manager – report repository and access
Workflow Notifications and Alerts – send reports to users
11i Homepage – provides access to reports through a pre-configured portal
Oracle Portal – provides enterprise wide access to reports

Standard Reports
Oracle Applications has a number of reports that are delivered with each module. The content of these reports is
well known and does not require further discussion. In release11i, Oracle has enhanced the scheduling
functionality for these reports. You can now schedule reports to run on specific days of the week or month and
you can ask Oracle to automatically increment date parameters each time the report runs.
Variable Reports
The problem with standard reports is that you cannot choose the information you would like to include in the
report. They have been written to cater for everybody’s needs rather than the needs of a specific user. Variable
reports, also known as Report Exchange Reports, allow you to determine which columns you would like to see
on your report. You can also change the order of the columns, sort the rows, group the output and include totals
and sub-totals in the report. These reports can all be viewed in text, html or columnar spreadsheet format. These
features make Variable reports far more powerful than standard reports but they often not used because end
users either do not know that they exist or do not know how to use them. Oracle is continuing to add to the list
of Variable reports available in Oracle Applications. There are currently approximately 47 reports available in
this format.
To use Variable reports you need to first define Attribute Sets. Attribute sets determine the fields to be included
in the report and the report totals and order. You can define Attribute sets either through standard Oracle
Applications forms or through the Request Centre.
To define an Attribute Set through standard forms, you need to use the Report Exchange Designer
responsibility. Navigate to the Attribute Set form (Navigate Setup Rxi) and select a Report Name from the
list of available reports.
All reports have a Default attribute set. You can create a new Attribute Set by choosing the Copy Attribute Set
button and then entering a new Attribute Set name and Short Name. You can then use the blue left and right
arrows in the centre of the form to add or remove fields from your report. Use the blue up and down arrows on
the right of the form to move change the order of the columns of your report. Use the blue + and – buttons to
change the summary grouping levels of the fields in your report.

Under the Page Setup tab you can modify the Report Title, determine how the grouped fields are displayed,
define a specific page size and choose the headings that will appear on the report. Under the Default Format tab
you can specify the date format for date columns on the report.
Choose the Column Details button to determine column sizes and ordering and specify report totals, sub-totals
and record counts. To add totals and sub-totals to your report, choose the Sum Detail button. This opens the
Summary Details window where you can select the totals and sub-totals you want to display.

You can chose from three types of page sub-totals, a report total and a sub-total for each grouped field. Once
you have selected the totals to display, the Sum checkbox on the Column Details screen is checked by the
system. To remove the totals, you must return to the Summary Details window and deselect all the totals. To
add record counts to your report, choose the Count Detail button. This provides you with similar options for
record counts.
Run your Variable reports from Oracle Applications standard report submission screen. The reports for each
module are included in the seeded Report Group for the module. Variable reports run in two stages. First, Oracle
generates the raw data for the report and then the report is published based on the Attribute Set definition. You
can either run these stages individually or together.
To run the stages individually, first run the report with the prefix “RX-Only:” (eg. RX Only: Accum Deprn
Balance Report). Select parameters and run the report like any other Oracle report. This request generates the
raw data for the report. To publish the report, run the Publish RX Reports concurrent request.
Select the Request ID from the “RX-Only:” request you have already submitted. Choose an Attribute Set to
determine the display details and select an Output Format of Text, CSV, HTML or Tab Delimited. View the
output from this request to display your report.
To run the two stages together, run the report with the prefix “RXi:” (eg. RXi: Accum Deprn Balance Report).
Select parameters and run the report like any other Oracle report. This request generates the raw data for the

report and publishes the report based on the Attribute Set included in the report parameters. This is the most
common method used for running these reports, however, the two stage approach is useful for testing or running
the report with multiple Attribute Sets.
The Variable report concurrent requests store the raw data for the report in the database. To remove these data
you need to run the Purge RX Interface Data concurrent request. You should schedule this request to run at
regular intervals.
You can also define Attribute Sets by using the Request Centre (packaged with the Applications Desktop
Integrator – ADI). To define an Attribute Set through the Request Centre, choose the Publishing options for a
Variable report. Select the Attribute Set button and choose to either modify the existing set or create a new set.
Use drag and drop functionality to select the fields you want to include on your report from the list of Available
Attributes and move them to the Selected Attributes section. Use the blue arrows on the right of the screen to
specify the order of the columns. Use the ordering buttons to sort the data in the report and the Group By button
to group the report each time a value in the selected column changes. (Note that you can only apply totals and
record counts to the report through the standard Oracle forms definition.)
You can then submit the report and publish it in HTML, Spreadsheet or Text format. You can also use Themes
to enhance the formatting of Variable reports when you publish them through the Request Centre.
FSG Reports
FSG (Financial Statement Generator) reports are used to report on General Ledger account balances. These are
user-defined reports that can be tailored to your business needs. You can use content sets to create multiple
reports from one FSG report definition. You can run multiple FSG reports at one time using Report Sets. These
FSG reports can then be published and distributed throughout your organisation using the Request Centre and
the Report Manager. FSG reports are widely used and do not require further discussion. Note that that you can
now apply security rules to your FSG reports via a standard Oracle profile option.

Discoverer
Every organisation is unique and the standard reports delivered with Oracle applications are never going to meet
all your requirements. Even within organisations, different users will want to see similar information in different
formats, using different parameters and by different dimensions. They also want their reports to be dynamic
with the ability to consolidate information, drill down to more detailed information or drill out to related
information. It is very expensive to create a new report or modify an existing report each time there is a new
user requirement.
Discoverer solves this problem by providing an intuitive tool for creating queries and reports and performing
on-line analysis. Discoverer hides the database complexity from the end user and provides easy to use wizards
for creating or modifying reports to suite individual needs. With Discoverer you can drill in all directions (up,
down, to related items, to other reports), report on exceptions, create graphs and pivot the report to view
information from different dimensions. You can also use summary tables to improve reporting performance.
With Discoverer 4i, reports can be created and viewed using a standard web browser interface.
The secret to Discoverer’s ease of use is the End User Layer (EUL). The EUL is a metadata definition of the
underlying Oracle Applications tables that hides the database complexity from the end user performing the ad-
hoc query. The EUL can be defined by a technical analyst but is wizard driven and does not require detailed
programming knowledge. The Discoverer Administration edition is used to define the EUL. Using the
Discoverer Administration edition, you create Business Areas and Folders from the tables in the Oracle
Applications database. You can rename fields and provide descriptions to make them understandable to the end
user. You also specify the table joins, lists of values, drill down hierarchies, default and required conditions,
predefined calculations and table summaries.
The Administration edition is also used to control end user security access to the information in Business Areas.
Discoverer is integrated with Oracle Applications. Users logon to Discoverer using the same username and
password as Oracle Applications and choose from a list of their Applications responsibilities. This determines
their level of access to data in Discoverer. You can create an EUL from Oracle’s Business Views. These views
are created by running standard Oracle Applications concurrent requests from the Setup Business Views
responsibility. EUL folders created from these views include built-in organisation level security. End users will
only be able to access information that is available to the organisation linked to their responsibility. Certain
views also have built-in security rule access restrictions. This restricts end user access to data based on the
Security Rules defined and assigned to their responsibility in Oracle Applications.
Once the EUL has been defined, end users can easily create their own reports and queries using the Discoverer
Desktop edition or the browser based Discoverer Plus edition. Using a well defined EUL it a simple task for a
non-technical user to browse through Business Areas and Folders to select the information they need for their
report using drag and drop functionality. The screenshot on the next page shows an example of a Purchase
Orders report created in the Discoverer Desktop edition.

Once defined, you can pivot the report to, for example, view purchase orders by category rather than by
supplier. You can switch rows and columns or move dimensions to and from the Page Items level to, for
example, only view miscellaneous purchase orders. You can also drill down to more details such as who
approved these purchase orders. The end user can also add their own parameters, conditions, groupings and
sorts, calculations, totals, percentages, formulas and graphs to their reports.
To improve report performance, Discoverer has a feature called Summary Redirection. To use Summary
Redirection the Discoverer administrator must define Summary Tables (or Materialised Views), which are a
summary of detailed records against which queries are often submitted. If a summary table exists, Discoverer
will automatically use it to improve query performance. Discoverer can also recommend the creation of
summary tables by tracking the types of queries mist commonly performed against the database.
Finally there is the Discoverer Viewer edition that is a lite browser based version that you can easily provide to
users throughout the organisation from your intranet or enterprise portal. Discoverer Viewer allows your
average user to run reports created in the Discoverer Desktop or Discoverer Plus editions. Users can enter their
own parameters and perform basic functions such as report pivoting through the Viewer tool.
Business Intelligence System
Transaction Processing systems are very good at providing information at a transaction level but managers need
higher level information to take the key decisions in running their business. The Business Intelligence System
provides you with a comprehensive overview of the strategic information in your business in an easy to use web
based format. Managers can obtain all the information they need from a single source.
The Business Intelligence System consists of a collection of tools to provide information including the
Performance Management Framework, Alerts and Workflow to warn managers when targets are not being met,
web based reports, Discoverer workbooks and an “Ask Oracle” function to help you find the information you

need. This information is all brought together on the 11i Homepage (refer to section on 11i Homepage for more
details).
The Performance Management Framework allows managers to set goals and measure performance against these
goals. Each performance measure can be viewed by a combination of dimensions to provide multiple levels of
measurement. Oracle Self Service web based forms are used to view and set targets for each performance
measure. The screenshots below show a listing of some performance measures, an example of the dimensions
that can be used for the AR Turnover measure and the screen to view and set targets.

You can schedule performance measure Alerts to send you a warning when a target is not being met.

Managers can customise their 11i Homepage to view the performance measures that are relevant to their area of
control. Select Customise from the Performance Measures portlet on your 11i homepage and then add
performance measures using the blue arrows as in the screenshot below.
For each performance measure you can select the dimensions you would like to use and the target (Business
Plan) to view.
The BIS performance measures obtain their information from the underlying Oracle Applications database
tables. Standard Oracle concurrent programs are submitted or scheduled to update the summary tables used by
BIS to track the performance measures. There is also a version of BIS that runs off data in the Oracle Enterprise
Data Warehouse (EDW). Oracle provides pre-defined extract scripts to populate the EDW with data from the
Oracle Applications tables to be used by BIS.

You obtain access to the BIS web reports via Oracle Self Service menus. You can also create direct links to your
reports on the 11i Homepage. The web reports include links to related reports and related Discoverer
workbooks. An example of the self service reports menu and a web report with links to other reports is shown
below.

Workflow Notifications and Alerts
You can use Oracle workflow functionality to notify any user/s when a report is complete. The notification can
be delivered by email and/or to the users 11i Homepage and include URL link to the report output. This
functionality is built-in to Oracle standard report submission form.
From the Submit Request screen choose the Options button. In the Notify the following people region select the
responsibilities or the names of individual people to notify on completion of the report. Once the report is
complete, Oracle Workflow sends a notification to the specified users. The notification can be emailed to the
user depending on the user’s workflow preferences settings.
This is the most basic method of publishing and distributing Oracle reports through your organisation. Reports
can be scheduled to run on a regular basis and you can use workflow to email users when the reports are
complete. They can then click on a URL included in the email to open and view the report.
Request Centre
The Request Centre can be used by individual users to run standard, variable or FSG reports and monitor their
requests. They can publish these reports in web, excel or text format and can enhance their reports using
formatting themes. You can also use the Applications Desktop Integrator to drill down on FSG reports
published through the request centre. You can drill down to detailed accounts, journal entries or to transaction
level detail in your Oracle sub-ledgers.

The Request Centre can now be used to publish request sets that have been run in Oracle Applications. You can
publish sets of FSG or standard reports at one time and each report can use its own publishing options.
The Request Centre can also be used to publish reports to a central repository in the database. You can publish
standard, custom, variable and FSG reports as well as reports and documents from non-Oracle Applications
systems. These reports can then be accessed through the Report Manager.
To publish reports to the database, choose to submit a request from the Request Centre and then select the
Publishing Button. Under Output Type choose Database, Web Page.

Under Database Web Page Options, click on the Publish to Torch icon. This opens a list of folders that represent
your Self Service Applications responsibilities. Open the responsibility folders to the sub-folders under the
responsibility. Choose the Add Report icon to insert the report under the required folder. You can also choose
the Add Folder icon to add a new folder to the structure.
From the Publishing screen, select a Timeframe for your report. This allows you to store a different version of a
report on the database per each period.
For FSG reports that use content sets, you can select a Value Security method. This allows you to secure your
report by Security Rules defined against the responsibility in Oracle Applications.
To use Security Rules choose Flexfield Segment Security and select the segment that you want to use. Note that
this function is restricted to only one segment per report. This is a powerful feature that allows you to, for
example, run and publish a single FSG report using a content set for each cost centre/division in your
organisation and make only the relevant cost centre/ division available to each manager.

Use the Availability option to make the report available immediately, at a specific time and date or place it on
hold until it has been reviewed. If you place it on hold, you must also select a Previewer to review the report.
You can also publish non-Oracle content to the database through the Request Centre.
From the Request Centre, access the Report Manager Tools menu. Choose Upload Files. You can then select
any file from your computer to upload. Once the file has been uploaded, Oracle provides you with an Upload
Confirmation and a URL link to access the file on the database. You can then choose Organize Folders to add a
link to the file to your Self Service Oracle menu structure.
Report Manager
The Report Manager enables e-reporting by replacing paper reports with self-service reports accessible via a
web page. The Report Manager provides you with a central secured report repository for all reports published
through the Request Centre. Reports can be made available immediately, held back for review or published at a
specific date and time.
The Report Manager leverages off the same user and responsibility framework as Oracle Applications. Reports
are published to Oracle responsibilities which determine access levels. You can either view the reports
published through the Request Centre from your 11i Homepage under your Self Service responsibilities or via
the Report Manager kiosk, which can be accessed from by a URL link. Either method provides the same
functionality. The screen shot on the next page shows an FSG income statement viewed via the Report Manager
kiosk.

FSG reports can be published using content sets to create multiple reports from one request. For example, you
can create an Income Statement by cost centre or a Balance Sheet by company. With Report Manger you can
choose the version of the report to view. You can also use the security rules defined in Oracle Applications or
define separate security rules for reporting to restrict access to the versions of the report. Reports can also be
made public allowing access to all users across the organisation.
Reports can be stored by calendar period allowing users to view the same report for each period stored in the
database. To view the report for another period, select the period from the Timeframe drop down list and click
on the View button to refresh the report. Non-Oracle documents that have been uploaded to the database from
the Request Centre can also be accessed from this menu structure.
11i Homepage
The 11i Homepage is a customisable portal that provides you with a single point of access to your 11i
Applications and reports. The portal has a number of pre-defined regions that each user can add to their
Homepage and customise to their specific needs. The homepage can provide access to Business Intelligence
performance measures, reports and trend graphs, all standard, variable, FSG or external system reports
published through Report Manager, Discoverer, Workflow notifications and Oracle Self Service and Oracle
Applications responsibilities. Each user can also add links to their most commonly used reports or to any
external web page in the Favourites region.

The Performance Measures portlet contains actual and target performance measures from the BIS. The content
can be customised (refer to the Business Intelligence System section). The Navigate portlet contains a links to
each Oracle Self Service responsibility and Applications forms responsibility. You do not have to sign on again
to access Oracle Applications. The Worklist portlet contains your Oracle Workflow notifications. You can
modify the format of this portlet by choosing the Customize link on this portlet.
The Favourites portlet allows you to create links to any page that can be accessed by a URL. This includes
access to BIS reports, Discoverer, the Report Manager kiosk and any other web page. To add links to the
Favourites portal, choose the Customize link.

Use the blue arrows to add and move reports and links that are available to the selected responsibility. Choose
Add Custom to define a custom URL link.
The Business Views Catalogue search allows you to search through the Oracle’s business views included in the
BIS Discoverer EUL for information. You can then go to Discoverer to run a report to obtain the information
you need. The Ask Oracle portlet allows you to perform a search on Oracle’s help files.
To customise your 11i Homepage, click on the Pencil icon on your homepage tab. This will open the customise
page screen.
Use the blue arrows to add or remove columns or rows from your page. Use the red x to delete portlets or entire
rows or columns. To add a portlet to a region of your homepage select the Add Content icon to open the
following page.

Use the arrows in the middle of the page to select or deselect portlets from the list of Available plugs. Use the
arrows to the right of the page to arrange the portlets on the page. Note that the Available Plugs are dependant
on your Oracle Applications responsibilities.
Oracle Portal
Oracle Portal is a fully customisable, browser based environment for building an enterprise wide portal. It can
be used to give employees across your organisation access to the information and applications they need. Portal
is the final piece in the reporting puzzle. It’s the glue that keeps your entire reporting solution together. Using a
single sign on to an individually customisable portal page, users can gain access to all your published Oracle
reports, Discoverer reports, content from non-Oracle sources and basic reports graphs and KPIs written within
the portal tool. You can also provide links to other applications including Oracle Applications and Discoverer.
You can create and distribute custom regions or portlets that contain information applicable to each users daily
function. Users can then choose or be given the portlets that are applicable to their decision making process.
Oracle portal could be the Homepage for your intranet site or you could include a link to the portal from your
intranet. Decision makers do not have the time to logon to a number of different applications to find the
information they need. Using Portal you can push information out to these user rather than expect them to search
for the information themselves. Because it’s browser based you can provide users with remote access and reduce
the physical paper flow throughout the organisation.
A basic example of a reporting portal is shown below. This example includes links to both Oracle and non-
Oracle applications, Oracle Applications reports, Discoverer reports and a graph created by Portal from a simple
query attached to a portlet. It also includes a portlet to a non-Oracle application called the BRAIN, which is a
document repository.

Portal can also be used as part of the architecture of a custom developed system. From a reporting perspective,
you can use these capabilities to create a portlet of Oracle Applications concurrent requests. The example below
includes a portlet where you can view or run standard Oracle Applications concurrent requests. It also has
examples of KPIs and graphs created with simple queries written in the Portal framework.

Conclusion
Oracle provides a number of tools you can use to solve the reporting challenge. You can improve reporting by
using functionality provided within Oracle Applications such as Variable reports and concurrent request
notifications to distribute reports. Discoverer is a powerful ad-hoc reporting tool that can unlock the information
stored in your database and place it in the hands of your users. The Business Intelligence System provides
summarised information from Oracle Applications including performance measures and reports for your
decision makers. The Request Centre and Report Manager can be used to publish reports to the database and
distribute them to end users with security based on Oracle Applications responsibilities and security rules.
The 11i Homepage is an Oracle Applications portal where you can view your Business Intelligence information,
Worflow notifications and provide links to Discoverer and Report Manager. Oracle Portal is the tool that brings
all your information together in one place. Portal is the final piece in the your reporting solution where you can
push reports out to your decision makers and finally provide them with the information they need to run the
business.
About the Presenter
Colin Futeran B Comm (Hons) CA. (SA) is a Principal Applications Consultant with Red Rock Consulting
based in Sydney, Australia. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant in South Africa in 1995. He has 6 years
experience in the IT industry, including 5 years experience implementing, upgrading and supporting Oracle
Applications.


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11i and Oracle Reporting Tools – Solving the Reporting Challenge

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Reporting Building Blocks

Oracle Database - the repository for all your 11i data.

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Business Intelligence System

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Workflow Notifications and Alerts

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About the Presenter

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