Bursting_from_BI_Publisher_Enterprise_11g.pdf

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9-Page

White Paper Excerpt

Bursting Reports from

BI Publisher Enterprise


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Bursting Reports from BI Publisher EnterpriseBy Brent Lowe, Manager of Product Development, STR Software

BurstingBursting is the act of taking an entire report and breaking it up into logical sub documents for delivery. In our example, it

would not be a good idea to send the entire report to all sales reps. Instead we would only want to send sales reps theinformation that pertains to them. Bursting allows us to break up the report into individual documents for delivery toindividual destinations.

Figure 1: Bursting

For our working example, we will burst the Sales Rep Report document by sales rep and deliver to the email destination

found on the sales rep record in the sales_rep table.


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Delivery and Burs ting with BIP11g 2011 STR Software

The bursting definition is set up on the data model for a report. Multiple bursting definitions can be defined in a data model,

however a report can only be assigned one of them. Setting up bursting is a two step process.

1. Define the bursting criteria on the data model2. Associate bursting definition with report

Define the Burst ing Cri teria on the Data Model

To setup bursting, navigate to the data model and click on the Bursting node.

Figure 2: Setting up Bursting

Create a new bursting definition by hitting the + icon and name the bursting definition Burst by Sales Rep and Deliver.Type should be set to SQL Query (the only option) and Data Source should be the data source we setup at the beginning of

the exercise (Demo Sales Dashboard).

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Figure 3: Add a New Bursting Definition

Decide how the report is to be split using the Split By field. This field will be pre-populated with the structure of the XML

data created by the data template. Because we want to split (or burst) the data by sales rep, choose:

/SALES_DATA/TERRITORY/SALES_REP/REP_ID

We are choosing this field, because rep_id in the database is a unique identifier for a sales rep. Splitting on this field will

ensure that each document that is created from the entire report will only be for a single sales rep.

Decide what value to go back to the database with to find the email information using the Deliver By field. Similar to the

Split By field, this field will be pre-populated with the structure of the XML data created by the data template. Because we

want to determine delivery information by sales rep, choose:

/SALES_DATA/TERRITORY/SALES_REP/REP_ID

We are choosing this field because rep_id in the database is a unique identifier for a sales rep. Because our table structure

allows us to determine email information by rep_id, this field is the most logical choice for Deliver By.

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Deliv

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ery and Burs ting with BIP11g 2011 STR Software

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Input a SQL Query that returns the following information for each sales rep1:

Column Description

KEY This column must match the value returned by the Deliver

By field above. In our example, the Deliver By field isreturning the sales rep id. This means that this columnmust return sales_rep.rep_id in order for BIP to find a

match and use the rest of the information returned fromthis query.

TEMPLATE Template is the name of the layout template to apply.Remember that multiple templates can be applied to thesame data model creating a different look and feel.

LOCALE Locale is the template locale, for example en-US

OUTPUT_FORMAT Output format is the report output format. For example,HTML, PDF, RTF, EXCEL

DEL_CHANNEL The actual delivery method, i.e. EMAIL, FAX, FILE, FTP,

PRINT, WEBDAV

TIMEZONE The timezone to use for the report

CALENDAR The calendar type to use for the report

OUTPUT_NAME Name that will be assigned to the output file in the reportjob history. This also becomes the name of theattachment when emailed.

SAVE_OUTPUT True or false, whether or not to save the burst output

PARAMETER1 Depends on the DEL_CHANNEL see below










Figure 4: Information to Return in Bursting Query

1 Note, the majority of this information was taken directly from BI Publisher Help documentation.


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Channel

Parameter

1

Parameter

2

Parameter

3

Parameter

4

Parameter

5

Parameter

6

Parameter

7

Param

8

Email Emailaddress

cc From Subject MessageBody

Attachment(true/false)Note that ifyour output

format ispdf, youmust set thisparameter to"true" toattach thepdf to theemail.

Reply-To BCC

Printer PrinterGroup

Printer Number ofcopies

Sides Tray Print Range

Fax Fax serverName

FaxNumber

WEBDAV ServerName

Username Password RemoteDirectory

Remote FileName Authorization

Type

File Directory File Name

FTP ServerName

Username Password RemoteDirectory

Remote FileName

Securetrue toenable SFTP

Figure 5: Specific Values for Specific Delivery Channels


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Because this information is pulled from a database via a query, bursting is an extremely powerful feature ofBIP. Having this information returned in a query means that individual sales reps can have different

settings. For example, Sales Rep A may want to have the report delivered via email in PDF format using a

specific layout while Sales Rep B wants the same report delivered via Fax with the standard layout.

For the purposes of our example, the following query will be used:

Figure 6: Bursting Query

This query will return the following data for our Sales Reps:

Sales Rep Kent Brockman

KEY 1

TEMPLATE Sales Rep Report

LOCALE en-US

OUTPUT_FORMAT PDF

DEL_CHANNEL EMAIL

TIMEZONE Null (use default)CALENDAR Null (use default)

OUTPUT_NAME Kent Brockman.pdf

SAVE_OUTPUT true

PARAMETER1 [email protected]

PARAMETER2

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PARAMETER4 Sales Report for Kent Brockman

PARAMETER5 Dear Kent Brockman, Please see your sales report attached.

PARAMETER6 True


PARAMETER8

PARAMETER9

PARAMETER10

Figure 7: Return Values from Bursting Query

Once the query has been input (note no final semi-colon is necessary), save the changes.

Associate burst ing defini tion wi th repor tNow that the bursting definition has been setup, it must be associated with a report in order to be used. Edit

the Sales Dashboard and Rep Report and view the Properties. By default, the bursting definition associatedwith the data model for your report will be selected in the Advanced section of the report properties. Thedrop down beside Enable Bursting allows you to select which bursting definition to use for the report.

Remember, you can only use 1 bursting definition in a single report.

Figure 8: Enable Bursting on Report Parameters

mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Scheduling a Report to be Burst

To schedule a report to be burst, create a new Report Job and schedule as normal, except on the Output tab

check the checkbox labeled Use Bursting Definition to Determine Output & Delivery Destination. When

this box is checked, the output and destination input fields are hidden as all delivery information isexpected to come from the bursting query.

Figure 9: Scheduling a Report to be Burst

The results of the bursting should be individual documents for each sales rep.



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Figure 10: Burst Email Results

Viewing the status of the job will also display the documents that were burst and the current status. Note

that as mentioned before, the status of Success is only an indicator that BIP handed off the document to the

delivery channel, not necessarily that the document was actually delivered.


Bursting_from_BI_Publisher_Enterprise_11g.pdf

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