Reporting in Oracle APEXPatrick Hellemans – Competence Manager Technology

Geert Guldentops – Oracle APEX Solution Engineer

Agenda

Reporting possibilities

SWOT analysis

Demo

Conclusion

Q&A

Reporting possibilities in APEX

Cluster 1 – PL/SQL

PL/PDF

• License fee $600

• Supported formats: PDF

• Documents are build using PL/SQL

• Integrated with the Oracle database

• A lot of custom PL/SQL code is needed to create documents

Cluster 1 – PL/SQL

SQL WORD

• Documents are build using PL/SQL and ‘scriplets’

(Oracle PL/SQL Server Pages) in SQLWord Developer

• Supported formats: RTF

• License fee ???

• Runs on Oracle HTTP Server with mod_plsql

• Outdated architecture

SQL Word - architecture

Oracle

HTTP

Server

Database

mod_plsql

Cluster 2 – Apache FOP

Apache FOP (Formatting Objects Processor)

• Free Open Source license

• Supported formats: PDF, RTF, XML and TXT

• Documents are build in XML and XSL-FO

• Uses an XML based standard which could be used in other technologies

• Runs on most application servers (Tomcat, Glassfish, etc.)

• XSL-FO enables solutions for problems which are impossible to solve in othertechnologies (e.g.: Dynamic columns in a table)

• RTF2FO can be used to convert a word document to XSL-FO format whichspeeds up initial development time

• A lot of custom coding is required to create and adjust documents

• Standard FOP libraries need to be changed so it can be called from

Oracle APEX

Apache FOP - architecture

Cluster 2 – Apache FOP

Oracle BI Publisher

• Documents are build in Microsoft Word

• Supported formats: PDF, RTF, Microsoft Excel and HTML

• Runs on Oracle Weblogic Server

• Easy to use, even for end-users

• Easy to integrate with Oracle APEX

• License fee € 36.308 + € 7.987,72 maintenance per year

Oracle BI Publisher - architecture

Cluster 3 – JasperReports

JasperReports

• Free Open Source License

• Supported formats: PDF, HTML, Microsoft Excel, RTF, ODT, CSV and XML

• Documents are build in IReport using Java and Groovy

• Runs on JasperServer, a webapplication which can be installed on any

application server

• Relatively easy to create and adjust documents using IReport

• Easy to integrate with Oracle APEX

• Advanced features (eg. dynamic columns) not supported

• Knowledge of Java & Groovy might become necessary

JasperReports - architecture

(XLS)

JFreeCharts

(Charts)

Report Design Reporting Toolitext

(PDF or RTF)

Best buy ?

Demo

Configuration Development

Conclusion

Oracle solution => Oracle BI Publisher 11g

– Easy to use

– Lots of output formats

– Uses the Oracle Weblogic platform

– Comes with OBI

– Good integration with APEX

– License fee

Conclusion

Open source alternative => JasperReports

– Suitable alternative for most reports

– Open source and free to use

– JasperReports server

– Good integration with APEX

– Good report designer

– Not for end users

– Additional knowledge of Java might become necessary

Q&A

patrick.hellemans@interaccess.be - geert.guldentops@interaccess.be