BIP Issues

Congrats to Glen Ryen for winning Brent's sheet to OAUG 11 over on Brent's blog. Thanks to all of you is to explanation on a few of the challenges you face with BIP/XMLP. we have transfered those on to the product administration team. we longed for to try and residence a few of the problems and criticism on them.

Rob commented:
We have two principal problems using BIP in conjunction with the 11i Oracle E-Biz suite. The initial is the conversion of 6i reports to BIP and the second is user adoption. It has been a actual strive to arrange the user from the true deliver way of smoothness using Oracle Reports to the options supposing by BIP.


Up front, approbation the Reports converter needs a few work. Having used it in violent behavior with a few customers we have got undone with the outputs from the converter. The information side is flattering great in conditions of the information template generated. The generated pl/sql packages from the Oracle Reports trigger do have a few challenges but are not insurmountable. The RTF layouts generated frequently present more of an issue. Some of the layouts are a full waste products of time. The situation is that in Oracle Reports there lend towards to be an bountiful of frames. In RTF these have to be mapped to a table. If you have repeating frames nested inside prearranged frames, these will chart to nested tables inside the RTF. If you use the inform sorceress in Oracle Reports you can erect reports with multi-part levels of nesting, the consequent template will be a full muddle at best. What we have found to be utilitarian is to open the Oracle Report before converting and frame out as many unconnected frames as possible. Once this is completed the consequent RTF is a lot more utilitarian and does not must be thrown away.

To Rob's other point, I'd be meddlesome to listen to more about the insufficient of user adoption. Inside EBS, we regard that the formation with the simultaneous executive is flattering good. There is an additional step if the user does not wish the default outlay format but that's a tiny cost to pay to obtain far more adaptableness over outlay formats. Comments please!

To Sidh's points:
A hyperlink gap in a new window.
mainstay in surpass sheet
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With HTML outputs you do have the manage but with other formats its not supported. That's an enlargement and we have logged that recently.

For the CLOB mainstay not digest rightly in Excel. For my CLOB, Im attack other issue:

My information looks similar to it is jacket until we spin on the grid is to sheet. You can see that any judgment in my clob is reserved its own cell. Using a fall white space order in the template gets absolved of this and we can replicate the complaint Sidh is seeing. As many of you know, the Excel outlay from an RTF template is obviously XHTML. There is not sufficient we can do to help compromise the situation and obtain Excel to hang the essence in the cell. The usually thing we can thinkg of correct right away is to use a true Excel template. That way you have full manage over how a unit renders its data.

To the Glen's points:
For the EBS version, I'd increase a few tiny points:

1) Template chronicle manage during development. It would be willing to help if the seeded XML Publisher Administrator pages would manifestation the record size, final

2) Ability to produce PCL from the template, for printer tray control, duplex printing, etc. This would moreover remove the need for a third-party bolt-on to obtain a true hardware feel safe digital signature on AP checks. The workaround of mapping a definite expostulate e-mail to a plugged-in USB expostulate on the AP clerk's Personal Computer is tough to accomplish when the apps and/or network infrastructure is hosted by a third party.

3) Reports growth on pre-printed stationary. The examples you can find on the web work well, but the routine is a lot more intricate than it needs to be.

1. Versioning is not upheld in the Template Manager and do not regard record size is stored wherever but getting at the other columns should be exposable using the customization horizon in OAF.

2. There is lots of work going on around PCL outputs and the skill to hide printer elude sequences inside your template that will tarry the conversion to PCL ... this will be outrageous for things similar to hardware tranquil examine signatures, etc.

3. Again, Glen, it would be great to obtain a few more item on the difficulty and the process.

That's enough for today, we have a flight to grasp shortly to obtain back home after a week away. we will casing a few of the other explanation in forthcoming posts.