Inter Access Belgium presentation about the possibilities regarding reporting in Oracle APEX, presented at the OBUG APEX SIG on may 24 2011, at Oracle Vilvoorde, Belgium.

1. Reporting in Oracle APEX Patrick Hellemans – Competence Manager Technology Geert Guldentops – Oracle APEX SolutionEngineer

2. Agenda Reportingpossibilities SWOT analysis Demo Conclusion Q&A

3. Reportingpossibilities in APEX

4. Cluster 1 – PL/SQL PL/PDF License fee $600 Supportedformats: PDF Documents are buildusing PL/SQL Integratedwith the Oracle database A lot of custom PL/SQL code is needed to createdocuments

5. Cluster 1 – PL/SQL SQL WORD Documents are buildusing PL/SQL and ‘scriplets’ (Oracle PL/SQL Server Pages) in SQLWordDeveloper Supportedformats: RTF License fee ??? Runs on Oracle HTTP Server withmod_plsql Outdated architecture

6. SQL Word - architecture Database Oracle HTTP Server mod_plsql

7. Cluster 2 – Apache FOP Apache FOP (FormattingObjects Processor) Free Open Sourcelicense Supported formats: PDF, RTF, XML and TXT Documents are build in XML and XSL-FO Usesan XML basedstandardwhichcouldbeused in othertechnologies Runs on most application servers (Tomcat, Glassfish, etc.) XSL-FO enablessolutionsforproblemswhich are impossible to solve in othertechnologies (e.g.: Dynamic columns in a table) RTF2FO canbeused to convert a word document to XSL-FO formatwhichspeeds up initialdevelopment time A lot of custom coding is required to create and adjustdocuments Standard FOP librariesneed to bechangedsoitcanbecalledfrom Oracle APEX

8. Apache FOP - architecture

9. Cluster 2 – Apache FOP Oracle BI Publisher Documents are built in Microsoft Word Supported formats: PDF, RTF, Microsoft Excel and HTML Runs on Oracle Weblogic Server Easy to use, even forend-users Easy to integratewith Oracle APEX License fee € 36.308 + € 7.987,72 maintenance per year

10. Oracle BI Publisher - architecture

11. Cluster 3 – JasperReports JasperReports Free Open SourceLicense Supportedformats: PDF, HTML, Microsoft Excel, RTF, ODT, CSV and XML Documents are build in IReportusing Java and Groovy Runs onJasperServer, a webapplicationwhichcanbeinstalledonanyapplication server Relatively easy to create and adjustdocumentsusingIReport Easy to integratewith Oracle APEX Advanced features (eg. dynamic columns) notsupported Knowledge of Java & Groovymightbecomenecessary

12. JasperReports - architecture (XLS) JFreeCharts (Charts) itext (PDF or RTF) Report Design Reporting Tool

13. Best buy ?

14. Demo Configuration Development

15. Conclusion Oracle solution => Oracle BI Publisher 11g Easy to use Lots of output formats Uses the Oracle Weblogic platform Comes with OBI Goodintegrationwith APEX License fee

16. Conclusion Open sourcealternative => JasperReports Suitablealternativefor most reports Open source and free to use JasperReports server Goodintegrationwith APEX Good report designer Notfor end users Additionalknowledge of Java mightbecomenecessary

17. Q&A patrick.hellemans@interaccess.be - geert.guldentops@interaccess.be