Analytics Publisher FAQ

Oracle Analytics Publisher has become the official replacement for Oracle Reports.

RENAPS successfully migrated many clients from Oracle Reports to Analytics Publisher & Jasper Reports using ORMIT™ our proprietary suite of migration & upgrade tools. Their feedback unanimously reflected that they were extremely pleased with the overall product and our delivery services.

To quickly and efficiently get caught up with the latest reporting technology here are some of the most frequently asked questions by our costumers. For any further inquiries do not hesitate to contact us at info@renaps.com

What is the last Oracle reports release?

Oracle Fusion Middleware 12.2.1.3 is the last Oracle Reports release which came out on August 30th 2017.

Deprecation Notice for Oracle Reports

Although included in this release, Oracle Reports has been deprecated as of Fusion Middleware 12c Release 2 (12.2.1.3.0).

No further development of Oracle Reports is planned for the future. If future releases are made available, Oracle is not planning any functional enhancements for Oracle Reports other than critical bug fixes and changes necessary to make it compatible with a new supporting technology stack. For more information, refer to the Reports Statement of Direction available here.

Oracle recommends migrating to Oracle BI Publisher for reporting purposes. Oracle BI Publisher is Oracle’s strategic product for enterprise reporting. This reporting solution allows authoring, managing, and delivering pixel-perfect customer facing reports against various data sources with web browser or familiar desktop tools.

When does Oracle Reports Premier Support end?

As you see in this table the Premier Support will end in 2022.

Release	Premier Support End Date	Extended Support End Date
Oracle Reports 11g R1 and 11g R2	Not available	Not available
Oracle Fusion Middleware’s 12c R2	August 2022	August 2025

What is extended support?

Extended Support is available for Oracle Reports after Premier Support expires. When Extended Support is offered, it is generally available for three years following the expiration of Premier Support and only for the terminal patchset release of a program. In order to receive Extended Support, you must continue to pay the technical support fee for SULS/Premier Support and purchase the additional Extended Support.

Extended Support does not include Certification with new third party products/versions so it is important to exit Oracle Reports as soon as possible to avoid being stuck on older OS platform.

What about Sustaining Support the Lifetime Support Software?

The Oracle Lifetime support policy update may appear as an attractive alternative for companies having the fear of taking the plunge of upgrading their system and taking their inherited infrastructure to the next level. These enterprises should realize that no matter how delightful the Lifetime Support term might seem; it comes with an important disadvantage which is the lowest level of support. This is specifically true for companies relying on Oracle Forms and Reports.

Oracle is keeping the support for their costumers as a matter of curtsey; however, one should understand the message between lines which is simply “Please think about upgrading because it’s about the time to do so”. Oracle is not responsible for expediting support and features to Oracle Forms and Reports users, it is the IT people job to explore more options such as digital/smart migration tools.

Smart organizations are in a continuous quest for creativity and should always be ahead of their competitors. This requires ingenuity and ahead planning. They always need more opportunities and challenges in order to be able to conquer the market. All this cannot come with limited support and they will always need the latest upgrades and maintenance service available.

What is Oracle Analytics Publisher (formely BI Publisher)?

Oracle Analytics Publisher (BI Publisher, formerly XML Publisher) is the latest reporting technology to author, manage and deliver all your reports and documents easier and faster than traditional reporting tools.

Analytics Publisher offers web-based report development, using web browser or familiar desktop tools to create a highly formatted reports and documents or even interactive management reports.

You can deliver tens of thousands of documents per hour with minimal impact to transactional systems. To find out more about our Reports to Analytics Publisher migration solution click here

Are there tools for migrating from Oracle Reports to Analytics Publisher?

Yes, RENAPS has developed ORMIT™-AP, a a conversion-assistant tool that allows us to migrate your Oracle Reports to Analytics Publisher. ORMIT™, our proprietary suite of migration & upgrade tools guarantees:

• Fully automated migrations or upgrades.
• Reduced cost & time by up to 99%.
• Projects following Oracle best practices

What are the advantages of automatic migration from Oracle Reports to Analytics Publisher?

An automated migration approach that will eliminate the risks of a manual conversion and reduce the scope and budget required for the conversion.

What are the main features of Analytics Publisher?

• Same appearance or improved look & feel.
• Same shortcuts to call existing Reports (from Forms, .net or any other web call).
• Platform available from mobile app or via web interface.
• Improved performance and responsiveness.
• Untouched database structure and business logic.
• Multiple Data Sources, delivery destinations and formats.
• Possibility to enable Interactive Reports.
• Optionally provide to end-user ability to adjusts layout, output format.
• Included Scheduling functionality and Reports Bursting.

Does Analytics Publisher support report translation?

Yes. There is multilingual support for 185 languages with no more copies for the same report. Analytics Publisher unlike most of the reporting tools which create a copy of each report you want to translate it. Analytics Publisher give you the ability to translate everything in the report like:

Report content like report title, comments, table column header, etc.

OR

Report UI, meaning anything that would help you to navigate around the reports like report name, parameter name, etc.

OR

According to viewer’s language preference, data presented in the report could be even translated.

How much Analytics Publisher license cost?

In most cases, no additional license cost will be charged from Oracle Forms & Reports customers. You can simply keep using your exciting license to be able to benefit from the great characteristics offered by Analytics Publisher for free.

Please contact RENAPS for more details on the licensing aspects surrounding Analytics Publisher.

Are there any risks of migrating all of my reports in one step?

NO RISK, it is a matter of convenience. To make sure full satisfaction of our customer, the migration process with take place in several stages allowing the benefiters to maneuver between Oracle Reports and Analytics Publisher simultaneously on their database. The final migration steps well be taken after the customer is ready to move forward.

Can Analytics Publisher integrate with other Oracle Applications?

Yes. Analytics Publisher is the technology of choice for all Oracle enterprise software (ERP) including Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle Discoverer, Oracle Application Express (APEX), Oracle Workspace, Peoplesoft, JDE, Siebel CRM and many more.

Can Analytics Publisher connect to multiple data Sources at the same time?

Yes, in Analytics Publisher you can choose from a variety of data set types at the same time which gives the ability to the report to extract data from multiple databases, such as:

• SQL Query
• LDAP Query
• MDX Query · Oracle BI Analysis
• HTTP (XML Feed)
• View Object
• Web Service
• CSV File
• Microsoft Excel file
• XML file
• Content server

What are reports output format in Analytics Publisher?

In Analytics Publisher you can automatically generate different outputs format for a single template such as:

HTML, PDF, Word, Excel, Power Point, MHTML, Zipped PDFs Data (XML), Data (CSV).

You can also create lightweight interactive management reports by use of highly intuitive drag and drop style web-based layout editor.

Can user change or interact with report output format?

Yes. In Analytics Publisher an interactive output type gives the user the ability to interact directly with the displayed data, select or view different layouts, table filtering, table sorting and much more.

Are there any alternatives Reporting Tools for Analytics Publisher?

Yes. If your looking for for an open source solution, JasperReports is the best alternative reporting tool for Oracle Analytics Publisher. There are other alternatives such as Eclipse BIRT, APEX Office Print, PL/ PDF and Crystal. To find out more about Oracle Reports alternatives, click here. For a complete tool comparision, see here.