Real-Time Operational Reporting for Oracle E-Business Suite with CS*Rapid

Real-Time Operational Reporting for Oracle E-Business Suite

A CaoSys White Paper

June 2016

Real-Time Operational Reporting Oracle E-Business Suite

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Abstract

The word “Report” can mean many things but put simply it is the delivery of some data or information in an accessible format. In the context of enterprise applications such as Oracle E-Business Suite, the word “Report” can be categorised depending on the types of people who will be using the report…

External Facing Reports These might take the form of a Purchase Order that is sent to a supplier or an Invoice that is sent to a customer. There could be many external facing reports but the types of “users” so to speak for this type of report is limited and in general the users really just accept whatever they are given; once an external report is defined then unless there is a specific need to change the format (such as updating graphics/logos…etc) then these types of reports tend to be relatively static. Suppliers and Customers for example would rarely (if ever) send your organization enhancement requests for the reports they receive or for new reports.

Management Information (MI) Reports These tend to summarise data with lots of impressive looking dashboards with charts and graphs and all sorts of wonderful looking graphics. These type of reports are commonly used by upper management who need to take a quick view of the business but only at summary level. MI Reports will likely have quite a lot of users; how many will depend on the size of the organization. Most levels of management within an organization will likely want to see some sort of summary level/MI information to help them perform their duties and make better more informed business decisions.

Operational Reports Next we have what we refer to as Operational Reports; an Operational Report typically presents information related to “current” activity of a particular business activity so Operational Reporting can be said to support an organizations day-to-day activities. Depending on the size of your organization, there could be hundreds or even thousands of users utilising Operational Reports every day.

Operational Reporting

supports an organizations day-to-day activities.

Suppliers and Customers for example would rarely (if ever) send you enhancement requests for the reports they receive or for new reports.


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Most Widely Used Reports All types of report are important and essential to all organizations but the type of report that is the most widely used most often is the Operational Reports; these are the reports that your enterprise application end-users within the business will be using on a day-to-day basis. Since Operational Reports typically have the most users and since they are used most often then it is very likely that most organizations will have more unsatisfied requirements for Operational Reports than any other type of report. The need for new and modified Operational Reports is an on-going, ever-lasting aspect of using large scale enterprise applications. As end-user experience matures with a given role and application, they find (or think of) new ways of improving their own efficiency and this is often by way to gaining access to their operational data in more meaningful, user friendly and efficient ways. It stands to reason that since there will likely be more requirements for Operational Report to meet than any other type of report then it is common for Operational Reports to be the most neglected in terms of what is requested versus what is actually delivered; much of what an end-user asks for in terms of enhancements or new reports goes into the “nice-to-have” inbox and we all know nice-to-have’s tend to come bottom of the priority list yet it is these simple, day-to-day reporting enhancements that can deliver enormous value to the business, especially when in the context of hundreds or even thousands of users.

This paper introduces you to CS*Rapid and how it can help you satisfy many of your operational reporting requirements.

Operational Reports are typically the most

requested type of reporting enhancement for large scale enterprise applications.

Operational Reporting requirements are often the most neglected type

of enhancement in large scale enterprise applications


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Introducing CS*Rapid

CS*Rapid is a unique and innovative solution for delivering real-time operational reports and application extensions for Oracle E-Business Suite. No programming skills are needed and reporting solutions can be created and delivered to the end-user with astonishing speed. A deep-dive into all the features and functionality of CS*Rapid is well beyond the scope of this paper so the best way to demonstrate CS*Rapid in a “rapid” way is to work through a simple example requirement, from the description of the requirements through to the creation of the solution to the deployment to the end-user.

Operational Reporting Requirement For this example, we will look at what is involved in creating a new operational reporting solution and how it can be deployed to the end-user’s menu. Here is our requirement… A new operational report is required by the Security Administration team that will help them review stale/dormant EBS user accounts. The report should include username along with how many months it has seen since the user last logged into the system, this will be used to help the administration team determine which users should be considered for end-dating during the quarterly user review process. The new report should automatically display all users that are currently active that have logged in at least once but not logged into the system for at least 60 days and show the following information...

User name and user description

Date the user last logged in and months since last logon

The user “start” and “end” dates should also be included The report should highlight the last logon date in yellow if not logged in for at least 6 months and red if the user has not logged in for at least 1 year. The report should sort the data by the date last logged in, so the user who hasn't been used the longest is displayed first. In addition to providing an on-screen interactive report, the report should include a hardcopy printed style report along with the ability to export the results for use in Excel. The user should also be able to create point in time snapshots of the data so that the data can re-read at a later date if needed.

CS*Rapid is a component of CS*Applications, a suite of GRC and productivity solutions from CaoSys.


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Build the Solution with the CS*Rapid Designer The creation of this operational reporting solution is very simple and will only take a few minutes to create, test and deploy. The first step is to log into Oracle EBS and choose the CS*Rapid Designer responsibility and open the CS*Rapid Designer menu option…

With the CS*Rapid Designer open, we can begin to define our solution as follows…

Field Value

Name STALE_USERS

Title CS*Rapid: Stale Users

Style Tabular

Position Top/Left

Data Source SELECT u.user_name , u.description , u.last_logon_date , ROUND(MONTHS_BETWEEN(SYSDATE,u.last_logon_date),1) months , u.start_date , u.end_date FROM fnd_user u WHERE u.last_logon_date < SYSDATE - 60 AND (u.end_date IS NULL OR u.end_date > SYSDATE)


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Now the solution can be compiled, so we hit the Compile button; the solution definition is validated, the internal meta-data created and our first draft of the solution is complete already…

We can now perform the first test of our reporting solution; simply press the Test button and we are presented with a fully interactive on-screen report that delivers real-time data…

Once the report is open, issue a query using standard Oracle EBS functionality (i.e. CTRL + F11) and real-time data is shown…

The data source for a solution can be almost

any valid SQL SELECT statement. You can also specify just a table or view name and CS*Rapid will generate the SQL for you. The data source can also be inherited from another solution.


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So far, this should have taken us no more than a couple of minutes. Clearly we aren’t finished yet so let’s now go ahead and make the required changes to our solution so that it delivers against the requirements.

Adding Additional Functionality Our online interactive operational report is up and running but now we now need to add the following capabilities…

Hardcopy style simple text formatting output – suitable for printing

The ability to export data to Excel

The ability to create point in time snapshots of the data Navigate to the CS*Export region and enable exporting…

Navigate to the CS*Report region and enable the report and set the attributes as follows…

Finally, navigate to the Special region and enable Snapshot…


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Ensure you have saved all the changes and perform the final Compile. Now you are read to test the final solution.

Fine Tuning Our Reporting Solution Thus far our reporting solution includes the required data and the additional functionality but we need to fine-tune it so that is matches the requirements. The first thing we want to do is force the report to automatically show data on entry, do this by setting the Auto Master flag in the Special region…

Also modify the overall look of the report items by shrinking the font slightly and displaying alternate records in a different color to make reading the data on the report a little easier; to do this navigate to the Special region and modify the Additional Visual Features as follows…


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To change the Alternate Record Style, click the ellipsis and choose a record style of Pale Green…

Next, we need to modify the labels and widths of the report items; press the Items button to view the definition of each report item that was derived from the driving SQL and modify the labels and widths as follows…

Be sure to enter 1 into the Order field for the LAST_LOGON_DATE item, this will instruct the report to sort the data by this value. Now we need to apply some conditional formatting to highlight users based on how long it has been since they last logged in; do this by navigating to the Conditional Formatting region and defining a conditional format for the LAST_LOGON_DATE item as follows…

Compile and test the solution directly from the Designer...


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Testing Our Operational Report Before we deploy our solution to our end-users, we should test all aspects of our operational report to ensure that it looks like it should and that it is performing as expected

Filtering Data Open the new report…

Put the report in query mode by pressing F11 and enter some search criteria to filter the data; for example, to report on all users whose User Name begins with A who have logged in during the last 12 months…

Press CTRL+F11…

The CS*Rapid Runtime Engine reads the solution metadata and renders the new report dynamically. The solution is fully

integrated into Oracle E-Business Suite with a native look and feel.


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All matching user records are displayed.

Hardcopy Printed Style Report Now choose the Quick Submit option from the Reports menu to run a hardcopy printed style report…

A concurrent request will now be invoked to run the hardcopy printed style report…

View the output…


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Exporting to Excel Now choose the CS*Export option from the Tools menu to export the data to Excel (depending on configuration you may see more than one CS*Export option)…

A concurrent request will now be invoked to export the data to Excel…

Here is the output in Excel…

Creating Snapshots of the Data Find a subset of the data within the report, for example, here we are finding all users who have not logged in for more than 60 months…


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So now we have a report showing all active users who have not logged in for at least 5 years; let’s assume we want to save this data so we can compare it later to ensure that the security administration have taken appropriate action of these stale users, we could of course generate the hardcopy output or we could export to Excel but we can also take a snapshot of this data and re-load it later using the Snapshot functionality. Simply choose Take Snapshot from the Tools menu…

Enter a name and a description for the Snapshot and click OK…

When you want to load the snapshot choose Load Snapshot from the Tools menus…


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You will be given a list of available snapshots, select the one just created…

You will be asked if you would like to clear the data already in the report; choose Yes and the data will be loaded…

Now re-query the report and the snapshot data will be shown…


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Deploying the Solution With our new operational reporting solution complete, we are now ready to deploy it to the end-user’s menu. CS*Rapid solutions can be deployed in a number of ways…

Since all CS*Rapid solutions are given their own unique Oracle EBS function, you can simply add the new Function the required menu

You can use an advanced feature called Application Builder (beyond the scope of this paper)

You can use the Direct Deployment feature that is built into the Designer

Perhaps the fastest and easiest method for simple solutions is using the Direct Deployment functionality. Within the Designer, press the Deploy button and you will be presented with the Deploy window…

Find the responsibility (on the left) to which the new solution should be added and then drill down into the associated menu structure (on the right) to find and select the menu where the new solution should be accessed from, enter a Menu Prompt and press Add to Menu...


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In this example, we selected the System Administrator responsibility and selected the Security > User sub-menu. The new operational report is now deployed and your work is done. Here we can see the new menu option in action within the System Administrator responsibility...


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This solution was created and deployed in less than 5 minutes and did not require any programming skills other than perhaps a little knowledge of SQL.

As you can see, CS*Rapid is very simple to use and requirements can be satisfied very quickly.

For more information about CS*Rapid and all of our other solutions please visit us online at www.caosys.com.

Real-Time Operational Reporting for Oracle E-Business Suite

June 2016

Author: Craig O'Neill

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.CaoSys.com

Various product and serv ice names mentioned are trademarks of CaoSys Limited. Oracle and Oracle E-Business Suite are trademarks or

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Real-Time Operational Reporting for Oracle E-Business Suite with CS*Rapid

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