-- From
RedfernD,INACTIVE
RedfernA,INACTIVE
WilsonDa,INACTIVE

-- To
RedfernD
INACTIVE
RedfernA
INACTIVE
WilsonDa
INACTIVE

As I was working on a mac OS X, and my windows laptop has restricted admin access, I was result in creating a custom report without installing BI Publisher Tool as a windows plugin.

The thing with BI is that if you wish to create a CSV file, it will ignore the template data group structure you import and instead become stubborn and do it's own thing. BI publisher administers it's own CSV setting, which can be located within -- Administration -- Runtime Configuration -- Properties and scroll down to see the CSV settings.

Also to my knowledge, BI Publisher 11g doesn't create .txt formats from within the GUI, which blows my mind because I would of thought it would be the simplest form of a report. The other formats are based on the data structure though you can also enforce the specific format as described within the post, how to create a CSV file in BI publisher.

As I result, I created a .xls file and make that line-delimited based on the results I received back from the SQL query.

Oh, another thing to note is that you cannot create a line delimiter file within the xmlpserver console. This has to be completed by creating a rtf file (designed from within MS word) and imported that way.

This is fairly intuitive to complete. Because BI is limited to creating comprehensive Joins, CTEs, view creates yarda yarda, I would recommend to create your SQL query from outside the BI product and import the SQL script Also, ensure you know the column names, this is important information to use within your RTF template within MS word.

Next, open MS word to create a new template. Open a new document and add all the static contents you want in your document. In this report I simply have one line to show the for loop that I will be attempting.

Next, you need to create a text form field. The link I found useful for this here: How to create a text form field You can give any name of the form field though you do need to be specific when it comes to adding the help text. click on Add Help Text... and a new box will open. Click on Type your own: and enter the name of the column you want to display. In this case, I am entering the USERNAME column, of which is surrounded by <? and ?> values. Also note that this is case sensitive.

You can also see that I created another form field with the other column called INACTIVE.

Before and after the form fields are other form fields called E and F. This is the start and end of the loop. Again, the form fields can be called anything you wish. This is the next step.

As mentioned just above, there's an E and F form field, which are the place holders for my for-loop. All the SQL returned information reside from within the for loop to show the columns as a loop.

Within the first, I have added <?for-each:SOMETHING> and within the end, I've added the <?end for-each>. The SOMETHING is dependent on your data structure

This can located within the sample.xml file. Within the data model, click on the 'sample data', in this case is my sample.xml. to understand the layout. When I click on the sample data, I'm presented with the following XML.

As you can see, the root tag is the DATA_DS, then G_1, then it's the USERNAME and INACTIVE values. so to navigate to the USERNAME and INACTIVE, you need the E field form to be <?for-each:DATA_DS/G_1?>

Once you've played about with the layout, same the RTF in preparation to import it into BI publisher.

About the author