Oracle BI Publisher Interview Questions

Q. What is Oracle BI Publisher?
Ans: Oracle BI Publisher is a new java-based product available with the technology stacks of EBS, Peoplesoft, Siebels, JD Edwards and BI Enterprise Edition (OBIEE). It provides users with:

1. A template-based, easy-to-use publishing solution
2. A tool to rapidly develop and maintain report formats formats

Q) What is a Data Template?
Ans: The Oracle XML Publisher data engine enables you to rapidly generate any kind of XML data structure against any database in a scalable, efficient manner. The data template is the method by which you communicate your request for data to the data engine. It is an XML document whose elements collectively define how the data engine will process the template to generate the XML.

Q. What is a template Builder?
Ans: The Template Builder is an extension to Microsoft Word that simplifies the development of RTF templates. The Template Builder is tightly integrated with Microsoft Word and allows you to perform the following functions:

1. Insert data fields
2. Insert data-driven tables
3. Insert data-driven forms
4. Insert data-driven charts
5. Preview your template with sample XML data
6. Browse and update the content of form fields
   Extract boilerplate text into an XLIFF translation file and test translations
   Valid template file types are:
   eText – Inbound, eText – Outbound, PDF, RTF, XSL-FO, XSL-HTML, XSL-TEXT, and XSL-XML.

Q) What Functionality is Supported?
Ans: The data engine supports the following functionality:

1. Schema generation
2. Default RTF template generation
3. Flexfields
4. Single and multiple data queries
5. Query links
6. Parameters
7. Aggregate functions (SUM, AVG, MIN, MAX, COUNT)
8. Event triggers
9. Multiple data groups
10. Unicode for XML Output
    Unicode is a global character set that allows multilingual text to be displayed in a single application. This enables you to develop a single multilingual application and deploy it worldwide.
11. Canonical format
    The data engine generates date elements using the canonical ISO date format: YYYY-MM-DDTHH24:MI:SS.FF3TZH:TZM for a mapped data element, and ######.## for number elements in the data template XML output.

Q. Translatable (check box)
Ans: Select this check box if you want this template to be translatable. Only RTF templates are translatable. After the template definition is created, the following fields are not updateable: Application, Code, and Type. Update the template from the View Template page.

Q. To handle the parameterized layout
Ans: If the requirement is to display a different layout based on a user parameter value or a List of Value selection, then the parameter can be passed to RTF layout and conditionally display the layout.
On the Report Editor you first need to define a parameter with name DeptName. If this parameter has to be associated with a List of Value (LOV), then create a LOV on the Report Editor page.
Next, in the parameter definition select parameter type as “Menu” and then select the LOV from the selection.
In the RTF template define a parameter using syntax –
Now when user selects a department name from the List of Value on the report viewer page, the value gets passed to RTF layer into the DeptName parameter. To display the layout based on this user selection, you can use an IF statement or a CHOOSE statement to evaluate the parameter value and call the associated sub template.
Use CHOOSE statement when too many conditional tests are to be done and a default action is expected for rest of the values, for example, for each department here we have a different sub template and if the user parameter has a department name with no associated sub template, then a default sub template can be called in otherwise section.

Q. WATERMARK
Ans: PAGE LAYOUTàWATERMARK (Word 2007)
Format → Background → Printed Watermark (Word 2003)