• 25 April 2024

Migrating from Crystal Reports to Oracle BI Publisher : Why Choose BI Publisher?

Introduction

With Oracle announcing the end of support for Crystal Reports following the conclusion of Premier Support for PeopleSoft 9.X applications, businesses are now faced with the task of evaluating alternative reporting tools. Among the options available, Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher (BI Publisher) stands out as a compelling choice due to its comprehensive features and seamless integration with various Oracle products.

Why Oracle BI Publisher?

Oracle BI Publisher, formerly known as XML Publisher, offers a robust enterprise reporting solution that empowers users to design and create report layout templates using familiar desktop applications like Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat. Oracle BI Publisher is globally known for its pixel-perfect reporting that helps customers print checks. Here's why BI Publisher is the preferred choice for many businesses:

Pre-integrated with Oracle: BI Publisher seamlessly integrates with Oracle business intelligence solutions, as well as Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft Enterprise, JD Edwards Enterprise One, Oracle Hyperion Planning, and Oracle Application Express (APEX).

Separate Data Logic, Layout & Translation: This separation allows for easier maintenance, greater flexibility, and reuse of templates. Businesses can support multiple language templates against a single dataset.

Better Management: BI Publisher supports multiple layouts for a single dataset, reducing the number of reports and simplifying management.

Highly Formatted and Interactive: Users can create highly formatted, pixel-perfect reports and view them in interactive mode for lightweight analysis.

Improved Performance: Based on the W3C XSL-FO standard, BI Publisher can handle extensive data efficiently.

Flexible Layout Editor: The web-based layout editor enables users to create report layouts directly in a web browser or with desktop tools like Microsoft Word, Excel, or Adobe Acrobat.

Connectivity to Any Data Source: Reports can be created from virtually any data source with a JDBC connection, including web services, HTTP XML feeds, and file data sources.

Scheduling and Bursting: BI Publisher allows users to schedule reports with personalized content to be delivered to multiple destinations in various output formats.

Hot-Pluggable: Integration with custom applications is possible via web services or Java APIs.

DataTerrain’s Migration Approach with Automation

Migrating from Crystal Reports to Oracle BI Publisher can be a complex process, but automation can significantly speed up the transition while preserving the functionality of the original reports. Here's an overview of the migration approach:

Analysis: Understand the existing BI platform and Crystal reports from both technical and functional perspectives. Identify customization possibilities and consolidation opportunities. Automation tools like DataTerrain can streamline this process by comparing and analyzing a large set of reports, saving time and effort.

Solution Definition: Define a high-level migration approach, finalize pilot reports, and set up the target environment for migration.

Migration: Convert existing Crystal report layouts to RTF templates and adapt existing PS Queries for new reports. Automation tools can simplify this process by understanding both Crystal reports and BI Publisher code, reducing conversion time significantly. Once converted, validate and test the reports before uploading them to the PeopleSoft Server.

Rollout: : Perform migration activities in a development environment, validate reports, and move them to pre-production for user acceptance testing. Once validated, deploy reports to production.

Conclusion:

DataTerrain offers automated report conversion solutions that not only accelerate the migration process but also preserve years of effort in designing report layouts. If you're considering migrating from Crystal Reports to Oracle BI Publisher and want to learn more about automated report conversion, contact DataTerrain via our online contact form.

By leveraging automation tools and best practices, businesses can streamline the migration process and unlock the full potential of Oracle BI Publisher for their reporting needs.