Apex Reports - Comparison to other products Company Reporting tools...

Hey Apex users.
Quick Question.
I'd like to do a quick comparison on the report tools and reporting environments that are out there and available to the public.
When picking a reporting tool, to do Reports for users and to have users build reports inside that selected tool.
Which tool would you use?
Does anyone know of or have any comparison white pages showing the differences between,
XML Publisher, Business Objects (Crystal Reports), Actuate reporting, Cognos Reporting, Oracle Apex reporting?
These are just a few of the major reporting products available.
Their might be even more reporting tools not listed here.
I know that everything I've listed here, are all different tools provided by different companies. But I'd like to here some of your feedback, on your experience when working these different technologies.
Let me know thanks.

Hey Ben
I did miss that tool I'll have to read up on that one. It looks quite interesting.
I'm all about empowering or encouraging users to build their own reports. I don't want to recommend or implement a solution that always requires an IT go to person for the report. With which ever tool is selected, I don't want to see the need for an IT person or an IT dept to be report developers and report publishers. I will admit that you need to have a sql expert on that system that your reporting from, in case the end report developer has a technical question.
But my goal is to see the client develop their own reports.
I'm planning on recommending and implementing a solution that permits the power users/clients to develop their own reports.
I hoping that the solution will not be to IT labor intensive to implement.
The end client should be able administrate the website or portal etc and administrate all the access to the reports and the access to the different systems the tool is connected too. etc.
Thanks Ben for the feedback.

Similar Messages

ORA-01858 error from Apex Report on working/valid underlying query

After two days of searching these forums and AskTom, I think I need to post the following problem.
I have what seems to be a valid view of some data created as follows (with an apology for the formatting - doesn't seem to be a way of using a fixed font here):
CREATE OR REPLACE FORCE VIEW "PRICING_CAPABILITY"."POW_EXEC_SUMM010" ("Item",
"Jul-09", "Aug-09", "Sep-09", "Oct-09", "Nov-09", "Dec-09", "Jan-10",
"Feb-10", "Mar-10", "Apr-10", "May-10", "Jun-10", "YTD")
AS
SELECT
"Item",
SUM(DECODE("ItemMonth",'Jul-09',"ItemValue",0)) "Jul-09",
SUM(DECODE("ItemMonth",'Aug-09',"ItemValue",0)) "Aug-09",
SUM(DECODE("ItemMonth",'Sep-09',"ItemValue",0)) "Sep-09",
SUM(DECODE("ItemMonth",'Oct-09',"ItemValue",0)) "Oct-09",
SUM(DECODE("ItemMonth",'Nov-09',"ItemValue",0)) "Nov-09",
SUM(DECODE("ItemMonth",'Dec-09',"ItemValue",0)) "Dec-09",
SUM(DECODE("ItemMonth",'Jan-10',"ItemValue",0)) "Jan-10",
SUM(DECODE("ItemMonth",'Feb-10',"ItemValue",0)) "Feb-10",
SUM(DECODE("ItemMonth",'Mar-10',"ItemValue",0)) "Mar-10",
SUM(DECODE("ItemMonth",'Apr-10',"ItemValue",0)) "Apr-10",
SUM(DECODE("ItemMonth",'May-10',"ItemValue",0)) "May-10",
SUM(DECODE("ItemMonth",'Jun-10',"ItemValue",0)) "Jun-10",
SUM("ItemValue") AS "YTD"
FROM
SELECT
'New Proposals Received' AS "Item",
TO_CHAR(t1.scope_received,'Mon-RR') AS "ItemMonth",
COUNT(*) AS "ItemValue",
10 AS "SortOrder"
FROM
PRICING_CAPABILITY.POW_DATA t1
WHERE
t1.scope_received IS NOT NULL
AND extract(YEAR FROM t1.scope_received) IN (2009,2010)
AND t1.scope_received >= '01-JUL-2009'
GROUP BY
'New Proposals Received',
TO_CHAR(t1.scope_received,'Mon-RR'),
10
UNION
SELECT
'New Proposals Completed' AS "Item",
TO_CHAR(t2.pricing_approval,'Mon-RR') AS "ItemMonth",
COUNT(*) AS "ItemValue",
20 AS "SortOrder"
FROM
PRICING_CAPABILITY.POW_DATA t1
JOIN PRICING_CAPABILITY.POW_LAST_HISTORY t2
ON
t1.POW_DATA_ID = t2.POW_DATA_ID
WHERE
t2.pricing_approval IS NOT NULL
AND extract(YEAR FROM t2.pricing_approval) IN (2009,2010)
AND t2.pricing_approval >= '01-JUL-2009'
GROUP BY
'New Proposals Completed',
TO_CHAR(t2.pricing_approval,'Mon-RR')
GROUP BY
"Item",
"SortOrder"
ORDER BY
"SortOrder" ;
This view works, ie produces the right results when run (ie select * from ...) in SQL Developer and in the SQL Workshop section of Apex.
But when I attempt to produce an Apex report using it as the source of data, I get the following error:
ORA-01858: a non-numeric character was found where a numeric was expected
The error is displayed before any part of the report itself is displayed, ie the Region Header is displayed and then the error message.
So far, anything I've been able to find on the forums or AskTom suggests that it is probably due to a date conversion problem. But the aim here is to summarise dated records by month, so I'm extracted the year and month elements of the date values, converting them to strings (using TO_CHAR), and then using the resulting 'Mon-YY' strings to group the results.
If there is a better way, I'm interested.
But I don't understand why Apex seems to be rejecting what appear to be valid results from a valid working query.
Any ideas? Suggestions?
Cheers,
Peter

Thanks again, Flavio. I'm learning and I appreciate your patience.
The solution you provided is very similar to the one I came up with after your previous message, but I didn't have the NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE parameter. I'll go back and try it.
I appreciate your explanation re Apex not needing to know and Oracle assuming that the client knows what it is doing, but it puzzles me more.
The way that I originally had things, I think, was consistent with what you have explained, but it didn't work. To make it clear:
1 I had an Oracle view that had no parameters and contained the date literal in the where clause and worked fine in both SQL Developer and in the Apex SQL Workshop.
2 The view did not return any date values. Aside from the column headings and the first column (of character strings), the body of the table comprised integer values only.
3 So, when Apex called the view, I would have expected the Oracle server to independently execute the view and return the (dateless) results to Apex, which would then present the unmodified results in a standard report. This is, I think, what SQL Developer and the Apex SQL Workshop appear to have successfully done.
My expectation seems to be consistent with at least some of your explanation (ie [Oracle assumes] "+that the client knows what it is doing+" and "+apex doesn't need to know anything about the underlying query+"), but is not consistent with actual experience, where Apex seems to know that the underlying query contains a date literal and unsuccessfully (and unnecessarily) attempts to interpret it.
I'm obviously missing something about how Apex and Oracle interact in this situation. While I don't need to know - as I have a working solution now - it is valuable to understand how things work. Makes life easier and more productive.
Cheers,
Peter

DB links, Bind variables & APEX reports performance

Hello,
So the problem is simply that I have two databases:
A : Has table T1
B : (APEX database)
I have an APEX report that simply does the following
Select col1, col2.. from A@dblink
This is abviously straighforward, however, I start having considrable performance issues if I have any filters applied to this query using APEX items ( bind variables) :
Select col1, col2.. from T1@dblink_A_B
where col1 > :PX_item
I ran the explain plan and noticed that using the bind variables forces the query to be done on database B, not A which is causing the performance issues.
I am sure that many of you ran into this issue before, but does anyone know how to resolve this issue ? I am thinking about using Pipelined functions, but am not sure if that will work well if I have a lot of records returned by the query or if this will resolve the issue at all.... your thoughts are appreciated..
Thanks,
Sam

I've always been able to work around my DB link issues in Apex. As suggested, driving_site hint should be tried. Oracle documentation on it isn't great, but I follow this:
- don't bother including other hints together with driving_site, as they get stripped out when your sql is passed to the remote DB (as per driving_site hint).
- if you have have subqueries - specifiy driving_site hint in that section of the SQL too. I don't have any proof that this is really required - but it doesnt hurt.
- include driving_site hint even if all tables are remote. Careful of refs to pseudo cols like sysdate, user etc. I think they are taken as local refs - not remote. I havent tested this properly to confirm.
- dumb down your test case to eliminate refs to sysdate, subqueries etc.
- remember that items are text, so you'd need to do to_number(), to_date() on them where appropriate on them in your SQL at the least.
Seeing as you control the content of your items, SQL injection is a reduced risk. Assuming that's not your top concern anyway, don't get carried away with the bind-variable vs literals debate. Apex does lots of nasty inefficient stuff like IR searches. I'd never use an IR in something that really needs to be scalable anyway. Soo... construct SQL with littlerals based on your items (assuming item refs are the cause of your issue).
region type=SQL Query (PL/SQL function body returning SQL query)
begin
return 'SELECT /*+ DRIVING_SITE(a) */ a.empno,a.ename,a.job,a.mgr,a.loc
        FROM emp@MY_DBLNK A
       WHERE a.empno = '||:P123_EMPNO||'
       ORDER BY 1,2,3';
end;Assuming your queries are expensive to execute (local or remote) and dont return too many records (else collection table can get really big), then caching the resultset in a collection gives you nice fast pagination, when using a PPR report. Keep a watch on the size of the collection table - truncate it manually if you accidentally populate it with a big cartesean product etc, else performance could degrade.
Do main query to populate collection before header. PPR pagination doesnt reload the page, so before-header process only runs once. In my case it works like:
-- reload button to re-load page, to force a query re-run. The html_Submit_Progress thing loads an 'busy processing' image.
<input type="button" value="Run query" onclick="javascript:this.disabled=true;this.value='Running...';html_Submit_Progress(this);" id="SUBMIT" />
-- On Load - before header process to populate collection (call in a regular region to see errors, until ironed out)
declare
q varchar2(4000);
v_t0   PLS_INTEGER := DBMS_UTILITY.get_time;
begin
   :P0_QSEC := '0';
IF APEX_COLLECTION.COLLECTION_EXISTS(P_COLLECTION_NAME=> 'Q1')
THEN
    APEX_COLLECTION.DELETE_COLLECTION(P_COLLECTION_NAME=>'Q1');
END IF;
if (:P0_DBLNK is not null) then
    q:= 'SELECT /*+ DRIVING_SITE(a) */ a.empno,a.ename,a.job,a.mgr,a.loc
        FROM emp@'||:P0_DBLNK||' a
       WHERE a.job like "M%"
        AND a.empno = #EMPNO#
       ORDER BY 1,2,3';
    q:= replace(q, '"', '''');
    q:= replace(q, '#EMPNO#', :P123_EMPNO);
    -- bulk
    APEX_COLLECTION.CREATE_COLLECTION_FROM_QUERY_B(
        P_COLLECTION_NAME => 'Q1',
        P_QUERY => Q);
   -- record count
   -- APEX_COLLECTION.collection_member_count
end if;
-- display in page footer or whatever
:P0_QSEC := TO_CHAR ((DBMS_UTILITY.get_time - v_t0) / 100, '000.00') || ' sec';
exception
when others then
raise_application_error(-20501, :P0_DBLNK||'< br >'||sqlerrm||'< br >'||q );
end;
-- then PPR report is just like
Select C001, C002, C003, C004, C005
From apex_collections
Where collection_name = 'Q1'
order by seq_id;Edited by: maceyah on Sep 7, 2011 9:26 AM
Useful link on bind variables for CREATE_COLLECTION_FROM_QUERY_B ==> https://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2305634&tstart=0
Edited by: maceyah on Mar 2, 2012 3:18 PM

Page breaks in (html) printed apex report

I am having a strange problem that appears to be related to APEX page template.
I have a report that is html generated by a PL/SQL function. I need to have page breaks in the printed report at specific locations. I am adding this style to the html output of the function:
<STYLE>
DIV.pageBreak { page-break-before: always; }
</STYLE>
and I insert this at the locations I need breaks:
< D I V CLASS="pageBreak"/>
(without the spaces in DIV)
(found this technique here: http://www.unagibay.com/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabindex=1&tabid=100&itemid=1821 )
This works perfect when I run the report in IE, but FireFox is "ignoring" the page breaks. However, if I take just the output of the PL/SQL function in an html doc, FireFox works fine (breaks at the proper places). This makes me believe something related to the "page wrapper" content generated by APEX causes FireFox to not handle the breaks.
I have tried copying and editing the Popup and Printer Friendly page templates, but I either remove too much and the page doesn't render, or the page breaks don't work.
My questions for the APEX gurus are:
1. Is there an "approved" way to get page breaks in the printed version of an APEX report, or is there a better way to do what I need to do.
2. What is the minimum contents for a page template (what can I safely remove).
Thanks,
Bill

Hi Owen,
the page breaks are inserted before/after the section. Expand the report structure window and make sure that the properties window is open below. Once you click on the section part, you will see where you can insert the page breaks - the check boxes will appear in the properties.
yes on the second part - just insert the page break between the data providers and then repeat the header for the data provider on the pages (also check boxes on the properties tab)
Good luck

Apex report performance is very poor with apex_item.checkbox row selector.

Hi,
I'm working on a report that includes some functionality to be able to select multiple records for further processing.
The report is based on a view that contains a couple of hundred thousand records.
When i make a selection from this view in sqlplus , the performance is acceptable but the apex report based on the same view performes very poorly.
I've noticed that when i omit the apex_item.checkbox from my report query, performance is on par with sqlplus. (factor 10 or so quicker).
Explain plan appears to be the same with or without checkbox function in the select.
My query is:
select apex_item.checkbox(1,tan_id) Select ,
brt_id
, tan_id
, message_id
, conversation_id
, action
, to_acn_code
, information
, brt_created
, tan_created
from (SELECT brt.id brt_id, -- view query
MAX (TAN.id) tan_id,
brt.message_id,
brt.conversation_id,
brt.action,
TAN.to_acn_code,
TAN.information,
brt.created brt_created,
TAN.created tan_created
FROM (SELECT brt_id, id, to_acn_code, information, created
FROM xxcjib_transactions
WHERE tan_type = 'DELIVER' AND status = 'FINISHED') TAN,
xxcjib_berichten brt
WHERE brt.id = TAN.brt_id
GROUP BY brt.id,
brt.message_id,
brt.conversation_id,
brt.action,
TAN.to_acn_code,
TAN.information,
brt.created,
TAN.created)
What could be the reason for the poor performance of the apex report?
And is there another way to select multiple report records without the apex_item.checkbox function?
I'm using apex 3.2 on oracle 10g database.
Thanks,
Niels Ingen Housz
Edited by: user11986529 on 19-mrt-2010 4:06

Thanks for your reply.
Unfortunately changing the pagination doesnt make much of a difference in this case.
Without the checkbox the query takes 2 seconds.
With checkbox it takes well over 30 seconds.
The second report region on this page based on another view seems to perform reasonably well with or without the checkbox.
It has about the same number of records but with a different view query.
There are also a couple of filter items in the where clause of the report queries (same for both reports) based on date and acn_code and both reports have a selectlist item displayed in their regions based on a simple lov. These filter items don't seem to be of influence on the performance.
I have also recreated the report on a seperate page without any other page items or where clause and the same thing occurs.
With the checkbox its very very slow (more like 20 times slower).
Without it , the report performs well.
And another thing, when i run the page with debug on i don't see the actual report query:
0.08: show report
0.08: determine column headings
0.08: activate sort
0.08: parse query as: APEX_CMA_ONT
0.09: print column headings
0.09: rows loop: 30 row(s)
and then the region is displayed.
I am using databaselinks in the views b.t.w
Edited by: user11986529 on 19-mrt-2010 7:11

APEX Report to balance a column of data over 3 columns

I have an sql report that outputs a code and description e.g.
1  Ape
2  Boar
3  Cat
4  Dog
5  Elephant
6  Goat
7  Hare
8  Ibis
9  Jackel
10 Kangaroo
11 Lion
12 Mouse
13 Numbat
I need the following output where the number of records can change but I always want the values to fit into 3 evenly balanced columns e.g. Sorry about trying to line the columns up
1  Ape      6  Goat    11  Lion
2  Boar      7  Hare    12  Mouse
3  Cat      8  Ibis    13  Numbat
4  Dog      9  Jackel
5  Elephant      10  Kangaroo
What is the best way to do this in one APEX report. I've tried using 3 separate reports in columns 1,2,3 side by side with "no template" but I can't seem to centre the 3 reports and spread out the values evenly across the page.
thanks in advance
Paul P

Interesting data.
See:
{thread:id=414418}
{thread:id=1013063}
{thread:id=1011638}

Is there any way to sent apex reports in mail

Hi All,
I have a requirement to sent an apex report as a mail. Is it possible? Or will I have to write PLSQL procedure to collect the records and embed in html tags and then send the mail
I tried to use <iframe> tag and embed the apex page which is public in to the mail, But it doesn't look good.
Thanks & Regards,
Vikas Krishna

Vikas,
As I understand it, this will be a feature of 4.0. However, for now you must still create them manually. Using public pages, as you've seen, can be tricky. Think about pagination and such.
If an iframe would have "worked" then why not an email with a link back to the right page?
Regards,
Dan
http://danielmcghan.us
http://sourceforge.net/projects/tapigen
http://sourceforge.net/projects/plrecur
You can reward this reply by marking it as either Helpful or Correct ;-)

Using AE(htmldb 2.0) as for reporting tool for other oracle databases.

Maybe I was mistaken, but when I first saw the HTMLDB demo's I saw this as a slick way to build a browser based reporting tool for the masses for quasi-ad-hoc reporting on some of our larger databases that currently have limited reporting capability, and also as a possible replacement for the many MSAccess applets we have.
I just got 2.0 installed and working on a 9i database and went through the basic tutorials, but I can't find much info on how to connect to other oracle databases.
Are my options as follows?:
create dblinks from the local database that houses htmldb to all the other databases?
or
install htmldb schemas on each database I want to access from htmldb?
or
I'll keep looking, but if any of you have any pointers or know of a tutorial that explains the best way to do this it would be greatly appreciated!
tia

As for question 1, yep, that's what I mean. Example:
In a schema in the App Express instance, create a user called "APP1_USER", and then
create view app1_user.people as select * from people@link_user@remotedb
As for the next question, using the built-in insert/update/delete processes will give you
ORA-01461: can bind a LONG value only for insert into a LONG column
among other errors. Apparently version 2.1 will fix this. See Cannot Update VARCHAR column in Remote DB
We address this problem by creating pl/sql APIs for DML, and then writing our own insert/update processes. Slows us down a little, but even with that, App Express remains a productive choice for us.
Another weird problem: auto-row fetch (built-in to HTML DB) doesn't work over db links when you have two columns for a primary key. Many ways around this, e.g. create sequence-populated primary key, create a view with single column that concatenates primary key column values (key1|key2)
Hope this helps!
-John

Re: Problem providing download link for BLOB data in apex report

Hi Don,
Your solution below worked but in the download option i only see save but not open for PDf file in the blob. Please let me know if you have any suggestion to achieve it
Thanks
Jo
Problem providing download link for BLOB data in apex report
591953 Nov 19, 2008 1:55 PM (in response to 660436)
Currently Being Moderated
Good morning,
Here is how I have solved this problem.
1. The select statement in the sql for the report should not include the BLOB column. I decided to select only 2 columns, the column that has the key and the column with the filename.
2. On the first column ( the primary key ) I put in the format statement that was simply DOWNLOAD:TABLENAME:BLOB_COLUMN:PRIMARY_KEY
This works. I believe that the Oracle error I was getting was because I was trying to apply this format statement to the actual BLOB column.
So, it appears that you can use any of the columns in the report to hold the DOWNLOAD format statement since in the format statement, you are defining the BLOB table, BLOB column and the primary key into that column.
Hope this helps,
Don.

Branched out from a years old thread.
user3003326 Don't post to old threads, please.

Duplicate Entries in APEX Report

Hello everyone,
I'm generating an APEX report that selects records and the user assigned to them. The records are all unique in the main table, but I have to link 4 different tables together to get all the information I need. In one of the tables, there are many different entries referencing the same CallID. This is causing my report to display all of those entries, even though they are duplicates on the report. Is there a way to make that column in the table unique, or prevent the entries from appearing multiple times?
I've tried using the Group By statement, but I get this error "ORA-00979: not a GROUP BY expression".
Thanks.

Hi,
It would depend on what data you actually want to end up with. If the information in each record on the final table is unique apart from the CallID value, then you will end up with "duplicates" of the data in the other three tables. If you think of a simplified version of this, you have a parent/child relationship between the tables - looking at things from the child table's point of view, several child records may have the same parent. Therefore, if you create a report that includes ALL details from ALL tables, then you will see the parent's information displayed for each child.
So, if you only want to see one parent's information regardless of the number of child records you have, you either have to combine the child records into a single value or use the Apex report's "Break Formatting" functionality (shown at the bottom of the report's Report Attributes tab). Using the GROUP BY within the SQL statement would normally require you to use an aggregation function to return a single value from the child table - for example, MAX(), MIN(), SUM(), COUNT() etc. If you didn't want to aggregate data, you could use DISTINCT instead (as in SELECT DISTINCT fieldlist FROM tables) but this will only remove duplicate records where ALL values in ALL columns matched.
So, it does depend on the data itself and how you want to display it.
Andy

How to fetch data to APEX Report using stored procedure?

hi all,
i am making a report in APEX. user selects two dates and clicks GO button - i have a Stored Procedure linked to that result region so Stored Procedure gets called.
my stored procedure does the following -
using specified dates (IN) i do query and put data into a table (this table has been created only for this report) -
i want to show all these data i entered into the table on my APEX report in the same procedure call. can i use ref cursor to return? how to do that?
currently, i use another button in APEX which basically fetches all data from table. basically, user clicks one button to generate report and then another button to get report. which is not desirable at all :(
i m using APEX 3.1.2.00.02 and Oracle 10 database.
pls let me know if you need further clarification of the problem. thanks in advance.
regards,
probashi
Edited by: porobashi on May 19, 2009 2:53 PM

Thanks Tony.
I am not sure what you meant by >> change the report to be based off of a query returning sql statement, no need to keep that table around.... >>
Here's my stored procedure
create or replace
PROCEDURE ABC_PROC (
START_DATE IN DATE,
END_DATE IN DATE
AS
RULE_REC MTG_OFFICER_FORECAST%ROWTYPE;
TYPE REF_CURSOR IS REF CURSOR;
TCUR REF_CURSOR;
BEGIN
DELETE FROM ABC_REPORT;
OPEN TCUR FOR
SELECT ABC_FORECAST.*
from MTG_OFFICER_FORECAST , MTG_USERS
WHERE MTG_OFFICER_FORECAST.NBR_OFFICER = MTG_USERS.NBR_OFFICER AND
MTG_OFFICER_FORECAST.NBR_INSTITUTION = MTG_USERS.NBR_INSTITUTION;
LOOP
FETCH TCUR INTO RULE_REC;
EXIT WHEN TCUR%NOTFOUND;
INSERT INTO ABC_REPORT( NBR_OFFICER, OFFICER_NAME, FORECAST_NBR_LOANS, FORECAST_LOAN_AMT, FORECAST_FEES,
ACTUAL_NBR_LOANS, ACTUAL_LOAN_AMT, ACTUAL_FEES, RATIO_NBR_LOANS, RATIO_LOAN_AMT, RATIO_FEES, NBR_INSTITUTE )
VALUES ( RULE_REC.NBR_OFFICER, RULE_REC.NAME_LOAN_OFFICER, RULE_REC.NBR_LOANS, RULE_REC.AMT_LOAN, RULE_REC.AMT_FEES,
ACTUAL_NBR_LOANS, ACTUAL_LOAN_AMOUNT, ACTUAL_FEES, SUCCESS_RATIOS_NBR_LOANS_PERC, SUCCESS_RATIOS_LOAN_AMT_PERC, SUCCESS_RATIOS_FEES_PERC, RULE_REC.NBR_INSTITUTION );
END LOOP;
CLOSE TCUR;
END ABC_PROC;
Thanks,
Probashi
Edited by: porobashi on Jun 2, 2009 11:43 AM

APEX Report Data Download in Excel and PDF format

Hi,
Can someone please guide me how to download APEX report data in Excel and PDF format.I know this is possible through BI Publisher but that is extra Licence cost for client so i don't want to use that option.
Thanks in advance.
Regards
Prabhat Mishra

1005844 wrote:
Hi ,
Thanks for Reply,
I am using APEX 4.2 but when i am trying to download the IR data then getting 3 options only(CSV,HTML and Email).
PrabhatWell, Excel should understand the .csv format for offloads. Perform web seraches to see what can be done for pdfs

Stored Procedure used as a data source for an Apex report

Just wondering whether anyone has used a Stored Procedure as the data source for an Apex report. An option to select Stored Procedures(s) as the data source does not appear within the IDE (only displays Table, Views, Functions).
Do you have to return the definition of the Stored Procedure via a function ... if so, how is this done ?
Thank you.

>
Welcome to the forum: please read the FAQ and forum sticky threads (if you haven't done so already), and update your profile with a real handle instead of "920338".
When you have a problem you'll get a faster, more effective response by including as much relevant information as possible upfront. This should include:
<li>Full APEX version
<li>Full DB/version/edition/host OS
<li>Web server architecture (EPG, OHS or APEX listener/host OS)
<li>Browser(s) and version(s) used
<li>Theme
<li>Template(s)
<li>Region/item type(s)
With APEX we're also fortunate to have a great resource in apex.oracle.com where we can reproduce and share problems. Reproducing things there is the best way to troubleshoot most issues, especially those relating to layout and visual formatting. If you expect a detailed answer then it's appropriate for you to take on a significant part of the effort by getting as far as possible with an example of the problem on apex.oracle.com before asking for assistance with specific issues, which we can then see at first hand.
Just wondering whether anyone has used a Stored Procedure as the data source for an Apex report. An option to select Stored Procedures(s) as the data source does not appear within the IDE (only displays Table, Views, Functions).
Do you have to return the definition of the Stored Procedure via a function ... if so, how is this done ? When asking a question about "reports" it's firstly essential to differentiate between standard and interactive reports. Standard reports can be based on tables, views, SQL queries, or PL/SQL function blocks that return the text of a SQL query. Interactive reports can only be based on a SQL query.
"Stored Procedures" are therefore not an option (unless you are using the term loosely to describe any PL/SQL program unit located in the database, thus including functions). What would a procedure used as the source of a report actually do? Hypothetically, by what mechanisms would the procedure (a) capture/select/generate data; and (b) make this data available for use in an APEX report? Why do you want to base a report on a procedure?

Query of the complicated rdf-report in apex-report

I try to migrate rather complicated rdf report into Apex. I have sucesfully converted the reports file xx.rdf into:
1. xx.xdo file
2. xx.rtf word file
3. xx.xml data file
4. xx_S.pls and xx_B.pls as package files in database
The converted xx.rtf file is OK with all fields and images in right places In the Word I get a beautiful xx.pdf report when I start the preview using converted xx.xml file as the data file. -- The problem is just the package file with its several functions. The xml file has also many levels of data formed by tags like <list_g> etc.. Many of Word fields are CF fields from reports (xx.rdf) which now are as package functions with the same names.
Is there any direct way to generate the Apex report query whic form the xml data file? It seems impossible to start create an Apex query from the package functions and trying to embed on it all the same fields as in xml file. Is it possible to somehow use xx.xdo file and bi publisher as help.
Thank you very much.

Okay, there is some confusion there.. You said: "In our case the customer is not willing to invest into Oracle Reports", Yet you are converting an Oracle Report file for their application, is this NOT their report file?
Then you said " Also the customer is not very eager to use its BI Publisher for Apex reports " But APEX WILL be using BI Publisher for the PDF generation of the report, do they understand having Bi Publisher running the report that APEX can get the PDF from Bi Publsiher?
Sounds like the customer is rather snarky on their requirements..
Thank you,
Tony Miller
Webster, TX

Column Links in Apex Reports

I am using version 4.0 of APEX. My question concerns linking to other APEX pages from a report. In APEX we link to another page, which may be a form or another report, by using a column in the report as a link column. Any column may be used to transfer values from any other column. This works fine, but the disadvantage is that whichever column is used as the link column has a heading which identifies the column's purpose but may not identify the purpose of the transition to another page. In Oracle Forms, we could use buttons as a column of the multi-row screen (i.e. same as APEX report), and the button's label identified the purpose for the transition.
Is there any way to create a column in an APEX report to serve the same purpose as the button in Oracle Forms?

Doug wrote:
I am using version 4.0 of APEX. My question concerns linking to other APEX pages from a report. In APEX we link to another page, which may be a form or another report, by using a column in the report as a link column. Any column may be used to transfer values from any other column. This works fine, but the disadvantage is that whichever column is used as the link column has a heading which identifies the column's purpose but may not identify the purpose of the transition to another page. In Oracle Forms, we could use buttons as a column of the multi-row screen (i.e. same as APEX report), and the button's label identified the purpose for the transition.
Is there any way to create a column in an APEX report to serve the same purpose as the button in Oracle Forms?
When discussing "reports" it is essential to indicate whether this means a standard report or an interactive report in order to receive an appropriate response.
It is possible to create a link column that is distinct from report data columns. In standard reports, this is done using the Add Column Link option from the Tasks menu in the right sidebar of the Report Attributes page. In interactive reports, define a Link Column on the Report Attributes page.
To provide further information about links to users in both cases, specify an HTML title attribute for the link in the Link Attributes property of the link definition. This will be rendered as a tooltip when the cursor hovers over the link in visual browsers, and as an audio cue on navigation to the link when using a screen reader.

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