How to setup discoverer to work with portal in future

Question

Hi,
I have to setup the environment for a discoverer 10g R2 based reporting application.
The application is supposed to display reports on the portal that is hosted on Oracle 10g AS.
I started with installation of Oracle 10g R2 DB server. I have the Oracle BI suite 10g , Oracle 10g AS, Oracle 10g Portal etc with me.
Can someone guide me as to how should I proceed in the installation step-wise so as the repoting application can be hooked on to the AS and displayed in portal.
The slight catch here is there is a separate team working on developing the portal.
I need to know what is to be done so that there is a smooth merger of discoverer with the portal.
Thanks
Goga

Answer 1

Hi
The interaction between Discoverer and Portal takes place after you have installed the full-blown application server. Stand-alone Discoverer cannot be made to hook into Portal.
When you install the full application server you need an infrastructure database. You either do this manually by inserting the repository components into an existing database or you use the seeded database that comes with the install. Personally, I prefer the seeded approach.
After you have installed the infrastructure you run the installer a second time and install the middle tier. While you can install the infrastructure and middle components onto the same machine, performance is better if you use different machines. However, if you are only trying to test things out, doing all of this on one machine would be ok.
After you have got your middle tier components installed (Discoverer and Portal), make sure they are working. For Discoverer you will need to have an EUL. For Portal you only need to be able to connect to it.
Next, and only now comes the link between Discoverer and Portal. All you need to do is tell Portal that the link is to be enabled. This is called creating a portlet provider.
To create a portlet provider for Discoverer follow this workflow:
1. Connect to Portal as Portal user
2. On the top right, click the Administer tab
3. You will see three further tabs, this time on the left, called Portal, Portlets and Database
4. Click the Portlets tab
5. Locate the Remote Providers box on the top right hand side
6. Click Register a Provider
7. In Provider Information enter the following:
a) a name - for example Discoverer
b) a Display name - for example Discoverer
c) Timeout - for example 30 seconds
d) Timeout message - for example Please try again later
e) In implementation Stype select Web
f) Click the Next button
8. In General Properties enter the following:
a) In URL type http://hostname:port/discoverer/portletprovider
Eg. http://server1.learndiscoverer.com:7778/discoverer/portletprovider
You may need to omit the port on some systems so that it would look like this:
http://server1.learndiscoverer.com/discoverer/portletprovider
Note: type discoverer/portletprovider as stated
If you do need a port and are unsure as to which port number to enter follow this workflow:
i) Launch a second browser window
ii) Type http://hosntame:1811 (or whatever is the AS Control port on your system) and press Enter
iii) In username enter ias_admin and the associated password
iv) When authenticated, you will see the Farm for your infrastructure and mid tier
v) Cick on the mid tier instance (you may need to enter your ias_admin username and password again)
vi) Click the Ports link alongside the word Home at the top of the screen
vii) Note the port number for your HTTP Server Listen(non-SSL) port
viii) Close AS Control and go back to the portlet provider setup
b) Check the box Web provider in same cookie domain as the portal
c) Leave other defaults as they are and scroll down to section called User/Session Information
d) In User/Session Information check User and specify that the frequency should be Once per user session
e) Click the Next button
8. In Grant Access leave this alone and click the Finish button
9. If you get a warning about the cookie domain click the OK button
10. Exit Portal
You have now successfully created a portlet provider for Discoverer
To test that this is working enter one og these in your browser window:
If using ports:
http://hostname:port/discoverer/portletprovider
If not using ports:
http://hostname/discoverer/portletprovider
The system should respond with Congratulations! You have successfully reached your Provider's Test Page
Does this help?
Regards
Michael