Frequently Asked Questions

What is Blitz Report™?

Blitz Report is an Oracle Forms-based software that is fully embedded in the E-Business Suite navigation. You can easily create, store and edit SQL queries for reports, which can then be made available to your business users. Blitz Report runs as a background concurrent process and generates output files in XLSX, CSV or PDF format. Upon completion, reports automatically download and open in Excel.

Blitz Report comes with a library of pre-built report templates from all functional areas covered by Oracle EBS.

I already have a reporting and business intelligence solution, why do I need Blitz Report™?

Traditional BI solutions typically provide high-level analytical tools for management reporting.

Blitz Report focuses on the needs of front-line business users, who face daily challenges and need to see data quickly to help meet them. Blitz Report generates operational reports to respond quickly to their changing needs. This means:

  • Faster access to real-time EBS data

  • Lower load on specialist IT resources

  • Lower cost …

Blitz Report provides users with what they really need – access to their EBS data, easier and faster than any other reporting solution.

How can I test Blitz Report™?

You can simply download and install Blitz Report on your own EBS environments. The installation file includes a trial license key, enabling to explore Blitz Report without limitation for three months. After this trial period, you can decide to either license Blitz Report or to continue using the free version with up to 30 different reports.

Alternatively, you can get instant access to Blitz Report by logging into our live demo environment.

If you would like to schedule a personal demonstration, then please contact us.

How long does it take to install Blitz Report™?

Blitz Report installs automatically using a downloaded script that typically takes a couple of minutes to run. There are a few manual configuration steps required after installation, for example configuring access profiles and report security.

Reviewing the installation guide, performing the installation steps and running the first Blitz Report should take less than an hour.

What access permissions are required to install Blitz Report™?

The Blitz Report installation is typically done by DBAs and requires access credentials to the application server as the application owner user, e.g. applmgr, and database access to the system and apps user.

Does Blitz Report™ require an additional server?

No, Blitz Report fully integrates with your existing Oracle Applications technology stack and does not require any additional hardware or server process.

What is the installation footprint of Blitz Report™?

Blitz Report installation is very lightweight. It consists of a small list of custom database objects, the user interface form, the related setup for profile options, menus, and a concurrent program definition. For detailed installation instructions please refer to the installation guide.

Which EBS versions does Blitz Report™ support?

Blitz Report runs on all Oracle E-Business Suite versions from 11i to R12.2 and requires Database version 11g Release 2 (11.2) or above.

Is Blitz Report™ affected by EBS patches or upgrades?

Blitz Report depends on specific components of the EBS techstack, for example to download output files in binary format. When Blitz Report is installed, it automatically detects the current techstack version and applies it’s compatible code components.

EBS application patches usually do not affect the Blitz Report functionality. If there are major patches or upgrades applied however, for example an upgrade from EBS version 12.1.3 to 12.2.x or a database upgrade, this could affect the Blitz Report functionality. To avoid any incompatibility issues, we recommend including a Blitz Report upgrade after every major EBS application change.

Which operating systems does Blitz Report™ support?

Blitz Report runs on all operating systems supported by Oracle E-Business Suite such as Oracle Linux, IBM AIX, Solaris and Microsoft Windows. Installations on MS Windows require the MKS Tollkit as Blitz Report does not work with Cygwin.

How do updates work and how often are new Blitz Report™ versions released?

We release major Blitz Report updates with new functionality and enhancements about twice a year and smaller maintenance releases on a more frequent schedule. The upgrade process is as simple as running the installation script as described in the installation guide.

All updates are cumulative and you can decide the frequency in which you would like to apply them. We recommend upgrading Blitz Report at least once or twice a year to benefit from new functionality.

Which would be the typical user profiles for Blitz Report™?

Blitz Report provides three main user profiles:

  • User: runs reports on a day-to-day basis

  • Developer: creates, maintains and makes reports available to users

  • User Admin: runs reports on a day-to-basis, controls user access rights and provides audit reports

Users can only run their assigned reports while developers and administrators can access all reports.

How much does Blitz Report™ cost?

License costs for full production access to an unlimited number of reports is US$12 per user, per month.

There are volume discounts available starting from 250+ users. Please contact us for a price quote or with your pricing question.

You can also try the free version for an unlimited number of users with up to 30 different reports.

Do I need separate licenses for different servers?

The same license key can be used for all EBS environments, such as production, development or test systems, and including additional EBS production systems such as supply chain planning or master data management servers, if the same users are working on these systems.

In case of different servers for different businesses and different users however, there are separate licenses required for each server.

How does Blitz Report™ count active user licenses?

The licensed version of Blitz Report includes a license key, which restricts the maximum number of active report users. An active Blitz Report user is an active EBS user or developer running a Blitz Report over a period of 60 days. User licenses are either assigned automatically, whenever a new user runs a report, or they can be assigned manually through a profile option, if preferred.

Licensed users that have their EBS user deactivated or stop using Blitz Report for more than 60 days, are automatically removed from the licensed user list.

How does the 30 reports free version work?

The Blitz Report installation file includes a trial license key, enabling all seeded reports to run for a limited period of time. After this evaluation period, Blitz Report automatically falls back to the free version with up to 30 different reports (see Tools > License Key).

With the free version, you can still create, store and maintain an unlimited number of SQLs, but only the most recently created 30 reports generate an output file.

To select the seeded reports you want to run in your free version, you can copy a report, which assigns a new creation date and includes it in the most recent 30 reports list. To review which reports are currently included in this list, you can run the Blitz Reports report, which contains a column ‘Free 30 Reports’.

How does the Flex License model work?

The Flex License model helps customers to avoid disruption and to simplify license administration. If you are eligible for Flex Licenses, you will receive a license key including 50% additional licenses, which can be used free of charge until the next renewal date.

Shortly before the contract renewal, we will request the current active Blitz Report user count from you, and this number, rounded up to multiples of 10, will be the basis for the next renewal.

Please note that these additional licenses serve as a buffer to prevent disruption, not to reduce or optimize the overall license cost.

Why is Blitz Report™ so fast?

Blitz Report achieves outstanding performance for three reasons:

  • Output files are created directly from the database without going through intermediate file formats such as XML. This enhances performance and reduces storage requirements.

  • Report SQLs are built dynamically, enabling optimal use of database indexes.

  • Blitz Report’s Excel generation routine is highly optimized for fast throughput without limitation.

Why is dynamic SQL better than static SQL for reporting?

Most reporting solutions only allow static SQL scripts with one set of parameters per report. This leads to SQL script duplication if you need to run the same report using different parameters or parameter combinations.

Blitz Report dynamically combines the extraction SQL and user-specified parameters dynamically at run-time, so you can enter multiple parameters against one report without script duplication, which also helps prevent performance glitches.

Does real-time reporting affect transactional server performance?

Recent hardware advances such as flash storage, allows running real-time reporting directly from transactional systems.
Blitz Report offers a wide range of features to prevent impacting ERP server performance:

  • Blitz Report can be configured to run on a standby database.

  • Combinations of parameters can be made mandatory to prevent reports from running ‘wide open’.

  • The dynamic SQL engine enables the use of database indexes to optimize execution performance.

  • Separate concurrent managers can be created for Blitz Report to limit the overall reporting load.

  • Slowly running reports can be tied to specific concurrent managers to prevent other requests from queuing up.

  • Time or row limits can be set to prevent reports from running beyond expected duration.

  • Performance analysis reports show very detailed statistics of reporting and transactional processing load.

Many customers achieve higher transactional processing performance after implementing Blitz Report by replacing less efficient solutions such as BI Publisher or Discoverer, and having better visibility of performance issues compared to Oracle standard tools.

Can Blitz Report™ run on a standby database to avoid performance impact?

Yes, Blitz Report can be configured to execute the report queries on a standby server.

Standby systems are often used for reporting, as that hardware is available anyway. Due to advances in recent hardware technology and Blitz Report’s efficient architecture and performance features however, there is usually zero or very little performance impact from running Blitz Report on live EBS systems.

Can Blitz Report™ query data from custom schemas and tables?

Yes, Blitz Report connects and runs SQL queries using the application database user in the same way as the Oracle standard reports. This means that Blitz Report can also access data from any custom table that is visible to the APPS database user, without creating additional grants.

Can Blitz Report™ query data from other databases outside of EBS?

While Blitz Report runs in the Oracle EBS database, the report SQLs can also query data from remote systems through database links. Typical use cases for this would be a reconciliation query between E-Business Suite data and an external connected system, or running Blitz Report on dedicated reporting hardware such as a standby database.

Note that database links are not limited to Oracle database types only. Oracle’s Heterogeneous Services allow connections to various other third party databases such as DB2, Sybase, Informix, SQL Server, MySQL, MS Access and many more.

What is the Blitz Report™ online library?

The Blitz Report online library is a repository of reports covering a variety of business requirements. Blitz Report customers can download and use reports from this library for their own environments. New reports are regularly added; these can be downloaded and adopted using the Import utility.

Which output formats does Blitz Report™ support?

Blitz Report extracts data in Microsoft Excel XLSX or delimited text such as CSV or TSV formats. While XLSX is the most commonly used spread sheet file format, delimited text might be required e.g. for interfaces or exports where data volume exceeds the Excel limit number of rows.

How does Blitz Report™ compare with Oracle BI Publisher?

BI Publisher has a two-step report generation process, first creating an intermediate XML file then performing post-processing to generate an output defined by a formatting template. While this offers great flexibility for document formatting, it does not perform well for larger datasets. The intermediate XML files can grow very large and often exceed output postprocessor’s capacities. To create new reports, the need for a separate data-source and template definition means greater complexity, additional skills and development time.

Furthermore, BI Publisher for EBS can generate XSLT or XLS files only, which are limited to a maximum of 65,536 rows per sheet (Oracle note 2336999.1).

Blitz Report offers flexibility for output formatting through its excel upload functionality. It is also very easy to use and much more flexible for report creation and maintenance. It generates native XLSX directly, which makes it very lean and fast with regards to server space and resource usage.

Depending on server hardware and data queried, Blitz Report can generate output files at a speed of up to 250,000 records per second, with no limitation to the amount of data.

In short, while BI Publisher is good for document printing, Blitz Report is designed for ultrafast large volume data exports.

Why is Blitz Report™ based on Oracle Forms?

Blitz Report uses Oracle Forms to enables simple keyboard navigation and make working with LOVs faster and more efficient. The majority of Oracle EBS core modules run using Forms.

How is access to reports and data secured in Blitz Report™?

Data security in Blitz Report works very much like security in Oracle’s standard reports.

First, user access to reports is controlled through an assignment framework, which allows access to be defined at a level of granularity that extends beyond Oracle’s standard request groups.

Second, Blitz Report leverages EBS security in the same way as Oracle’s standard reports. Every Blitz Report runs as a background concurrent process connecting as the APPS database user with the session context initialized using the currently logged in user.

When creating report SQLs, the developer has the option to make use of Oracle’s standard data access security features, e.g. to restrict operating unit access or to enforce additional operating unit restriction by adding a required report parameter with a restricted operating unit LOV. For more information please review our user guide’s data access security section.

Can sensitive HR and other data be secured from developers using Blitz Report™?

Yes, Blitz Report secures sensitive data from being accessed by developers or users through Oracle’s Virtual Private Database (VPD) feature.

Blitz Report runs all queries through the APPS database user with the security and session context of the currently logged in application user, exactly the same way as Oracle standard reports. Unlike direct database access through Toad or SQL Developer, this allows definition of database policies to enforce access restrictions based on the developer’s EBS application user access. Such policies can be used, for example, to hide sensitive HR information when querying base tables directly through Blitz Report.

In Blitz Report, we have automated the VPD policy creation and table maintenance process through a set of lookups and concurrent programs. This is well documented in our user guide VPD section, and also in this blog with examples. Contact us if you would like to see a demo or require further assistance.

Does Blitz Report™ connect to or send data anywhere outside of my system?

No, Blitz Report does not communicate to the ‘outside world’ in any way differently than your existing EBS.

Blitz report accesses data exactly the same way as Oracle standard reports. Specifically, both Oracle standard reports and Blitz Report use the concurrent managers output file system. Delivery of report data through email or FTP is done using Oracle standard’s delivery option functionality, and If you have enabled this option for sending data with Oracle standard reports, it also works with Blitz Reports.

Can Blitz Reports™ be scheduled?

Yes, Blitz Reports run through the Oracle EBS concurrent manager and can be scheduled in the same way as other Oracle standard concurrent requests. To schedule, we recommend running a report from the Blitz Report form first and then copying the request to have all parameter values pre-populated as described in the user guide.

What is the maximum number of rows in a Blitz Report™?

Blitz Report can generate output files of unlimited size and number of rows. Output files in XLSX format have an overflow to additional worksheets at every 1,048,575 rows.

If you would like to split large data into different sheets, depending on the data, for example one sheet per organization, you can use the template sheet break functionality.

Can Blitz Report™ show running or grand totals?

Blitz Report’s template functionality allows aggregation of values to totals or defining Excel pivots for a summarized view of the data. In addition to these features, grant totals can be included in the report SQL using a GROUPING SETS clause. Alternative to total lines, total columns can be added using a PARTITION BY clause.

Can Blitz Report™ use dependent parameters?

Yes, similar to Oracle standard’s dependent parameter functionality, you can define parameter dependencies in LOVs and default values using the syntax :$flex$.parameter_name as described in the user guide.

Where are Blitz Report™ output files stored and how are they purged?

Blitz Report run as concurrent request and writes the output and log files to the $APPLCSF/out and /log directories, in the same way as Oracle standard reports. This data is purged along with other concurrent program data by running Oracle’s ‘Purge Concurrent Request and/or Manager Data’ process.

In case you would like to retain Blitz Report output files, e.g. for audit or reporting purposes, there is an option to write a file copy to an additional server directory as described in the user guide.

Where can I find the change history of Blitz Report™ versions?

New features and updates for every release are listed in the Blitz Report changelog. The features are explained in the user guide.

What languages does Blitz Report™ support?

The Blitz Report user interface and output file column headers are translated to all 36 languages currently supported by Oracle EBS. The Blitz Report installation includes translations for 17 thousand of the most frequently used parameter and column names. Users and developers benefit from automated translation to their local language without additional setup or development work required.

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