Blitz Report™ User Guide

1. Introduction

Blitz Report is an Oracle Forms-based software, fully integrated with Oracle E-Business Suite. It enables your IT support team to easily store and edit SQL scripts for reports, and to make them available to your business users. Blitz Report runs as a concurrent process and generates output files in XLSX or text delimited CSV format. Upon completion, reports automatically download and open in Excel.

When developing Blitz Report, our aim was to create the most simple and efficient operational reporting tool for Oracle EBS – optimized for skilled IT professionals to better organize and maintain reporting SQLs and for business users to quickly extract application data without having to learn new skills.

We hope that you enjoy Blitz Report and welcome your feedback to [email protected].

2. Running Blitz Report

Basic steps to run a Blitz Report are:

1. Select a category (optional)
2. Select a report
3. Enter parameters
4. Run the report and review the output

2.1 Selecting a report

When opening Blitz Report, a selection of available reports is displayed automatically. The list can be restricted further by typing the first characters of the desired report name.

Reports can also be selected by:

• Performing a text search by typing into the report name field. This executes a full text search on report name, description, parameters and/or SQL definition, enabling you to search by column names, for example. The search is not case sensitive and allows creation of logical expressions using keywords ‘and’ or ‘or’ and use of brackets to group sub-expressions.
• A double click into the report name field
• Using the LOV attached to the report name
• Pressing the F1-key
• Picking a Category from the dropdown list
• Using the find/torch menu symbol
• Running a query on the report name or description fields via F11, Ctrl+F11

By default, users can select from reports assigned to their current logon responsibility only.

The LOV of reports can be extended by setting profile option ‘Blitz Report Filter Reports by Responsibility’ to ‘No’. This way, users will see all the reports assigned to them, regardless of their current logon responsibility.

Text search example:

Scrolling further to the right in the search results shows the matching score and fields in which the keywords are found.

When entering multiple keywords, the search matches all keywords by default.

Above example lists all reports containing both words, ‘item’ and ‘invoice’.

To search on either of the keywords, combine them with ‘or’.

To search for an exact match in the order of keywords e.g. ‘item’ directly followed by ‘invoice’, enclose them into quotation marks such as “item invoice”.

2.2. Parameter values

Report parameters filter, limit or define the extracted data. Parameters can have lists of values that either enforce selection of one particular value (e.g. account number) or that allow matching by wildcards such as ’%’ or ‘_’.

To display the LOV for a parameter, double click either into the parameter value field or on the three LOV dots on the right.

Some parameters may allow entry of multiple values, depending on the definition of the parameter (see here for details).

To run a report for a list of account numbers for example, check the ‘Multiple Values’ checkbox next to the parameter and either select account numbers one by one from the LOV or enter a semicolon-separated list of numbers manually.

Larger lists of multiple parameter values up to a length of 32000 characters can be entered using the ‘Edit Field’ menu function.

Multiple values can be separated by semicolon or line feed. Using the ‘Edit Field’ menu icon, you can for example copy and paste a list of parameter values directly from an Excel sheet.

Users can store their own default parameter values using the Actions > Save Parameter Defaults menu option.

2.3 Running and viewing the output

A click on the ‘Run’ button launches a background concurrent process to extract the report data. The output XLSX file opens automatically upon program completion.

While the report concurrent process is pending or running, the request status is displayed on the output button. Once the report is complete, the output button can also be used to re-download the output file.

2.4 Output formats

Blitz Report exports data in user-friendly XLSX format as a default. Use profile option ‘Blitz Report Output Format’, if you have the requirement to export in delimited text formats CSV or TSV.

2.5 Options

The runtime options window is used to control the report generation process and the output format at run time. Using the runtime options window it is possible to define:

Template

Columns and their order in generated report will be displayed based on selected template. Edit button is used to create new and modify existing templates, more details can be found here.

Email

Indicate e-mail address if you want automatically send the report after it generation. For more details check here.

Output Format

Output file format. Possible options: CSV, TSV, XLSX

Row Limit

You can restrict the number of row in the output file by indicating that option.

Time Limit

Indicates timeout in seconds. Program is terminated by the ‘Blitz Report Monitor’ after indicated time. This avoids excessive server loads if e.g. user submits report with insufficient parameter restrictions.A time limit can also be set when running reports or using profile option ‘Blitz Report Time Limit’. If there are values set on different levels, the order of precedence is as follows:

1. Run window options time limit
2. Profile option on user level
3. Time limit on report level
4. Profile option on responsibility level
5. Profile option on site level

Disable Column Translations

Disabling translation of the report’s header if multi-language setup is in place. E.g.: interface requirements.

Exclude Column Headers

Removing header column from the output file. E.g. for interface requirements

Additional Out. Directory on APPS Node

The copy of the output file will be saved in the indicated directory on APPS node. Also, that directory is used by “Data Warehouse”overriding value from profile option “Blitz Report Additional Output Directory APPS Node”.

Additional Out. Directory on DB Node

The copy of the output file will be saved in the indicated directory on DB node. Also, that directory is used by “Data Warehouse”overriding value from profile option “Blitz Report Additional Output Directory DB Node”.

Additional Out. Filename Pattern

Suffix of the filename for the copies defined in 8 and 9. Also, that file pattern is used by “Data Warehouse”overriding value from profile option “Blitz Report Additional Output Filename Pattern”.

Custom Postprocess

The name of the post-processing shell script file to be executed after report generation. Script must be placed under $CUSTOM_TOP/bin/custom/ directory.
E.g. post-processor script can be used for generating report in PDF format.
The output of the script is placed on the server to the dedicated directory.

“Freeze” checkbox

Option values are not changed if new report is selected.

“Reset” button

This button is used to set runtime options to the default values based on the profile option or report level.

2.6 Email

Email address is a part of report options. Multiple email addresses can be entered as a comma-separated list. A double click into the email-address field opens a bigger editor window to facilitate entry.

The default email on the Blitz Report run window is derived in following order:

1. Default email setup on report level
2. Profile option ‘Blitz Report Default Email Address’
3. FND user’s email
4. HR person’s email

The default email subject for Blitz Reports is stored in FND message XXEN_REPORT_EMAIL_SUBJECT. To change this text, navigate to Application Developer > Application > Message > query message XXEN_REPORT_EMAIL_SUBJECT and edit the message text.

You can use the following placeholders for automated replacement at run-time:

You can also create new custom messages. Prefix these with XXEN_EMAIL and use them as default email subjects by setting the profile option ‘Blitz Report Email Subject’.

2.7 Column template

The display of columns in the output Excel document can be controlled using а column selection window. Selected columns will be displayed in the resulting report document. You can select or reorder columns

The window contains the following elements:

1. Name of the column template
2. Description of the column template
3. Available Columns – list of columns that are available for display, but are not displayed yet
4. Displayed Columns – list of columns that are displayed.
5. Seq – sequence number of the column. Determine order of the columns in the output file.
6. Arrow buttons for moving columns between lists 1 and 2, as well as changing their display sequence in list 2 (Displayed columns). You can use Ctrl and Shift keyboard buttons to select groups of columns (multi-select) and move them simultaneously. Use double-click to move column
7. “Reset” button to recover initial state of the lists and “Hide All” button to move all the columns to list 1 (Available columns)
8. “Public” checkbox – determines availability of the template. Public templates can be selected, but cannot be modified by other users

2.8 Scheduling a report

Blitz Reports can be scheduled as background processes to run at a certain date or time. This feature can be used to run time-consuming data extractions during non-office hours or to use a scheduled Blitz Report as an outbound interface or a very simple and flexible data warehouse.

The easiest way to schedule a report is to run the Blitz Report first, and to then copy the submitted concurrent request and schedule it:

1. Run a report from the Blitz Report run window with parameter restrictions as required
2. Navigate to the menu > view > requests > submit a new request > single request > Copy > Find > select the concurrent request submitted in step 1
3. Update schedule and delivery options as required and re-submit the request

Alternatively, you can submit a new ‘Blitz Report’ concurrent request, populating its parameters manually. Select the required report name from the LOV and populate parameters 1 to 98 with values in exactly the same order as they appear on the Blitz Report run window. For example, if the third parameter is ‘Operating Unit’ with a value of ‘Vision Operations’, then Parameter3 of the concurrent request would need to be populated with this value in order to filter the report data by operating unit.

A multiple values string can be entered by using the