Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher Online Help

Introduction

Use the Delivery Options page to set up all your delivery channels that you wish to use with your BI Publisher application. This chapter includes the following procedures:

Setting Up Delivery Options

Set Delivery Configuration Options

From the Admin page select Delivery Configuration.
Enter the following properties:
- SSL Certificate File - if SSL is enabled for your installation, you can leave this field empty if you wish to use the default certificates built-in with BI Publisher. SSL will work with the default certificate if the server uses the certificate signed by a trusted certificate authority such as Verisign. This field is mandatory only if the user uses the SSL with a self-signed certificate. The self-signed certificate means the certificate is signed by a non-trusted certificate authority (usually the user).
- Email From Address - enter the From address that you want to appear on email report deliveries from the BI Publisher server. The default value is bipublisher-report@oracle.com.
- Delivery Notification Email From Address - enter the From address that you want to appear on notifications delivered from the BI Publisher server. The default value is bipublisher-notification@oracle.com.
- Notification Subject - enter the subject line you want to appear on the email for each of the following delivery types: Success, Warning, and Failure.

Set Up Print or Fax Server

Printing is only supported through Internet Printing Protocol (IPP). You must set up CUPS or Windows Print Server for IPP. See Print Server Setup.

About Printing PDF

PDF is a popular output format for business reports and is printable from viewer software such as Adobe Reader. However, some reports require printing directly from the report server. For example, paychecks and invoices are usually printed as scheduled batch jobs. Some newer printers with Postscript Level 3 compliant Raster Image Processing can natively support PDF documents, but there are still many printers in business use that only support Postscript Level 2 that cannot print PDF documents directly.

To print PDF documents directly from the BI Publisher server you have the following options:

Select BI Publisher's PDF to Postscript filter. This can be enabled for Unix or Windows print servers.
Configure a custom, or third-party filter.

After completing all other required fields for the print server, you will be able to schedule reports to print directly from the BI Publisher server to any printer in your system that supports PostScript Level 2.

To set up your printer or fax:

From the Admin page select Printer or Fax. Select Add Server.
Enter the required fields Server Name and URI for the new server.

Important: You must enter a unique name for each server regardless of the type (printer, fax, email, WebDAV, or FTP).
Enter a Filter (optional).

A filter enables you to call a conversion utility to convert PDF to Postscript or PDF to TIFF (for fax) for Windows-based print servers.

BI Publisher includes a PDF to Postscript filter. This filter converts PDF to Postscript Level 2. Choose PDF to Postscript from the list if you wish to use BI Publisher's predefined filter. See About Printing PDF for more information.

About Custom Filters

To specify a custom filter, pass the native OS command string with the 2 placeholders for the input and output filename, {infile} and {outfile}.

This is useful especially if you are trying to call IPP printers directly or IPP printers on Microsoft Internet Information Service (IIS). Unlike CUPS, those print servers do not translate the print file to a format the printer can understand, therefore only limited document formats are supported. With the filter functionality, you can call any of the native OS commands to transform the document to the format that the target printer can understand.

For example, to transform a PDF document to a Postscript format, enter the following PDF to PS command in the Filter field:

pdftops {infile} {outfile}

To call an HP LaserJet printer setup on a Microsoft IIS from Linux, you can set Ghostscript as a filter to transform the PDF document into the format that the HP LaserJet can understand. To do this, enter the following Ghostscript command in the Filter field:
```
gs -q -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=laserjet -sOutputFile={outfile} {infile} 
```
For fax servers, you can use the filter to transform the file to Tag Image File Format (TIFF).
Optionally enter the following fields if appropriate:
- Security fields: Username and Password, Authentication Type (None, Basic, Digest) and Encryption Type (None, SSL).
- Proxy Server fields: Host, Port, User Name, Password, Authentication Type (None, Basic, Digest)

Set Up WebDAV Server

From the Admin page select WebDAV. This will show the list of servers already added. Select Add Server.
Enter the Name and Host for the new server.

Important: You must enter a unique name for each server regardless of the type (printer, fax, email, WebDAV, or FTP).
Optionally enter the following fields if appropriate:
- General fields: Port
- Security fields: Authentication Type (None, Basic, Digest) and Encryption Type (None, SSL).
- Proxy Server fields: Host, Port, User Name, Password, Authentication Type (None, Basic, Digest)

Set Up an HTTP Server

You can register an application URL or postprocess HTTP URL as an HTTP server to send a notification request to after your report has completed. The HTTP notification sent by BI Publisher appends the job ID, report URL, and job status to the URL provided in this screen.

For more information about setting up an HTTP notification to integrate with a third-party application, see Setting Up an After Report Trigger. For information on adding the trigger to a scheduled report, see Scheduling a Report.

From the Admin page select HTTP. This will show the list of servers already added. Select Add Server.
Enter a name for your server, and enter the URL. When your report finishes processing, BI Publisher will append the job ID, report URL, and job status to the URL provided here.
Enter the Security information, if required. If your server is password protected, enter the Username and Password. Select the Authentication Type: None, Basic, or Digest; and Encryption Type: None or SSL.
If the notification is to be sent through a proxy server, enter the fully qualified Host name, the Port, the Username and Password, and Authentication type of the proxy server.

Set Up Email or FTP Server

From the Admin page select Email or FTP. This will show the list of servers already added. Select Add Server.
Enter the Name and Host for the Email or FTP server.

Important: You must enter a unique name for each server regardless of the type (printer, fax, email, WebDAV, or FTP).
Optionally enter the following fields if appropriate:
- General fields: Port
- Security fields: Username and Password.

Set Up Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) Server

From the Admin page select CUPS. This will show the list of servers already added. Select Add Server.
Enter the Server Name and Host and Port for the CUPS server.

For more information see Setting Up Cups.