The Template Builder is an add-in to Microsoft Word that simplifies the development of RTF templates. While the Template Builder is not required to create RTF templates, it provides many functions that will increase your productivity.
The Template Builder is tightly integrated with Microsoft Word and enables you to perform the following functions:
Note that the Template Builder automates insertion of the most frequently used components of an RTF template. RTF templates also support much more complex formatting and processing. For the full description of RTF template features, see Creating RTF Templates.
Your Template Builder installation provides samples and demo files to help you get started. The demos can be accessed from your Windows Start menu as follows:
Start > Programs > Oracle BI Publisher Desktop > Demos
The demos can also be accessed from the BI Publisher\BI Publisher Desktop\demos folder where you installed BI Publisher Desktop (for example: C:\Program Files\Oracle\BI Publisher\BI Publisher Desktop\demos).
The following demos are provided:
The sample files are located in the BI Publisher\BI Publisher Desktop\Samples folder. The Samples folder contains three subfolders:
The eText and PDF template samples can be used as references to create these types of templates. The Template Builder is only available for the RTF templates. The RTF templates folder contains eight subfolders to provide samples of different types of reports. Refer to the TrainingGuide.html located in the RTF templates folder for additional information on what is contained in each sample.
Prerequisites:
Limitations
When you open Microsoft Word after installing the Template Builder you will notice the Oracle BI Publisher menu.
For versions of Microsoft Word prior to 2007 the menu and toolbar will appear as shown in the following figure:
For Microsoft Word 2007 users, the BI Publisher commands display in the ribbon format:
Use the menu (or toolbar) to perform the following:
You can build and upload your template via a direct connection with the BI Publisher server, or you can build and upload your template in disconnected mode.
To work in disconnected mode, you must have a sample data file available in your local work environment:
The data model defines the XML format that will be merged with the RTF template. The Template Builder requires sample data to build your template. You must load sample data to use most of the template builder functionality.
If you are not connected to BI Publisher, then use the "Loading XML Data from a Local File" procedure. If you are connected, use the "Loading Data from the BI Publisher Catalog" procedure.
One method of loading data to the Template Builder is to save a sample of your report data to a local directory.
For information on saving sample data from your report data model, see the topic Testing Data Models and Generating Sample Data, Oracle Fusion Middleware Data Modeling Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher.
If you do not have access to the report data model, but you can access the report, you can alternatively save sample data from the report viewer. To save data from the report viewer:
The Load Data group from the Oracle BI Publisher menu enables you to select and load the saved XML file to the Template Builder.
You can connect directly to the BI Publisher Server to load your BI Publisher report data to the Template Builder to use as sample data for designing layouts. You can also download an existing template to modify it.
To connect to BI Publisher and load a data source:
This section includes the following topics:
This dialog enables you to select data elements from the data source and insert them into the template.
In the Insert group select Field to open the Field dialog. The dialog shows the structure of your loaded data source in a tree view, as shown in the following figure:
Select a field that represents a single data field (a leaf node of the tree) and select Insert (you can also insert the field by dragging and dropping it into your document, or by double-clicking the field). A text form field with hidden BI Publisher commands is inserted at the cursor position in the template. You may either select and insert additional data fields or close the dialog by clicking the Close button.
The Insert Field dialog fields are:
For an XML document with a large and complicated structure, use the find functionality to find a specific field. Enter a partial string of the field name you are searching into the Find field and click Find Next . The next occurrence of a data element that includes your search expression will be selected. Click the Find Next button again to see the next occurrence.
When you select a field name in the tree view, an example value for this field is shown.
This check box is only needed if you are using the template in a language that prints the characters from right to left, such as Arabic or Hebrew. Use this feature to force left-to-right printing for fields such as phone numbers, addresses, postal codes, or bank account numbers.
This feature enables you to perform aggregation functions on data fields, such as sum, average, count, minimum, and maximum.
For example, if you select sum for a data field, the field will show the sum of all occurring values for this data field, depending on the grouping.
It is important to understand the grouping context (marked by G and E form fields) to know exactly which fields are accumulated. If you insert a data field with an accumulation function into a repeating section (marked by G and E processing instruction form fields), you must select On Grouping to accumulate the data for the occurrences within the group. If you do not want the accumulation to be restricted to the group, you must place the accumulation field outside the group.
The following figure shows an example:
Also note that the data field must be a valid XSL number for the accumulation functions to work. Formatted numbers cannot be processed by BI Publisher (for example a number using a thousands separator: 10,000,000.00 cannot be processed).
For more information on groups in your template using the Template Builder, see Inserting a Repeating Group. Also see Defining Groups in the chapter: Creating RTF Templates.
The Insert Table Wizard enables you to create standard reports. On the Insert menu select Table Wizard .
Start by selecting the basic report format. Choose from Table , Form , or Free Form . The following example shows how the each selection will appear in the report. The following figure shows examples of each:
An XML document can include multiple grouped data sets. For example, a purchase order XML document may contain header level information, lines, shipments and contacts.
In this step, select the data group that contains the data required for your table.
For example, in the Balance Letter sample RTF template (found in the Template Builder installed files under Oracle\BI Publisher\BI Publisher Desktop\samples\RTF Templates), the sample XML file contains three data groups as follows:
The Table Wizard presents a list of the available data groups in your XML data file. Select the group that contains the data fields for your table.
To build a table to list the invoices contained in the data, select:
as your data set.
The Table Wizard presents the data fields from your selected data set.
Use the shuttle buttons to select the data fields to show in your table. Use the up and down arrows to reorder the fields after selecting them.
This step enables you to regroup the data by a particular field. This is optional.
For example, if you are building a table of invoices, you may want to group all invoices of a particular type or date to be grouped together in the report.
There are two options for grouping: Group Left or Group Above. Group Left will create a nested table. The Group By field will display to the left in the outer table. Group Above will create a new table for each new value of your group by field, displaying the value of the group by field as a table title.
Group Left groups the group by element occurrences together as shown:
Group Above shows the result as a table with a header:
When you select an element to group by, BI Publisher sorts the data by the grouping element. If the data is already sorted by the grouping element, select the Data already sorted check box. This will improve performance.
Use the Break option to insert either a Page break or Section break after each occurrence of this group. Note that a Section break can only be created on the top-level group. The subsequent grouping options only display the Page break option.
Note that a page break will start the next group on a new page; a section break will start the next group on a new page, reset page numbering, reset headers and footers, and reset any running calculations for each occurrence of the group.
You can sort the data in the table by up to four different fields. Select a field and then define the sorting order (ascending or descending), and select the correct data type for the field. For example, if text is selected, “12” will come before “2” (alphanumerical order). If number is selected, “2” will come before “12”.
Click Finish to create the table and insert it to your Microsoft Word document.
Customize the table by changing fonts, colors, column sizing, borders, shading, and so on, using Microsoft Word formatting commands.
The Insert Table/Form dialog is the most flexible tool of the template builder. It allows you to perform the following tasks:
The Insert Table/Form dialog shows you two tree view panes. The left pane shows the data source structure, while the right pane shows the elements that will be copied to the template when you click the Insert button.
First select the data fields to insert in the template and then define how to format them. Drag an XML element from the left Data Source pane to the right Template pane. If the XML element has children, you will see a pop-up menu with the following options:
Select Drop Single Node if you want to move only the selected node or Drop All Nodes if you want to move the node and all its children.
If you drag an additional data field from the left Data Source pane to the right Template pane, it is either inserted at the same level (Same Level) or below the node (Child) where you release the node. The Insert Position box defines where the node is inserted.
Note: If you use the left mouse button for drag and drop, the node and all children are copied. However, if you use the right mouse button for dragging, a dialog pops up when you release the mouse button. The dialog gives you the option to copy either only the selected node or the selected node and all children.
When you select an element in the right Template pane, you will see its properties as well as a preview of how the node will be rendered. There are two kinds of nodes:
Data Field nodes (leaf nodes) do not have any child nodes. They represent simple attributes such as the total amount for an invoice or the subtotal for a purchase order line.
Data Group nodes (parent nodes) are nodes that do have child nodes. Typically, they do not represent data attributes, but groups of data – such as an invoice, a purchase order, a purchase order line or a shipment.
If a Data Field node is selected, its properties are shown in the Properties pane. You have the following options to describe how the Template Builder should show the field:
The order in which the data elements are shown reflects the order of the columns in the table. If you want to reorder the columns, change the Insert Position box from Child to Same Level. Then drag the elements into the correct order.
If a Data Group node is selected, its properties are shown in the Properties pane. You have the following options to describe how the Template Builder should render the group:
Once you have dragged all data fields over and defined the layout, select the Insert button to place the tables and forms at the cursor position in your document.
You can group any Data Group node, by any of its child Data Field Nodes. For example if you have sales data for multiple quarters, you may want to show the sales data organized by quarter. In this case you would group the sales data rows by the quarter element.
Assume the following structure:
Sales Transaction Quarter Customer Amount
To group the child nodes of a node (Sales Transaction), you select one of the child nodes (Quarter) as the grouping property of the parent node (Sales Transaction). The Template Builder will make this node (e.g. quarter) the parent of the other child nodes (Customer and Amount).
The new structure will look like:
Sales Transaction Quarter Customer Amount
The grouping criterion (Quarter) now behaves like any other Data Group Node with children. That means that you can define the layout of its children using the Create As Table, Style, Label, Grouping, and Show Grouping Value properties.
The Insert Table/Form Dialog creates two kinds of form fields:
Form fields representing data elements are replaced with the data when the template is processed. Form fields indicating repeating sections are shown as for-each and end for-each in the document. (Note: If you have selected the Abbreviated form field display option, the for-each and end for-each form fields will display as F and E. ) The section of the document encapsulated by these two elements is repeated, if the associated data element is repeated in the data.
Use the Chart dialog to insert a chart into a template.
BI Publisher supports a large variety of chart types. Expand the Type list to select the chart type for this template.
Drag and drop the data value you want to measure to the Values field (for example, SALES). You can select multiple Value elements (measures).
Note that the Values field will change depending on the Chart Type you select:
You can choose to aggregate the Values data as a sum, a count, or an average.
Drag and drop the data element for which you want to see the Value charted (for example, Year). Select Group Data to group the occurrences of the label element before rendering it in the chart. For example, if you are charting Sales by Year, selecting Group Data will accumulate the values for Year, so that only one occurrence of each year will appear in the chart. If you do not select Group Data, then the value for every occurrence of Year in the data will be plotted separately.
If you wish to add a series element to the chart, drag and drop the element to display as a series. Each value will display as a new color in the graph.
Select this box if your chart is inside a grouping and you want the chart to display data only for the occurrences of the data elements within the group.
Select a color scheme and style for your chart.
The properties region enables you to change value and label display names, select color, font, and other display options for your chart. The properties list will change depending on your chart selection.
Click Preview to display the chart with the sample data.
By default the data will be grouped by the Value element and aggregated by sum.
If you deselect the Group Data check box, each occurrence of the value element will be charted and aggregation functions will not be available.
To edit a chart that you have already inserted into your template, right-click the chart and select BI Publisher Chart from the menu. This will invoke the chart dialog to enable you to edit your chart.
To insert a pivot table
To insert a repeating group:
Select this check box to use the Absolute Path to the element in the XML structure. This is important if your data contains the same element name grouped under different parent elements.
Select a field from the list by which you want to group the data. If you just want to create a simple loop, do not select a group by element. Selecting a group by element will actually regroup the data into a new hierarchy based on the group by element.
Use this option to create either a Page break or Section break if you wish to insert a break after each occurrence of this group.
Note that a Section break can only be created on outer groups that surround the whole document. If the selected field is not an outer group, the Section break option will not be available.
Note also that when you insert a section break, the page numbering is reset, headers and footers are reset, and any running calculations will be reset for each occurrence of the group.
To create a group around an existing block of text or elements in a template:
A conditional region is an area that is surrounded by a conditional statement. If the statement tests true, the area is displayed in the report; if the condition tests false, the area is suppressed from the report.
For example, your data contains sales information. Your report contains a table that displays sales by industry. You want this table in your report to display information for industries with sales amounts lower than 100,000. Using the insert conditional region functionality, you can select the region that contains the sales table and insert the condition that the sales element must be less than 100,000.
To edit the conditional region, double-click the inserted form field to launch the dialog for editing; or, right-click the form field and select BI Publisher, then Properties.
Using the Conditional Format feature you can insert simple conditional formats to apply to table rows or cells. The dialog provides several common options that you can select and the Template Builder inserts the code automatically. The Conditional Format dialog supports two conditions per field.
Important: The Conditional Format dialog cannot be used inside of pivot tables. You must insert the conditional formatting logic directly to the appropriate form fields.
To insert a conditional format:
To edit the conditional format, double-click the inserted form field to launch the dialog for editing; or, right-click the form field and select BI Publisher, then Properties.
The Preview menu group enables you to preview your RTF template with sample XML data.
Note: If you have not already done so, you must load sample data to the Template Builder to preview the report. See Accessing Data for Building Your Template.
From the Preview group select the output format. If you have not yet saved your template as an RTF file, you will be prompted to do so.
This section describes additional tools provided with the Template Builder to help you validate and edit your template. This section includes:
Once you have inserted a data field (see Inserting a Field) you can view or edit the field properties in the BI Publisher Properties dialog.
To invoke the BI Publisher Properties dialog, perform one of the following:
The following figure shows the BI Publisher Properties dialog: note the Properties tab, the Advanced tab, and the Word Properties button:
Note: Some fields may only display the Advanced tab.
You can set the following properties for a data field:
Data Field — Select the data field from the list of available fields from the loaded data source.
Text to Display — Enter the display text for the form field in the template. This text will be replaced at runtime by the value in the data.
Type — Select the type of data. Options are Regular Text, Number, Date, Current Date, Current Time. The selection in this field will determine the format options.
Format — For any data type except Regular Text, you can select from several number or date display formatting masks or enter your own.
Force LTR — (Force Left-to-Right) Use this check box when you are publishing the template in a language that prints the characters from right to left, such as Arabic or Hebrew. Use this option to force left-to-right printing for fields such as phone numbers, addresses, postal codes, or bank account numbers.
Function — This feature enables you to perform aggregation functions (Sum, Average, Count, Minimum, Maximum) on data fields. For example, if you select sum for a data field, the field will show the sum of all occurring values for this data field depending on the scope (see below). See also Inserting a Field for information on aggregation functions.
Scope (informational only) — This field has two possible values:
The Advanced tab displays the underlying code. If the code pattern within the form field is not recognized (for example, because you added commands manually to the field), the BI Publisher Properties dialog will display this tab only.
Use this tab to edit or add code to the form field manually. Select OK to update the template. The following figure shows the Advanced tab:
The Word Properties button opens the Microsoft Word Text Form Field Options dialog. You can also use this dialog to set the data type and number format. The underlying code used by BI Publisher is also available by clicking the Add Help Text button.
The Template Builder provides a validation tool to check the template for incorrect use of BI Publisher commands and unsupported elements in the RTF file.
To validate your template:
On the BI Publisher menu, on the Tools group, click Validate Template.
If there are no validation errors, No Error found will be returned. If an error is found, the error will be displayed. You can use the Field Browser to help locate the error.
The field browser dialog provides a fast way to review and update the BI Publisher instructions hidden in the Microsoft Word form fields. This dialog is particularly useful to understand and modify existing templates.
On the Tools group click Field Browser.
The Field Browser dialog shows a table with the display text of the form field in the Text column and the underlying code instructions in the second Code column. When you select a specific row in the dialog, the matching form field will be selected in the Microsoft Word document.
If you select some part of the text before opening the Field Browser, the dialog only shows the fields in your selection. If no text is selected, the field browser will show all fields in the document.
The options are described in the following table:
The Template Builder provides an accessibility checker to check the template for features to enhance the accessibility of the report for report consumers who may need assistive technologies to view the report.
To check for the presence of accessibility features: On the BI Publisher tab, in the Tools group, click Check Accessibility . The tool will generate a report indicating areas of a template that do not include the following accessibility features:
In some cases the accessibility checker will be unable to determine if the accessibility feature is present and will generate a warning. The report designer should then verify that the accessibility features are present.
For information on how to add these features to your template, see Designing Accessible Reports.
If you used the Open Template dialog to connect to BI Publisher, and load your data to the Template Builder, or if you downloaded an existing template from the BI Publisher catalog, you can upload the new or updated layout back to the report definition on the server. See Working in Connected Mode.
If you downloaded an existing template and wish to upload the modifications to the template, select Upload Template from the Oracle BI Publisher menu.
If this is a new template for the report definition, use the Upload Template As option to upload the layout to the report definition on the server. Also use this option to upload modifications to an existing template under a different name.
The Template Builder provides tools to help you create and test translations for your templates.
There are two options for adding translated templates to your BI Publisher report definition:
Use the first option if the translated template requires a different layout from the original template.
If you only require translation of the text strings of the template layout, use the XLIFF option.
For detailed information on translation concepts and support, see the section Translating Reports and Catalog Objects.
To use the Template Builder translation tools to create your templates for translations, see the following topics in this section:
For a demo on BI Publisher's localization capabilities, see the LocalizationDemo.exe demo provided with your Template Builder installation (located in the BI Publisher\BI Publisher Desktop\demos folder where you installed BI Publisher Desktop).
This menu item allows you to create a standard XLIFF translation file containing the boilerplate text from your template. XLIFF is a standard file format that is understood by many translation software packages. Since an XLIFF is an XML file, you can translate the text in a regular text editor.
A "translatable string" is any text in the template that is intended for display in the published report, such as table headers and field labels. Text supplied at runtime from the data is not translatable, nor is any text that you supply in the Microsoft Word form fields.
To preview your template with your translated XLIFF file applied:
The Template Builder will merge the sample data, the translation file, and the RTF template to generate a PDF for you to preview.
Localizing a template means that you are creating a template to be used for a specific language.
Because BI Publisher enables you to extract the boilerplate text strings from your template into an XLIFF file that can be translated and then applied at runtime, if your reports for additional languages only require the translation of these text strings, then you only need to supply translated XLIFF files to accompany your base template.
However, you would localize a template when the requirements for the report in the specific language go beyond the simple translation of the text in the layout.
To save a template as a localized template:
Access the Options dialog as follows: In the Options group, click Options .
The Options dialog contains four tabs: UI, Preview, Build, Connection.
Use the UI Options tab to set options that influence the look and feel of the Template Builder:
The tree view showing the data source can show either the correct XML tag names of the data source or they can show a slightly modified version that is easier to read. Select the option Element Names for Report XML to show the modified labels. These labels contain no <> characters, use “Title case” and use spaces (“ “) instead of underscores (“_”).
The Preview Options tab allows you to specify options that influence the Preview functionality of the Template Builder.
The following table describes the options available from the Preview tab:
Use the Build Options tab to specify options that influence how the Template Builder generates tables and forms.
The following table describes the options available from the Build tab:
Options on this tab are reserved for a future release.
The Template Builder can be used with a BI Publisher configuration file.
The configuration file must be named xdoconfig.xml and must be stored in the config directory (example path: C:\Program Files\Oracle\BI Publisher Desktop\Template Builder for Word\config) under the BI Publisher directory.
Alternatively, you can use the file name xdo.cfg, which is used by the BI Publisher server. The configuration file allows you to:
Refer to the Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrator's and Developer's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher for the syntax of the configuration file.
When you install the Template Builder the next time you open Microsoft Word, you will see the Oracle BI Publisher menu.
Note: If you are using Microsoft Word 2007 you may need to modify your Add-In settings: Click the Office Button, then click Word Options, then click Add-Ins.
The Online group of commands enable you to initiate interaction with the BI Publisher application. For more information about working with the online commands, see: Working in Connected Mode.
Note: You must log in directly to the BI Publisher server. For example: http://www.example.com:7001/xmlpserver.
The data group of commands enables you to load a saved sample data file or sample schema to the Template Builder. You must load data to use most of the Template Builder functionality. See Accessing Data for Building Your Template for more options for loading data to the Template Builder.
Use the Insert group to insert the layout components to your template. For more information see Inserting Components to the Template.
Note: As a beginner, you should use Insert Fields only for data fields that are unique – none repeating - in your document. See Inserting a Table for additional information on how to insert repetitive fields.
Table/Form Use this function to insert data fields to be organized as a simple or nested table or as a form that is repeated with different data. You may even organize all the data fields for the whole document before inserting them. Repeating Group Enables you to select or define a group of elements that you want repeated for each occurrence of an element in the data. Conditional Format Enables you to define simple conditional formats to apply to table rows or cells. Conditional Region Enables you to insert a conditional statement around a region of the template. All Fields This function inserts all fields found in the XML data into your document. It will also insert processing instructions into your document that will repeat a section – such as a table row – when the associated XML element is repeated.
Note: XML documents often contain a large number of fields in a deeply nested hierarchy. For example, an Oracle Purchasing purchase order contains purchase order lines, which contain shipments, which contain distributions. The purchase order line alone contains more than 150 data fields. In these cases, you should use the Insert Table/Form function to have more control over which fields are inserted.
The preview group enables you to preview your RTF template with the sample XML data. . The preview menu offers you PDF, HTML, RTF, PowerPoint, Excel (MHTML format) and EXCEL2000 as output formats. When you select any of these output formats, the Template Builder will merge the data into your template and create the output document.
Note: You must have Adobe Acrobat Reader version 5.0 or higher installed to preview documents in PDF format.
For more information about using the commands in the Tools group refer to Template Editing Tools and Using the Template Builder Translation Tools.
The options function allows you to define some preferences and options for using BI Publisher and access online help.