Oracle Essbase 9 Implementation Guide- P48 potx

The Essbase Report ScriptJust like other Essbase file objects, Essbase database report scripts are actually ASCII text file objects with an extension of .rep.. An Essbase report script m

The Essbase Report Script

Just like other Essbase file objects, Essbase database report scripts are actually ASCII text file objects with an extension of rep As with other similar Essbase file objects, they must also follow the same naming convention of upto 8 characters, and the

directory path must not contain any spaces

An Essbase report script may be stored anywhere in the file system, but is considered

to be in its default location when saved into the database folder on the analytic

server, much the same as a database calculation script The benefit of storing the

report script file objects in their default location comes when you are coding an API

or EssCmd function, you only need to mention the name of the report script and not the fully qualified path to that particular object

Okay, so what exactly is an Essbase report script? Well, an Essbase report script

is an ASCII text file that contains commands or instructions for data retrieval,

formatting, and output that Essbase uses to extract data from an Essbase cube into

either a formatted report or an ASCII text flat file that can be sent to downstream

systems as a data feed

While report scripts are certainly capable of creating reports, hence the name,

an Essbase report script is more than likely used to extract data into flat files

Most Essbase users seem to prefer reports created in Microsoft Excel as opposed

to free standing plain paper reports

How to create an Essbase Report Script

There are three ways to create an Essbase report script Because a report script is

really an ASCII text file with a rep extension, the first way to create one would

be to open a new text file in any text editor and begin typing the report script

commands We really do not recommend this method as you would have to be

highly skilled in the Essbase report script area A text editor like Notepad that is

included with Windows, is best suited for editing an already existing report script

To access a complete listing of all available Report Writer commands, get to your

EAS screen and click Help | Information Map | Technical Reference | Report

Writer Commands Here you will find an overview as well as each report writer

command function explained with coding examples This information is included

with your EAS installation

The second way to create an Essbase report script is to use the Essbase report script editor supplied with the EAS The report script editor can be accessed in much the

same way as accessing the calculation script editor

You should know this drill by now In EAS, drill-down to the database for which

you wish to create an Essbase report script

Double-click on the database name to expand the selections and right-click on the

report scripts heading The set of options displayed will offer you the choice of

editing an existing report script or creating a new one Selecting either choice will

open the Essbase report script editor

The use of the built-in Report Script Editor is exactly like the Calculation Script

Editor described in detail in Chapter 5 As shown in the following screenshot,

the Report Script Editor window is divided into three basic sections:

Just like the Calculation Script Editor, the upper left section of the Report Script

Editor contains a smaller version of the outline editor This section allows you to

drill-down to desired members When you click on a desired member in the outline

representation, the member name will automatically be pasted into the script editor

where you have the cursor placed This reduces typing effort and also the potential for typographical errors in your script caused by misspelled command or function names The lower left section of the editor contains a listing of all of the report script

commands and functions Just like the Calculation script editor, when you click

a desired command or function, it is pasted into your script at the position of

the cursor

Finally, the third and best method of creating an Essbase report script is to

We actually recommend this as the primary method of report script creation while

keeping the other two methods for editing existing scripts

We will discuss the Essbase Query Designer in-depth in the next chapter So, for

now, we will go over just briefly why we like this method

For starters, the Essbase Query Designer allows you to visually select database outline members you wish to include in your report or extract It also allows you to decide the placement of the column members and the row members While the resultant query is designed to be used with a Microsoft Excel worksheet, when you save the query, you also have the option of having Query Designer create an Essbase report script from the parameters and selection criteria you specified in your query

With very little modification, an automatically generated Essbase report script can

be executed from EssCmd scripts, API calls, or MaxL command scripts

Another benefit of using the Query Designer to generate a report script is that it will properly code complex functionality for you Therefore, there are no elusive syntax errors for you to debug

Report script commands and functions

Well, just like the calculation scripts, there are several different categories of Essbase report script commands and instructions Unlike the calculation commands and

functions, the report script commands and instructions basically deal with data

selection and formatting

As we said earlier, the arsenal of data selection commands and instructions is perhaps not the most robust when compared to the specific commands available to a user of

SQL for instance This can occasionally result in more data than is required being

returned This is hardly an issue that is worth fretting over

We will list for you here the complete report script command and instruction

categories For each category, we will give examples of a couple of the most commonly used commands or instructions For a complete list of all Essbase report script

commands and instructions, please refer to the EAS Online Help that is supplied with each installation of EAS

Report layout commands

The report layout commands tell Essbase how you are setting up your report page

with regards to what members will be row members and what members will be

column members Some members will also be page members, where their attribute

applies to all of the data selected and does not need to be represented in either a row

or column

The syntax of these members is discussed below:

• COLUMN

Syntax:

<COLUMN(comma separated dimension list)

Example:

<COLUMN("Calendar Periods", "Scenario")

This example will place members from the Calendar Periods and

Scenario dimensions into the report output as column members