OAS 2024 Better (and more seamless) integration of "Export to Excel in DV" functionality into OAS

Michal Zima

@thorpw After overcoming all the pitfalls (including waiting for fix of one bug), we managed to get this functionality up and running at our OAS 2025 environments. But we are on Oracle Linux 8 (which is listed in https://docs.oracle.com/en/middleware/bi/analytics-server/administer-oas/enable-users-export-excel.html as supported OS for this functionality). In layman's terms, I would dare to say that this functionality should also work on Red Hat Enterprise OS. Since it is about NodeJs + Chromium/Chrome for Developers, which are sw running on Red Hat Enterprise as well (btw Oracle Linux is based on Red Hat). But that's the "outside" view. There could be some other internal components/integration coming into play, which are not working/not available for Red Hat. This is more question to Oracle Analytics Product Development to explain, what is the reason, why this functionality is not available on Red Hat Enetrprise OS (which is certified OS for OAS 205 - as per: https://docs.oracle.com/en/middleware/bi/analytics-server/administer-oas/certification-systems.html )

thorpw

@Michal Zima

Thanks for sharing your experience and context. I fully agree, given that Node.js and Chromium both run on RHEL, it would make sense this functionality should also work there, especially as Oracle Linux is Red Hat–based.

In our case, Node.js is installed and running fine on Red Hat 8, but the export option still doesn’t appear in the OAS front-end. Oracle SR keep pointing to Oracle Linux 8+ only, which feels restrictive considering RHEL is otherwise a certified OS for OAS 2025.

We’ll try to get a clear answer from Support on the why here, whether it’s truly a technical limitation or just a certification stance from Product Development.

Michal Zima

@thorpw And have you set env variable OAS_FORMATTED_EXPORT_ENABLED=true correctly ? It needs to be set during a startup of the whole OAS instance to be effective (not just in script, starting NodeJs process. We placed it in shell script «Domain Home»/bin/setUserOverridesLate.sh.

thorpw

https://community.oracle.com/products/oracleanalytics/discussion/comment/70851#Comment_70851

@Michal Zima - That worked! I had tried MULTIPLE placement areas for this variable as it didn't make sense that the button was not even appearing, but now it does after I set in setUserOverridesLate.sh like you suggested.

This has allowed me to debug a few other issues in the setup and I have the Excel export working on Red Hat 7.9 and Red Hat 8!

Thank you very much for the support. You are a life saver.

Michal Zima

@thorpw Glad to hear, it is working. I have been fighting with making it running as well. Documentation has gaps in that sense (basically variables mentioned in bullet "2 Set the environment variable required by the Oracle Analytics Server Platform" in Doc needs to be set during OAS startup to work correctly). I hope, that we will see in near future (OAS 2026 ???) better and seamless integration of "Export to Excel in DV" functionality into OAS. This could save quite a lot of our time and nerves.