Steps to get Reports running from Forms?

Jessica Boggia

Hi All,

I was wondering if anyone knew of documentation which goes over all of the post-config modifications you need to do to get Oracle Reports 12c running out of Oracle Forms 12c.

For configuring oracle forms, there is ample documentation on how you set and modify the files for frmsweb.cfg, default.env, webutil.cfg, etc. But there doesn't seem to be much out there, start-to-finish about what needs to be done to reports after the domain is configured. I've been having to put it together from disparate sources where people are asking the same questions I am. I've made progress but I feel like I am missing a key piece.

Here's what I have done so far...

1. Run createReportsToolsInstance and createReportsServerInstance in WLS to create reptools1 and rep_server1
2. Add COMPONENT_CONFIG_PATH, COMPONENT_CONFIG_DIRECTORY, REPORTS_SERVER, REPORTS_SERVLET and REPORTS_PATH to myenvironment.env and have verified these variables are using the correct absolute directory paths
3. Modify rwservlet.properties and add <webcommandaccess>L2</webcommandaccess>
4. Edit jps-config-jse.xml so that it takes weblogic creditentials IE:

<jazn-data>

 <jazn-realm default="jazn.com"> <realm> <name>jazn.com</name> <users> <user> <name>weblogic</name> <credentials>!<password></credentials> </user> </users> <roles/> </realm>        </jazn-realm>   

5. Edit rwserver.conf with the below:

 <!--Comment out, 12Mar2020--> <!--security id="rwJaznSec" class="oracle.reports.server.RWJAZNSecurity"/-->…   <!--Enable folder access to output path--> <enableFolderaccess> <read>*</read>      <write>/u01/app/appname/reports</write>      </enableFolderaccess>…<!--12Mar2020, change the below line -->   <!--job jobType="report" engineId="rwEng" securityId="rwJaznSec"/-->   <job jobType="report" securityId="rwJaznSec"/>

Currently, our reports are getting to the server they are just stuck in 'Processing' mode.

rwservlet/showjobs shows them as ex:

Job ID	Master JobID	Job Type	Job Name	Job Status	Job Owner	Output Type	Output Name	Server Name	Queued at	Started At
10		report	Praudrpt	processing (blue clock icon)	ANONYMOUS	Cache	rpout1.html	rep_wls_reports_nameofmyserver	Time I started the report from forms	Exact same time to second as 'queued'

From Forms, it hangs indefinitely until I kill the job from rwservlet. In reports, if I try to go directly to the report using getjob, it displays the below error:

"Rep-51026, no output is generated for job ID 10".

So it seems it's able to receive the request for the job but unable to generate the output and send it back to forms. In PL/SQL, we are using Run_Report_Object to call the report, but since we are using the Cache output type this should not pose a problem.

I am not 100% certain I have done everything required to configure it for this as, searching high and low, there does not seem to be any start-to-finish instruction on which config files need to be edited and what they should be edited to to run a report out of a form. And there seems to be conflicting information on what you should edit and how it should be edited... Most if it coming from disparate support threads, not any single compiled document on how to configure reports. I realize that reports is on its way out, and we are looking for viable alternatives, but in the meantime we do need to use the final version of reports until we can switch over to another product. It seems strange that there are no outlined basic 'steps' on reports post-config.

If someone could please point me in the right direction for how to get these to run, I'd very much appreciate it.

Thank you,

Jessica

Tubby

I'm sure you've gone through this, but just in case you haven't.

https://docs.oracle.com/middleware/12213/formsandreports/install-fnr/installing-and-configuring-oracle-forms-and-reports…

Cheers,

Michael Ferrante-Oracle

Jessica,

I think I should clarify a few things before getting into the answers to your questions. I don't mean to split hairs, but a few things you suggested seem to be common misunderstandings.

1.  All of the steps you mentioned above really have nothing to do with "integrating" with Forms.  These are just Reports configuration steps regardless of whether you use Forms or not.

2.  "....unable to generate the output and send it back to forms...."  Reports output is never sent back to Forms.  We have somewhat exaggerated over the years when we used the term "integrated".  When you use RUN_REPORT_OBJECT in a Forms all you are doing is asking Reports to run a job and send back a JobID (or error code).  After Forms gets a JobID from Reports it no longer has a relationship with it.  Of course you can make subsequent calls to Reports and do something like foo := report_object_status(repid) to get the current status of a Job, but beyond that the original call was "fire and forget it".

3.  After Reports completes a Job request (like mention in #2), it's up to the Forms application developer to determine how (or if) they want to present the output to the user.  If so, they have to decide how they want to reach into the Reports environment and get it.  In most cases, simply using a web call (WEB.SHOW_DOCUMENT) is used.  However there are many other ways to accomplish this.  Because Reports stores the output on the file system you can do anything that is capable of getting that output file.  For example you might consider directly transferring the file to the user machine rather than opening it at all.  Alternatively you might transfer the file then open it.  Or numerous other possibilities.

So, to some of your technical comments.

You said, "From Forms, it hangs indefinitely until I kill the job from rwservlet...".  For the reasons I explain above, the only way Forms would hang on such a call if your own code was not coded in a way that handled failure cases.  For example, the old suggestion of making the RRO call in a loop has long since been determine to not be the best approach for reasons just like this. Because the initial call to RRO is blocking anyway, there is little reason to that.  A more effective way is to use a timer.  After the job is requested, start a repeating timer and when it expires check the status of the Rep JobId.  If done, go get it.  If it failed, tell the user.  Again, the loop is fine if you code it in such a way that it handles all possibilities.

You said, "...what you should edit and how it should be edited...".  Unclear what you meant here but I will use this opportunity to say this.  ANY configuration file that is managed by Fusion Middleware Control (FMC) should be edited only in FMC.  Attempting to edit these files in a text editor will cause problems.  So in the case of Forms, the most common configurations are:  Web Configuration (formsweb.cfg), Environment Configuration (default.env), Fonts and image mapping (Registry.day), WebUtil (webutil.cfg), Forms HTML templates (basejpi.htm, base.jnlp., etc).

RajeshAlex

I think your reports setup is not complete.  Try to run the sample report and see if you are able to run.

If thats not working, please post in the reports forum.

Once the reports are working, you can use web.show_document to call the reports url.

Best Regards

Rajesh Alex

Jessica Boggia

Thank you for clarifying points regarding the 'integration' of forms and reports. Good to know that for now we can eliminate the possibility of our issues being within forms, that way I can focus on the reports configuration. Regarding this...

Michael Ferrante-Oracle wrote:You said, "...what you should edit and how it should be edited...". Unclear what you meant here but I will use this opportunity to say this. ANY configuration file that is managed by Fusion Middleware Control (FMC) should be edited only in FMC. Attempting to edit these files in a text editor will cause problems. So in the case of Forms, the most common configurations are: Web Configuration (formsweb.cfg), Environment Configuration (default.env), Fonts and image mapping (Registry.day), WebUtil (webutil.cfg), Forms HTML templates (basejpi.htm, base.jnlp., etc).</code></p></pre><p>To be clear, I do edit formsweb.cfg, default.env/myapplication.env, etc. through em. I am not aware that this can be done in 12c with the reports config files IE: rwserver.conf, cgmicmd.dat, rwservlet.properties, etc. These don't show up in Enterprise Manager 12c -that I can find-. Oracle support documentation and community threads all suggest these are directly edited. I always back up my files before editing them, of course, in case I make a mistake. <span __jive_emoticon_name="happy" __jive_macro_name="emoticon" class="jive_emote jive_macro" data-renderedposition="-394.13751220703125_615.7125244140625_16_16" src="/8.0.3.1619a91/images/emoticons/happy.png"></span></p><pre __jive_macro_name="quote" class="jive_macro_quote jive_text_macro" data-renderedposition="-362.5375061035156_8_1145_146" modifiedtitle="true"><p>Michael Ferrante-Oracle wrote:</p><p></p><p style="min-height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">1. All of the steps you mentioned above really have nothing to do with "integrating" with Forms. These are just Reports configuration steps regardless of whether you use Forms or not.</p><p style="min-height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"></p><p style="min-height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"></p><p style="min-height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"></p><p><code class="codeph">

I guess my main problem is that these aren't really outlined in one place. There is the document that @Tubby linked, which goes over the configuration screens in the FMW configuration wizard and shows how to generate reptools1 and rep_server1. And if I google for file names I see mentioned in support threads, I come up with different parameters and modifications that -can- be entered to customize reports. These are great, but not really useful before I reach a point where things are generally working. It makes sense to be able to generate a basic report before honing in on detail such as proxy servers and plugins. Start-to-finish, what needs to be done to Reports between closing the FMW Domain Configuration Wizard and successfully running a report? In Forms you need to do a lot, most of which as you outlined, from the Enterprise Manager. I've gotten a few forms installs done and found most of the documentation available to be sufficient, this is my first rodeo with reports and it seems odd that there isn't some sort of checklist that separates the 'must do' from the 'can do'.

I've been going through a cycle of getting an error --> searching for that error --> finding a support thread that suggests a file edit to fix the error --> a few things start working (ex: when I started I couldn't get jobs to register at all, now I can they just aren't generating) but we get a new, exciting error that I must google and/or comb through oracle support for again. There's documentation that goes over what the files are and what they do, but not a whole lot of suggestion on what you should or need to do with them to get things to a basic no-frills 'working' state.

Oracle makes big, complex programs that have a lot of capability, that's why so many companies use them including my own. That being said, Oracle is a fragile system and clarity on what files I should be touching/changes I should be making at this point would be helpful. In my time working with it, it's not really a system I wanna take an axe to and start hacking away at with changes.  Maybe I'm asking for too much hand-holding, but it seems a little silly that I can find anywhere from 10-100's of start-to-finish guides online for any of the various open source platforms that get me to a basic 'working' state for whatever install I'm trying to do, but a program that companies pay a large amount of money for has no easily accessible documentation to that affect. If this does exists and I'm just not finding it, I'll feel like a total doof for not finding it after hours of googling but, very very thankful for it. I digress... I do appreciate your support and the support community and realize this may not be the place to raise such concerns.

I also realize that I perhaps should have posted this in Reports MOSC, since Forms and Reports aren't really 'integrated'. Although that board doesn't appear to get much traffic these days. If I need to, I'll submit a ticket, I'm just hoping someone out there might know what I'm missing from 'complete' setup or is able to point me to a doc which outlines this before escalating the issue to that point (I'm certain that the support team is overwhelmed with tickets right now given our global circumstances).

Thank you for taking the time to respond to me and clarify the integration piece, it really is helpful.

Regards,

Jessica

Jessica Boggia

RajeshAlex wrote:I think your reports setup is not complete. 

Thank you for your response, Rajesh.

I also think my reports setup is not complete. I just want to know what I need to do to complete it. From there, I can move forward with testing it in forms.

Thank you,

Jessica Boggia

Michael Ferrante-Oracle

Jessica,

Thank you so much for your ongoing patience and persistence trying to get this working.

Although I agree with your comments regarding the need for improvements to the product documentations, in your case there are at least two problems.

1.  Oracle Reports is generally considered "deprecated".  Therefore little to no effort is going into it other than bug fixes and even that might be on a case-by-case basis.  Customers have been encouraged for years to migrate to an alternative like BI-Publisher.  To make such a move easier, Oracle added similar integration with BIP in Forms 12 as it already has for Reports.  (refer to the docs and Builder Help for details)

2.  It is impossible to document every possible configuration.  Nearly every customer has different needs or expectations as to how they might use the product.  For the most part, if you are just talking about having Forms tell Reports to run a job, the configuration is just one step (besides the general product installation and configuration).  Once you can see the Reports is (by itself) runs and can generate reports, integrating with Forms simply requires that you add the environment variable (and a value) COMPONENT_CONFIG_PATH  Anything beyond this might require additional configuration, for example if you want to show the output to the user.

Regarding forums for Reports, the MOS (MyOracleSuport) forum is mostly handled by Support (and a small number of customers).  The Oracle.com forums (like this one) typically reach a much larger audience, which is sometimes preferred and other times not so much.  Here is the URL for the Reports forum on Oracle.com

https://community.oracle.com/community/groundbreakers/development_tools/reports

Jessica Boggia

Thank you, Michael.

I'll move this thread over to the Reports community. Hopefully someone there can help.

Regards,

Jessica Boggia