From time to time I receive calls from customers struggling with getting Report Manager up and running.  I wanted to share with you some of the common issues I have come across and hopefully provide some quick solutions to your Report Manager dilemmas.

Report Manager presents difficulties because it leverages other Oracle Application modules, including GL, FSG, Web ADI, BI Publisher, and Report Generator.  That means patches, profile setups, and configurations in each of those areas can impact how Report Manager functions.

I always start with understanding what patch set level the client is on for Report Manager (FRM).  Simple SQL statement can give you that information.  This can be used for both Release 12 and 11i:

select t.application_name, a.application_short_name,

decode(i.status,

‘I’,’Installed’,

‘L’,’Custom’,

‘N’,’Not installed’,

‘S’,’Shared’ ) status,

i.product_version, i.patch_level

from fnd_application_tl t,

fnd_application a,

fnd_product_installations i

where a.application_short_name = ‘FRM’

and t.language = ‘US’ –depends on your installation

and a.application_id = t.application_id

and i.application_id = t.application_id;

For Release 12, I’ll often see that clients are on the following patch level:

 

 

I always recommend that clients leverage My Oracle Support (MOS) note 726958.1 for a list of recommended patches.  As stated in the note, please make sure to work with Oracle support to confirm that the issues you are running into can be solved by applying the suggested patch.

Common issues I see:

1. Excel output of an FSG Report comes up blank

This is the #1 issue that comes up when I talk to clients.  This issue can be due to several different reasons.  Just run a quick search for “report manager blank excel” on MOS and you will find a long list of hits.  For each of these solutions presented below, it’s always a good idea to bounce the web server.  If the case calls for patching, please follow the standard organization process for applying a patch.

Common solutions to the problem are:

a. Start by checking your Internet Explorer settings.  I also start by placing the EBS Applications address in the “Trusted Sites” section.  If that still doesn’t work, take a look at your internet option settings.

Open up Internet Explorer

Go to Tools>Internet Options

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Make sure to click on the security tab.  From the security tab, highlight “Trusted sites” if you have added the URL to the trusted sites list.  Click on “Custom level…” .

Scroll down to “Allow status bar updates via script”, set to enabled.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

b. You might need to apply patches.  Depending on which release, you would need different patches.  Please refer to MOS 858505.1.

To confirm whether or not you have the patches applied already, you can run a simple SQL script.  This is an example of patches required in other areas that affect how Report Manager functions.

select BUG_NUMBER, CREATION_DATE, LAST_UPDATE_DATE

from ad_bugs

where BUG_NUMBER IN (‘9182320’, ‘8685361’, ‘9276305’) –This should reflect the patch number in question

and language = ‘US’ –based on your installation

c. Character set utilized is NOT UTF-8.  In this case, you need to enable a new profile option and set the value to reflect the character set used by your organization.  You can confirm what character set you are using by running the following query.

SELECT tag FROM fnd_lookup_values

WHERE lookup_type = ‘FND_ISO_CHARACTER_SET_MAP’

AND lookup_code = SUBSTR(USERENV(‘LANGUAGE’), INSTR(USERENV(‘LANGUAGE’), ‘.’)+1)

AND language = ‘US’  –change to reflect your installation

If the result comes back anything other than UTF-8 as a value for tag, then you need to enable a new profile option.

Responsibility: Application Developer

Navigation: Profile

 

Name: “RG_XML_CODESET”

Application: “Application Report Generator”

User Profile Name: “FSG: Database Codeset”

Description: “Database Codeset”

Active Dates Start: “01-JAN-1951”

All check boxes should be checked and save.

Once you have the profile option defined.  You then need to set the value based on the tag value received.

Responsibility: System Administrator

Navigation: Profile>System

Set the value at the site level.  For example:

FSG: Database Codeset US

d. 9 times out of 10, most organizations haven’t set profile option: BNE Upload Staging Directory

This profile should be set to a valid directory for temporary files.  Please work with your DBA to understand what should be the directory setting.  If you are working in an organization that runs large FSG reports, ideally you will want the directory to handle at least up to 2 GB.  This parameter also impacts ADI Web templates as well.
e. Excel isn’t set to open a minimum of 3 worksheets

To confirm whether you have this issue you just need to open up Excel and see how many sheets appear.  If anything less than 3 open up, you need to change your settings.

For Office 2007 or before, Go to: Tools>Options, choose General Tab, change the value to 3. You need to shutdown and restart excel for changes to take effect.

For Office 2010 and beyond, Go to: File>Options, should automatically land on the General Tab.  If not, switch to General tab and change profile “Include this many sheets” to 3.  You need to shutdown and restart excel for changes to take effect.

2. Once you solve for the first issue, you will often run into the second issue…FSGs with large content set never ends.

I will often find this problem in organizations that have upgraded to a newer form of Office (2010 and 2013).  Luckily for this issue, it’s pretty straight forward – you need to apply a patch.  Refer to MOS note 1382161.1.  Depending on what Report Manager release version you have installed, this will tell you what patch to apply.

3. Can’t drill into an FSG Report

This also has a pretty straight-forward solution as well.  First, you need to make sure that the report ran with a drill-down compliant template (used to be called themes in Client ADI) such as Generic FSG Drill Template.  Make sure you DO NOT try to apply FSG: Basic Drilldown Template, this is not the template to use for Report Manager drilldown capability.

Once you have applied the right drill down template, you then need to validate that you have the proper menu functions enabled.

• For each of these please ensure you choose the Function Name value without “_G”.

For example: Select the Account Analysis and Drilldown function that is associated with

GL_INQ_SEARCH (not GL_INQ_SEARCH_G).

• Function (User Function Name) Function Name (visible in Function LOV)

—————————————————————————————————-

Account Analysis and Drilldown GL_INQ_SEARCH

FSG Drilldown: Launch Page GL_INQ_FSG_DRL_LAUNCH

FSG Drilldown: Select Content Set Rows GL_INQ_FSG_DRL_CONTENT

FSG Drilldown: Effective Range Selection Page GL_INQ_FSG_DRL_EFF_RNG

FSG Drilldown: Balance Inquiry Page GL_INQ_FSG_DRL_BAL_INQ

• You can validate whether you have the right values as well by running this query against the database:

SELECT

e.entry_sequence,

e.function_id   ,

f.function_name ,

e.prompt  ,

e.description   ,

e.creation_date

FROM fnd_menus_vl m  ,

fnd_menu_entries_vl e ,

fnd_form_functions_vl f,

fnd_responsibility_vl r

WHERE r.responsibility_name = ‘XX Report Manager’ — which ever responsibility you applied the menu functions

AND r.menu_id = m.menu_id

AND m.menu_id     = e.menu_id

AND e.function_id = f.function_id

ORDER BY e.entry_sequence

These are a few of the common issues that clients run into when implementing Report Manager.  I hope this technical blast proves to be informative for you and your organization. Please do not hesitate to reach out to Avout if you have Report Manager or any other R12 related issues.  Our staff is certified in R12 and averages more than 15 years of Oracle Applications experience.