"Your first Banner Committee Meeting?" |
Banner Reporting Solutions
Answering the frequent
question: Which Reporting Tools to use with Banner?
Copyright 2009 last updated
05/24/09
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News: The current
version of this site has moved to:
http://betwinx.com/
Tools, References, Methods, and Programmer Help for the Banner
Startup
is about Oracle
SQL*Plus and UNIX Banner Reporting. It mostly contains command line
code or scripts written for Oracle 9i/10g most useful for control,
reporting, and business intelligence.
BannerArgos
is about Evisions'
Argos, Ad Hoc Reporting.
BannerAccess
is about MS Access Reporting.
BannerAPEX is about Oracle Application
Express Notes and Projects.
BannerScripts is a restricted code and presentation repository
that requires the scripts password. The password is available
from bknox @t uaex.edu.
includes:
Arkansas Sales Tax and Tax Rebates Report
Approval Notices email
Direct Deposit email
PO Scripts
.csv file extract example (PO Imaging Index Information)
Batch Journal Voucher Scripts
Fund Table Changed Notice
How To Create a new SQL Pass-Through Query for MS Access Reporting
NETC 2005 Making Life Easier for Users
Summit 2006 e~Print - Innovative Ways We Use It (includes fully automated
month end reporting)
ABUG 2006 e~Print - Innovative Ways We Use It (slightly different than
the Summit presentation)
ABUG 2006 Cingular Invoice Processing System by Mark Hubbell
Standard Objects for BannerAccess (.mdb)
Saved Objects for BannerAccess Class Patches (.mdb)
Argos related objects in the scripts repository:
maps_users.sql MAPS Users for creating MAPS Accounts from Banner
access_to_argos.shl MS
Access SQL to Argos Oracle SQL
table_to_argos.sql
Collecting Table and Record Selection Criteria
table_to_v_view.sql
Generate Oracle View Create Script
Table
Descriptions for Argos Use.txt Extension results
from table_to_argos.sql
Argos - Moving into the Community.ppt
Summit Presentation
Argos Tech Track.ppt Argos
Pre-Summit
Argos Admin and Security Track.ppt Argos Pre-Summit
ABUG 2007 Argos - Moving into the Community (ppt)
Argos Pre-Summit 2008 Presentation - How your
Oracle DBA or Programmer Can Improve Your Argos Reporting!
(ppt)
Banded Report
Standard DataBlock and Report - This is the Bonus Object
included in the Pre-Summit 2008 (ppt)
Current Record Set or Special Views - This is
the code to create the Oracle Views referenced in
the Argos Pre-Summit 2008 (ppt)
TN_Summit_2008_Argos-Moving_into_the_Community.ppt - TN
Summit 2008 (ppt)
How Your DBA or Database Programmer Can Improve Your Argos Reporting.ppt
- TN Summit 2008 (ppt)
Backup MAPS/Argos Server command script - Copy Argos Automated Backup to
an Alternate Server
Backup MAPS/Argos Server log example - Backup log file example
Backup MAPS/Argos Server Check Backup - Sends email from Argos with Log
File attached
Summit 2009 - Argos - Moving into the Community (ppt)
Argos pre-Summit 2009 - Argos - Moving Rapidly into the Community (ppt)
PL/SQL UPDATE
Easy to use Logic allows selectively Updating
Columns in one Table from Another.
e-mail
Notices (Simple
SQL solutions for complex Banner Reporting Issues)
Oracle Dates
(Simplifying Oracle's powerful date handling functions for use
with Banner)
Oracle Notes
(Collection of FoxPro to Oracle Backend Conversion Notes)
UNIX Permissions
(Elegant but Confusing UNIX file permissions)
mail
attachments (Creating
email with a text message and an attachment from standard UNIX)
Formatted Documents
(Creating Rich Text Format files from a UNIX server)
Wiki Notes
(just a brief introduction)
Banner Reporting makes up a large part of my current job.
Reporting today is done in many different ways. While this may
still include traditional paper reports or archived report images of
them, increasingly, reporting is moving away from these formats.
A report today may be little more than the Subject of an email or a
single screen of information. Finally, long after promised,
the industry is moving to exception reporting which has started to
replace many traditional reports.
“Which Reporting Tools to use with Banner?” is perhaps the most
Frequently Asked Question posed on the SunGardHE (a.k.a., SCT) Banner Listserv.
SQL*Plus is our preferred tool for Programmer created reports or
processes. SQL*Plus is the command-line interface to Oracle
and therefore is available to every Banner site. It provides
fast interactive development, the ability to readily format and
paginate, and PL/SQL is always available from SQL*Plus if needed.
Other than being required for some Banner provided code, COBOL is most useful for generating reports with complex totals or
control break logic. There is nothing wrong with this enduring
language other than the fact that it is not free and few new
programmers are learning the language. COBOL is compiled and
SQL Code run in COBOL is much faster than the same code run in
SQL*Plus. All the problems associated with developing in a
compiled language are still with COBOL.
For Banner
Reporting, C is about the same as COBOL without the extensive
formatting that is a built-in part of COBOL. C's greatest
advantage is that most new programmers have been introduced to it.
My Oracle programming is still mostly from command line
using SQL*Plus. SQL*Plus is powerful, easy to use and to extend.
The key to rapid development in any language is a repository of
working code.
For example, today I "coded" a rather complex new
report in about ten minutes using a report program generator that I
wrote once and have used dozens of times to save hundreds of hours of
writing the same basic report code again and again. In ten
seconds, I had the report structure done. Report headings, footers,
pages numbered, primary in-code documentation completed. I
grabbed an organization directory table I had previously built to model
our management structure, added an In-Line View created for another
task giving us our state budgeting job titles from SunGard Higher
Education's Banner database and it was all done but making it pretty.
But, the real promise of database systems is giving
non-IT end users powerful Ad Hoc reporting. A promise that has
been hard to realize until recently.
BannerAccess is a collection of Predefined SQL
Pass-Through Queries connecting MS Access to SunGard
Higher Education's Banner (Oracle) Database product. We have
successfully used BannerAccess for over seven years. Now we are
moving to replace the MS Access part of this tool with Evisions'
Argos,
a web based Ad hoc reporting tool. BannerAccess will continue
to be documented on the
BannerAccess site
since there are a number of people using that site for a
reference.
I developed BannerAccess to give a simple to use Ad Hoc
reporting tool to our functional end-users of Banner. This tool
used pre-defined Queries to make Banner Tables appear less daunting as
well as making them easier to combine into more complex reporting
objects. BannerAccess uses SQL Pass-Through Queries to make
efficient use of the underlying Oracle database in Banner. BannerAccess is easy to use right up to the point of needing real
parameters in a Pass-Through Query. At that point one must use
Visual Basic to code the parameter logic that would make the Query run
efficiently. And, that is its major shortcoming:
functional users are very unlikely to ever write this
Visual Basic code.
BannerArgos is my newest major
programming tools project.
Using Argos
instead of MS Access will enable BannerArgos to easily surpass BannerAccess in most areas.
Creating parameter based Queries in Argos are simple and I believe
our functional users will make good use of them. BannerArgos
will be documented on the
BannerArgos
site.
Summit 2007 Session: Argos - Moving into the Community
Server Virtualization Management Project
Manager is an Open Source friend, Matthias
Rechenburg.
openQRM is an open source systems management platform which
integrates with existing components in enterprise data centers.
This is
a personal site maintained by Bruce Knox ( bknox at uaex.edu ).
Disclaimer
Use this information and these scripts at your own risk.
As a condition of using these scripts and information from this
site, you agree to hold harmless both the University of Arkansas
Cooperative Extension Service and Bruce Knox for any problems
that they may cause or other situations that may arise from
their use, and that neither the Extension Service nor I will be
held liable for those consequences. The scripts and information
are provided "as is" without warranty, implied or otherwise.
Limitation of liability will be the amount paid to the
University of Arkansas specifically for this information. (It
was free:)
Any University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture website
Disclaimer terms found in conflict with terms of this disclaimer
shall over ride and replace the conflicting terms found herein.
http://www.uaex.edu/bknox/
is my
university work related site. It is oriented to Oracle
Reporting Solutions in the context of generating bespoken reports from SunGard Higher
Education's Banner product.
My personal site is http://betwinx.com/
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