Exploring Oracle APEX Interactive Report

26 November 2020
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By Arun Prakash Kangarajan, Oracle APEX Technical Consultant at Inoapps

Oracle Application Express (APEX) is the world’s most popular rapid low-code development tool and is full of features that are available out of the box to support the rapid development of user-friendly applications. Not all these features are particularly well known, with Oracle Interactive Report a case in point.

This staple of the APEX application is an extremely powerful reporting solution and one of its most under-rated but very useful features. That’s why, over the course of two blog posts I’m going to share with you some of what I’ve learnt about the Interactive Report function and hope that they will help you to get more from the Oracle APEX reporting engine.

So What's Available in Oracle APEX Interactive Report?

In this instalment I’ll investigate the following features in more detail:

  1. Private Reports
  2. Flashback
  3. Charts
  4. Subscription
  5. Pivot

1. Private Reports

In addition to the public reports available to all users, an end-user can also create as many private reports as they need for their own use and save them, so they are available for the future. Only the user who creates a private report can view, save, rename, or delete it. Each report can contain different formatting and filters.

Here are the steps to follow to create and access private reports:

  • Using Actions menu add Formatting and filters.
  • Go to Actions -> Report -> Save Report

Oracle APEX Private Report

  • Saved private reports can then be accessed via Report selector

Oracle APEX Private Report Report Selector


2. Flashback


Do you need to go back and view your data as it existed at a previous point in time? The Flashback function performs a flashback query to allow you to do this. It can be performed by going to Actions -> Data -> Flashback

Before

Oracle APEX Flashback

With Flashback

Oracle APEX Flashback


3. Charts


The Interactive Report function has a charting engine built in, so you don’t have to create a separate chart to view the data in your report. Four types of chart are available, and you can include one chart per Interactive Report, which will be based on filters applied for that report. Once defined, you can quickly switch between the chart and report views using the icons in the search bar. The available chart types are horizontal bar, vertical bar, pie, or line.


To create a chart, go to Actions -> Chart

Oracle APEX Charts feature

4. Subscription


Of all the features available in Interactive Report that I tell people about, this one is a customer favourite and one of the most used. Simply by subscribing to a report, an end user can receive updated versions of it at regular intervals.

To subscribe, go to Actions -> Subscribe and carry out the steps below under Add Subscription:

1. Email Address - Enter the email addresses to receive the report. To include multiple email addresses, separate each email address with a comma.
2. Subject - Enter text to display in the email subject line.
3. Frequency - Select the interval at which the report is sent.
4. Starting From - Select a start date and time.
5. Ending - Select an end date and time. Select a day, week, month, or year.
6. Click Apply.

Oracle APEX Interactive Report Subscription

 

Oracle APEX Interactive Report Subscription
5. Pivot


This again is one of the most powerful features of Interactive Report which end users can create easily.

Pivot reports transpose rows into columns to generate results in a crosstab format. Select pivot columns and rows and then provide the functions to be represented in the pivot report. Once created, pivot reports display a new icon in the search bar to flip.

In this example, let's create a Pivot to display number of Job in each department. Go to:

Actions -> Pivot

Oracle APEX Interactive Report Pivot

Oracle APEX Interactive Report Pivot

Look out for Part 2 coming next week where I’ll examine how you can get more from the following features in Interactive Report:

1. Built-in Report printing
2. Complex Filters
3. Computations
4. Group by

To read more about Inoapps’ “Adventures in APEX” check out the blog pages of our website!

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