15 | ORACLE BI PUBLISHER BEST PRACTICES FOR SAAS ENVIRONMENTS
Scalable Mode — Processing large data sets requires the use of large amounts of RAM. To prevent running out of
memory, activate scalable mode for the data engine. In scalable mode, the data engine takes advantage of disk
space when it processes the data. Setting this to ON will impact performance, but guard against out of memory
errors. For SaaS environments, Scalable Mode is managed by BI Publisher internally (except for interactive
report and Data Model), and does not require any change by user.
Enable SQL Pruning
- applies to Oracle Database queries only that use Standard SQL. SQL pruning enhances
performance by fetching only the columns that are used in the report layout/template. Columns that are defined in
the query but are not used in the report are not fetched. This improves query fetch size and reduces JDBC rowset
memory. Oracle recommends enabling this property at individual data model level as this may give unexpected
result if data is cached and if there are multiple layouts in a report accessing the same data model.
Note: Enable SQL Pruning is also a server-level property therefore by default the data model-level
property is set to Instance Level to inherit the server or instance level setting. To turn SQL pruning on or
off for this particular data model, select On or Off from the list.
Backup Data Source — If you have set up a backup database for this data source, select Enable Backup
Connection to enable the option; then select it when you want BI Publisher to use the backup.
To use the backup data source only when the primary is down, select Switch to Backup Data Source
when Primary Data Source is unavailable. Note that when the primary data source is down, the data
engine must wait for a response before switching to the backup.
To always use the backup data source when executing this data model, select Use Backup Data
Source Only. Using the backup database may enhance performance.
XML Output Options — These options define characteristics of the XML data structure.
Include Parameter Tags — If you define parameters for your data model, select this box to include the
parameter values in the XML output file. Enable this option when you want to use the parameter value in
the report.
Include Empty Tags for Null Elements — Select this box to include elements with null values in your
output XML data. When you include a null element, then a requested element that contains no data in
your data source is included in your XML output as an empty XML tag as follows: <ELEMENT_ID\>. For
example, if the element MANAGER_ID contained no data and you chose to include null elements, it
would appear in your data as follows: <MANAGER_ID />. If you do not select this option, no entry
appears for MANAGER_ID.
Include Group List Tag — (This property is for 10g backward compatibility and Oracle Report
migration.) Select this box to include the rowset tags in your output XML data. If you include the group list
tags, then the group list appears as another hierarchy within your data.
XML Tag Display — Select whether to generate the XML data tags in upper case, in lower case, or to
preserve the definition you supplied in the data structure.
IMPORTANT NOTE —
• Any changes to XML Output options can impact layouts that are built on the data model.
• Include Empty Tags for Null Elements is by default unchecked. Therefore, by default there will
be no entry for any element that has null value. If your RTF template is not designed to handle the
missing element, for example in case where dynamic cells are created in RTF template, we may see
data displaying under incorrect columns. Therefore, we recommend enabling this feature to prevent
misplaced data in report.