SQLWord – The light and cheaper version of BI Publisher
Oracle BI Publisher is an advanced Business Intelligence reporting tool delivered with the Oracle E-Business Suite. It was originally developed to solve reporting problems faced by Oracle Applications and is intended to replace Oracle Reports in future.
BI Publisher merges several templates with XML data from different sources to generate output in RTF, PDF, HTML, Excel (HTML) or Text for use with EFT and EDI transmissions. Strange enough, the today modern compact .docx format is not supported. We agree that BI Publisher is very nice it has much functionality but it is also very expensive in our opinion.
Bi Publisher costs € 36,500 for a processor license and every year you have to pay € 8,000 for software updates & support.
The BI Publisher license pricing does not match well with the budgets of customers who use the free Oracle APEX. If your demands are not that high and you only need text reporting from an Oracle database to generate Microsoft Word or PDF documents then SQLWord is a cheaper and good alternative for BI Publisher.
BI Publisher architecture
SQLWord architecture
Comparing these reporting tools
| SQLWord | BI Publisher | |
|---|---|---|
| User based licenses | The basic license (max 5 users) starts at € 1,500 | Named users are not realistic at Oracle. You do need the processor license at € 36,500 |
| Software updates & support per year | 20% | 22% |
| Training | 30 minutes self study only | 3 days intensive training course costing average €1,500 for every Developer |
| Data sources | Oracle databases only | Oracle, SQL Server, E-Business Suite, Peoplesoft, Siebel, JDE, OLAP, Web Services |
| Output formats | DOCX, PDF only | RTF, PDF, HTML, Excel, Power Point, Flash, CSV, XML, EDI, EFT, DOCX is not supported |
| Charts, Graphs, Drill Downs | Sorry, we don’t have | Yes, very nice indeed |
| Developers skills | Microsoft Word and PL/SQL only | Microsoft Word, PL/SQL, BI Publisher Template Builder, Acrobat tools, Scriptura, XML, XSD, XSLT, XSL-FO, XML-Spy |
| Installation | Simple | Complex |
