Migration: BI to APEX? What Works, What Doesn’t & Lessons Learned Karen Cannell [email protected] About Me …( ) Speaker Qualifications Karen Cannell ~ Principal Analyzed, designed developed, converted, upgraded, enhanced  and otherwise worked on database applications for 22+ years, focused on Oracle since 1994. Currently migrating business processes to web-based systems, leveraging the Oracle10g and 10g suite of tools. Lately APEX, Discoverer. VOLUNTEER for IOUG, ODTUG, Oracle Magazine. ODTUG Technical Journal Editor Volunteer to author RMOUG, SELECT and ODTUG Journal Articles!! Using APEX since the HTMLDB beginning  http://www.tunahuntress.com/oracle-application-express-apex/ Software Page About You … APEX Experience? Current BI Tools? Previous Tools? Most Important BI Features? Session Objectives APEX IR from a BI perspective: filtering, drills, charting, saved reports, downloads and resources required. Where APEX IR do not measure up to BI Tools Does it matter for your installation? Impact of APEX 4.0 IR GROUP BY and Saved Reports Reinforce APEX Best Practices BI to APEX ? Are We Nuts? APEX is NOT a BI Tool . The Situation Fixed # of Prepared Queries / Reports Little to No Drilldown Little to No Custom Reports Reasonable Data Volumes Expensive, Older-Version Business Objects License Users Not Leveraging BI Features … Use Does Not Justify Cost of BI Tool Existing BI System: Functional Set Reports No Drills Do Exchange Reports, but not a lot Costly Retire License == $$ APEX Interactive Reports Increase Ease of user, Options Overall Needs Simple, Intuitive Operation Simple Maintenance Tabular and Crosstab Reports Specified formats Linked (Cascading) Selection Parameters Convert Some Forms & Reports w/Complex Parameter Selection Save Custom Reports Download Data – CSV, Print Plus the “BI Basics” BI Tools – Common Features Select Columns Multi Data Source Tabular and Downloads Crosstab - Dynamic Printing Aggregates Data Volumes Filtering Grouping Drills Highlighting (Stop- lighting)