It looks like our new IFS Cloud database no longer has an Oracle user account for each IFS users. In the past this allowed users to create their own ad-hoc reports. Is there a way to give specific IFS users a corresponding Oracle account? Note: ODATA is not powerful enough for our current ad-hoc reporting needs.
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Does IFS Cloud no longer have an Oracle account for each user
+2Best answer by MrPaul
I was able to add the custom fields I need to existing entities. Using Resful ODATA calls, I can get the data I need. Thanks for the feedback.
That’s right, the security for IFS Cloud is completely different. Users no longer have Oracle accounts. Only a handful of system accounts have an Oracle counterpart. This link explains it nicely.
Here is some information on reporting options that we explored with 21R2, ordered from most-preferred to least-preferred for end-user reporting. I hope this helps.
| # | Reporting Solution | Comments |
| 1 | IFS Multi-Company Inquiries | These can replace the need for some reports created solely to give a multi-company overview. |
| 2 | IFS Industry Lobbies | These are standard and available in IFS. |
| 3 | Parameterized SSRS Reports | These can be used in place of running SQL statements. Users can select the parameters that they need to change. |
| 4 | Power BI | Power BI will be updated to continue reporting data from IFS. |
| 5 | IFS Tabular Data Models | Not an end-user tool |
| 6 | IFS Query Designer | This allows for custom queries to be created and these can be exported. The 21R2 version does not handle SQL and doesn't provide the ability to specify joins if the field names don't match. |
| 7 | IFS Business Reporter | This is a solution for analytical reporting based on a pre-packaged, high-level information model in IFS Cloud named Information Source. This allows reporting off of pre-defined or custom data sources created by a technical resource. |
| 8 | IFS Quick Reports with embedded SQL | This allows SQL statements to be run but 21R2 does not provide any guidance if statements don't run exactly as listed. It also doesn't show field names like the SQL Query Tool does in earlier versions. Normally, users would request reports and a developed would write these. SQL statements embedded in Quick Reports can't do update because they can only access views granted to the user running the report. |
| 9 | Web App | A web app could be created for running pre-defined queries. |
| 10 | OSD with privileged account access for non-PRODs | Oracle SQL Developer can be provided to users in on-premise environments (e.g., "remote installation") if connection strings are provided and a privileged Oracle accounts is provided. Providing this can impact performance. Would recommend limiting this to non-production environments for prototyping and then having developers review SQL statements in to Quick Reports or SSRS reports. |
+8Hi MrPaul,
I agree with CRUNDELL and would like to add.
If you use “real time tools” = all kind of queries directed into the IFS data you always will see some performance impact. It could be minor or so huge that your users will start to complain.
Also imagine a “report” done at 09:00, one at 14:00 both reports used in a meeting at 15:00.
One of my customers migrated from Navision to IFS and even 10 years ago stated:
“ Michael, since we use the new BI system we stopped to discuss which report is “better”.
This because we all use the same “data point”.”
This is still a SQL AS Cube filled with actual data (Navision and IFS combined) every night.
So I highly recommend to use a datawarehouse (DWH, prefered MS SQL Server) plus multidim or tabular MS AS cubes.
Automate the ETL process (extract, transform, load) and use the cubes as a base into
Excel pivot (every controllers friend!), PowerBI of course but any other frontend you like.
I would not recommend SQL RS because the reports tend to get their “own live” (own logic) and
are not this easy to handle like Excel.
To extract data from oracle use a read only ORACLE login and the linked server technologie from SQL.
Stable, very quick and easy to automate.
Even when you decide to use “raw data” from ORACLE copied into a DWH it is very easy to combine
e.g. CUSTOMER_ORDER with CUSTOMER_ORDER_LINE and CUSTOMER_INFO etc. to a “data mart” for you reporting needs.
Everything you do on the MS SQL based data will not influence your ORACLE / IFS System!
If you need an insight into IFS data just give me a PM and we can talk about excel based datadictionaries.
All the best
Michael
Know your goal, ask relevant questions, decide strong, fast and smart.
+2Sure I understand your responses related to performance. We can work around the reporting issue. However, we have a desktop application with integration into Oracle for IFS. Would it be possible to build our own entity and access it through ODATA? Are they any good examples of this?
+2I was able to add the custom fields I need to existing entities. Using Resful ODATA calls, I can get the data I need. Thanks for the feedback.
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