For many years, Oracle Reports has been a go-to option for reporting data, particularly out of applications built with Oracle Forms. But since Oracle announced it will discontinue support for both resources, it’s time to start thinking about alternate options.
When Oracle Reports first came out, it was incredibly complex and pretty exciting. You could tell it was built by Oracle based on its structure and the complexity. And you could do so much with it! It was really amazing what you could do, but it was also challenging for a lot of people to learn because of the complexity.
One feature it offered was the ability to show or hide data on reports, and it was really the first tool to offer that based on user levels. With most reporting tools, you couldn’t hide anything based on the user. If someone had access to a report, they could view the entire report. It was pretty complex and sophisticated when Oracle Reports launched the user-level controls to show or hide report data.
Of course, over time the complexity frustrated many users, and they found easier systems to use. There were a lot of layers to things in Oracle Reports, and if you messed one thing up, it could mess up a lot of other things. The error messages weren’t exactly friendly or all that helpful either. So, over time, the software ran its course.
In contrast to the ongoing support currently available for Oracle Forms, Oracle dropped support for Reports pretty quickly unless you’re using a specific version alongside Forms. They’ve had some other reporting tools available through the years, but they’ve primarily left reporting to other vendors in the market.
If you’re still using Oracle Reports, it’s time to look at some of those other options and decide which one best fits your reporting needs and will best interface with your other systems.
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