Custom Print Layout for Dashboards

Did you ever want to format your dashboard pages for printing?

Since OBIEE 11.1.1.7 you can create custom layouts for printing dashboard pages, which allow your users to generate and print high quality PDF documents. With OBIEE 11.1.1.9 you can also create custom layouts for exporting dashboard pages, which you can use to export dashboard content customized for Excel.

To create a custom layout, edit the dashboard that contains the dashboard page for which you want to create a custom layout. In the “Print & Export Options Dialog” click the Custom Print & Export Layouts button and select Create Layouts.

When creating a custom layout, the dashboard page is exported to BI Publisher and the following items are generated automatically:

• BI Publisher Report with a layout based on the exported dashboard layout
• data model to retrieve data for the dashboard page components

BI Publisher Report Editor opens in a new browser window with the autogenerated layout displayed as a thumbnail. The report editor allows you to edit or delete the layout, or add a new layout.

Note:
Not all views are supported in BI Publisher. For example hierarchical columns, performance tiles, map views, trellis views, and dashboard prompts are not supported. If an item is not supported, it will be removed from the layout and a message will be displayed. Here you can find a list with all items that are not supported when using custom print layouts.

Once you have saved the custom layouts in BI Publisher, they are available for that dashboard page and appear in the Custom Print & Export Layouts area of the “Print & Export Options dialog.”

You then make the custom layouts that you have created available to end users using the following options in the Custom Print & Export Layouts area of the Print & Export Options dialog:

• PDF — Selecting this option makes the custom layout available in the Print menu of a dashboard page.
• Excel — Selecting this option makes the custom layout available in the Export to Excel menu of a dashboard page.

With this option you can easily create custom print layouts for your dashboard pages. It is not possible to add your own BI Publisher Reports to the Print Options, but you can customize the default layout and create your own layouts.

But note that exporting/printing dashboard pages always means all the data of the page, because prompts are not used. Depending on the amount of data, the creation of the PDF or Excel may take a while. In case you just want to print a subset of the data, you can generate an independent BI Publisher Report with filter options, and add them as embedded report or link to your dashboard page.