Oracle APEX 26.1 new in this release
Oracle APEX Data Reporter: A Smarter Approach to Dynamic Reporting
I tried the new reporting module for a few days. Here is what it actually is, in plain words.
MON Sales by branch for the last 6 months
MON Same report, but remove the test data
WED Can you group it by region instead?
FRI Actually we need it every week now
Four requests. One report. And I did not open Page Designer once.
In every APEX project I have worked on, the report request list keeps growing. It never really gets shorter.
Someone asks for a small report, it takes days to reach them because of tickets and reviews, and by the time it is ready they have already moved on to a different question.
APEX 26.1 has a new module called Data Reporter that is meant to fix this. This post is just about what it actually is, in simple terms.
What Data Reporter actually is
Data Reporter is a new part of APEX where normal users, not developers, can build their own reports. No SQL, no pages, no coding. They pick a table, choose the columns they want, add a filter if needed, and the report is ready.
Before this, every report had to go through a developer. Now developers only set up the starting point once, and after that people can build their own reports whenever they need one.
It is less a reporting tool and more a way of saying who can see what, with a report builder attached to it.
Two sides to it
There are two roles in Data Reporter and they do different things.
Sets things up
Turns on login, decides which tables people are allowed to see, and gives access to the right people.
Builds the report
Picks the data, arranges the columns, adds filters, and publishes it whenever they want.
Once the admin part is done, the user can keep making reports without asking anyone again.
You do not need to know the table name
This is the part I liked the most. If you know which table has the data, you just pick it. But most people do not know that, and Data Reporter has an answer for this too.
"Show me appointments from the last 90 days for each clinic, with how many were cancelled."
You can just type what you want in plain English, and APEX writes the query for you behind the scenes. You never see a table name at all.
People only see what they are allowed to see
Giving everyone the power to build reports sounds risky, but the access is controlled carefully. The admin decides which tables are visible in each app, so a user never sees the full database, only the part meant for them.
On top of that, each person is either an Editor, who can build and publish reports, or a Viewer, who can only open reports that are already published. And this is set per app, so someone can be an Editor in one app and just a Viewer in another.
A simple example
Think of a group of clinics. Each clinic manager needs to see appointments and stock data, but nothing else in the system.
How it works for them
The admin sets up login once and shares only the appointments and stock tables with the clinic app. After that, each manager can log in and build their own report, like checking which day of the week has the most missed appointments, without asking a developer for anything.
My take
Data Reporter does not remove developers from reporting completely. It just changes when we get involved. We set things up once at the start, and after that people can build reports on their own.
For any team that keeps getting small report requests, this is worth trying. It saves time for both sides.
Tested on Oracle APEX 26.1. Let me know if you have tried this too.
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