In the realm of enterprise resource planning (ERP), Oracle Fusion ERP stands out as a comprehensive suite that helps businesses streamline their processes. A critical component within this suite is the Business Intelligence Cloud Connector (BICC). But what exactly is BICC, and why is it important? This article will delve into how to configure BICC in Oracle Fusion ERP, offering a step-by-step guide to ensure you can leverage its full potential.
Understanding BICC
The Business Intelligence Cloud Connector (BICC) is a tool within Oracle Fusion ERP designed to facilitate the extraction and transfer of data from Oracle Fusion applications to Oracle Cloud or other third-party applications since it acts as a bridge, enabling seamless data integration and reporting.
Benefits of using BICC
Using BICC offers us numerous benefits, including:
- Enhanced Data Integration: since it ensures smooth data flow between Oracle Fusion ERP and other systems.
- Improved Reporting: Facilitates the creation of comprehensive reports by making data readily available.
- Scalability: BICC supports large volumes of data which makes it suitable for businesses of all sizes.
- Security: Ensures data is transferred securely, maintaining data integrity and confidentiality.
- Incremental Extraction: It can extract incremental transactional data and also support scheduling.
- Use Case: BICC is optimized for medium to high data volumes extractions as compared to REST and SOAP web services which are ideal for low volume of data.
Prerequisites
Your Fusion Applications version must be 19C or higher and you should assign fusion erp role ORA_ASM_APPLICATION_IMPLEMENTATION_ADMIN_ABSTRACT to the BICC user.
Configuring BICC in Oracle Fusion ERP
First, we need to create OCI storage where BICC jobs will store the data files. We will walk through the steps to set up an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Object Storage Bucket for this purpose.
Create Object Storage Bucket
Sign into Oracle Cloud: https://cloud.oracle.com and navigate to Storage -> Buckets.
Create a new bucket as follows
- The bucket name should not have any spaces in it.
- Leave the Storage Tier = Standard
- Emit Object Events = Unchecked
- Encryption = “Encrypt Using Oracle Managed Keys”
As we are in OCI Console, copy user OCID from my profile and tenancy OCID and object storage namespace from tenancy profile since we would need this information to configure new storage connection in BICC.
Connect BICC to bucket
Log onto Oracle Business Intelligence Cloud Connector Console using https://<your-Fusion-Apps-host>/ biacm. Then choose Configure external storage and go to tab OCI Object Storage Connection as shown below.
Create a new OCI Object storage connection and fill in the details as shown below. The Host value is based on the OCI region or data center. Visit and copy your host value from the Object Storage Service API Endpoint here. Also fill Tenancy/user OCID and storage namespace as per information collected above. In step 2, generate your API signing key and save it to file and import it into your OCI user profile under API keys. Please test the connection to verify the BICC connectivity with OCI storage.
Run data extraction job in BICC
Submit a BICC job by choosing a standard offering. We can also make our custom offering and configure actions like filtering on date, enable data chunking. For more information on business objects mappings, download the mapping spreadsheet from here.
Navigate to your OCI bucket and verify if the files have started uploaded from BICC as shown below.
Conclusion
Configuring BICC in Oracle Fusion ERP can significantly enhance your data integration and reporting capabilities. By following this comprehensive guide, you can set up and optimize BICC for your business needs. Remember to keep security in mind, regularly update your systems, and provide adequate training for your team.