Go to the E-Businee Suite's Home page and change the responsibility to Receivables, Vision Operations (USA). Click Receivables, Vision Operations (USA) in the left navigation bar. However, the screen below may not match with your environment. It depends on the responsibilities that you have.

Scroll down and click Run link from Control : Requests to open the request submission form. You may have to wait for the Applications form to appear the first time you access it.

The Submit a New Request dialog box appears. Select the Single Request option and click OK.

In the Submit Requestdialog box, click the ellipses (...) next to the Name field.

The Reports search dialog box appears. Enter customer% and click Find.

Select Customer Open Balance Letter from the list and click OK.

Click on the Parameters field to enter other values for the report, a Parameters dialog box comes up. In the As of date field enter: 01-Jan-2006.

To enter the customer name, scroll to the right and click the ellipses (...) next to the Customer Name From field. In the Longlist dialog box, enter a% and click OK.

Select A. C. Networks from the list and click OK.

Note that A. C. Networks is entered in both the Customer Name From and Customer Name To fields. Click OK.

To submit the request, click Submit.

A Decision dialog box appears. Note the Request ID and click No, because you would not be submitting any requests now.

From the Applications menu, select View > Requests.

In the Find Requests window, select the All My Requests option and click Find.

In the Requests window, search for your Job ID and check the status of the job. If the job is completed, click the View Output button.

View the report in a browser. Because no template is associated with the report and you have requested an XML output, the report is an XML file. Save the XML file as customer.xml in your local drive.

Open the file named Balance Letter Start.rtf in Microsoft Word. This is a predefined template. In this template, the header, footer, Oracle logo, and page numbering in the header is added. It also has a text in the footer. These are done using the Microsoft Word features. Any image can be inserted by using the Insert > Picture > From File from the Microsoft Word menu.

Select Data > Load XML Data from the BI Publisher menu.

In the Please select XML data dialog box, select the customer.xml file and click Open.

When the "Data loaded successfully" message appears, click OK.

Select <INSERT ADDRESS HERE> and select Insert > Field from the BI Publisher menu.

Select Customer Name from the Field dialog box and click Insert.

Place the cursor in the line below Customer Name and select Address Line 1. Click Insert. Similarly, insert Address Line 3, Address Line 4, City, State, and Country. Close the Field dialog box.

Select <INSERT DATE HERE>. Select Insert > Field from the BI Publisher menu. Select C As of Date Display and click Insert.

Similarly, change the other fields as follows:

<INSERT CURRENCY CODE HERE> as TRX CURRENCY CODE

<AMOUNT> as C_INV_OPEN_BALANCE

Click File>Save from Microsoft Word menu to save the template. Click Preview>PDF from BI Publisher menu to view the report in PDF.

Select the text <INSERT TABLE OF INVOICES HERE> in the layout template. Select Insert > Table Wizard from the BI Publisher menu.

In the Table Wizard window, select the Table option and click Next.

For Grouping Field, select the last item with List of Invoices from the drop-down list. Click Next.

Select the fields shown in the image below and move them to the right column. Click Next.

In the Group By window, click Next. There is no group for the data in the letter.

In the Sort By window, select Transaction Date from the drop-down list. Let the sort be Ascending order, which is the default. Click Finish.

Your template should appear similar to the image below. Use the Microsoft Word features to modify the look and feel, and adjust the columns of the template.

Use the Microsoft Word features to change the column headings as shown.

Enter a new row at the end of the table to display the total for Amount Due. Place the cursor inside the last row and from the menu, select Table > Insert > Rows Below. Enter Total for the Amount column in the new row.

Add the total of Amount Due for the customer in the last column. Click anywhere in the empty cell to the right of the Total cell. Select Insert > Field.

In the Field window, select Trans Amount Remaining and sum from the Calculation drop-down list. Click Insert, and then click Close.

Your table should appear similar to the image below:

For better reading, change the data type and format for the date and amount fields. Select and double_click the C_AS_OF_DATE_DISPLAY field. The Text Form Field Options window appears. Change Type to Date. Change the date format as shown below.

Similarly change the format for the Transaction Date column.

Select and double-click TRANS_AMOUNT. Select the Number format $#,##0.00 and edit it as shown below. Enter $999 in the Default number field. Click OK. Similarly, change the format for Trans Amount Remaining and sum Trans Amount Remaining.

Select TRX_NUMBER and click the Center align icon on the Microsoft Word toolbar. Similarly, center-align the Date field and right-align all the amount fields.

Save the template as Balance Letter - Template.rtf and preview in PDF format. Select Preview > PDF from the BI Publisher menu. The preview report displays with the sample data.

You can add other Microsoft Word features to the template.

Log in to E-Business Suite and click XML Publisher Administrator to change to the XML Publisher Administrator responsibility. However, the screen below may not match with your environment. It depends on the responsibilities that you have.

Click the Data Definitions link and you will be on the Data Definition tab for XML Publisher. Click the Create Data Definition button to create a new data definition.

Under Create Data Definition, fill the form as shown below. It is critical that you use the correct short name of the Concurrent Program - ARXCOBLX to correctly link this data definition to the underlying Concurrent Program and Oracle Reports report. For the Name field, you can use whatever you like. In this tutorial, use "Customer Balance Data Definition." Click Apply.

You should see a confirmation message. Now you have successfully created the data definition for the Customer Balance Letter.

On the Template tabbed page for XML Publisher, click Create Template.

Enter the template name as Customer Balance Letter - Template. Select Application name as Receivables using the Lookup icon. Enter code as ARXCOBLX.

Click the Lookup icon next to the Data Definition field, enter cust%, and then click Go. Select the Customer Balance Data definition option from the list and click Select.

Select the template type as RTF from the Type drop-down list. Remember, you had saved your template as an RTF file.

You now need to upload the template that you created in Microsoft Word. To select the template file you created, scroll down to the Template File section. For File, browse and open the file called Balance Letter - Template.rtf.

Select the Language as English.

Here is what your template form should look like. Click Apply. You should get a message that your template has been created successfully.

Change to the Receivables, Vision Operations (USA) responsibility from the E-Business Suite Application Home page. Click Run link from Control : Requests.

The Submit a New Request window appears. Select the Single Request option and click OK.

In the Submit Request window, click the ellipses (...).

The Reports search window appears. Enter customer% in the Find field and click Find.

Select Customer Open Balance Letter from the list and click OK.

Click on the Parameters dialog box, where you will enter other values for the report. In the As of date field enter 01-Jan-2006.

To enter the customer name, scroll right and click the ellipses (...). In the Longlist dialog box, enter a% and click OK.

Select A. C. Networks from the list and click OK.

Note that A. C. Networks is automattically entered in both the Customer Name From and Customer Name To fields. Click OK.

Note that in the Layout field, the layout template file is listed. Click the Options button to see the other options that you can set after the report is completed.

The Upon Completion.. window appears. In this window, you can specify what actions can be taken after the job is executed. You can notify one or more people about the report. You can send the report to be printed. For the purpose of this tutorial, you do not print it. Click OK.

You return to the Submit Request window. Click Submit to execute the request.

Note the Request ID that is displayed in the the Decision dialog box and click NO.

From the Applications menu, select View > Requests.

In the Find Requests window, select the All My Requests option and click Find.

In the Requests window, search for your Job ID and check the status. If the job is completed, click the View Output button.

Click the View Output button to view the report in a browser. Note that the report is displayed with the layout in the template. You can also associate other templates with the same data definition.