I often hear this statement from customers:

I am planning on deploying the BI Mobile HD application but I want to make it really easy for our end users and I don’t want them to have to type any server details.

So here is a quick lesson on how to do just this.  Our end goal is to get to an email that looks something like this:

So how do we get here.  The first part is easy, get your users to install our application from the Apple App Store.  Really don’t over think this, your users already know how to do this.  In fact, their 3 year old kids know how to do this.

OK you can also make it really easy and just provide the link.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/oracle-business-intelligence/id534035015

When opened on the device the user will see something like this, and they will have to tap install (mine says open because it is already installed).

Now comes the part where you will have to do a bit of work, the configuration.  For this you need to create an XML file that describes the server connections you want and some key settings. 

<plist version=“1.0”>
<dict>
<key>obim</key>
<dict>
<key>servers</key>
<array>
<dict>
<key>analyticsPath</key>
<string>/analytics/saw.dll</string>
<key>host</key>
<string>hostname.company.com</string>
<key>locale</key>
<true/>
<key>name</key>
<string>Friendly Server Name</string>
<key>port</key>
<integer>7780</integer>
<key>ssl</key>
<false/>
<key>sso</key>
<false/>
<key>xmlpPath</key>
<string>/xmlpserver</string>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>analyticsPath</key>
<string>/analytics/saw.dll</string>
<key>host</key>
<string>newhostname.company.com</string>
<key>locale</key>
<true/>
<key>name</key>
<string>Friendly Server Name 2</string>
<key>port</key>
<integer>7780</integer>
<key>ssl</key>
<false/>
<key>sso</key>
<false/>
<key>xmlpPath</key>
<string>/xmlpserver</string>
</dict>
</array>
<key>settings</key>
<dict>
<key>debug</key>
<false/>
<key>optimized</key>
<true/>
</dict>
</dict>
</dict>
</plist>

Does it look scary?  It is not, it is really 2 sections and  here is a link to a sample you can download that has detailed comments.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42112990/work/Configurations/conf.xml

To turn this file into a link that a user can tap you need to first host this on some sort of HTTP server.  Dropbox and other services work fine as long as their are no redirects and no ‘special’ file viewers.  For Dropbox you need to put it in your public folder and use the public link.  Also make sure the link will be accessible on the users device.  

http://myserver.mycompany.com/config.xml

Once this is done you need to form the device URL and send it to the user as a link.  To do this you need to prefix your XML file link with the following.

oraclebimobile://com.oracle.obimobile/configure?xml=

The the entire link would look something like this:

oraclebimobile://com.oracle.obimobile/configure?xml=http://myserver.mycompany.com/config.xml

A few caveats for now:

1. This only adds servers, and is keyed off the host name so if the user already has a server with the same host name it will not add the server.
2. The XML file must be hosted on a http server you cannot point to a file system. 
3. The URL to the XML file must be accessible on the device where the user is launching this link from.

Good Luck and Happy Deployment!!