Oracle XML Publisher (XMLP) is Oracle Corporation's latest reporting technology. It was originally developed to solve the reporting problems faced by Oracle Applications. Osama Elkady from the Applications Technology Group and Tim Dexter from the Financials Group were the main drivers for the product. It was first released with Oracle E-Business Suite 11.5.10 in 2003. Since then it has been integrated into most of Oracle Products including JD Edwards EnterpriseOne application 8.12 and PeopleSoft Enterprise 9, and as a standalone version, XML Publisher Enterprise with no dependency on Oracle Applications. When XML Publisher became part of the Oracle BI Enterprise Edition Suite it was re-branded as Oracle BI Publisher.

BI Publisher separates the creation of data from the process of formatting it for different uses. The engine can format any well-formed XML data, allowing integration with any system that can generate XML, including Web Services or any data source available through JDBC. BI Publisher can merge multiple data sources into a single output document.

BI Publisher report templates can be designed using Microsoft Word, Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Excel (standalone only), and Adobe Flash (standalone only). Templates created using these tools contain embedded fields with properties that determine how the XML data will be merged into the template, using Extensible Stylesheet Language syntax to precisely match the server's engine.