The Feature

Tips and Tricks For Oracle Key Flexfields

Key Flexfields are widely used in Oracle Applications. In general, they house the codes used by organizations to identify such things as part numbers and General Ledger accounts. Setting up these segments can improve the usability of Oracle, decrease the work load of the users, and increase data accuracy. The Oracle Key Flexfields Tips and Tricks paper will provide an overview of the options available and recommended best practices. When first setting up a Key Flexfield, there are some features that will greatly affect the usability and required maintenance. Read the white paper for more details…

E-Business Suite Financial Integration

Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) consists of tightly integrated modules that result in a company’s financial statements. Tracking transactions through the system back to the source, then to the setups that affected the way the source transactions behaved is difficult at best. The Oracle EBS Integration Overview white paper (based on R11.5.10) will help you understand where these transactions are coming from, back through the interfaces to the transactions, then even farther into the setups dictating their behavior.

Tips and Tricks for Oracle FSGs

Financial Statement Generators (FSG’s) are a necessary evil at any company running Oracle’s E-Business Suite General Ledger. Row Sets, Column Sets, Content Sets, Parents accounts or Ranges, Publish with XML, ADI. . .the combinations and possibilities are endless. And the decisions you make when creating and maintaining your FSGs can affect their ease of use and maintainability in the future.

See my Tips and Tricks for Oracle FSGs white paper for Best Practices, Tips and Tricks to making this task a little more manageable and less time consuming. When working with FSGs, perhaps the most important thing to remember is the FSG functionality is old. I have been a heavy user of General Ledger for 13 years, and except for generating outputs, it is basically the same.

That means that the majority of older installs (implemented prior to 11i) had one-off patches that greatly affected the way FSGs behave. A report created three years ago that is copied or mimicked for a new report-well, they just give different results. Research shows the new report is behaving as Oracle documentation explains it should, but the old report is not.

So I leave you with my biggest tip of the paper: Tip: If it works, don’t change it! See the while paper for more details…

Conversation with the Team from PPM Energy

Last fall, I had an opportunity to spend some time in beautiful Portland, OR, assisting a talented group at PPM Energy with their calendar changes in Oracle Applications. PPM energy builds and manages wind turbines and sells alternative energy. I invited two of their key Oracle users - Lori Thibodeaux, a financial systems manager, and Kevin Kosub, a senior business systems analyst, to a have conversation about their lives with Oracle. Read on for few excerpts below.

Marian: Let me start by asking what Oracle products/applications does PPME currently use?

Lori: We use the full Financials suite, including iExpense and iProcurement, Inventory, Enterprise Asset Mgt (EAM), Project Costing and HR. We are also using Discoverer for adhoc reporting.

Were you involved in picking Oracle EBS? Why was Oracle chosen over other ERP solutions?

I came on board after the selection of Oracle was done. However, I do know it was picked over other solutions because of the ease of implementation. We implemented Oracle in about six months.

How would you describe the original implementation? What were your main lessons learned?

I would describe the implementation as fast and “vanilla”! We did not have time for any customizations. The lessons learned were we wish we had a better grip on our business processes before configuring the system. We have made quite a few changes and enhancements to configuration post implementation.

Did you take the same approach to all applications? Were some applications or processes easier to implement than others?

Project Costing was the hardest to implement.

You did not have to think too long about that one…

Mostly because of all the set up decisions that need to be made.

If you had three recommendations for other people implementing Oracle EBS, what would they be?

Make sure you have a good executive sponsor for the project. One who has the authority to set down expectations and resolve disputes.

Make sure the business users are invested and integrated into the project. If their days jobs can be backfilled, even better.

Get a good consulting partner with expertise across the Oracle apps. It is best to have people who understand the processes from cradle to grave and how they flow through Oracle.

Speaking about users, how did they accept the new system and the change in general?

In our case they didn’t have a choice. Our parent company sold off the division that hosted the applications we were using.

Kevin: Users were learning the business processes as well as the system.

The EBS applications are sometimes criticized for being overly complex and not very intuitive. How did you make sure people learned the new tools quickly?

Lots of training and as much documentation as we could put together in the short time we had.

We had some cases where we didn’t have enough business insight to our new processes to drive the configuration appropriately upon initial set up. Later once the insights were gained we had to make tweaks to configuration, which were easy in some instances and painful in others.

Which processes or functions posed the biggest challenges?

We are still suffering from the lack of user training, especially in Projects and procurement. Projects has been problematic because we do not have a [ready process in place] real system savvy super user.

Procurement has been problematic because of some bad configuration decisions at the time of implementation. We were initially set up to accrue upon receipt for expense items - a bad decision!!! This has created a reconciliation nightmare! We changed over to accrue at month end about a year ago.

Additionally we had users who were wearing two hats for configuration responsibilities, as well as performing normal operations.

One pain point I have is the procurement hierarchy maintenance. Our hierarchy is based on HR Positions. Unfortunately, it is policy in our HR to change positions fairly frequently. When they do this, the old position stays in the hierarchy without a person attached. I have to go re-add the new position to the hierarchy to fix it.
I have been told, and I believe it, this issue has been addressed in R12.

Kevin, I know you have some experience with SAP too. How would you compare it to Oracle?

There are both positives and negatives with both of those ERP systems. All of the SAP environments I was a part of were heavily customized. There were a lot of changes to custom development and SAP had sophisticated tools for migration between development environments. SAP seemed to have better out of the box reporting capabilities as well.

On the other hand, SAP can be overly engineered and be difficult to configure.
Oracle is relatively simple with the user interface and out of the box configuration, which is a positive for a mid-size company Security administration is also much simpler in Oracle.

Are you planning to stay on 11i, upgrade to R12, or wait for Fusion?

I like some of the changes I see in R12, like the SLA engine. Not having to log into each operating unit separately is very nice! I also like that they are getting rid of the client version of ADI. It is high maintenance! I also like the look and feel of R12.

I would like to start planning for an upgrade to R12. However, our new parent company is running SAP. We may be forced onto SAP in the next couple of years. Fusion is probably not in the picture for us. From what I have seen, Fusion isn’t a viable option for anyone in the near future. I think it is years away.

I see a lot of positive changes with R12. It would nice to simplify our sub-ledger configuration and maintenance as well as enhance some reporting capabilities.

Are you referring to BI Publisher? Or reporting in general?

We are currently using XML Publisher for report output. I look forward to expanding our use of this tool.

Well that is an option but a lot of existing DBI-like dashboards are standard with R12. We are also considering other tools like Noetix to supplement our reporting options.

Let’s switch gears just a little. I know you are very active participants in the local OAUG activities. What can we do better as a user community?

I try to go to activities as they seem appropriate. I like the NWOUG conferences. It is a good networking event.

I am relatively new to the OAUG. From what I have seen, it is a positive experience

What Oracle resources (Metalink, oracle.com, podcasts, conferences, etc.) best provide you with the information you need?

Metalink is a good resource, however, the search capabilities could be improved.

Metalink is a staple. It takes some time to figure out how to maneuver through all the info out there. [Our colleague] Keith has had 10 years of experience with it, so he is pretty good at finding things.

Sometimes I spend more time searching than reading relevant information on my issue.

I am still learning. As a manager in my previous jobs, I didn’t search Metalink very much. Now I need to and I find it a little challenging to get to the right information. I have used Google as a search tool and sometimes have better luck there.

Oracle University classes are also a good resource for learning new products.

Oracle.com is a sales site. I don’t go there for hard information. I haven’t ever used podcasts. I went to Oracle World last November. In my opinion it was way too big. I ended up networking only with people from Portland, which I didn’t have to travel [to San Francisco] to do.

Yes, I agree. Oracle University’s training is very good! We have had trainers come up to Portland to put on classes just for PPM employees. This worked out very well!

Thank you so much for your time and opinions! This was fun!

Thanks.

Thank you, bye!

Changes to Web ADI Documents in R12

This feature is for everyone who is trying to create Web ADI documents in Release 12. The documents in R12 are cleaner, more user-friendly and intuitive; they are easier to create and update. Finding them, however, might be a challenge.

The main difference between R11 and 11i was introduction of function security. You either need to figure out which module-specific responsibilities include the Web ADI integrators you want to use, or you need to find out which integrators (functions) need to be associated with the new Desktop Integrator responsibility. Either way, this is not well documented in the Oracle Web ADI User Guide R12; and you have to figure it out by reading product-specific user guides. It took us a couple of hours to find the right Metalink note (472160.1), in which these changes were described…

The Feature

In R12, the existing responsibility Oracle Web ADI is obsolete! The Create Document function does not work and integrators are missing.

The Solution

Add a new responsibility Desktop Integrator. The Create Document function under this responsibility should work for a handful of seeded integrators. You will need to research the user guides to find out how to include additional integrators.

The seeded integrators included in the new Desktop Integrator responsibility:

• Enterprise Performance Foundation: Hierarchy Integrator
• Enterprise Performance Foundation: Member Integrator
• Financial Consolidation Hub: Intercompany maps
• Financial Consolidation Hub: Dimension Hierarchies
• Financial Consolidation Hub: Value Set Mapping
• General Ledger - Budgets
• General Ledger - Journals
• Intercompany - Single Batch Entry

To include additional integrators, you need to include additional menu functions in the menu assigned to your Desktop Integrator responsibility. Navigate to System Administrator > Application > Menu, and include the following sub-menus in your menu (Desktop Integration Menu if you use Desktop Integrator responsibility. Here are few examples of Projects Integrators:

• For Project Budgets and Forecasts, include Financials: Project: Budgets and Forecasts function. This is documented in Oracle Projects Implementation Guide.
• For Project Expenditures (Transaction Import), include Expenditure Entry Using Microsoft Excel menu. The seeded integrators are also available in the Project Super User responsibility and documented in the Oracle Project Costing User Guide.

I find Oracle’s approach to document setup steps in multiple user guides and make them accessible in multiple responsibilities troubling. It makes implementation workflow very confusing. Along with Web ADI, other examples of this approach include iExpenses, Project Management, Resource Management, or iProcurement…

How To Triage Your Oracle Support Calls: Few Helpdesk Tips

Here is a Part II to the How To Triage Your Support Calls article, with a few practical tips for resolving basic support issues.

Printing Issues:

Here are some basic steps to resolve a printing issue.

• Ensure the report had output to print.

• Ensure the report was set to print 1 copy and not 0.

• Confirm that the User sent the job to the right printer.

• Read the log file and confirm that printing was not disabled for this report.

• Print something from the User’s computer—not Oracle.

• Don’t forget the basics. Is the printer plugged in and on line?

What does Support need?

• Oracle access to view all concurrent requests, output, and Logs.
• A list of Oracle printer names, network printer names, the relationship if they are not the same, and their physical locations.
• Training on reading the Log Files in Oracle.

Access Issues: User Needs More Responsibilities

Support can be assigned this duty with the proper approvals or they can assist the User through it if they are familiar with the process.

What does Support need?

• Proper Oracle access to users.
• A list of valid responsibilities and when they should be assigned to whom.
• A list of Segregation of Duties violations for those responsibilities if you do not have software to do this automatically.

Access Issues: User Can Not Access Specific Responsibilities

If you are using Self Service applications (iExpense, iProcurement, etc) and a User can not access these specific responsibilities, the Securing Attributes were not assigned correctly for the responsibility by the system. Normally Oracle assigns these automatically, but if you set up a User, save the record and then assign them iExpenses, ICX_HR_PERSON_ID will not get assigned automatically and need to be manually assigned.

What does Support need?

• A list of the Securing Attributes used in the system and in which cases they are used.
• Access to Users in Oracle.

Access Issues: Sign-on Problems

A User can not sign-on on their PC, nor can anyone else. However they can sign on using their user name and password on another PC. This is a Cache issue.

What should Support do to correct this?

• Clear the Cache on Internet Explorer.
• Clear the jCache on the jInitiator.

Access Issues: Form-based Applications

User can sign into Oracle and get to the first page as well as Web-applications, but can not sign into form-based applications. The culprit is always one of two things:

• Popup blocker.

• First time using Oracle on this PC and the jInitiator can not be installed because of the Internet Security settings.

What should Support do to correct this?

• Turn off the Pop-up Blocker. It may either be IE’s standard pop-up blocker or a Toolbar > Popup Blocker downloaded automatically.
• Change the Internet Security Settings to allow ActiveX Downloads. These can be changedback once the jInitiator is installed. Reminder: This is a software installation so the person logged on will need admin rights to the PC in order for it to install.

• Train your Support Team to click on Grant Always for the Oracle Certificate so the Users do not have to click on it every time they sign in. If they see your Support Team “Grant This Session,” they will do the same!

Forgotten Passwords

Forgotten passwords are a problem for all companies. Support should be able to handle all password issues on the first call.

What should Support do to correct this?

• Make sure support knows what security you have set up for passwords in Oracle. They will need to educate Users from time to time.
• Users use all instances, not just production. Support should have access to all instances and be able to reset passwords in all instances.
• Turn on Oracle’s Forgotten Password functionality which allows Oracle to reset a User password and Email it to them (see Metalink Note 399766.1).
• If you have Oracle set to lockout Users after a certain number of attempts, be aware that in later versions of Oracle this invalidates the encryption of the password as opposed to disabling the User Account. This is not visible on the User Record so ensure your Support Team is given to tools to see this (SQL, Discoverer, an alert, or a modification to the form) and knows to try to reset the password first.

Cannot Export Data From Oracle

The user tries to export data and it gives the message “EXPORTING,” blips, and disappears every time. They call up frustrated asking where they can find their data.

What can Support do?

• Under Internet Options, change the Security Setting for File Download to “Enable”.
• The User will get prompted to save the file after the export is complete at which point they can select the name and path of the file.

ADI (Application Desktop Integrator) Sign-on Issues

There are three common issues here.

• The User needs to set up a Database or access something other than production.

• The User is unsure of what User Name and Password to enter.

• ADI/Oracle can not resolve TNS Names error message.

What does Support need to resolve this?

• Provide the Support Desk with a cheat sheet they can send to Users for setting up databases.
• Inform the Support Desk that ADI uses Oracle User Names and Passwords. This sounds simple enough but how else would they know?
• Ensure the Support Desk has a current copy of the TNSNames.ora and SQLnet.ora files and knows where they go on the PC. If your company has remote access setup, Support can quickly resolve the problem by places the files in the proper location. If not, provide dummy proof documentation they can forward to the Users.

Oracle is DOWN!

This is one of the biggest, most frustrating issues that Support must handle is one that they can not resolve. However, Support can keep the Users calm and informed.

How can Support help?

• Have a scheduled down-time? Let Support know ahead of time.
• Bringing the system down for an emergency? Provide Support with an anticipated up-time (if known) so they are prepared for the flood of calls and can answer them appropriately.
• Do you have alerts that inform your Database Analysts of system issues? Copy Support on them so they can truthfully say, “Yes we are aware of the problem and are working on it.” This will also allow key folks to start resolving the issue immediately without having to contact Support.
• Provide the Support Desk with access to Oracle so they can confirm if Oracle is down when a User calls. If you have multiple locations, this is especially important in identifying if it is an Oracle or network issue so they can route the call appropriately.

The front end always dies first so a User often discovers that the system is down prior to the alerts and IT finding out. Use your Support Center as the barometer and the face of IT to keep it cool when the system does go down. Nobody wants to hear, “Nope, I have not heard it is down.”

Down issues are usually smoothed out by two main communication streams from IT. Regular status reports if it is a long outage (more the 30 minutes for a User). Remember, while the IT department is running around going crazy, Users are sitting idly speculating—usually about how the IT Department is doing nothing.

Immediate communication when the system is back up. Everyone thinks less of IT when they find out on their own that a system is back up and they were not informed by the people fixing the problem.

Querying Data in Forms Does Not Return Expected Results

“I can’t find any invoice batches but John can.” “All the Purchase Orders disappeared since yesterday!”

How can Support resolve the problem?

There is a folder with a saved query. Train Support to:

• Identify if a folder is being used to confirm the problem (icon with name next to it).
• Walk the User though turning the folder off. Navigate to Folder > Save. Set Autoquery = Never, and Include query = No. Make sure your default folder does not include a query.

Errors Saving Work

These problems can vary. Support cannot resolve most of them but they can gather information and occasionally resolve them.

How can Support help?

• Get the ENTIRE error message, including ORA-APP 192478, and a screen shot if possible.
• Get the Responsibility name, Navigation Path and Form when receiving the error. Asking specific questions will get specific answers. This is important. Do not ask, “What are you doing?” as the answers will range from “My Job” to “There is a delivery on the dock that will not be unloaded until the back receivables are cleared.” Translation? Cutting a Quick Check from the Invoice screen. More specific questions are “What are you trying to do in Oracle?” or “What process are you using?” if you have formal documented procedures.
• Ask the User if they tried signing out, back in, and repeating the process. Yes, shutting down Oracle and starting it up again does work sometimes. Remember, it is just a computer. This serves two purposes. It clears the Cache and it tests if the problem is repeatable.

Concurrent Processes Error Out

Often times a concurrent process will error out because it is looking for something to be done prior to it completing. Oracle is getting better in the later versions about making these messages clearer to understand.

How can Support help?

• Give Support access to view All Concurrent Requests, especially the Log Files.
• Teach them how to read a log file.
• Do a search on “ERR.”
• Read from the end not the beginning. The errors are usually toward the end of the file.
• Have them read error messages to the User (e.g. Please Roll Back Depreciation). The User will know what to do from there if it is a functional error message. If not, they can contact their supervisor or the call can be passed on to the Support Analyst with the corresponding log file.

Interfaces

Third party interfaces into and out of Oracle are usually run on a set schedule. Ensure the Support Desk knows about this schedule and any upcoming changes to it.

Conclusion

So what does it really take to run an efficient Oracle Help Desk? A little training, a lot of listening, and good communication. Remember that it does not stop with your current Support Team but needs to be passed on to each new team member.
As in all areas of Oracle and complicated systems, take the time to document your company processes and system specific knowledge. Front Line Support exists to diagnose what the issue is—not solve it. Support can only solve an issue if they have the solution for it in their hands.

The more solutions you put in their hands, the more they can resolve on the first call. Here is a rule of thumb. If it is a common, easy-to-identify, and easy-to-resolve issue, it should be handled by Front Line Support. Take the time to document issues and train the Support Desk. Your customers, aka co-workers, will respect you for it and actually not dread calling the Help Desk.

Interview with Randy Egger, the Father of Oracle Projects

Let me introduce Mr. Randy Egger, one of the original creators of Oracle Projects, and the president and CEO of Projects Partners. We spoke over the phone about his company and its role in the Oracle ecosystem. Below are few excerpts from our conversation.

How did you end up an Oracle professional?

Back in the early 80’s, I was involved with the selection of a relational database that my firm could use in conjunction with application development. We selected Oracle and at that time the RDMBs level was at V3. I had studied and taken classes from CJ Date and Ted Cod.

When you were used to coding in assembly language using a b-tree structure for data management, Oracle was a godsend! I joined Oracle in 1986 (employee number 2048!), and was part of the 50 person professional services group. After one year of that, I ran the IT group for Sales when it turned a billion dollars, and then ultimately landed in Application Development where I spearheaded Project Accounting [now Oracle Projects] development.

Ten and a half years ago, I started Project Partners where we specialize in the implementation of Oracle Projects as well as provide supplemental products to expand its usage.

What are your current role and responsibilities?

I am a president and CEO of Project Partners LLC.

Do you get to do a lot of selling?

I am involved in ALL areas of the business.

Tell us about the beginnings of Project Partners. When did you know the firm “has made it”?

I started the firm out of my house 10+ years ago. Since I was the Product Director for Oracle Projects, I knew that the marketplace needed quality consulting services for Project centric firms. I also knew that Oracle Projects could use some extra features that would facilitate its usage. Knowing that EVERY company is a project company, and most companies just didn’t know it yet, motivated me into this market. I never ponder on whether this company ‘has made it’ or not.

So it is journey, not a destination.

Exactly. We simply put our best foot forward and work very hard at making companies successful with their usage of Oracle Projects. Success breeds success. We now have worked with close to 300 clients and the list is growing very rapidly. We work with about an average of 30-40 clients at any point in time. We have a wealth of information at our disposal.

I assume you speak with many Oracle customers. What do you see as their main concerns and needs these days?

A lot of companies are adopting a Project Management approach to running projects but have little practical experience with the discipline. We are helping companies to formally become project-centric, i.e. help with establishing a PMO office, processes, etc.

Another big concern surrounds usability. Oracle Projects is VERY feature rich and most business problems faced by project centric firms can be solved using the software. The problem is simply with the amount of steps, screens, and processes it takes to accomplish a specific business need. We are trying to help people to simplify the product to fit their business needs. It is about taking a complex product with many features and making it easy to use.

User experience is an issue with Oracle applications. Specific industries have specific terminology and processes. Software built around specific industries were successful and well adopted by the users.

I also believe, from a user experience perspective, it hurt Oracle to be anti-Microsoft back in the 90s.

Yes, if Microsoft did something, Oracle had to do the opposite.

And companies that adopted Microsoft standards became standards; like SAP for instance. The [Oracle] applications look and feel different and it takes time for new and old users to use them properly.

But it changed with the acquisitions. They made Oracle much better in the application space….

What kind of products and services does Project Partners offer? What distinguishes you from other consulting firms?

We offer EXPERT Oracle Projects consultants that have lots of industry experience. Since our company focus is in Projects, we work collaboratively to insure that all of our clients can benefit from our collective knowledge. We are NOT a body shop … the company cares about the success of our Oracle Projects implementations. Ninety nine percent of our clients can be referenced.

We also develop products that help serve the Oracle Projects community. We current have 4 products that satisfy Projects needs:

• OP3 - Integration with Primavera Project Schedules
• PIC Reporting - A comprehensive Project based reporting tool
• PIC Invoicing - Simplifies invoice formats as well as Invoice Consolidation
• PIC UI - A simplified user interface to Oracle Projects and other modules using spreadsheets

A lot of people still do not understand the integration between Oracle Projects and Primavera. They think they can do it themselves then find it more complex than it seems. We put a lot of time and effort into the integration. And we are doing a lot of work getting ready for the next generation Oracle Applications.

PIC Reporting and Invoicing are our best known secrets.

People assume it is in the core product.

When people buy Oracle E-Business Suite applications, they get an almost complete solution. Partner solutions are acquired by clients once they know enough about the core products to identify those areas in which gaps remain between their business needs and the core software. The Oracle ecosystem is a healthy one, in which Oracle delivers more than 80% of the fit, and partners deliver the rest.

PIC User Interface is our new product that will be formally launched later this year. We are taking Microsoft Excel and integrating it with Oracle [Project Management and Resource Management]. There will be workbooks working two-way between Excel and Oracle forms. Using PIC User Interface we consolidated 12 Oracle screens into one. This will revolutionalize the industry. We are getting some tremendous feedback. We have focused on two industries so far – Professional Services organizations and Engineering and Construction…

As an Oracle partner, you are filling gaps in Oracle’s product offering. Let’s take PIC with its reporting and invoicing enhancements, for example. Why is it that Oracle can’t deliver this fundamental functionality in its core products?

I believe that a lot the issues will be resolved within Fusion. Oracle Projects is a VERY complex application that crosses many industries. A project (or job) is a cultural thing to many companies. Project Managers have their own way of managing a project, and in this, they closely mirror artists. It is that creative power that can make or break a project (or project manager). You need tools that can help this process. You can have many many different types of projects within one organization and yet another set of project types in another organization within the same company. This is a tough problem to solve when you want one consolidated view that shows the health of a company that is made up of projects.

Which Oracle releases are your products currently compatible with?

We are compatible with most releases, specifically 11, 11i, 12.

How are you getting ready for Fusion?

We are currently studying the underlying technology. Our next generation Project Management integration software will be based on Fusion technology.

What is the best way for users to become familiar with your products?

By going to our website, attending the Oracle OpenWorld and OAUG COLLABORATE conferences, and requesting real-time demos. We also plan to offer webinars.

I guess that’s one of the reasons we are talking today.

Absolutely.

What do people not know about Projects Partners but should?

We operate globally; we now have operations in India and plan to expand into the Middle East and Europe. We have experts in technology as well as the complex FP-M data model. Our core competency is ORACLE PROJECTS (both functionally and technically). We manage full eBusiness Suite implementations for project centric companies. We handle small, medium, and large implementations.

Our best known secrets are probably PIC Invoicing and PIC UI. We believe that PIC UI will make Oracle Projects implementations VERY successful, especially for those companies that are trying to “field enable” Projects.

A couple of your associates recently started a company blog. Why?

Blogs will serve as an easier way of getting informal information out to our user base faster. It is a part of our knowledge transfer. One of our goals is to educate current and potential users on the benefits and the best ways to use the Oracle Projects products. Everything we do is geared towards this goal – including the Blog, access to our experts for quick questions, meeting with people formally and informally at conferences, etc… It’s this desire to share our knowledge that led us to sponsor the Center for Projects Excellence at the OAUG annual conferences. We staff the conference booth with our very experienced consultants, so that customers can come by and ask us their toughest questions, and get answers at no cost. We enjoy the open question and answer exchange – it’s one of the ways we prove that we are indeed The Experts in Oracle Projects!

How to Triage Your Oracle Support Calls

Let me introduce Melanie Cameron as a guest author to this blog. Melanie is a consultant for MSS Technologies, specializing in Oracle Financials related to SOX, Process Improvements, Upgrades, Implementations, and Workflow. Based in Phoenix, Melanie serves on the Board of Directors of the AzOAUG and can be found at most Oracle events in the Valley of the Sun.

Does this exchange sound familiar? User: “Oracle doesn’t work!” Support: “It’s up. What’s the problem?” User: “I told you! It’s not working!!!”

I hear this all the time at client sites. Running a Help Desk is one of the toughest jobs in the company due to disparate systems, Users who are unfamiliar with what information Support Technicians need to know, and Support Technicians who are unfamiliar with the systems.

Underlying this is a constant level of tension because nobody calls support when everything is working great. There is ALWAYS a problem when Users call in and those problems prevent them from doing their jobs. Every User feels that their problem should be the Support Technician’s top priority.

So how does the Help Desk quickly identify level-one priorities, resolve basic issues, provide great customer service, and keep things running smoothly with minimal training? On top of that, how can they support an extremely complicated system and keep their customers (aka co-workers) happy?

There are a few keys elements to a successful Help Desk:

• Communication
• Empathy
• Training and Tools

Communication

Let’s get the obvious out of the way. If the Support Technician speaks Armenian and the User speaks English, they will not communicate effectively. But the communication issue goes deeper then this.

A User may call up and say, “ADI is not running on the new PC. It says TNS Names could not be resolved.”

If the Support Technician does not know what “ADI” means or what “TNS Names” is, how can they resolve the issue, or even route it to the correct team to resolve? The User may as well be speaking a foreign language!

Support must understand acronyms, the tools installed related to Oracle, and whether they are Server or Client-based. This way they can route calls properly, which will reduce confusion, frustration, and the time required to resolve them. Don’t make this list once and forget about! Rolling out a new product? Upgrading? Inform the Support Center of changes before they occur so Technicians can stay current.

To more efficiently pass off support calls, especially in larger support organizations, Support Technicians should have a reference guide of the basic tools, modules, and acronyms used with Oracle and the Support Analyst or Technical Person who will handle the call if it can not be resolved (ex. Frances gets Financials and John gets Purchasing).

Empathy

Users call Support because something they need to do their job is broken. They are frustrated. They are upset. They do NOT want to hear, “Log a ticket and someone will get back to you.” Users want to know that the Support Technician is listening to their problem, understands the issue, and is treating it with the importance it deserves. A better response is, “What is the problem? How is it affecting your job? What is your deadline? Is there another tool you can use while I route this to the person who can help you?”

Asking the aforementioned questions will enable both the Support Technician AND the User to understand what the required level of support really is and what urgency should be.

Training and Tools

Oracle E-Business Suite is HUGE and nobody knows it all. We all specialize in different areas and set boundaries. I have been doing this for 13 years and probably have another 15 more years before I retire. I will learn something new about Oracle every day until I walk out the door to retirement land.

But there are some basics in the system that Support Technicians can be trained on so that they can resolve these issues on the first call without added time and resources. Imagine what that will do for your department’s reputation outside IT!

Keep reading for Few Helpdesk Tips in part II of this article.

Few Navigation Helpers for New Oracle EBS Users

I am sure there have been many times that you have sat down at your desk – intent on researching a couple of transactions that the auditor has asked you some questions on. You spend a couple of minutes trying to sift through what needs to be done and start. A little while later you are just a couple of steps into your task, but far from complete. This is a frustrating reality for many Oracle Applications users. They are capable of getting results, but most users are unaware of what to do to get to information quickly.The purpose of this (and other)posts will be to lead the readers down a path of understanding and help them learn tips and tricks that enable more efficient and effective use of the system. It is not intended as a discussion about how frustratingly unfamiliar or unfriendly Oracle E-Business Suite is. This paper is limited to Oracle Applications E-Business Suite, and primarily Financials with some aspects of Purchasing and Order Management. Though the key facets discussed should work in most other modules as well.

When you first log in to your “Home Page,” preferences settings are available in addition to your list of Responsibilities that you see for the first time.

The most interesting and useful feature in the preferences tab is the Date Format. I have heard so many people say that the Oracle Date format (dd-mon-yyyy) is terrible and they want to use their good old mm-dd-yy or dd-mm-yy date format. You can change your preference here. You can also change the way the numbers (amounts) appear on the data entry form, including your password.

You can also change it so that when you log in the first responsibility and form are set to be the one you use most. However, when you do this there are two problems(?) – you lose the Home Page, and if you want to change these setting you need to have a Web based form like the one that is in the ‘i’ products (iExpenses, iProcurement, etc….). This is not a major issue as almost everyone should have the Notification function on one of their Responsibilities, that can be used to change the setting back to default.

Once you log in to the application you see the Oracle forms - the good old forms screen with blue and dark grey colors after you log in. These are the default colors; if your System Administrator has not changed them. Once you reach these screens you see the Navigator - also called the menu list. You have a couple of icons on the toolbar that you may want to check out - the ones that are available for use - Change Responsibility, Print and Help.

In addition, you should see menu options on the toolbar menu - File, Edit, View, Tools, Window and Help. These are available throughout the applications on all the forms.

Take a close look at the following Menu Options as these are handy and are typically available from any form within the application:
Edit > Preferences - used to change password and view and set profile options at user level.

The other option that is used regularly is View à Requests to view concurrent programs that you have submitted and view the output and/or log.

One of the most overlooked is the Tools à Close Other Forms choice. This menu option allows multiple forms to be open within a given responsibility. This allows you to look at Customer, Invoice, and Receipt all together without closing each one of the forms.

The last menu option used also has some valuable choices - Help.

the Help à Record History and Help à About Oracle Applications choices are used very frequently by users to understand and locate generic data about the record and details about the module you in use. The Help à Record History is very crucial if you are trying to figure out what went wrong and would like to know who enterer or updated a particular transaction. This option shows you who created the data set (i.e. created by), when as well as who last updated it and when (last updated by). This information in transaction data entry forms helps when doing some research.

The Help à About Oracle Applications choice can provide you with beneficial information - instance you are using, User Name you are logged in as, Form Name that you are using currently and its version details. All these are very helpful when working with Oracle support for an issue.

The Diagnostics choice is one that, in most cases, you need the Apps password. Unless there is a technical request for you to perform, you will probably not use it. Also, the functions under the Diagnostics choice are very complex and need additional training. This discussion is outside the scope of this post.

On the navigator or the menu list there are submenus and functions. The submenus can be many times deep and to get to a specific function you may have to look for it, and this could be time-consuming. You can then use this option that is a big savior - CTRL-L on the menu form lists all functions available to a specific Responsibility.

I am sure there are many people that understand the Top Ten feature on the menu form and every user should configure this functionality when they start working with the system regularly. The hidden trick however, is that the number assigned to a Top Ten choice; can also be used as a short cut to open the function/form.

In many cases the system is notorious for giving inaccurate or inconsistent messaging, however, the status line for a given form is almost always accurate. The Status Line is shown at the bottom of the screen and in many cases is hidden by the toolbar (Windows toolbar). You can make it visible by clicking on the maximize icon on the top right hand corner of your applications form. Once the status bar becomes visible and messages there are quite useful - especially when you are stuck!

There are multiple tabs on the Navigator menu form - Functions, Documents and Processes. The functions tab gives and lists all the menus and functions associated with the menus for use in the normal working tasks on a day to day basis. The Documents tab can be used to place documents (single transactions) that you may be researching and need to get to quickly until you finish your research, you can have multiple documents (transactions) on the tab, but each is saved separately. The last tab is – Processes. It can be customized to be hidden or not available. The processes tab helps you walk through a process, e.g. Enter Journals through Posting, Reviewing Account Balances, Account Inquiry and Reporting.

The use of this set of functions is a longer discussion and is not covered as part of this post . There is more to come as it would be a little easier to make short posts.

When Oracle Asset Security by Book Doesn’t Work

This feature of the week is for those who operate in a multi-org environment with multiple Asset Books. Unlike other Oracle Financials modules (Payables, Receivables, Purchasing, Order Management or Projects), Oracle Assets is not operating unit specific. The way you separate your transactions is by defining the Asset Security by Book.

Summary of Setup Steps

Step 1: Define Asset Organizations.

As Fixed Assets Manager:

• Navigate to Setup > Security > Organization > Description.
• Query up the organization, for which you want to define the Asset Security. Typically, this could be your operating unit.
• Include classification ‘Asset Organization. Click ‘Other’.
• Associate the organization with the asset book. Now, this step is very peculiar. You want to find an existing asset book. But! If you ran an open query, you’d get all books, which were already associated with this organization. And if you were assigning the first book to this organization, you’d retrieve nothing.
• What you must do is submit a specific query, i.e. run it as View > Query by example > Enter, and enter the book name.
• Then you have to make a change, any change like changing the book description, in order to be able to save it. This is not a bug, it’s a feature! So be aware of it.
• Save you changes. Now your book is associated with the asset organization.

Step 2: Define Asset Security Profile

As Fixed Assets Manager:

• Navigate to Setup > Security > Security
• Define a profile, which you will later assign with user responsibilitities. The profile links together the asset book, asset organization and responsibility.
• Select Organization Hierarchy and Top Organization in it to be valid in this profile, or
• Include specific organizations, which will be valid in the profile.

Step 3: Assign FA Security Profiles

As System Administrator:

• Navigate to Profile > System.
• Enter the asset responsibility you want to assign to a specific asset book (FA security profile).
• Enter ‘FA Security Profile’ as profile.
• Enter ‘Your Asset Profile Name’ in the profile value.

Step 4: Validate Your Asset Security Setup

Log in with the responsibility, for which you just defined the Asset Security above. Navigate to Asset Workbench and select the book values. If you see more than the one book you expected, something is not right.>

When Asset Security Doesn’t Work

• Check the Organization and Organization Hierarchy Setup. The Security by Book feature enables you to designate an organizational hierarchy in which the assets of an organization can only be seen by either the organization or its parent.You may set up a number of organizations and include as many of them as you wish in the hierarchy. Make sure that your hierarchy is set up as you expect.
• Run the Security List Maintenance program. This program populates the LOV’s with the appropriate information. If you miss this important step, your LOV’s will not show the correct books that are available for each organization to access.
• Define Asset Security for all books. You will always see asset books, which are not associated with any security profile. If there is a book that already exists on the system and you have not assigned that book to a particular organization, all organizations will be able to see the book and its assets.

For more information, refer to the Oracle Assets User Guide, or this [old but good] white paper on the subject (Oracle Metalink sign-on required).