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Greetings!
We've got training classes. We've got books. We've got assessments. We've got consulting. Yes, here at TruTek we are totally ready to do R12 in a big way. Now don't you want to join in?
Check out our classes this quarter - we're bringing in Manufacturing Classes, PL/SQL Fundamentals, and the Oracle Release 12 New Features (Functional) classes.
And remember, the keys to a successful R12 upgrade are: - Have us complete an Assessment of your E-Business Suite environment
- Fix all the issues we find
- Read our books on upgrading to R12
- Take our classes on upgrading to R12
- Do the upgrade, and be sure to bring in our consultants to augment your staff where needed
That's how it's done!
Sincerely,
Mike Swing
TruTek |
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| What We Do | |
 TruTek is a national leader in technical and functional Oracle training and consulting. We also offer permanent placement services for part-time and full-time employees. We offer Oracle database and E-Business Suite consulting, training and remote services. We have a state of the art training facility in Salt Lake City, Utah.
If you have 5 or more people interested in a class, we can also bring classes to your company if you would like onsite training. And if you've wanted to take a training class, but were intimidated by the crowds, we also offer "Personal Training" for certain classes, as well as online training.
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| Release 11i Extended Support Patching - You'd Better Watch Out! - by Barbara Matthews | |
Perhaps you've been seeing the mailnotes, newsletter articles, and even news articles about Oracle's Mandatory Extended Support Patching Requirements. Oracle announced this change in January, 2010, so customers have had quite a while to plan out what they need to do. Perhaps you're thinking "Fah! My company is pretty current, we shouldn't have a problem." Oh, if only that were true. I thought I'd walk you through two case studies of what I've seen, along with how you can check your status.
To Learn More
If you haven't done so already, please fill out the OAUG's Extended Support questionnaire by November 30th: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22B7BG2TA85
They'd like to be your advocate, so understanding what Oracle's E-Business Suite customers' status is would help them in discussing issues with Oracle. Also, I'd love to hear more from customers about what you're doing. If you've applied patches, tell me how long it took, how many patches you had to apply, and if you hit any surprises. And if you're still deciding what to do, tell me about that too!
If you'd like to hear more about the Extended Support patches, John Stouffer, who is on the OAUG Board of Directors, will be giving two webinars titled:
What you need to know about Release 11i Extended Support Patching including Tips and Q & A
You can register at:: November 22nd at 1pm EST or November 23rd at 1pm EST
Don't miss the opportunity to ask questions and relate your own issues and concerns.
To Check Your Company's Extended Support Status
Let's start with the infamous My Oracle Support Doc. ID: 883202.1. In a nutshell, it says:
To be eligible for Extended Support of 11.5.10, which begins on December 1, 2010, your production E-Business Suite environment must be patched to the patch levels indicated in the table under Section 1, requirements 1 through 6. Also, you must have the patches in Section 2 applied. Section 2 includes a large number of patches for a large number of E-Business Suite modules. You have to apply patches to any module that you have installed, shared, or that is a pseudo module. Also, as we get closer to December 1st, My Oracle Support Doc. ID: 883202.1 may be updated with additional patches. So even if you've gone through this drill, you need to keep checking.
Well that's pretty simple. You might wonder what the fuss is all about, and the answer is three-fold. First, these requirements are mandatory. Oracle has traditionally steered clear of making mandatory requirements, so it's a big deal when they introduce one. And second, this mandatory requirement has dozens of patches that might need to be applied. Those patches will require thorough testing before you can move them into production. Even if you've made it past Section 1 of Doc. ID: 883202.1, you'll likely still have a couple dozen patches to apply. Last of all, the date: December 1, 2010. It's just around the corner. You'll need to figure out what patches need to be applied, find all the pre-requisites, apply them to a test environment, test them, and then apply them to a production environment. Before year end.
Now, how do you figure out what you might have to patch?
The Manual Way
First, run patchsets.sh. At the top, there is a list of modules that you use. Print the list out. Print 883202.1 out. Get out your highlighter. Highlight all the patches in Section 2 that match up to the modules in your patchsets.sh report - whether installed, shared or pseudo.
The Automated Way
You can use the Patch Wizard to tell you what you need to patch, but you might have to patch Patch Wizard to make that work:
Patch 9803629 includes the following pre-requisite patches: 4125550, 3036401, 3264818, 3263588, 3219567, 3264822, 3263645, 3261254, 3262486, 2614213, 3261243, 4038964, 3262159, 3412795, 3140000
If you're relatively current on the E-Business Suite, you've probably got many of these patches applied already. Go back to patchsets.sh and take a look there. You'll need to get out your highlighter and highlight those cases where the Running Version column is lower than the Latest Available column. Then compare the highlighted patches in patchsets.sh to this list of pre-requisite patches for Patch 9803629 and see how you're doing.
Next Step
By now you've got a list of patches that you need to apply. If you want to use Patch Wizard - and yes, you should want to use Patch Wizard, because once you've gone through MOS Doc. ID: 883202.1 with a highlighter once, you'll never want to do that again - then you'll need to get organized and plan out those patches. One issue with MOS Doc. ID: 883202.1 is that you've got a list of patches, but guess what - you don't really think those patches won't have pre-requisite patches, do you? So getting Patch Wizard working so it will tell you pre-requisite patches is another great reason for applying all those patches to Patch Wizard.
Following are two examples of client's results. You may be surprised to hear that the client who was patched most current - having all the items in Section 1 up to date - had the most patches to apply.
EXAMPLE 1: We'll start with a client who is way behind on their patching. They applied Release 11.5.10.2 with CU2 in 2006 and haven't had much time to patch since then. They're still using JInitiator, and they're on RDBMS 10.2.0.3.
Read More |
| Have TruTek Assess Your E-Business Suite Environment |
Assessments
TruTek's Assessment Services help clients review aspects of their Oracle environments. TruTek Assessments can cover any area of concern, including database performance, E-Business Suite Applications performance, E-Business Suite upgrade readiness, or an E-Business Suite module functionality review.
TruTek specializes in the following Assessment services:
- Database Health Checks
- Upgrade Readiness
- The Upgrade Readiness Assessment has three components:
- Functional Upgrade Assessment
- Technical Upgrade Assessment
- Customization Assessment
- Functional Gap Analysis
- The Gap Analysis evaluates current business practices against best practices and determines how an upgrade can help close the functional gap.
What is an Assessment? Trutek's Assessments consist of an audit, analysis, and recommendations in three key areas:- Strategy
- Process
- Technology
Additionally, at the client's option, the Assessment can also include the following two areas: Read more about all of TruTek's available upgrade services. |
| Gobs of LOBS by Barbara Matthews | |
All right, I'll admit it. LOBS have been bothering me since the first time I saw them in the E-Business Suite. They're big. Really big. And I've never been able to find out enough information about them. So every time I look at a client's data, there they are, lurking, taking up all that space. But this month, I decided to poke around a little on My Oracle Support. Call it my very personal quest for information about LOBS, if you will. And the good news is, sometime within the last year or so, Oracle has provided a lot more information about LOBS. They've even provided scripts that provide some perspective on what's going on with those LOBS. And they've even provided some suggestions for how to tame your LOBS.
FND_LOBS
MOS Doc. ID: 298698.1, "Avoiding abnormal growth of FND_LOBS table in Applications 11i" tells us, "Of all the tables that occupy a very large amount of space within the APPLSYSD and APPLSYSX tablespaces of Oracle Applications instances, FND_LOBS is usually one of the top 10. This is because it stores all the attachments that have been uploaded to Oracle Applications. There is a LOB field within this table called FILE_DATA, and the corresponding LOB segment (e.g., APPLSYS.SYS_IL0000680397C00004$$) is where the actual attachment data is stored, and it is usually very large. It is important that its size be controlled."
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| We Call Them the Oracle Upgrade Trio |
"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple." -- Dr. Seuss
"Unfortunately, that is not the case with upgrading to R12." -- Mike Swing
PLAN PREPARE PERFORM
Are you the Mighty Oracle Foot Soldier, ready to tackle the upgrade to Release 12.1.2 for your company? We recommend you start here, with TruTek's 3-part guided tour.
One of the first steps you should take in preparing to upgrade is to actually try the upgrade. If you haven't already installed the Release 11.5.10.2 Vision Instance on a test environment, go ahead and do it. And then use Mike's guides to upgrade that instance to Release 12.1.2. Surprisingly, even the Vision Instance doesn't upgrade flawlessly. Mike includes pointers to additional patches and steps that you'll need to take to make your upgrade a success. Mike's comprehensive trilogy consists of: the little r12.1.2 upgrade guide - sponsored by the Oracle Application Users Group, this 414 page (so far) book provides the detailed steps to upgrading your Vision instance from R11i to R12.1.2. It includes the steps for upgrading your database to Version 11gR2. It includes pointers to more than 175 patches and 150 My Oracle Support notes. That's right, just because you've got this book doesn't mean you get out of downloading patches and reading the Readmes and assorted other explanations. But we tell you, all in one place, which documents to read, how to apply the patches, and "gotchas" that we've discovered along the way. This edition is bigger and better than the last, as Mike continues to add information about patches and bugs and features that you need to understand to upgrade to E-Business Suite Release 12.1. Are you looking for a guided tour? Don't worry, Mike uses this book as the basis for TruTek's Oracle E-Business Suite R11i to R12.1 Technical Upgrade class. He's also available to chat if you'd like to discuss your upcoming upgrade plans - just give him a call at 801 486-6655 or send him an email at mswing@trutek.com. Best of all, Mike has the hands-on experience that you'll need for an upgrade, so consider TruTek for meeting your consulting needs. |
| 1 + 1 = 12: A Look at Migration vs. Consolidation | |
This article focuses on two approaches for combining multiple instances of OracleŽ E-Business Suite (EBS). For purposes of completeness and generality, we will consider two instances of different releases (11i and R12), the processes that must take place in order to make them compatible, and the actual combination of the two instances via two different options: Migration and Consolidation.
Goal
For a globally expanding business looking to streamline operations and get to R12, the general objective is to conduct all existing business in a single EBS R12 instance. In our example, the company has two business lines: one runs in an 11i instance, and the second runs in its own R12 instance. Here we will simply refer to the instances as Current 11i and Current R12. When the Current 11i business is combined into Current R12, the resulting instance will be a truly global instance, which we will refer to as Global R12. The two sub-objectives to reach the goal are (1) to conduct both lines of business in R12 and (2) to combine Current 11i and Current R12 instances.
Summary Comparison Between Migration and Consolidation
Two approaches are available to get from multiple instances and reach the goal of a single EBS R12 instance in which to run an entire business:
- data migration plus sunset instance, and
- R12 upgrade followed by eprentise Consolidation.
Migration is the way things have been done before when it was necessary to combine two instances, and it is characterized as relying on highly skilled technical staff, labor intensive, supported by very general purpose software utilities such as data loader. The end result is usually a compromise among schedule, business, and technical constraints. Migration generally takes a long time and is expensive; it has been the only game in town and follows practices and techniques generally used in the Oracle EBS community.
Consolidation is new, characterized as relying on a purpose-specific software product that displaces labor, elapsed time, and technical risk. The end result has no business or IT compromises. We have developed the eprentise Consolidation software to meet Oracle EBS customer needs, reduce the costs of EBS, and improve the business results.
To read a detailed comparison including pros and cons of the two approaches, please see this article. |
| Thinking About Reimplementing? | | Talk to us. We're very impressed by eprentise's solutions, and think you will be too. |
| Patch 'til There's Nothin' Left to Fix |
Steven Chan's Oracle E-Business Suite Technology blog included a number of interesting articles last month. Note that there are still issues with the latest version of JRE, Version 1.6.0_22. The new October 2010 Critical Patch Update (CPU) has been released.
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| Confio Igniter Suite |
 Confio builds performance management software that improves the effectiveness of IT systems and the people who run them. The Confio Igniter Suite currently includes products that help Oracle DBAs, managers, and developers continuously monitor the performance of databases and the applications that depend on them, isolate specific problems, and identify solutions in production systems. |
| Master Oracle Results Cache ... and improve performance 1000% by Confio |
The new Results Cache lets DBAs re-use query results by caching them in the shared pool. Results Cache reduces I/O operations considerably if you have a query that is executed repeatedly and reads data that rarely changes. Reduce I/O = improve performance. Take some time out to listen to Confio's recorded webinar:
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| Your Claim to Fame... | |
 Oh, go on. Maybe you've written a great presentation or paper and want to tell people about it? Here's your chance. Drop us a line, and if we publish your article, we'll send you a $50 Gift Certificate from Amazon!
Don't be shy! Send your submission to editor@trutek.com by November 25th. We'll include the winning article in our next newsletter.
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| Oracle PO Approval Hierarchy Routing Issued Resolved by Ron Morrison, UGI | |
Ron Morrison, from UGI, is this month's winner of our newsletter article contest. We found Ron's article interesting for two reasons: first, it shows his problem solving methodology that he uses when he finds an issue with Workflow. Ron worked together with Oracle Support to recommend a solution. Second, Oracle Support actually came up with a one-off bug fix for the problem, and then realized, before implementing it, that there was already a solution in place in another patch. This gives us some insight into Oracle's problem solving methodology - they have a lot of code they're working with, so you would expect that once in a while they might "re-fix" a problem because of issues searching for an existing fix.
Recently we encountered several PO Approvals that were routed to an incorrect routing path according to the HR hierarchy supervisor relationship after the 3rd notification approval time-out was encountered. I discovered that the hierarchy routing path was not including an edit restriction to only select supervisor relationships with an ASSIGNMENT_TYPE = 'E' when the PO_REQAPPROVAL_FINDAPPRV1.GetMgrHRHier was executed against the PER_ASSIGNMENTS_F table. The logic was retrieving both the active employee ASSIGNMENT_TYPE of 'E' and a Benefits ASSIGNMENT_TYPE of 'B' for the hierarchy information.
The affected employee had worked with one of our subsidiaries and left the subsidiary to work at the main company office. By leaving the subsidiary, the employee was set up with a Benefits end-date, and a benefits profile was established based on his number of years with the subsidiary, and thus generated an ASSIGNMENT_TYPE 'B' for the Benefits information. I discovered that the ASSIGNMENT_TYPE 'B' information was extracted when I executed the Oracle Diagnostics application under Purchasing for the specific PO that was routed incorrectly under the section for the PER_ASSIGNMENTS_F table information that was extracted.
I used Workflow builder to identify the process that was being executed, which identified the source code that was being executed. I submitted a Service Request to Oracle regarding this issue and recommended that an edit be added to the logic in the PO_REQAPPROVAL_FINDAPPRV1.GetMgrHRHier process to include a selection criteria of ASSIGNMENT_TYPE = 'E'. Oracle agreed that this modification to the source would resolve this issue and assigned BUG 10035329.
Oracle provided us with a one off Patch 6616285 to correct this issue. They said to apply the patch to $PO_TOP/patch/115/sql/
Later, Oracle realized that they had already fixed the issue, but that we were on an older version of code. The final solution was to upgrade from version 115.22.11510.2 to version 115.22.11510.3 to get this fix. Since Patch 5451684 containing version 115.22.11510.3 is not generally released, we were asked to apply Patch 7109979.
The following screenshots show where and how to identify the problem source code information and the solution offered by Oracle.
Read More |
| Upcoming TruTek Training |
We're always open to adding new classes, so let us know your interests! We add new classes regularly, so be sure to check the latest version of the schedule on our website.
*** Class Dates and Locations are Subject to Change
Time Zone for Online Classes is MST
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Oracle Apps Technical Classes |
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Jan 31-Feb 4 |
Oracle E-Business Suite R11i to R12 Technical Upgrade |
Las Vegas, NV | |
Jan 31-Feb 4 |
Oracle R12 Applications DBA Concepts and Admin |
Las Vegas, NV | |
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APEX Classes |
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Jan 24-25 |
APEX 4.0 New Features with Scott Spendolini |
Las Vegas, NV | |
Jan 26-28 |
Intermediate APEX 4.0 with Scott Spendolini |
Las Vegas, NV | |
Jan 31-Feb 2 |
Introduction to Oracle APEX IUsing 4.0with Scott Spendolini |
Las Vegas, NV | |
Feb 3-4 |
Introduction to Oracle APEX II Using 4.0with Scott Spendolini |
Las Vegas, NV | |
TBD |
APEX Installation and AdministrationUsing 4.0with Scott Spendolini |
Las Vegas, NV | |
TBD |
Troubleshooting & Debugging APEXUsing 4.0 with Scott Spendolini |
Las Vegas, NV | |
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Developer Classes |
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TBD |
21st Century PL/SQL with Steven Feuerstein |
SLC, UT | |
Nov 16-18 |
Oracle 11i Workflow Builder, Business Events and Administration |
SLC, UT | |
Dec 7-9 |
PL/SQL Fundamentals |
SLC, UT | |
Jan 18-20 |
Oracle 11i Workflow Builder, Business Events and Administration |
SLC, UT | |
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DBA Classes |
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Jan 10-14 |
DBA Boot Camp I |
SLC, UT | |
Jan 10-14 |
Oracle Database 11g New Features |
SLC, UT | |
Jan 10-14 |
Backup and Recovery using Oracle 11g RMAN |
SLC, UT | |
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Functional Classes |
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Nov 29-Dec 2 |
Oracle R11i/R12 Financials Business Process Overview |
SLC, UT | |
Dec 13-16 |
Oracle Release 11i/12 Order to Cash |
SLC, UT | |
Dec 14-16 |
Oracle Release 12 New Features (Functional) |
SLC, UT | |
Jan 18-20 |
Introduction to Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle Project Management |
SLC, UT | |
Jan 31-Feb 1 |
Oracle Release 11i/12 Accounts Payable |
Las Vegas, NV | |
Feb 1-3 |
Oracle Release 12 New Features (Functional) |
Las Vegas, NV | |
Feb 1-4 |
Oracle R11i/R12 Financials Business Process Overview |
Las Vegas, NV | |
Feb 2-3 |
Oracle Release 11i/12 Purchasing |
Las Vegas, NV | |
Feb 2-4 |
R12 AME |
Las Vegas, NV | |
Feb 3-4 |
Oracle Release 11i/12 Fixed Assets |
Las Vegas, NV | |
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Manufacturing Classes (Oracle E-Business Suite) |
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Dec 20-23 |
Oracle Inventory |
SLC, UT | |
Dec 20-23 |
Oracle Bill of Materials & Engineering |
SLC, UT | |
Dec 20-23 |
Oracle Material Requirements Planning |
SLC, UT | |
Dec 20-23 |
Oracle Work In Process Fundamentals |
SLC, UT | |
Dec 20-23 |
Oracle Quality |
SLC, UT | |
Dec 20-23 |
Oracle Manufacturing Functional Foundation |
SLC, UT | |
Dec 21-22 |
R12 Oracle Manufacturing New Features |
SLC, UT | |
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Business Intelligence Classes |
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Jan 11-13 |
Oracle Warehouse Builder for OBI Standard Edition One |
SLC, UT | |
Jan 11-13 |
Introduction to Oracle Business Intelligence Standard Edition One |
SLC, UT | |
Jan 18-19 |
Introduction to OBIEE Repositories |
SLC, UT | |
Jan 18-20 |
Business Intelligence Applications - Reports & Dashboards |
SLC, UT | |
Jan 18-20 |
Modifying Oracle BI Applications |
SLC, UT | |
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Conferences and User Group Meetings - We'll Be There! |
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Feb 15-17 |
RMOUG Training Days |
Denver, CO | |
Mar 30-31 |
UTOUG Training Days |
SLC, UT | |
Apr 10-14 |
Collaborate 2011 |
Orlando, FL |
Let us know by calling 801-486-6655
If you'd like one of TruTek's experts to come to your local user group meeting, |
| Enough Already! |
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And if we're just not hitting the topics that you want to hear about, either submit an article yourself, or click here and fill out our survey. We know people who know stuff - that's our claim to fame - and we'll get them to write about that stuff! |
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Contact us for Group Discounts and Additional Offers 801-486-6655 | | |
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