Atlanta OAUG

Tips and Techniques

www.atloaug.org

We originally planned for this newsletter to be a low cost, no budget operation. However, we are spending about $2,000/year on printing and postage even though many of you receive electronic subscription service via the ATLOAUG list server. Although the national OAUG helps us with some of the costs, we are already over our allowance for the year. Please help us keep our costs low by using electronic methods to receive the newsletter. You can use the web page or the list server.

In addition, if you need to get another copy of the newsletter or distribute it to an associate, just send an e-mail to bosscorp@sprynet.com with the phrase "ATLOAUG Newsletter" in the subject line of the e-mail. You will receive an e-mail reply with the most recent issue of the newsletter attached.

Coordinator - Brenda Carlton - bcarlton@kpmg.com

Web/email list server provider - David Rincon - drincon@csac.com

Newsletter Editor - Jim Crum - jcrum@sprynet.com

From: "Cynthia Gilstrap" CGILSTRA@us.oracle.com

Consider putting the date in your batch name. It does not hurt, but you can query on the date in the date field along with the batch name. In my experience with naming conventions, you definitely want to include the person's initials and any other pertinent information about the batch that you cannot query in another field. (company name, type of entries, batch number, etc.)

From: Joe Krzes jkrzes@smith-intl.com

We use the user-id, month, year, and batch number for month or whatever will help the user keep track of their batch. i.e.: JKR019801. This is user JKR, month 01, year 98, batch 01. You can reuse batch names each month, but not within the same month. Even the above example is overkill. As long as it contains a reference to the user who created it, so that if there is a problem with it or it's out of balance, you can find them. Just specify that the first 4 or 5 characters are their user-id or name. Also try to make the user understand that they can create one batch with multiple journal entries, with multiple journal entry lines. This would minimize the number of batches.

From: SJPANDE SJPANDE@aol.com

I've run in 50000 invoices in 8 hours for a while now and don't think it can get any better in my current environment. There is a dramatic decrease in performance as the number of invoices increase in the same run. One contributing factor I encountered was inappropriately sized rollback segments. I've defined the initial extent for each rollback segment to be larger than what AutoInvoice needs when processing the defined maximum of 50000 transactions. Prior to doing that, the 50000 invoices in a single run took 14 hours or so.

From: "Ellis, Rob" <Rob.Ellis@Cognos.COM>

How do you find out who is using a 10.7 application?

Three step method:

1. Make sure every user is using SQL*Net v2.3

2. Make sure each user has USERNAME= defined in the [oracle] section of their PC oracle.ini

3. Use Enterprise manager or look in v$session to view OS username of those connected to Oracle.

From: chitti <chitti@concordnc.com>

It is not recommended to turn archive log on while installing or applying patches. In these cases the archive log files may fill up the file systems and installation or application of patches stalls. Once everything is complete, then you can turn archive log on.

From: Brenda.Hatton@wj.com (Brenda Hatton)

Once you are on this internet page 'support.oracle.com/Metalink' , there is an index on the far left side. Put your cursor on TAR Query. You can only access your own company's TARs.

From Kurt Larsen – Director of Applications Support at the Oracle Orlando Support Center <KLARSEN@us.oracle.com>

The 10.7 software requires patches that have been identified since the release in February 1997. We have created a team within Support called the Millennium Team. They are handling all 10.7 upgrades and installs. Additionally, this team provides the customer with proactive patches. Certify also has patches defined, and we continually update this list. The Millennium Team may have a more up-to-date list at this point in time.

I have copied Doug Meeks, Senior Manager for AOL/AutoInstall, and lead for the Millennium project. Please contact him for any upgrades you are doing with your customers so we can help you be more successful.

Doug Meeks e-mail address is DMEEKS@us.oracle.com - [ed.]

From: "Ernie Logan Jr." Logan_Ernie/houston_is@crow.bmc.com

Quoted from Bulletin # 13000460.6: Oracle Applications Release 10.7 character mode will be fully supported through December 31, 1998. During 1999 and 2000, Oracle will provide Transition Support for Release 10.7 character mode functionality. Transition Support will provide for continued error correction support for Oracle Financials, Distribution, & Manufacturing products. This support includes: Single-byte languages, Error correction for P1 bugs and escalated P2 bugs with business justification.

Transition Support will not provide for: Character mode support for Oracle Applications Release 10.4, 10.5 or 10.6 beyond December 31, 1998, Character mode support for Human Resources modules, Error correction support for multi-byte languages, Error correction support for Oracle Application Display Manager, Error correction support for custom development including changes to zooms, Enhancements or backports including legislative changes.

From: jparrish jparrish@metronet.com

I am on my third practice upgrade and I still haven't gotten all of the kinks worked out. Each successive dry-run though has been faster and more efficient. One tip is to do the category one steps in production before beginning the upgrade so that no unnecessary down time is spent on innocuous cat 1 steps. Another time saver is to distribute the cat 2 and cat 3 steps to other members of the team so that when the word is given the pre-upgrade steps for all of the products can be run at the same time. Finally, I have shortened the time it takes to do a backup by installing a whopper hard-drive dedicated to receiving the backup. That backup can later be transferred to slower media.

From: Arvind Gidwani agidwani@cisco.com

Another time saver is that you run all the index creations before running the AutoInstall. Identify all the indexes that have been created in your test runs and run them. Use parallel query to run all the index creation scripts. Also increase your shared_pool_size to a very large value to speed up your AutoInstall. FYI We ran AutoInstall on a 220 Gig database with 4 set of books in 24 hours ... We had some problems with some Oracle provided scripts, We tuned them i.e. some of the SQL’s were not using indexes and were taking 16-20 hours on an average to run and now they run under 10 minutes...

From: "Susan Kahon" <skahon@dttus.com>

There is a new Cross Validation Rule Violation report available for 10.7 v16 (you have to call and ask for it). The layout of the report is not up to Oracle standards, which they will tell you, but it works.

From: Melanie Bock <melanie_bock@compuserve.com>

This is not GLDI problem. This is functional deficiency with Journal Import. You cannot import into adjustment periods. If this is a major requirement, next year do not setup as adjusting. Setup as regular period with one day.

From: "LSCOTT.US.ORACLE.COM" LSCOTT@us.oracle.com

The 1099 tax reporting status of a supplier is set at the header and not the site. Do not be confused about the site being taxable since you do mark a site as the one for 1099 reporting. The purpose of this is so that Payables knows which site address to use to print on the forms and pass to the IRS. It does not however distinguish one site as taxable and the others as not.

From: eyoung@kodak.com

If you are using three way matching and all receipts are made, the PO will automatically be 'Closed for Receiving'. If all invoices are matched then it will automatically be 'Closed for Invoicing'. If you run the Open Purchase Order Report you can see these statuses. If you enable the system option 'Allow Final Close' the AP person can perform a 'Final Match' at the time of invoice entry when performing a PO match and finally close the PO. Be careful though, I have had problems with this in the past as once a PO is Finally Closed the only way it can be "unclosed" is from the back end which Oracle won't support. And you cannot make adjustments or match a credit to the PO or any perform any other transactions related to the PO.

From: Julie Oliverus JOLIV@LANDOLAKES.COM

We encountered a very ugly issue when running our depreciation for DEC-97. This is the last period in our fiscal year. When depreciation ran, it "backed-out" any prior-years depreciation for any assets added prior to the upgrade which were added in fiscal year 1997, with a date-placed-in-service in a prior fiscal year. (It forced the YTD_DEPRN and DEPRN_RESERVE to equal only 12 months of depreciation!).

We were just informed by ORACLE that this is a known bug caused by an upgrade to 10.7. There is a fix available, but the patch must be applied BEFORE you run depreciation for the final period in your fiscal year. Once depreciation has been run for the last period (which is when you will discover the problem!), the possible solutions are much more complicated.

The bug number I was given was 603114.

Be sure that you check out the contents of this patch before running it, though. If we had applied the patch (which wouldn't have helped us anyway!), it would have messed up our tax books.

From: "Chadda, Alok" <Alok.Chadda@ae.ge.com>

You can do the following things [to improve performance of AutoInvoice] 1.) Create indexes on the Flexfields you are using, this will increase the performance of AutoInvoice considerably. 2.) Give a value of more than 1 to number of instances parameters in the Autoinvoice Import Run Form if you are loading around 5,000 invoices in a batch. If you are loading more than 5,000 invoices at a time, load 5,000 at a time 3.) Check what is the value you have set for Max memory in bytes by navigating to Setup->System->System Options->Invoice and Customers. If it is less than 3Meg change it to 3Meg.

From: Kathy Mark – Coleman Consulting

When you go live with Oracle PO, you may have many existing blanket or multiple receipt PO’s to convert that will have a large number of receipts after Oracle PO starts up. Consider entering these PO’s under their legacy system numbers (auto-numbering turned off). You won’t have to coordinate with vendors to cancel the old PO numbers and start shipping against new numbers. When all of the converted PO’s have been entered, turn auto-numbering on for new orders from Oracle Purchasing.

From: eyoung@kodak.com

Be advised that if you are running a multi-org PO environment and apply PO Megapatch E, (going forward) your PO numbers will no longer be sequential across organizations, but will start incrementing within each org. Although the PO/AP megapatches are designed primarily to fix problems with SC applications, according to WWS, in some cases character functionality may be affected as well (case in point).

Q. Is anyone using Oracle's Margin Analysis Report? We are on 10.6.1. Does anyone feel this report works ? Has this report ever worked ?

From: PWolffe@isd.com

We applied patches 450502 and 487603 (client and server) to version 10.6.1, but the report didn't work until we discovered that revenue transactions must be posted in GL first!

From: "Wells, George" <G.Wells@dialogic.com>

Customer supplied materials is a multi faceted problem. Placing it in inventory is only a small part of the problem. Accounting for it is the larger, and potentially more dicey issue. I would do the following:

1. Setup a separate subinventory for customer supplied inventories.

2. Setup zero cost PO's for receiving purposes. (Note: Your database should indicate a value for insurance purposes.)

3. Setup a separate accounting code for these parts. In particular to capture loss, damage, or scrap to these parts.

4. Establish your customer as the supplier of these parts. By doing this you can make MDS, MPS, and MRP functional. It will allow you to report on consumption of parts as well as administering them as you would any other inventory. You can call for replenishment from your customer as well as track consumption and report on any unusual items (i.e., inspection loss, scrap, cycle count loss, etc.).

From Bill Stratton – BOSS Corporation

We discovered that Payroll can have multiple organizations under one GRE/Legal entity and have the payroll costs go to multiple, separate sets of books in the General Ledger. The Payroll setup defined the GL Flexfield Map for each of these payrolls. Oracle HR/Payroll uses this information to map the Cost Key Flexfield to the GL Accounting Key Flexfield. It also assigns the set of books to each payroll. We used the same Accounting Key Flexfield structure for all of the sets of books, a key to the success of this setup. If the accounting Flexfield structure is different for each set of books, then Oracle HR/Payroll must have different Business Groups for each structure and that would prevent us from placing the employees in the three different organizations within the same GRE.

Clarification from Rob Wald (Oracle Product Manager)

If you modify the predefined workflows seeded with Web Employees, Customers, and Suppliers, you DO NOT need to purchase a development license of the workflow designer (you get it for free). However, if you create your OWN workflow definition from scratch, you MUST purchase a development license of the workflow designer.

We need your contributions to keep the content of this news letter fresh and topical. Please, send me an e-mail to jcrum@sprynet.com or FAX to BOSS Corporation at 770-622-5400. Thanks!

Since this news letter is a cooperative and joint effort, no one has tried to own (or be responsible for) the material contained in these newsletters. Therefore, the reader is granted a right to copy and distribute these materials for educational use. We ask only that you attribute the Atlanta OAUG as the source. Use these materials at your own risk, and ATLOAUG or the authors make no representation about the suitability of this material at your site.

The next conference of the national OAUG is scheduled in San Diego for May 17 – 20. Advance registration closed on May 8. You may register at the door. See www.oaug.org for additional information, logistics, and agenda.

By Manisha Patel [Manisha_Patel@enterprise.inet.net]

At the last Atl-OAUG meeting, the Application Desktop Integrator 3.0 was presented. Here are some highlights from the presentation and group discussions.

The new release of ADI 3.0 has been named as the Application Desktop Integrator because the new version has been expanded to work across other financial applications (previous releases it was called GLDI). ADI is a set of desktop tools that allows users to link to perspective areas of the applications from their desktop without requiring full access to the applications. The ADI release contains the following tools, Oracle GLDI, Oracle reQuest Center, Oracle Projects Connection, Oracle HRMS Application Data eXchange and Oracle Assets Report eXchange.

The General Ledger Desktop Integrator (GLDI) release 3.0 functionality was the main topic of the presentation. GLDI allows users to create and upload journal entries and budgets using Excel worksheets. This new release introduces the reQuest Center, it allows users to run standard oracle reports from any of the Oracle Applications. As well, users can create new and run existing FSG reports. The users can control the report outputs to be published to a spreadsheet or web HTML format. Reports can be published using themes, apply backgrounds, colors, fonts and images to your reports. The reQuest Center tool can be run independently (i.e. without starting GLDI) to run your reports. The Analysis Wizard is another new feature introduced to allow users to drill down from FSG reports to get the journal details and download the details to a spreadsheet. Currently, this release of the Analysis Wizard does not allow users to drill down to sub-ledger details.

Tips: -Use GLDI to easily convert your historic general ledger data from legacy system. Modify the Journal worksheet to include GroupID, to help identify journal entries that were imported with a source of spreadsheet.

Presentation: "Oracle Alert in Finapps" Rachel Biggins, Consultant See www.atloaug.org for copies of the presentation.

By Brenda Carlton, KPMG

New Meeting Time! Future meetings will be held on Friday mornings in an effort to increase attendance. Pastries and networking will be 9:00 - 9:30, presentations will be 9:30 - 12:00. Our next meeting will be hosted by Computer Systems Authority on June 19. Check the web page at www.atloaug.org for details. RSVP via e-mail to drincon@csac.com.

Survey: In order to poll the user community as to how the Atl-OAUG could better serve their needs, a survey will be distributed via e-mail and snail mail. Special thanks to Steve Bradley of KPMG for creating the survey and to Marilyn Becker of Consultis who will collect the survey and compile the results.

Speakers are needed for future meetings. To volunteer, send an e-mail to bcarlton@sprynet.com.

Register to be a member at www.atloaug.org. Members may view our membership roster and each member's area of expertise. Special thanks to Computer Systems Authority for providing us with the list server and web site. If you do not have web access, you may also subscribe to the Atlanta list server directly. 1) Send an email message to majordomo@atloaug.org 2) Leave the subject line blank 3) The text of the message should be SUBSCRIBE atl-apps-l [your email address ]

Thank You. Special thanks to Manisha Patel and Brad Eldredge of AnswerThink who provided us with a wonderful conference space, door prizes and refreshments.