Hi Everyone,

I am pleased to announce the next release in our extensive Oracle related White Paper Library of:

Oracle Application Express The Fast Way to Extend to Oracle E-Business Suite

Authored by Rod West

The Purpose of Rod’s Paper:

This article describes how an APEX application can be integrated with the E-Business Suite 11i and R12. There are many tools that Applications developers can use to extend E-Business Suite but often developers are unaware that APEX can be closely integrated with the E-Business Suite. APEX forms and reports can be added to E-Business Suite menus and spreadsheet data can be uploaded into the E-Business Suite application.

Please feel free to drop by the White Paper library to request your copy of the White Paper today.

Thanks Rod for putting together this article.

No matter how wonderfully efficient and user-friendly an Oracle application might be its reputation and reliability can be needlessly dented by a single prolonged network outage, separating users from the information they need to do their jobs.

One of these outages occurred this morning in the organisation where I am currently contracting, damaging user confidence in the local Oracle application. Persuading users that the problem is not the fault of the application doesn’t placate them much because the main issue is that all their key information is now on computers – because we told them to put it there, thus placing them at the mercy of network and electrical outages.

Throughout various paperless office initiatives over the years I have continued to encourage users to print off limited key information – subject to confidentiality and data protection rules - if they consider it essential to their job, so they have a paper copy in case of computer unavailability. It must be stressed that data should always be electronically stored and updated on the computer application to maintain accuracy and to comply with integrated working practices but in most cases there is nothing wrong in downloading an occasional paper copy for convenience, portability and contingency purposes. Typical examples are phone lists, presentation notes and other documents needed for meetings or conferences which cannot be cancelled just because of a computer or network glitch. Obviously, any amendments and updates subsequently deemed necessary must be made on the computer application as this must always be the ‘master’ copy.

It seems a shame that the well-intentioned idea of a paperless office is marred by the misconception that computer applications are installed merely to eliminate paper rather than to manage data more efficiently, with significant reduction in paper being an added bonus. It isn’t a coincidence that most application screens have a ‘Print’ button or link so that the user has the option to print if they consider it necessary.

Hello everybody–I hope everyone is doing well and keeping busy.

I have started a new contract and am driving to it each week.  As I drive, I go past a town named “Covert” and  I think it is funny that there are signs telling me where to exit to find the town.  One would think that they would want to keep that town hidden…

Anyway, when I started this project it reminded me of some traps that one comes across during a project.  In one memorable case, I was working on a project with many other consultants; one day, a financial consultant decided to turn off multi-currency.  As my fellow JDE consultants may know, with multi-currency turned on, you have to enter the currency code when dealing with prices and advanced pricing setup; if multi-currency is turned off, you do not get the choice to enter the currency code.

Now the fun begins.  While multi-currency was turned on, the pricing team was entering advanced price adjustments.  They continued entering adjustments when multi-currency was turned off.  So what was the issue?  Some of the adjustments had currency codes and the rest had no currency code–it was blank.

The fun really started when the pricing team started entering orders to test their pricing setup. In sales order entry, they could see all the adjustments when using the Price History row exit, but they could not see all the adjustment details when trying to edit them (via the Price Adjustment Detail form).  After spending most of a day, we discovered that during the sales order process, the pricing functionality equates the blank currency code with the company’s currency code–in our case, they were entering the pricing for a USA branch, so USD and blank were considered the same currency codes; however, the P4072 (Work With Adjustment Detail) considers them as different currency codes.

We are able to fix this, but I can not remember if we used SQL to delete the adjustment details, or we turned off multi-currency, deleted the adjustment details that we could see (the ones with a blank currency code), then turned on multi-currency and strongly suggest to the financial consultant to never touch the multi-currency setting again.

If this happens to you, be diplomatic with the financial consultant–or they might get angry and delete branch “ALL.”  Then, as a distribution or manufacturing consultant, you will see some really bizarre errors.

But I might save that for another post.

“Tact:  A keen sense of what to say or do to avoid giving offense; skill in dealing with difficult or delicate situations.”[1]

Clients hire consultants to help them with a problem.  In the Oracle contracting world, the client may need a new system or modification to their existing system and they do not have the technical expertise to perform the needed work.  They hire a team of consultants to assist them with their project.

As the project progresses, we may see problems or issues that need to be addressed.  We might also be asked directly by the client to comment on an issue that is in our particular domain.  In either case, the client expects us to provide them with a competent recommendation for a solution.  There are occasions when, much to our surprise, when the client resists our recommendations.  This can be a frustrating experience that has the potential to increase tension in our relationship.

How should you handle the situation when you have a professional disagreement with your client?  First and most importantly – don’t take it personally.  It is hard to do, but you need to separate any emotional attachment to your ideas.  Once you’ve done that (as best you can), then the next step is to try and understand the client’s position.  Generally, resistance to ideas comes because the client is feeling either loss of control or vulnerability.  This can be difficult to understand and is probably something that most clients won’t express directly.  You’ll rarely hear a client say “Your solution makes me feel vulnerable.”  However, your mere presence can make the client feel vulnerable – they are at your mercy to do the job right.

The focus of your conversations when discussing a recommendation or solution should be on the objectives and outcomes.  If you can get agreement on what it is that you are trying to achieve first, then it will be easier to get agreement on how to achieve it.  Plus, by focusing on the outcomes, you can assess if the client doesn’t agree that your recommendation will meet those outcomes.

Next, work together with the client to produce a solution.  Ask them specifically what they don’t like about your recommendation and how they might change it.  Get them to elaborate in some detail and then incorporate what makes sense into the final solution.  This brings them on board and helps them take some degree of ownership, which can minimize that sense of loss of control or vulnerability.

Finally, accept that some solutions may have to be less than ideal for non-technical reasons.  There may be political/organizational reasons why one way of achieving an outcome is more acceptable than others.   For example, it could be for simple reasons such as the CFO doesn’t like reports formatted a particular way.

If you are able to not take resistance personally, understand the client’s position, and let them be part of the solution, you can tactfully handle disagreements and achieve better outcomes with your clients.

One of the more significant acquisitions made by Oracle Corp. amidst their acquisition spree has been PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) leader Agile. This happened in 2007. Agile is a very powerful and flexible (Agile, get it!?!) tool used for a variety of solutions involving the management of company products. This post will lay down the very basics and hopefully in the future I will be able to elaborate further on future posts.

The Agile Solutions - These are the 5 main modules within Agile. There are a couple others but for now I’m going to focus on nailing down the big ones

Agile Product Collaboration (PC) — Management and collaboration of product record information throughout the product lifecycle, across internal organizations and the extended supply chain. The Big kahuna in Agile. detailed management of Items/BOMs and their associated documentation. Popular in complex manufacturing environments. Uses both the Java and web clients

Agile Product Governance & Compliance (PG&C) — Management and tracking of all substances and materials contained by any item or manufacturer part, allowing companies to meet substance restrictions and reporting requirements, design recyclable products, minimize compliance costs, and eliminate noncompliance on future products.  This module is ideal for industries with sensitive and/or dangerous materials handling. Uses the web client only.

Agile Product Portfolio Management (PPM) — Integration of project and product information in the context of overall product development in order to streamline business processes across the product portfolio and lifecycle.  Basically, this is a project management module in Agile. functionality includes project planning, resource management, collaborative notifications etc. Uses web client only

Agile Product Quality Management (PQM) — Management of customer, supplier and product quality issues, tied to the product design via a closed loop corrective action process. This solution closely ties together problems identified by customers with the people on the shop floor responsible for holding high quality standards. Similar to PC in that it is heavily based on workflow-routed objects, only these are all quality related. Uses Java and web clients.

Agile Product Cost Management (PCM) — Management of product costs across the product lifecycle and synchronization of product cost and cost processes with both internal and external participants. You can use PCM to leverage suppliers, co-source with collaborative entities, and design products for cost.

Ok, well thats the basic module overview of what Agile PLM has to offer..in the next post I’ll get knee-deep in some cross-module, “getting started”, sysadmin-type stuff that will save you plenty of time from reading the sleep-inducing user guide. Cheers!