The NZOUG Conference 2008 is open for registrations. The event is shaping up well, with some excellent sponsors, high profile speakers, and interesting papers. As well as that the entertainment in Rotorua is not to be missed!
The Call for Papers is closing 25 July, so if you are a potential speaker make the most of the last minute and get those abstracts in!
Watch the NZOUG website for updates on the conference.
PS. If you're sending a group, watch out for the buy 3 get 1 free offer.
In a prior post I raised the question of why mod_plsql was not supported with the eBusiness Suite R12. Excellent to see that Oracle was listening to the community and as Steven Chan's post highlights, Metalink Note:726711.1 has been created to address this question.
In summary you can still run mod_plsql connecting to the eBusiness Suite as long as the Apache/mod_plsql are in an isolated install and you address security and associated considerations. And of course as a customization it is not supported under the guise of the eBusiness Suite ... but hey your customizations never are!
Guess that means the same for the other sweet tools you'd connect/integrate to your eBusiness Suite ... like Application Express (APEX), PHP/Zend, Ruby on Rails, etc.
A quick post ... it's been a frenetic few months, so blog posts a bit thin lately but plenty of good stuff in the pipeline!
Generally when I'm designing a BI Publisher/XML Publisher report I'll create a concurrent program that generates XML, I'll follow the usual steps:
Is there an easier way to get the XML file from a concurrent request? Sure is - nice and easy through the front end.
But where does the XML file live?
Well, by default it is $APPLCSF/$APPLOUT/o{REQUEST_ID}.out.
But if that's the XML file, then where does the actual output file reside as the location of the XML file is where normal request output resides?
The output is $APPLCSF/$APPLOUT/{REPORTNAME}_{REQUEST_ID}_{COUNT}.PDF|RTF|EXCEL|HTML
Where
An example is: XXXX_FNDSCURS_2803880_1.EXCEL
Output file location courtesy of Tim's post here.
Cool, file locations identified!
I've been working with Java more recently, and thought this might be a handy reference.
In order to find the right JDeveloper match up for extending the Oracle eBusiness Suite / Applications, point your web browser to http://host:port/OA_HTML/OAInfo.jsp, then choose the matched JDeveloper patch.
| OA Framework 5.10 patch | JDeveloper 9i Patch |
ATG.PF.H (patch 3438354 or Oracle Applications 11.5.10) or 11.5.10K |
Patch 4045639 9IJDEVELOPER WITH OA EXTENSION ARU FOR FWK.H |
| ATG PF CU1 (patch 4017300) or 11.5.101CU | Patch 4141787 9IJDEVELOPER WITH OA EXTENSION ARU FOR CU1 |
| ATG PF CU2 (patch 4125550) or 11.5.102CU | Patch 4573517 Oracle9i JDeveloper with OA Extension for 11.5.10 CU2 |
| 11i.ATG_PF.H RUP3 (patch 4334965) or 11.5.103CU | Patch 4725670 9IJDEVELOPER WITH OA EXTENSION ARU FOR 11i10 RUP3 |
| 11i.ATG_PF.H RUP4 (patch 4676589) | Patch 5455514 9IJDEVELOPER WITH OA EXTENSION ARU FOR 11i10 RUP4 |
| 11i.ATG_PF.H RUP5 (patch 5473858) | Patch 6012619 9IJDeveloper With OA Extension ARU FOR 11i10 RUP5 |
11i.ATG_PF.H.RUP6 (patch 5903765) |
Patch 6739235 9IJDeveloper With OA Extension ARU FOR 11i10 RUP6 |
ATG Release 12 Version |
JDeveloper 10g Patch |
| 12.0.0 | Patch 5856648 10g Jdev with OA Extension |
| 12.0.1 (patch 5907545) | Patch 5856648 10g Jdev with OA Extension |
| 12.0.2 (patch 5484000 or 5917344) | Patch 6491398 10g Jdev with OA Extension ARU for R12 RUP2 (replaces 6197418) |
| 12.0.3 (patch 6141000 or 6077669) | Patch 6509325 10g Jdev with OA Extension ARU for R12 RUP3 |
| 12.0.4 (patch 6435000 or 6272680) | Patch 6908968 10G JDEVELOPER WITH OA EXTENSION ARU FOR R12 RUP4 |
| 12.0.5 - no full 12.0.5 release planned only individual product suites like HRMS and Financials 12.0.5 |
n/a |
| 12.0.6 (patch 6728000 or patch 7237006) | Patch 7523554 10G Jdeveloper With OA Extension ARU for R12 RUP6 |
| 12.1 (Controlled Release - only included for completeness) | Patch 7315332 10G Jdev with OA Extension ARU for R12.1 (Controlled Release) |
| 12.1.1 (rapidInstall or patch 7303030) | Patch 8431482 10G Jdeveloper with OA Extension ARU for R12.1.1 |
| 12.1.2 (patch 7303033 or patch 7651091) | Patch 9172975 10G Jdeveloper with OA Extension ARU for R12.1.2 |
| 12.1.3 (patch 9239090 or patch 8919491) | Patch 9879989 10G Jdeveloper with OA Extension ARU for R12.1.3 |
For details latest details see Metalink Note:416708.1 or Note:330236.1
Keen to head down-under? Check out this message from the New Zealand Oracle Users Group.
The New Zealand Oracle Users Group is pleased to announce… Call for Papers and Training for the 2008 Conference We only require your ABSTRACT of not more than 150 words at this stage. We invite all users and suppliers of Oracle technology and applications and related products to submit presentations, including
Presentation topics may include but are not limited to Oracle Aplications such as eBS, JDE, Peoplesoft and Hyperion, and Oracle Development, Middleware and Database technologies. Everything is welcome for submission but delegates are especially interested in hearing case studies of real life scenarios and situations, lessons learnt and best practices. Both Technical and Business streams will run throughout the conference programme with presentations covering the implementation, use and support of the whole range of Oracle and associated third party products and services. If your paper is selected for presentation:
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How do I submit an abstract? Visit our submission website and complete the Call for Papers submission, by 20 June 2008 Also anyone can submit topics you are interested in, and we’ll try to source a presenter for the topic. We’ll post further information about this and for presenters on our website in due course. Remember to visit our website for all up to date information on regional events, the conference, and other news. We look forward to receiving your completed submissions by 20 June 2008
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We are not quite ready to open registration but watch this space (or keep an eye on our website) in the next few weeks for an announcement.
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There will be an early bird discount for all registrations before the 1st September 2008. Watch this space for these great rates.
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Rotorua 20th and 21st October 2008 Novotel Rotorua Lakeside – Rotorua |
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NEED MORE INFORMATION? |
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Any questions please contact our conference management company, The Conference Company. By phone on +64 9 360 1240 or by email at nzoug@tcc.co.nz |
Update: 14-Mar-2012 Added supported back-end method to update Workflow Notification Mailer attributes. Warning: This post also contains unsupported SQL updates, use at your own risk!
I think the Workflow Notification Mailer is excellent, but one of my pet hates is the setup process for a mailer. I never seem to be able to get it setup cleanly. One thing that really bugs me is that the Service Component Manager (Workflow Mailer Service) needs to be running before you can set the "Override Address". So when setting up a mailer you have to be very careful that the "Manual" startup option is set or your Mailer will start after configuration or when you startup the Workflow Mailer Service. Similarly caution is needed when cloning non-Prod environments from Prod when the Prod Override Address is not set, but Test/Dev etc need to be set.
Additionally, there's no button anywhere with a label like "Click me to update all Mail_Status pending Notifications as Sent" which is what the following accomplishes:
update WF_NOTIFICATIONS set mail_status = 'SENT' where mail_status = 'MAIL'; # Note: Change the apps_password in the following command sqlplus apps @$FND_TOP/patch/115/sql/wfntfqup.sql APPS apps_password APPLSYS
Okay, so here's how you get the current Override Address via SQL on the backend:
select fscpv.parameter_value from fnd_svc_comp_params_tl fscpt , fnd_svc_comp_param_vals fscpv where fscpt.display_name = 'Test Address' and fscpt.parameter_id = fscpv.parameter_id;
And now here's a very unsupported way to update the Override Address - please try this on a Test environment first to make sure it works for you! Note this will update all Mailers you have setup. Recommended to stop and start the mailers after making this change. Also make sure you change the email address to your Test Address and change the NONE to your current value (from previous SQL) if necessary:
update fnd_svc_comp_param_vals set parameter_value = 'MyTestAddress@MyCompany.com' where parameter_value = 'NONE' and parameter_id = ( select parameter_id from fnd_svc_comp_params_tl where display_name = 'Test Address' ); commit;
Update: 14-Mar-2012 - There is a supported way to make back-end updates to Workflow Notification Mailer (and other service components). This is documented in Support Note 1399464.1. In short run the following and follow the prompts:
sqlplus apps @$FND_TOP/sql/afsvcpup.sql
PS. See Metalink Note 467229.1 if you get the dreaded "ORA-20000: Oracle Error = -20000 - ORA-20000: 330 Alert messages exist in WF_NOTIFICATION_OUT. Ensure these messages are processed before running wfntfqup.sql"
PPS. Anil has a nice post clear post where the Override Address (Test Address) lives these days here.
Tired of your Oracle eBusiness Sessions timing out?
Symptoms:
Your log on session is no longer valid. Would you like to log back in so you can continue working? If you do not log in, any outstanding data changes in your forms will not be saved.
Your Session has expired, please login again
Solution:
Set the values of the following profile options appropriately. See Note:171261.1 for details:
ICX:Session Timeout
E.g. From 30 to null (minutes)
ICX: Limit time
E.g. From 10 to 24 (hours)
But when you refresh or clone Test / Development environments the setting for ICX:Session Timeout gets reset!
No problem just need to find the appropriate variable in the adconfig context file e.g. $APPL_TOP/admin/$CONTEXT_NAME.xml.
<session_timeout oa_var="s_sesstimeout">1800000</session_timeout>
And set to the appropriate value. Note that s_sesstimeout is in milliseconds so multiple by (1000*60) to get the time in minutes that is represented in the profile option.
E.g. if you want to set it to 60 minutes then in the context file put value 60 * 1000 * 60 = 3600000. Either that or just set to null:
<session_timeout oa_var="s_sesstimeout">1800000</session_timeout>
Then next time you run adconfig.sh (or a patch/clone does) then you won't have to reset profile options.
Quick pointer to a handy note on Metalink. I think it's excellent for Oracle to keep known issue lists and troubleshooting guides up to date.
Oracle XML Publisher Release 12 Known Issues
Some of the key issues that I think deserve reference as I've seen posts on the Oracle forums / public blogs about them:
Rounding Issue When Adding Decimal Numbers
As Oracle XDK conforms to XSL standards for IEEE 754, you might encounter rounding issues when adding numbers that are decimals. For example, suppose you add 13683.80 and 516.39, using this syntax in Oracle BI Publisher:
<?13683.80 + 516.39?>
The value returned is 14200.189999999999 which is caused by a limitation based on the IEEE 754 Binary Floating-Point-Arithmetic.
To work around this issue, use the format-number function or the round syntax as shown here to obtain a return value of 14200.19:
<?format-number:(13683.80 + 516.39);'D99'?>
or
<?(round((13683.80 + 516.39)*100) div 100)?>
Request ID Parameter LOV Not Populated for XML Publisher Bursting Report Program and XML Report Publisher Program
When you submit the XML Publisher Bursting Report Program (XDOBURSTREP) or the XML Report Publisher Program (XDOREPPB) you are prompted to select the Request ID for the data generation program. The LOV for this parameter is not being populated due to an incorrect profile option reference. You therefore cannot select the appropriate data file to complete the request.
See Note:404928.1 for details of workaround.
If anyone hits any other known issues not documented in the above note whether Release 11i or 12 related, please comment on this post, or ask Support to add it to Note:404928.1!
Quite a bit of noise and even FUD surrounding the position of Oracle Discoverer and its fit (or lack of fit) within the Fusion roadmap. Good to see Oracle come out with a statement of direction on this last month firmly cementing its place in the BI toolset and hence Fusion Middleware stack.
For details see: Statement of Direction Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer March 2008
Great to keep that Disco happenin!
Over on the forums, one post came up that is usually a quick answer.
How do I replace newlines (carriage returns or linefeeds) with a space? Well, with BI Publisher Template Builder things weren't exactly going to plan.
Basically you've got an XML element like this:
<sort_field1_inv>110 000 000 110000 0000 0000</sort_field1_inv>
And you want the output to be this: 110 000 000 110000 0000 0000
Should be easy. The 10.1.3.2.0 documentation for xdofx has replace function for replacing strings. Only problem is no mention of special characters. Doh! Okay, just throw in the chr(10) function and should be fine.
So let's try it out:
<?xdofx:replace(SORT_FIELD1_INV,chr(10),' ')?>
Uh-oh: lovely error message on preview including:
oracle.xdo.parser.v2.XPathException: Extension function error: Method not found 'chr'
Oh well, lets try some xsl magic similar to the following, including a bunch of variations not presented here!:
<xsl:value-of select='translate(/SORT_FIELD1_INV," 	
"," ")'/>
Nope, that didn't change anything, still newlines coming through.
Hmm, now what version of the BI Publisher Desktop Word Addin are on? In my case, a tad behind the times, but still matching the documentation that says chr should be available - 10.1.3.2.0 Build 87.
Luckily with Google, a ounce of Japanese reading ability, and of course Babelfish - found that 10.1.3.3.1 or higher would fix this.
So downloaded BI Publisher Desktop 10.1.3.3.2 from this page, uninstalled 10.1.3.2.0, installed 10.1.3.3.2 and now its all go, solution is as previously:
<?xdofx:replace(SORT_FIELD1_INV,chr(10),' ')?>
Sorted!
UPDATE: Since the eBusiness Suite is still on 5.6.3, the above solution does not work. Here is an alternative solution:
<fo:inline linefeed-treatment="treat-as-space"><?SORT_FIELD1_INV?></fo>
On with it!
