COLLABORATE17: Pre-Day

Testing Oracle E-Business Suite Best Practices - Mazen Arar - 12:30 PM

"Change is constant" was on his first slide, and this is SO true these days for many of us!
Testing readiness means challenging facts.
A great insight that Mazen had was that QA needs to be proactive, as early as possible, even to listen.
Have the hardware on hand, including different versions of it.
Where/how do we start?  Plan, Execute, Automate
Planning - what is the task on hand, what documentation is at hand?  RCD (Release Content Document), FIAD (Functional Impact Assessment Document)
Scope - key business flows, impacted flows, usage patterns
Mark test flows with priority - basic, sanity check, detailed
Follow a testing methodology based on task - theme based, exploratory, role based, end to end flow based
Make sure to have well defined entry and exit criteria
Cloud testing - Shorter Release Cycle (automation), Rapid Addition of features, security, integration, multi tenancy
IoT testing - Complex Architecture, Complex data, security, validation, performance and scalability
Good practice - be creative/innovative, review results, learn from them, plan next cycle with a new flavor, improve scoping
Automation!  Who can do it?  Anyone.  What do you automate?  Critical and repeatable flaws.  When should we?  Now!  Allows more innovation out of employees
There are several different applications for this in Oracle Application Testing Suite (OATS), Oracle Load Testing Suite, and Oracle Test Manager.
Oracle QA reduced their automation time by 60%!
Flow Builder application allows you to generate test scripts.
API and WebServices support in Advance Pack
Due to their own use of these applications, EBS patching won't break OATS.
If you are around at the conference, stop by Demo Booth 14 to see this in action!

Real- time Data Integration in Oracle E-Business Suite using Integrated Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Gateway by Faraz Khalik with @DeloitteOracle - 1:45 PM

This was supposed to be a case study about transitioning to SOA, which was technically what was provided, but really what Faraz talked about was the solution/process that was put in place, not much technical information.  This was kind of frustrating, but I'll check out the addendum in the whitepaper/presentation to see if there is any kind of technical information included.

Geo Land setup! - 3:00 PM

The coordinators of the Geo's had a blast getting everything set up for the OAUG members!

OAUG Geo Land! - 4:00 PM

This was even more fun than the setup hour was!  The Arizona/New Mexico Geo had a cactus themed ring toss game, and a LOT of the OAUG members had a blast!!

OAUG Meeting of the Members - 5:30 PM

There were some awesome awards given out, and even had a sneak peek of an Oracle and OAUG survey which is going to be made public in a few days!

Kicking off OAUG's eLearning for 2017!

Hello everybody, I do exist!  Sorry I have been away, but I plan on returning on a more regular basis very soon!!

Anyways, the OAUG is having another great eLearning slate of sessions and none other than yours truly is going to kick it off next Tuesday with my Workflow purging presentation!!  If you are not already a member, make sure you sign up as an individual member or get your company to join and all employees get this amazing benefit.  This gets you ready to attend COLLABORATE17 in Las Vegas in April!!

COLLABORATE17: Accepted!

This year I had a lot going on at COLLABORATE16, and next year seems to be going the same way as my new presentation that was for the ConnectionPoint - Apps Tech conference was selected for COLLABORATE17!  OAUG's COLLABORATE conferences are always jam-packed with information and great networking opportunities so make sure to check out the registration page and sign up before the rates change!!

12c: Updates to Fast-Refresh Materialized Views with joins are lost after DB upgrade

An interesting article on My Oracle Support, "Updates Lost to Fast-Refresh Materialized Views with Joins After Upgrade to 12c" from document ID 2186836.1, tells us that an upgrade from 12.1.0.1 to 12.1.0.2 can negatively impact your fast-refresh materialized views with joins!  It seems that the system "covers up" the problem by having the last update date updated while the data does not get updated!!

The Return of the King!

No I am not talking about Elvis, J. R. R. Tolkien, or even Peter Jackson!  It has been a few months since I last posted, but I am back and ready to reclaim my throne of being a leading expert on the Oracle e-Business Suite application!!  In the last 6 months I have been thinking quite a bit about the future of the blog, and how best to deliver content, but I have not made any changes or decisions right now beyond the fact that I do not think I can do another 365 days straight of posting.  I am going to target 3-5 posts per week, and if I meet the target, or miss it, I am not going to let it discourage me going forward into the next week!

R12 Purchasing: PO lines are validated even though they were cancelled

On R12.1.1 "Canceled PO Lines Are Getting Validated During PO Approval" in Purchasing per My Oracle Support note ID 2169842.1 when at least one line is cancelled from a PO that has already been approved!  The good news is that there is a patch, and that you can design a testing scenario to validate that this issue does not come back in the future!

Weekend Learning: Exadata Database Machine and Exadata Storage Server versions

Have you ever asked yourself what the latest and greatest versions of Exadata components are?  So have I!  Well we are all in luck, as MOS document 888828.1 for the note "Exadata Database Machine and Exadata Storage Server Supported Versions" has all of the information you would ever need about Exadata versions!!

Weekend Learning: Oracle Key Vault - Master Note

Are you responsible for the security of your Oracle installation or the EBS application?  Do you know what Oracle Key Vault is, or how it can enhance your current security measures?  Find out more from MOS note 2120572.1 for the article "Master Note For Oracle Key Vault" so you can research!

Drastic increase in blog traffic!

As you may remember when we celebrated the blog's fourth anniversary, I reached 100,000 views and am approaching 1,000 posts, which is why last month I was SO surprised to get over 10,000 hits with 85% of those coming from Russia alone!  I wonder if other people are experiencing this type of traffic increase as well, and I also wonder if that type of pattern will be maintained going forward!

R11i/R12 Payables: What data does the table PO_HISTORY_VENDORS hold?

If you are on R11i or R12 check out article "What is the purpose of PO_HISTORY_VENDORS?" from My Oracle Support via note ID 2169186.1 to find out what data the table holds and how it relates to purging programs!

R12.1: Enabling TLS in Oracle EBS

Read up on MOS article 376700.1 to learn how to start working on "Enabling TLS in Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1" for your environment today so you can get away from SSL as many third party vendors are going away from SSL due to all of the issues like POODLE.

ZFSSA: Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP) backups can fail after configuration backup starts

Check out My Oracle Support note "All ZFS Storage Appliance (ZFSSA) Software Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP) Backups Will Fail After a Configuration Backup Has Been Initiated" via document ID 2165712.1 where the NDMP daemon needs to be restarted in certain cases!

OOW16 Rejection!

In past years I have been rejected by the Oracle OpenWorld, and last year I was positive I would get selected, but this year I was even MORE positive I would get selected yet it was not to be!  Maybe next year, since I just gave my AppsTech presentation, which was really well received and pushed me a bit so if I add some more polish it I could get accepted for OOW17!!

R12.1.3 Assets: Unsecured books show up in LOV

Did you know that Asset books that are not secured show up in the application?  That is exactly what My Oracle Support document "All Asset Books Appear in the List Of Values in FA After Doing Security By Book Setup for Some Asset Books" via note ID 1582935.1 teaches us as the key here is not all books have been secured, and the unsecured books will show up in the LOV while in the other books!

Register for OAUG's Connection Point - AppsTech conference today!

I may have mentioned that I am presenting at OAUG's Connection Point - AppsTech conference, and it is never too late to register for it!  This will be an online only conference so you do not need to travel at all, and you can check out the great lineup for the event too!!