Transcript Release 12 Tales from the Front “The Good, the Bad, and

Release 12
Tales from the Front
“The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”
August 15, 2008
TUSC Contact Information
TUSC
377 E Butterfield Rd, Suite 100
Lombard, IL 60148
Office: 630-960-2909
www.tusc.com
Dave Trch
Associate Partner, Oracle Applications Practice
[email protected]
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Presentation Overview
Objectives
 Project Profiles
 Project Management Perspective
 Application Considerations
 Technical Considerations
 Summary
 Questions
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Objectives
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Provide useful information for R12 implementation teams
for planning purposes
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Not intended to “educate” users about new R12
functionality
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Drawn from actual experience from multiple R12
implementation projects
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Project Profiles
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Auto Salvage Company
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Software Company
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New implementation of R12
Started April, 2007
General Ledger, Payables, Fixed Assets, Purchasing
120+ Legal Entities
Six regional accounting centers
Significant intercompany activity
New implementation of R12
Started February, 2008
Financials, Supply Chain, CRM
Insurance Company
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R12 upgrade from 10.7 Character
Started January, 2008
General Ledger & Payables
Significant legacy system integration
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Project Management
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Project Planning
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Plan for additional time for configuration, testing, SR resolution,
and data conversion
Push CRP #1 out farther in the plan
Ensure your team has knowledge & experience in key new areas
(G/L, E-Biz Tax, Payments, XML Publisher, etc.)
Validate Assumptions… make sure you can still do what you used
to do in the applications!
SR Management Considerations
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Allocate additional time for SR Management
Critical Accounts Manager
Customer Support Engagement
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Weekly status calls near critical milestones
Escalation assistance
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Application Considerations
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General Ledger
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Payables
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Additional setup considerations with legal entities, ledger sets, etc.
Thorough testing of journals recommended (especially with interco)
Supplier Setup – Conversion to TCA & OA Framework
Payment processing moved to Payments module
Quick payments, manual payments, and voiding payments still available in
Forms-based workbench
Sites created through Supplier Address Book entry, then pickable from
“Create Site” button
Positive Pay Report – two versions (w/voids & w/o voids)
Inquiry/Viewing “voided checks” from Payments Workbench (must use
the Payments tab on the Payments Manager Dashboard)
Additional “Invoice Line” hierarchy causes problems during upgrades to
R12 (Header/Line/Distribution)
Expense Reports within Payables: add “Expenses: Export Results”
function and “Create/Update Employee/Supplier details” sub-function
Payments
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Essentially replaces iPayment
Check format output in XML Publisher/pdf
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Application Considerations
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E-Business Tax
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Cash Management
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Sales/Use Tax – Is your 3rd Party provider certified?
Be sure to patch up to RUP5 (several issues addresssed)
Withholding tax still handled in Payables
All OA Framework
Owns all bank, bank branch, and bank account setups!
Fixed Assets
Asset conversion process took significantly longer than normal
Tax Book Interface: have yet to complete successfully!
Several patches required to make Tax Book Depreciation work properly
Tax Book depreciation adjustments calculate differently than previous
versions
 Catchup depreciation happens at point of addition, not in depreciation
run
 Rollback depreciation is no longer a separate process
 11i Bonus Depreciation not carried through to R12 (patches needed:
Metalink 383033.1)
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Application Considerations
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Quoting
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All OA Framework
End Customer Data included
Sales Credit easier to manage
Sales/Field Sales
New Account Planning & Strategic Plans at customer & contact levels
(equivalent to Sales Coach at opportunity level)
 Still no visibility into opportunities with future close dates
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Marketing
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Fully updated OA Framework user interface, much cleaner than previous
versions
Territory Manager
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All OA Framework user interface, utilizes/requires RBAC
New concurrent requests allow more administrative control over what is
evaluated for assignment, better performance
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Technical Considerations
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Help > Record History not available in OA Framework applications
XML Publisher
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Payments
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SQL Statements (query) included in output file, to cut & paste into
templates for modifications
Adding additional data elements into a check
Supplier Conversion
Transparent integration to TCA
Interface Rejection Code no longer managed in-line with the interface
data
 Interface Summary Report utilizes significant sort space, and crashes
frequently (impossible to validate interface events)
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Technical Considerations
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Supplier Open Interface Import
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Provides inaccurate feedback (0 records success, 0 records rejected)
However, “status” column on interface table shows rejected status
No “reason code” in REJECT_CODE column
No records in AP_SUPPLIER_INT_REJECTIONS table
To Correct:
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Must enable statement-level debugging (system profile values form or
Applications Dashboard Log Setup)
Reset/recreate the records (set status to NEW)
Re-run the process
Search system logs for the problem (using Advanced Search on
Applications Dashboard System Logs)
Or, run this query:
select log.*
from fnd_log_messages log,
fnd_log_transaction_context con
where con.transaction_id
= &concurrent_request_id
and con.transaction_type
= 'REQUEST'
and con.transaction_context_id = log.transaction_context_id
order by log.log_sequence;
(problem should be near the end of the listing)
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Technical Considerations
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Supplier Open Interface & TCA Conflict
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Supplier data now stored in both AP tables and TCA tables
TCA data is inserted and committed prior to Supplier table validation
You can end up with data in TCA, and not in AP Suppliers!
Error shows “Supplier name already exists…”
But, there is no Supplier found in Supplier Inquiry!
The TCA record must be removed in order to load the record successfully,
once the validation error is corrected.
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This query will help you find these “disconnected” records:
select hz.*
from hz_parties hz
where created_by_module = 'AP_SUPPLIERS_API'
and party_type
in ('ORGANIZATION', 'PERSON')
and not exists (select 1
from ap_suppliers x
where x.party_id = hz.party_id);
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Technical Considerations
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Make sure your DBAs do their homework!
New components:
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RDBMS is 10gR2
Oracle Developer Home is 10.1.2
Oracle AS Home is 10.1.3
If you use BI Discoverer, Oracle SSO, Portal, or Oracle ID, you will need
an additional stand-alone 10g/AS
Jinitiator replaced by JVM
Cumulative rollup patches replace one-off & mini-packs
Cumulative security patches on a quarterly basis
Multi-Org is mandatory now
Custom Apps must be registered with Multi-Org tables… not
automatically done (420787.1 reference)
Cloning can only be done by Rapid Clone
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Technical Considerations
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Must use Oracle Applications Manager (OAM) for editing context files
(SID_hostname.xml)
New INST_TOP directory
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RBAC (Role-based Access Control)
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Complicates Responsibility creation & assignment
Responsibilities are not sufficient to gain access in certain areas (User
Management, Territory Mgr, etc.)
OA Framework
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All info related to a particular host (log files, output files, etc.)
Facilitates deployment of multiple nodes in the middle-tier
Simplifies backup & cleanup of log & output files
Delayed display due to caching (“clear all cache” function within
Functional Administrator)
Login Assistant
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Users can re-set their own passwords
Passwords are case-sensitive!
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Summary
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Give yourself more time in the plan for key events &
activities
Data conversions will likely take much longer in some
areas
Ensure your team has the right skill & experience
Plan to spend more time than usual with SR Management
Validate all assumptions!
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R12 Expert Panel
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TUSC will convene an expert panel for your organization
to answer questions prior to your R12 implementation.
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Financials, Supply Chain, CRM, Technology
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No cost to your organization!
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Contact us to arrange it at your convenience.
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Q U E S T I O N S
A N S W E R S
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