Transcript Slide 1
Release 12
Tales from the Front
“The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”
July 15
Presentation Overview
Objectives
R12 “Expert Panel”
Project Profiles
Project Management Perspective
Application Considerations
Technical Considerations
Summary
Questions
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Objectives
Provide useful information for R12 implementation teams for
planning & staffing purposes
Indirectly “educate” users about new R12 functionality &
features
Help you avoid potential pitfalls using actual experiences
from multiple R12 implementation and upgrade projects
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Project Profiles
Auto Salvage Company
Software & Services Company
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
R12 upgrade from 10.7 Character
Started January, 2008
General Ledger & Payables
Significant legacy system integration
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Project Management
Project Planning
Plan for additional time for configuration, testing, SR resolution, and
data conversion
Push CRP #1 out farther in the plan
Possibly need to add a CRP #3 in some areas
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
Allocate additional time for SR Management
Actively monitor Metalink for Critical Patch Updates over and above
the Financials RUP5
Critical Accounts Manager
Customer Support Engagement
Weekly status calls near critical milestones
Escalation assistance
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Application Considerations
General Ledger
Additional setup considerations with legal entities, ledger sets, etc.
Thorough testing of journals recommended (especially with Intercompany)
Thorough testing of Report Manager (possible open bugs with performance &
drilldown)
Payables
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 selectable 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
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Application Considerations
Payments
E-Business Tax
Essentially replaces iPayment
Check format output in XML Publisher/pdf
3rd Party Check Output processors may have challenges with pdf
output
Sales/Use Tax – Is your 3rd Party provider certified?
Be sure to patch up to RUP5 (several issues addressed)
Withholding tax still handled in Payables
Cash Management
All OA Framework
Owns all bank, bank branch, and bank account setups!
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Application Considerations
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
Catch-up 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
Service Contracts
Quoting
There are currently no published & supported APIs available for
performing bulk or transactional contract import!
Refer to Metalink Note 307446.1
Potential Workaround using OM APIs
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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Application Considerations
Marketing
Fully updated OA Framework user interface, much cleaner than
previous versions
Territory Manager
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
Help > Record History not available in OA Framework
applications
XML Publisher
Payments
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
Supplier Open Interface Import
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:
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)
select log.*
Or, run this query:
from fnd_log_messages log,
(problem should be
near the end of the listing)
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;
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Technical Considerations
Supplier Open Interface & TCA Conflict
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.
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
Make sure your DBAs do their homework!
New components:
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 (Metalink 420787.1 reference)
Cloning can only be done by Rapid Clone
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Technical Considerations
Must use Oracle Applications Manager (OAM) for editing context files
(SID_hostname.xml)
New INST_TOP directory
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
RBAC (Role-based Access Control)
OA Framework
Complicates Responsibility creation & assignment
Responsibilities are not sufficient to gain access in certain areas (User
Management, Territory Mgr, etc.)
Delayed display due to caching (“clear all cache” function within Functional
Administrator)
Login Assistant
Users can re-set their own passwords
Passwords are case-sensitive!
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Summary
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 based on prior implementation
experience!
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Q U E S T I O N S
A N S W E R S
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