The Feature

Christmas Is Over – Get To Work On Daylight Savings Time

December 26, 2006 on 6:35 pm | by Floyd Teter | In Worth Noting | Enter Comments |  Print |  Email

I hope everyone’s holiday was at least as wonderful as mine. Now forget those visions of dancing sugarplums and start working on an upcoming issue with Oracle products – Daylight Saving Time.

Background

Under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Daylight Saving Time begins 3 weeks earlier and ends one month later in 2007, running from March 11 to Nov. 4. The US Department of Transportation, which is responsible for administering daylight savings time, has published a reminder that can be found here. Oracle software does not support the extended periods of Daylight Saving Time.

Impact to E-Business Suite Users

>In the E-Business Suite, there are two types of date fields:

1) Dates with a time component to show a specific point in time.

2) Dates without a time component, showing date but not a specific time

The impact to E-Business customers on Daylight Saving Time will be that time values, whether recorded or displayed, will be offset by one hour from the actual time. Incorrect time values will appear in all date fields with a time component. In addition, there is a possibility of incorrect dates (for example, in the event that a transaction takes actually takes place at 12:55 a.m. but the system time lags the actual time by one hour) . Under certain circumstances, incorrect dates could appear in either type of date field.

The E-Business Suite customers impacted will fall into one or more of the following scenarios:

1) an EBS database running in an affected time zone (in other words, all EBS customers in the U.S. and Canada)

2) an EBS user with the “Client Timezone” profile option set to an affected time zone

3) Communications or data transfers between time zones, at least one of which falls into Daylight Saving Time.

At this point, Oracle has not heard much feedback from EBS customers so they’ve assessed this issue as a “minor inconvenience”. Nevertheless, they are working the issue.

Oracle Research

Although I’ve only discussed the impact on E-Business users, this issue also impacts the Oracle database and middleware. Although this is a developing issue, there are several sources of information available:

Oracle Metalink

• Notes 403311.1 and 399375.1 discusses the implications for Oracle E-Business Suite users.
• Notes 397281.1 and 359145.1 discuss the impact on and the patches for the Oracle database, Oracle middleware, and various supporting operating systems – many patches called for between these two notes. The latter note will also lead the reader to Metalink Note 396387.1, which covers workarounds when DST-related database patches are not available for a particular configuration.

Other Sources

• Oracle’s Director of E-Business Technology, Steven Chan, has written articles on this subject that can be found on the Oracle E-Business Suite Technology blog. The articles can be found here and here.

OAUG is also tracking this issue. Their progress can be followed here.

Next Steps

I suggest that every Oracle user in the U.S. and Canada should at least give some brief consideration to this Daylight Saving Time issue. Maybe it doesn’t impact your organization or perhaps you can live with the glitch. On the other hand, you may have a problem to resolve before March. If you fall in the latter category, you’ll want to start planning now.

Gee, don’t you wish it was still Christmas!

Oracle E-Business Suite R12 Pre-Release Product Demos

August 24, 2006 on 1:05 pm | by Marian Crkon | In Oracle Press | 4 Comments |  Print |  Email

In late September, Oracle will be hosting a series of pre-release demonstrations of E-Business Suite R12 applications. Through this program, OAUG members will have the unique opportunity to preview new features and functionality of selected R12 applications before they are generally available. The demonstrations will be held remotely via Web conferencing, and will be conducted by members of the Oracle Applications development team who have a deep understanding of the products.

To participate in the demonstrations, user group members must sign the Oracle Confidential Disclosure Agreement (CDA), and must have licensed and implemented (or be in the process of implementing) a current version of the Oracle Applications product(s) being demonstrated. Oracle will use the customer contact information submitted via the online enrollment form to send the CDA and other pre-demo materials.

Participation is limited to OAUG members in good standing, and each session is limited to 50 dial-in ports, to be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. To enroll in the individual demonstrations, please complete the online enrollment form by Friday, September 8, 2006.

Oracle will be soliciting feedback from the program participants and may ask you to participate in marketing activities associated with the demonstrations, including providing customer quotations that may be used for R12 marketing purposes, such as presentations at Oracle OpenWorld 2006.

More information on the E-Business Suite R12 user group/special interest group demonstration program including detailed descriptions for each demo and a demo schedule, is available here.

What Are Those Oracle Toolbar Icons For?

August 3, 2006 on 8:04 pm | by Marian Crkon | In How To Guides | 4 Comments |  Print |  Email

Here is a thing that should be intuitive and easy to understand but is not always so. It’s one of those “I wish I had a dollar for every time I had to explain”… I wish the Oracle Toolbar icons were as well documented in online help as they are in the Oracle Applications User Guide, (page 2-3, OTN login is required). That would help new users to see the descriptions and learn the funcions when they need to. Hope an overview below will help you with understanding what the toolbar icons there are and the actions they perform:

1. The New icon opens a new record.

2. The Find icon invokes the Find window.

3. The Show Navigator icon invokes the Navigator window, i.e. brings you back to the main menu.

4. The Save icon saves your data.

5. The Next Step icon advances you to the next step of a process.

6. The Switch Responsibilities icon invokes the list of your responsibilities for you to choose another.

7. The Print icon prints the current screen.

8. The Close Form icon closes all windows of the current form.

9. The Cut icon cuts the current selection to the clipboard.

10. The Copy icon copies the current selection to the clipboard.

11. The Paste icon pastes from the clipboard into the current field.

12. The Clear Record icon erases the current record from the form.

13. The Delete icon deletes the current record from the database.

14. The Edit Field icon displays the Editor window for the current field.

15. The Zoom icon invokes customer-defined drill-down behavior.

16. The Translations icon invokes the Translations window.

17. The Attachments icon invokes the Attachments window. If attachments, the paperclip is holding a paper.

18. The Folder Tools icon invokes the Folder Tools palette window.

19. The Window Help icon invokes online help for the current window.

See the Oracle Applications Guide for more on navigation, data entry and other useful tips.

Sneak Peek at Oracle e-Business Suite User Interface in Release 12

June 24, 2006 on 6:51 am | by Marian Crkon | In Worth Noting | Enter Comments |  Print |  Email

Steven Chan of the Oracle E-Business Suite Technology blog has posted several informative posts regarding Oracle eBusiness Suite Release 12. Peoplesoft customers will be happy to hear that Oracle Applications will look more like Peoplesoft. Personally, I like the blue. As for Oracle users, let’s hope the changes will also bring some usability improvements. For now we know there will be no need for JInitiator anymore. To see samples of new Release 12 forms, look at this article by Steven.

How To Change the Date Format in Oracle Applications

February 27, 2006 on 4:39 pm | by Marian Crkon | In How To Guides | 2 Comments |  Print |  Email

Here is another tip that Oracle users frequently don’t know about. The default date format in Oracle eBusiness Suite applications is DD-MMM-YYYY (e.g. today would be 27-FEB-06). Nobody likes that. You can ask your System Administrator to change it at the system (site) or responsibility level, or you can change it yourself by following these easy steps:

From the Oracle eBusiness Suite Home Page, click Preferences (upper-right corner).

Change the date format to the format you like.

Click Apply and then Home (the system does not close the Preferences window for you). Next time you open the applications, you will see the date in a new format.

How To Change the Report Viewer

February 23, 2006 on 1:24 pm | by Marian Crkon | In How To Guides | 3 Comments |  Print |  Email

Did you know you can change the way Oracle eBusiness Suite Applications display report outputs? This may sound trivial to all of you who know how to do it, but most users are constantly surprised when they find out about it. Follow these easy steps to change your viewer:

Navigate to Edit > Preferences.

Query up the profile option ‘Viewer: Text’. In User Value field, enter Browser.

Save changes. Next time you navigate to the Requests window and click on Output, you will see the report as HTML web-page, instead of clunky Oracle Viewer.

A2Z Oracle Applications Navigation Tip Sheets

February 20, 2006 on 4:08 pm | by Marian Crkon | In How To Guides | Enter Comments |  Print |  Email

Richard Byron’s OracleAppsBlog.com has an article with two useful navigation tip sheets: A2Z Oracle Applications Navigation Tip Sheet and Oracle ADI Navigation Tip Sheet, which I am sure many Oracle Application users (especially the novices) will find useful.