Oracle SOA Technology Day Coming to Select Cities

July 10, 2006 on 7:59 am | by Marian Crkon | In Oracle Press | Enter Comments | Print Print | Email Email

Register now for a free seminar and learn from experts how to drive efficiency through Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). Join us to learn how you can have a complete infrastructure for SOA-based applications, using Oracle Database 10g, Oracle Fusion Middleware, and Oracle Enterprise Management software.

Technical Breakout Sessions may include:

  • Transition to SOA with the Oracle SOA Suite
  • Leveraging Identity Management in SOA
  • Extending Applications with Oracle Fusion Middleware
  • Oracle Database 10g Release 2
  • Oracle Grid Control
  • SOA for Content and Records Management
  • Putting a Face on SOA: Oracle Portal
  • Securing SOA: Meeting the Compliance and Security Requirements of Tomorrow

REGISTER now for an Oracle Technology Day in a city near you!

Oracle Technology Day is a global program. Check your local Oracle.com Web site for the schedule of events in your country. Click here.

Favorite Fusion Features – General Ledger

June 14, 2006 on 10:06 pm | by Marian Crkon | In Ideas and Opinions | 1 Comment | Print Print | Email Email

By now you probably know what this is about. The time has come to think about what you want in Oracle Fusion. If you are an expert user with real-life, hands-on experience and have ideas on how to improve the applications; if you had to customize a module to get the features you need, or additional functionality would save you time and money, submit your strategic requests via the OAUG Enhancement Request System (ERS) today! As an Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG) member and/or Oracle Applications user, Oracle wants your feedback on strategic improvements to current Oracle E-Business Suite functionality for their initial Fusion releases.

Alternatively, if the option above does not work for you, then let’s also try something different. Let’s keep a weblog of improvement tips, enhancement requests and your best features in Oracle, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards and Siebel applications you want to have in Oracle Fusion. Let’s have discussions about what enhancements and features make most sense, and then log Fusion Requests before the Oracle’s June deadline. There won’t be any wrong questions or bad ideas (or at least, we’ll let the “group intelligence” decide). Your involvement can be as easy as providing comments with your ideas to this post.

Boy, what can you fundamentally change in GL? By now we know that 4Cs are coming in Release 12. And a couple of people had few more ideas. Below is a list of improvement tips and enhancement ideas based on Oracle General Ledger 11i.10 as submitted by Oracle users at the OAUG Enhancement Requests portal. Use the portal to provide you own enhancement requests, or submit comments to this post to do the same.

Note: I believe the idea of Fusion Requests is to submit enhancement requests on top of the existing releases, not to request the existing features. Somebody correct me if I am wrong. I suppose it never hurts to reiterate what your “best features” are.

  • Allow Separate Sequential Numbering by Balancing Segment. Submitted by Gerard Fuller. In several European countries (example Germany) the law requires us to maintain separate sequential numbering sequences by Legal Entity. Most organizations model legal entities by the Balancing Segment in General Ledger. We therefore need to be able to maintain and assign separate sequential number sequences by Balancing Segment. Currently this is only possible by Set of Book and Journal Category. Set of Books is too high level and prevents distinguishing between entities (i.e. Balancing Segments). Using Category requires us to create as many categories as we have legal entities, and assign them. This is quickly unworkable once we have more than a few entities per set of books.
  • Carry Forward Encumbrances at Year End. Submitted by Cyndie Winrow. In Oracle, the carry forward process does not create journals, and not at period activity, but rather creates a view for inquiry and reporting with designated amounts as beginning balances. I believe that this functionality eliminates the need for “period zero” as currently used in PeopleSoft, unless there are other uses for it of which we are unaware.
  • Interfund Balancing Capability. Submited by Cyndie Winrow. Allows set up for assignment of default natural account (nacct) segment values for fund balancing that can be specified to balance multiple journal sources and categories.
  • Financial Statement Generator (FSG). Submitted by Cyndie Winrow. Used to generate financial reports based on data in general ledger. FSG is an integral part of the general ledger application. Many standard reports are provided in the general ledger application, such as trial balance reports, account analysis reports, and budget to actual reports. FSG gives great flexibility in allowing for the creation of customized reports. It is an easy-to-use tool and can be utilized and maintained without substantial technical resources. Define your reports with reusable report objects, making it easy to create new reports from components already defined. Design custom reports. Schedule reports to run automatically. Produce ad hoc reports. Print reports to tab-delimited files for easy import into client-based spreadsheet programs.

Which features would you like to become your favorite features in Oracle Fusion? Granted, it may take two years before you get them, if ever, but this is your opportunity to provide your own improvement ideas and enhancement requests. The voting to determine “best features” starts in July 2006.

Oracle Wants Your Input on Fusion Features

June 1, 2006 on 8:47 pm | by Marian Crkon | In Oracle Press | Enter Comments | Print Print | Email Email

Here is full text of the OAUG press release soliciting your feedback on strategic improvements to current Oracle E-Business Suite functionality:

Dear Oracle Applications User,

Have you had to customize a module to get the features you need? Would additional functionality save you time and money? Are you living with a work around that is increasing your cost of ownership?

As an Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG) member and/or Oracle Applications user, Oracle is requesting your feedback on strategic improvements to current Oracle E-Business Suite functionality for their initial Fusion releases.

Submit your strategic requests via the OAUG Enhancement Request System (ERS) today!

Submitting and voting on requests is a four-step process:

    • Determine your strategic feature suggestions. Submit as many as you want, but be sure to provide a complete description so the reviewer and the Oracle product manager understands your request – don’t try to tell Oracle how to implement it, but be clear on what you need. A strategic feature is generally defined as functionality that has strategic value or a high impact on your current operations and is missing from the current module but would reduce your cost of ownership if it were available. For example: A Bank Reconcile feature for Oracle Cash Management. Bank reconciliations, unless you have a customization, are typically done manually and are very cumbersome and time consuming. Be sure to include customizations you have made, especially if you think they are generally applicable to other Oracle customers.
    • Initial strategic request submission. The stronger your business case, the more likely other OAUG members will vote for it and Oracle will accept your suggestion.
    • Review and acceptance of the requests and merging of duplicate or related requests. The ERS allows special interest group reviewers to evaluate and append to an existing request to ensure submissions accepted into the voting engine are of the highest quality. Your search of the ERS for requests similar to yours and submitting comments against it rather than submitting duplicates is every much appreciated and will make this task much easier.
    • Voting on the requests submitted. In order for you to vote, your OAUG key contact must designate you as an enhancements contact. Talk to your key contact to ensure you have access to voting. It is important for you to vote on all requests even if you have not submitted one, but please limit your votes to the applications you use. Voting starts June 26, 2006, and runs through July 17, 2006.

    2. Each accepted feature request qualifies the submitter to be entered into a drawing to win a free full-conference registration to COLLABORATE 07: Technology and Applications Forum for the Oracle Community in Las Vegas, April 15-19, 2007.

    To learn more about how to use the OAUG ERS, please review the Users Guide (PDF file) or download and view the ERS demo (10.5MB) (Please note: this session was recorded via WebEx and requires the WebEx Player, which you may download and install from the WebEx Web site).If you have any questions, please contact the OAUG at enhancements@oaug.com or +1 404.240.0897.

    Your input is critical! Please log on to the ERS today and remember to vote beginning on June 26, 2006.

    Best Regards,
    OAUG Technology Commitee

What Do You Want in Oracle Fusion?

April 10, 2006 on 7:34 pm | by Marian Crkon | In Worth Noting | 3 Comments | Print Print | Email Email

I enjoyed every Oracle Fusion media story, blog blarticle, or conspiration theory out there. What’s not to like? The Fusion has all aspects of a real-life drama with big money, celebrities, layoffs, and destroyed competitors. But when the dust settles, it will come down to a simple question: What’s in Fusion for me and my company?

It seems that Oracle is figuring out what Fusion means to them and is better articulating their plans to the public. As of today, you could summarize Oracle Fusion as follows:

  • Existing Oracle, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, and Siebel applications will be supported until 2013.
  • Oracle EBS 12 and PeopleSoft Enterprise 9 will be the last pre-Fusion applications released in late 2006.
  • First Fusion Applications will be delivered in 2008.

I am not worried about what Oracle will do. They are a smart bunch with all the resources in the world. They will keep doing what made them successful over the years. If you follow the Fusion developments, you already know that Oracle “will not be merging the existing Oracle EBS, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, or Siebel code”, but instead, they will “take the best features from all acquired solutions and start developing brand new Fusion Applications”. John Wookey and other Fusion architects have stated several times that “Fusion will be an upgrade, not re-implementation”, and “the customers should standardize their processes and retire their customizations to most benefit from Fusion”. I am more concerned about what the rest of us will, or will not do.

I fully support the idea of standardization and no customizations. However, you can only avoid customizations if the functionality you need is provided with the standard application features. Oracle, like any other vendor, can only deliver so much in every release, and only “the best features” that you asked for the most (or sell the best) get the nod. And this is where it gets interesting. What does “best” mean? And is “best” good enough? What will get eliminated?

We All Get the Applications We Deserve

We get what we ask for. In case of Oracle Applications, we may get what we asked for with a multi-year delay. The feature scopes for both Oracle EBS 12 and PeopleSoft Enterprise 9 have already been finalized. If you want to impact the scope and direction of Fusion Applications, the time to act is now! Smart Oracle customers have been doing it for years. Have you asked yourself what you need for your next Oracle implementation? Did you get together with your teams to review your business requirements and needs? Do you want your existing customizations be replaced by standard Fusion functionality? Here is what you can do to get involved:

Now, out of curiosity, I looked at the OAUG Enhancement Request System to get a sense for a number of the submitted enhancement and Fusion requests. Below are the totals for some selected applications:

ERS Request Counts

I don’t know about you, but that does not seem like a lot to me. What is happening? Are people not informed, or are they skeptical about the process? Personally, one of the most frustrating parts of being a consultant is not being able to get directly involved in improving the applications. I don’t work for a preferred Oracle client, I don’t want to pay thousands of dollars to attend user conferences, and I don’t want to submit enhancement requests if I don’t know whether they get proper attention and be accepted in the next release. I suspect I am not alone.

Calling All Passionate Users!

If you are an expert user with real-life, hands-on experiences and ideas on how to improve the applications; if you want to get involved, but don’t know how or none of the available options works for you, then let’s try something different!

Let’s use blogs productively and keep a weblog of our Favorite Fusion Features. Let’s compile a list of improvement tips, enhancement requests and your best features in Oracle, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards and Siebel applications. You can be as specific as you want. Let’s have discussions about what enhancements and features make most sense, and then log Fusion Requests before the Oracle’s June deadline. There won’t be any wrong questions or bad ideas (or at least, we’ll let the “group intelligence” decide).

Your involvement can be as easy as providing comments on a blog post, or creating a list of your application best features and enhancement requests and posting them on the weblog. It will up to you to decide. Send a link to this post to your colleagues and friends. Subscribe to the Favorite Fusion Features posts and comments!

Devil Is In Details

So in order to put my time where my mouth is, I have launched the Favorite Fusion Features series and started putting together enhancement ideas for Oracle Applications. Feel free to review, comment, and provide your own tips and ideas. My hope is to find more passionate users and consultants who will do the same either on their own blogs, or here at the Feature.

No Buzz at the Oracle Applications Day in Seattle

March 13, 2006 on 5:02 pm | by Marian Crkon | In Ideas and Opinions, Worth Noting | 1 Comment | Print Print | Email Email

I attended the Oracle Applications Day in Seattle today and I can summarize the event in two words: no buzz. I left with a feeling that everyone was tired of the status quo. There isn’t really much to talk about until the Release 12, due in late 2006. Oracle spent a good part of the day reassuring everyone that everything is going according to the plan, and delivering the official message:

  • Oracle Fusion is the next application release after Release 12, not a project.
  • Oracle Fusion is not a code merge, in contrary to what the competition would have you believe.
  • Oracle Fusion is EVOLUTION, not revolution. Customers can choose to upgrade when they are ready.
  • Current releases of Oracle, Peoplesoft, JD Edwards and Siebel applications will be supported until 2013.
  • Oracle will give customers compelling reasons to upgrade before that.

I thought the most exciting presentation of the day was the XML Publisher: Applying Concepts delivered by Tomas Milowski from the Oregon Health and Science University.

Did You Take the Oracle Support Customer Satisfaction Survey?

March 6, 2006 on 3:21 pm | by Marian Crkon | In Worth Noting | Enter Comments | Print Print | Email Email

Here is another opportunity to provide Oracle with your feedback about their products and services. If you ever submitted an Oracle Support Service Request, you may be asked to complete the Oracle Support Customer Satisfaction Survey. If you received an email with the survey, don’t delete like all other spam, but rather, let Oracle know how they satisfied your needs. You can’t get what you want if you do not ask for it! This survey is being conducted by Satmetrix Systems on behalf of Oracle, and is specific to a single service request.

Oracle Support Survey

Oracle Applications Day Continues in Select Cities

February 14, 2006 on 12:13 pm | by Marian Crkon | In Oracle Press, Worth Noting | Enter Comments | Print Print | Email Email

The Oracle Fusion Roadshow is “half-way done”, and continues in select cities as the Oracle Applications Day. Take part in one of the sessions if possible:

  • Austin, TX – Thursday, February 16, 2006
  • Seattle, WA – Monday, March 13, 2006
  • Iselin, NJ -  Tuesday, March 14, 2006
  • Toronto, ON – Thursday, April 20, 2006
  • Redwood Shores, CA – Friday, April 21, 2006

To get more information and register, visit Application Day. Get involved and find out what’s coming your way! I will see you there!

Did You Take the Oracle Superior Ownership Survey?

February 7, 2006 on 12:10 pm | by Marian Crkon | In Worth Noting | 1 Comment | Print Print | Email Email

The Oracle Applications User Group (OAUG) and Oracle are trying to get your feedback on Oracle Applications. If you are currently using an Oracle Applications product (Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft Enterprise, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne or JD Edwards World), Oracle wants your participation in a new Web-based interview process.

Oracle wants to know what you think is most important to reduce costs, decrease risks and enhance your experience in working with Oracle Applications. If you are interested in participating you will need to respond by Sunday, February 12, 2006.

To take the survey, click on Oracle Superior Ownership Survey. This is your chance to get involved and be heard! Oracle actually pays attention to these surveys!

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