Oracle E-Business Suite Blog

 

Prior to the actual session:

• If possible, conduct a "dry run" of the equipment/computers that will be used
• Test the projector and your PC just before the beginning of the session
• Arrange the presenter's area, the white-board and flip charts appropriately
• Have dark ink markers available (so that they can be seen clearly)
• If possible, arrange a smaller conference room
• If possible, arrange the video to include "Picture in Picture" so that you can view yourself while presenting and also the participants
• Verify that all materials have been sent to the participants in advance
• Be aware of differences in time zones for all participants
• Verify technical support available if there are problems with equipment
• Verify that any Oracle instances being used are up and running and that user ids, passwords and responsibilities are working appropriately
• Try to wear mid-tone colors that won't merge into the background, or conversely, cause contrast problems if they're too dark.

 

During the actual session:

• Start your session a few minutes early to ensure all participants are ready without technical difficulties
• Have all participants introduce themselves at the beginning of the session (use this as a test to determine if everyone can hear each other properly)
• Consider having all participants put their phones on "mute" to avoid background noise
• Speak clearly and slowly, but in a normal voice
• Be aware of the speed and volume of your voice when presenting
• Try to face the camera as much as possible, avoid keeping your back to the camera/audience
• Stay in range of the camera view
• Avoid sudden moves
• Avoid constant motion, as this may cause camera focusing delays
• Avoid keeping your hands in pockets and playing with coins, keys or other noisy items
• Ask lots of questions to keep everyone engaged, make sure you address the person by name, make sure you give them time to respond
• If possible, record the session
• Document "parking lot" issues
• Be prepared for a closing period to recap everything and discuss next steps

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Context

More and more industries today are integrating and embracing Service Oriented Approach to do their business. During our recent rollout of one of such projects, we found ourselves in the same situation where the client was on EBS 11.5.10 and the vendor was offering web services as touch points for data handshake. Client additionally wanted to schedule this integration on daily basis.

We explored few options like CSV file sharing, DB links etc but none of them were feasible as vendor only offered web service. So should our client buy SOA Suite to integrate with vendor? Or else how will they call a web service?


Bridging the gap
The webservices are exposed to the external parties via a WSDL (Web Services Description Language). This WSDL is provided to the external partner. So the question now is how to use this WSDL from Oracle EBS?

From within EBS, we can call this web service via WSDL using Java or PL/SQL. In our case, we used a PL/SQL procedure to invoke the webservice as it suited the requirement better. To simply the actual business case, let us consider a simple scenario where a supplier responds back with the Inventory Quantity when presented with a Item Code. If the web service exposed by the supplier is called InvQty, the PL/SQL procedure to invoke this web service will be as follows:

CREATE OR REPLACE
PROCEDURE  CALL_INV_QTY_WS
IS

        soap_request varchar2(30000);
        soap_respond varchar2(30000);
        http_req utl_http.req;
        http_resp utl_http.resp;
        launch_url varchar2(240) ;

BEGIN

         soap_request:='<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

        <soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">

        <soap:Header/>

        <soap:Body xmlns:ns1="http://xmlns.oracle.com/InvQty_jws/Project1/InvQty">

                <ns1:process><ns1:ItemCode>MS787</ns1:ItemCode></ns1:process>

        </soap:Body>

        </soap:Envelope>';

        http_req:= utl_http.begin_request('http://soabpm-vm:7001/soa-infra/services/default/Project1/InvQty_client_ep','POST','HTTP/1.1');
        utl_http.set_header(http_req, 'Content-Type', 'text/xml') ;
        utl_http.set_header(http_req, 'Content-Length', length(soap_request)) ;
        utl_http.set_header(http_req, 'SOAPAction', 'process');
        utl_http.write_text(http_req, soap_request) ;
        http_resp:= utl_http.get_response(http_req) ;
        utl_http.read_text(http_resp, soap_respond) ;
        utl_http.end_response(http_resp) ;
        dbms_output.put_line(soap_respond);

EXCEPTION WHEN UTL_HTTP.end_of_body THEN

        utl_http.end_response(http_resp);

END;

This PL/SQL procedure thus embeds a SOAP (protocol for exchanging the structured information in the implementation of web service) call in the procedure's body. The web service is thus invoked via the procedure CALL_INV_QTY_WS.
Now with the basic code in place, we just need to schedule it!
Based on when the web service needs to be invoked, this procedure can be scheduled in any of the following ways:

1. System scripts such as .bat or .sh invoking with PL/SQL procedure
2. Using DBMS_JOB package
3. Oracle EBS Concurrent Program


Conclusion

While the above scenario is a simple use case, the other business scenarios may be more complex. With Oracle SOA Suite 11g, these complex scenarios can be handled with ease. Further, the transaction management, security and exception handling features in Oracle SOA Suite are capable of enhancing the message delivery and integrity. With a rich Fusion Middleware stack, Oracle completely addresses interaction both within and outside of the Oracle technologies and offers umpteen prebuilt adapter for FTP, Database, EBS, Message Queues etc.

 

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Knowledge Pathways (KP) allows training content to be organized and delivered through the Web using a browser. There are many different types of content that can be included in KP. Anything that is generally found on web pages can be included in Knowledge Pathways.

These include audio, video, flash video, html pages, etc.

Additionally, the content explorer can be used to include player files located on a local hard drive, network drive, or referenced using a URL.

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Screen resolution is important to consider for the end user, developer and trainer. 

Recording at the lowest screen resolution available within UPK (1024 x 768) will enable end users still utilizing a low screen resolution the ability to view the simulations without having to scroll left to right or up and down.  Simulations will be viewed in full screen on machines with low resolutions while the content will display within a border on machines with higher resolutions.  This way neither user type is negatively impacted.

Frames cannot be copied into topics recorded using a different resolution so this is an important consideration for maintaining content. 

It is also important to consider how simulations will be used in content delivery.  If an instructor intends to display content to end users on a projector the best resolution is also 1024 x 768 for optimal readability.

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Many of us have used some sort of image capturing software like SnagIt, only to run into problems when trying to record in UPK.  The reason for the conflict is that both SnagIt and UPK use the same default Print Screen capture command (or "hotkey") The easiest thing to do is exit the SnagIt program if you're using UPK, or vice versa.  You could also change the setting in UPK, but I didn't want to do that since I use UPK much more than SnagIt.  However, I like having both programs available, and so I changed my SnagIt settings so that they wouldn't conflict with UPK. 

Here's how to change the hotkey in SnagIt:  Go to the Tools menu, and select the Program Preferences command.  The Program Preferences window displays with the Hotkeys tab active by default.   At this point, you may select any combination of keys as long as it is different from the UPK Print Screen command. 

 As you can see from the image, I use the combination of the CTRL + Print Screen keys when I want to capture an image using SnagIt.  After making your changes in the Global Capture hotkey section, click the OK button, and you should be able to record in UPK without launching SnagIt. 

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Performance and Promotion History Popup in Worksheet

Performance and Promotion history, including such details as current and prior ratings, rankings, job and/or position changes can now be viewed with one click in the compensation allocation worksheet in a pop up page. Giving compensation managers the ability to see their employee's Performance and Promotion history in one place using one or two simple clicks will help them to make better and more informed decisions when rewarding their employees.

Post Zero Salary Increases

Compensation administrators now have the option to post zero (0.00) salary increases or increments for employees from Compensation Workbench to HR. This means there will now be a record of a zero change amount in salary proposals of employees who did not receive any salary increase.

Control Period for Viewing Appraisals in Compensation Allocation Worksheet

The ability to view employee performance appraisal details from within the compensation allocation worksheet has been further improved by allowing the administrator to control the date after which completed performance appraisals will be available for managers to see. If there are multiple years of performance appraisals in Performance Management, and/or employees only have completed appraisals from the previous year and not the "current" period, when the new year's CWB plan is opened, managers will only see their employees' performance appraisals from the previous period. This feature will ensure managers will only see the latest completed appraisals for their employees when making compensation award decisions for the current period.

Refresh Plan, Employee and Summary Data from Compensation Workbench Home Page

 Prior to this release, the Compensation Workbench Refresh process was only available in the Professional User Interface. Now it is available to administrators on the Compensation Workbench home page allowing them to refresh plan, summary or employee HR data all within Compensation Workbench.

Ensure Employee's New Salary is within Grade Range

This new features gives compensation managers and administrators the ability to optionally validate an employee's new salary amount against their salary grade range. This helps to ensure managers comply with company compensation policies as well as better pay equity for employees.

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Streamline the Promotions and Allocations Process with Enhanced Compensation Workbench Spreadsheet Download/Upload Features

Compensation administrators and/or managers can now use the following new features that enhance the Compensation Workbench (CWB) spreadsheet download and upload mechanism and provides the ability to:

Personalize the CWB spreadsheet download column prompts (labels) for each plan. Especially useful for Service providers who host different organizations on a single software instance, compensation administrators can utilize this feature to provide unique labels for each organization's plans to meet the different business requirements.

Use the spreadsheet capabilities to update employee promotion data and upload the changes back to Compensation Workbench. Compensation Managers with large populations of employees for whom they have to make job, grade, position or other promotions-related changes will appreciate a streamlined promotions process.

Upload Custom Segments and Other Rate values to Compensation Workbench. Currently, compensation managers can update custom segments and other rates only through the CWB worksheet which can be cumbersome. With this feature, they can upload custom segment and other rate changes at the same time which will help to simplify and make the allocations process more efficient.

Display Market Salary Survey Data in Compensation Workbench

 Compensation workbench now enables compensation managers to compare their employees' salaries to the prevailing market average wages (market average wages that is imported into or set up in Oracle HRMS system), thus ensuring equity in pay when rewarding their employees.

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While working on one of the clients assignment, we developed this simple proof-of-concept to illustrates how easy it is to integrate Oracle Applications with BPEL

The process flow

This BPEL service accepts user values from ADF web application and passes them to HR_EMPLOYEE_API.CREATE_EMPLOYEE API using BPEL Oracle Applications adaptor [and not by calling DB package surpassing Function Security]. The values returned by the API are displayed to the user.

BPEL process

The BPEL process utilizes iRep repository to browse all the available Oracle Apps services. In Release 12, the Oracle Integration Repository is shipped as part of the E-Business Suite. R11 instances can be patched to achieve the same.

Refer http://irep.oracle.com/ for details

Browsing iRep repository

Once BPEL process is ready, the next step was to integrate this with a web application which will invoke this BPEL process. To achieve the same, we created a simple data entry ADF page utilizing ADF Data Control component.

On successful creation of an employee record in EBS, user is shows the next page [This page essentially contains the values of OUT parameters from CREATE_EMPLOYEE API]

Note: This is a synchronous integration of a web application with EBS API using BPEL as a broker. The application can be configured to show or hide various values, accept default parameters or call any other EBS API

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As you and your UPK developers create content, the outline can contain hundreds of topics organized by modules and sections.  Creating folders in the library with the same name as the section or module in the outline is a great way to organize your content.  Once you are organized, it is easier to maintain the content created.

Sometimes, topics need to be deleted.  Deleting topics in the outline view simply deletes the link to the topic (not the topic itself).   To delete topics from the library, you will first need to find them.  An easy way to find where topics are located in the library is to highlight the topic (1) in the outline and click the View > Find In Library menu option (2).  The topic will appear highlighted in the library within the respective folder (3) and can now be deleted.

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