Oracle E Biz SIG Blog

Farewell From The EBiz Sig Blog

2008-04-28T00:20:00.004-07:00

After 4 years and hundreds of posts it is time to end the EBizSig Blog.

When this Blog was launched in 2003 there were only a handful of Oracle related blogs and only 3 or 4 blogs that focused on the Oracle E-Business Suite.

Since that time there have been over 450 new Oracle Blogs created with about 42 of those focusing on E-Business Suite technology and development. In addition the web has changed quite a bit in the past 4 years and we now have great resources like Oracle Mix, Eddie Awads OraNa and the OAUG Knowledge Factory available as online resources for Oracle developers.

I wont be leaving the Blogosphere as I have devoted all my current blogging to the OnDemand Beat Blog which I launched in November 2007. The OnDemand Beat Blog profiles and reviews On Demand and Enterprise 2.0/3.0 companies & technology. Please subscribe to the OnDemand Beat Blog feed here.

The Ebiz Sig Blog will remain available as an archive until the end of 2008 and then the Blogs content will be moved into the training page on the OAUG Customization & Extension SIG website.

It has been fun blogging within the Oracle Blogosphere and thanks to all of the loyal readers who have checked out my content for the past few years.

Oracle Mix, OAUG

All Roads Lead To Denver

2008-04-09T02:21:00.007-07:00

I had a chance to sit down today and highlight a few of the many useful sessions for E-Business Suite Developers at Collaborate 08 in Denver next week.

Sunday

OAUG Upgrade SIG Sunday, April 13, 2008 8:30 AM-9:30 AM
OAUG SOA SIG Sunday, April 13, 2008 11:00 AM-12:00 PM
OAUG Middleware SIG Sunday, April 13, 2008 1:00 PM-3:15 PM
OAUG SYS Admin Sig Sunday, April 13, 2008 3:30 PM-4:30 PM

Monday

Personalization in the E-Business Suite Monday, April 14, 2008 1:00 PM-2:00 PM
BPEL for Workflow Developers Monday, April 14, 2008 3:30 PM-4:30 PM
Developing E-Business Suite Custom Extensions Tuesday, April 15, 2008 4:45 PM-5:45 PM

Tuesday

Implementing Customizations in the TCA using Workflow Tuesday, April 15, 2008 3:30 PM-4:30 PM
Developing E-Business Suite Custom Extensions Tuesday, April 15, 2008 4:45 PM-5:45 PM

Wednesday

Customization Survival Guide Wednesday, April 16, 2008 11:00 AM-12:00 PM
Customizing EBiz Suite with the Custom Library Wednesday, April 16, 2008 4:30 PM-5:30 PM

Thursday

Using DataLoad for Data Entry, Maintenance & Setup Thursday, April 17, 2008 12:15 PM-1:15 PM

Take a look at all of the development related sessions here.

Tags: Collaborate 08, Denver

Another Good E-Business Suite Related Blog

2008-04-03T02:11:00.004-07:00

I noticed today on Oracle Blog's another great E-Business Suite related blog called Oracle Apps Epicenter.

Oracle Apps Epicenter is written by Sanjit Anand and has great functional and technical apps related articles.

Another good feature of his blog is the resource page. Instead of a standard hierarchical archive listing he has the blogs articles broken out by E-Business Suite Category.

Tags: Oracle, E-Business Suite

Join me and Sir Richard Branson on Project Virgle

2008-04-01T02:52:00.004-07:00

I know that many of my fellow Oracle bloggers and readers are space enthusiasts just like me thus you might want to take a look at and apply straight away for one of the coveted slots for Project Virgle as mentioned on the OnDemand Beat.

I have already received an enthusiastic response from a Project Virgle team member in the UK and slots are filling up fast I was told...

Put in your application today!!!and catch me in a couple of weeks at Colloborate 08 and we could chat a bit about the adventure.

Tags: Project Virgle, Collaborate 08,

Free Oracle E-Business Suite Data Integration Workshops

2008-03-10T08:49:00.006-07:00

Oracle and the OAUG have announced a series of complementary Hands On Workshops utilizing Oracle Data Integration Adapters and the SOA Suite at Collaborate 08.

These workshops will show developers and end-users how to create a BPEL process that will integrate the E-Business Suite with Web Services.

Sessions are being held for the E-Business Suite, Peoplesoft, JD Edwards and Siebel.

Sessions are on a first sign up - first served basis. If you are attending Collaborate 08 I would highly recommend signing up for a session as Data Integration is becoming a critical must have component for most ERP sites.

Tags: Oracle, OAUG, Data Integration, BPEL

How to Find the Best Oracle Blog Content

2008-02-26T01:23:00.001-07:00

One of the drawbacks of the recent plethora of Oracle related blogs is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find good Oracle blog content without having to spend hours digging through individual blog articles. Eddie Awads OraNa for example has rss feeds for over 340 Oracle related blogs while the Oracle Blog Center has over 500 blogs as of February 2008.

Well one way to sort through the overwhelming amount of information is via AideRSS. AideRSS is an intelligent assistant that promises to help you "Read What Matters" and it actually works very well.

To use AideRss you simply enter in the url of a feed you are interested in.

AideRSS takes the feed and runs it thru its algorithm to learn about the feed, its statistics, and people’s reaction to it. AideRSS then assigns a PostRank™ score to all articles in the feed and gives you myriad ways to sort and view the feed articles so that you can find the content of interest to you.

Looking at the OraNA feed for example you will notice that about 32% of the Blog articles on OraNa have a PostRank™ of 10.0 while 43% have a PostRank™ between 6.0 and 9.9 and the rest have a PostRank™ below 6.0.

With time being of the essence I would for example focus on the Blog Articles that have a ranking of 6.0 or above as previous Blog readers have indicated via comments, Digg and Delicious Submissions that the articles content was useful.

Finally this is a good tool to improve your the content on your blog if you are an Oracle Blogger. If you for example only have a few articles with a high PostRank™; you can use AideRSS to figure out what content engages and interests your readers versus what content does not work. AideRSS also publishes a Blog Trend Graph that helps to quickly determine whether your blogs popularity and content is improving or decreasing over time.

Tags: AideRSS, RSS, Oracle Blogs, Blogger

SpeedLinks February 13 2008

2008-02-13T08:29:00.005-07:00

Oracle launched the Oracle Data Integration Suite last week. Oracle DI Suite is a full data integration solution that compares well to IBM's Information Server (Although Information Server has been beefed up considerably with IBM's Cognos Acquisition) and contains data integration, data transformation and master data management components.

Rumors were swirling last week in the Blogosphere relating to Salesforce approaching Oracle to gauge interest in an Oracle Acquisition of Salesforce. Most bloggers don't think an acquisition makes sense for either company but the rumors will more than likely continue...

Over on the OnDemand Beat Blog, I mentioned Oracle along with companies such as O'Reilley Media, Twitter and HubDub as being active participants on GetSatisfaction. The team at Oracle AppsLab is very responsive to customer questions on Get Satisfaction and puts Oracle in a good light compared to companies like Apple and Wordpress who are no shows so far on Get Satisfaction.

Mark Rittman has a great article on Future Oracle BI Architecture over on the RittmanMead Blog. With all the BI acquisitions and changes over the past two years, even the most connected of us at times have a bit of confusion when it comes to choices for Oracle BI and Mark will address some of these questions at an upcoming UKOUG event.

Speaking of Oracle BI, the most comprehensive Oracle BI blog has got to be Venkatakrishnan's blog. He really goes into detail in his articles and he posts fairly often. This blog is a definite bookmark

Tags: Get Satisfaction, Oracle Data Integration Suite, OnDemand Beat, Salesforce

Collaborate 08 Sessions Now Available

2008-02-04T12:26:00.000-07:00

The presentations and sessions for Collaborate 2008 in Denver have been selected and scheduled.

There are a number of E-Business Suite technical sessions and many OBIEE and Hyperion sessions scheduled.

The sessions abstracts can be viewed online.

In addition, there will be over 50 SIG and GEO meetings on Sunday 13 April.

OAUG, Collaborate 08

Oracle Development Tools Research Team

2008-01-31T15:40:00.000-07:00

I found out recently via the Oracle Ace program that Oracle has created a Development Tools User Research Team. The focus of this team is to learn how Oracle Developers use the various development tools to perform their tasks and deliverables.

The research team is looking for both E-Business Suite and non E-Business Suite developers and DBA's to assist and participate in the studies. They are interested in hearing from developers and DBA's at all skill & knowledge levels.

To start participating send your feedback on tools, feature requests & ideas to devtools_ux_ww@oracle.com

To volunteer to participate in Usability Studies complete the profile form at:
Oracle Usability Program

Finally their is a short survey at https://vovici.com/wsb.dll/s/a7aeg305a0. This survey will be updated quarterly with new questions of interest to developers and Oracle's product development team.

Oracle, Survey

Results of Oracle Upgrade Survey

2008-01-22T11:25:00.001-07:00

I ran a survey last September to find out when readers planned to upgrade to Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.

There was very good response to the survey and the results are interesting...

51% percent of the respondents replied that they will upgrade in 2008
31% replied that they will wait until the Fusion Applications are released before upgrading.
13% replied that they would upgrade in 2007. (Wonder how many of the respondents actually started an upgrade last year)
6% indicated that they would upgrade in 2009

With over 57% of the respondents indicating that they planned to upgrade this year or next, E-Business Suite Developers, DBAs, Analysts and Consultants should be quite busy for the foreseeable future.

Release 12, Oracle, Survey, Oracle Upgrade

E-Business Suite Version 12.04 Released

2008-01-16T06:55:00.001-07:00

The Oracle E-Business Suite Development team announced last night the release of Rollup Pack 4 for version 12 of the E-Business Suite.

The update is available for download via metalink and has about 10,000 fixes and 100 functionality enhancements.

E-Business Suite, Oracle

Oracle Acquisitions Page

2008-01-12T08:36:00.000-07:00

Oracle has a page up on Oracle.com that reviews the strategic acquisitions that Oracle has made over the past 2 years.

The purpose of the page is to give customers and shareholders an idea of why a particular acquisition has been made and how that acquisition will benefit Oracle customers.

Will be interesting to see who is on the list at the end of 2008.

Oracle, Acquisitions, 2008

SpeedLinking January 3 2008

2008-01-03T02:52:00.002-07:00

A few quick links to kick off 2008

Ora-Click.com

The new "Digg" site for Oracle Content

Excellent OpenWorld 2007 JDeveloper Presentation

2007-12-20T10:30:00.001-07:00

Janette Lockhart gave a very detailed presentation at OOW2007 on extending the E-Business Suite with JDeveloper.

Extending Oracle E-Business Suite with the Oracle JDeveloper OA Extension
(Session S290957, PDF, 1.2 MB)
Userid: cboracle
Password: oraclec6

The presentation provides a strong introduction and foundation to JDeveloper for developers used to creating extensions and customizations using traditional Oracle development tools like Oracle Reports or Forms.

In particular, Janette focuses on the steps required to download and run an existing OA page; one of the areas that Janette mentions is lacking in the standard tutorials.

Oracle Open World, JDeveloper, Oracle Forms, Oracle Reports

Top Five Oracle VM Resources

2007-12-15T03:57:00.001-07:00

There are a number of excellent resources available for installing and utilizing Oracle VM.

First stop should be the Oracle Virtualization Technology Center

Sergio Leunissen has created a very detailed instructional video on installing Oracle VM (see below)

The official Oracle VM Wiki Page has excellent content

The Oracle VM product team actively monitors and answers Oracle VM questions on the Oracle VM discussion forum

Finally check out the new Oracle-VM blog.

Oracle Wiki, Oracle VM

UKOUG 2007 is Live

2007-12-04T09:18:00.001-07:00

The UKOUG 2007 conference is in full swing this week in Birmingham England.

The UKOUG conference does not get as much coverage as OpenWorld or Collaborate but it is a very worthwhile conference full of useful and interesting sessions. This year the conference has over 450 sessions with a large number of sessions devoted to the E-Business Suite, BI and Technology

The European contingent of Oracle Bloggers are covering UKOUG in detail this week and you can follow the conference at:

Mark Rittman UKOUG Coverage

Alex Gorbachev & Christo Kutrovsky Coverage

Doug Burns UKOUG Coverage

H.Tonguç YIlmaz Coverage

John Scott Coverage

Andrew Clarke Coverage

Grant Ronald Coverage

Peter Scott Coverage

If I have missed any other blogs with great coverage of OKOUG 2007 please leave a comment or send me an email and I will add to the list.

UKOUG

Top Ten Oracle Open World 2007 Recaps

2007-11-26T02:02:00.001-07:00

Oracle OpenWorld 2007 was covered in detail by a number of longtime Oracle bloggers and for the first time the Enterprise Irregulars.

Some of the more comprehensive and insightful recaps are below:

Mark Rittman on Oracle BI Strategy

Eddie Awad OpenWorld Updates

Steven Chan on Open World Presentations

Jake Kuramoto (Oracle Apps Lab) Open World Recap

Floyd Teter's Comprehensive OOW Fusion Recaps

Doug Burns Open World thoughts

Justin Kestelyn review of Oracle Open World

John Scott's extremely detailed daily OOW reports

Vinnie Mirchandani's frank OOW recap with interesting commentary

Dan Farber's exhaustive Oracle and OOW articles

Enterprise Irregulars, Oracle Open World

OAUG offers Christmas in November

2007-11-08T08:56:00.001-07:00

Christmas has arrived early in 2007 thanks to the OAUG. The OAUG has 2 special promotions at OpenWorld for new and renewal memberships. (info below from OAUG mailing)

" The OAUG is offering a special 18-for-12 Membership Promotion at Oracle OpenWorld. By joining the OAUG or renewing your OAUG membership at Oracle OpenWorld, you will receive an additional 6 months of membership absolutely free! Just drop by the OAUG membership information center for more details and to receive the special promotional code. You will have until December 31, 2007 to redeem your special code. As a special incentive to those who join or renew on site, a complimentary copy of the highly anticipated book, The Release 12 Primer,* will be available while supplies last."

or

" Sign up for the OAUG's special Web Subscription on site at Oracle OpenWorld, and you will receive a complimentary copy of The Release 12 Primer* (while supplies last). A Web Subscription is your opportunity to start receiving vital communications from OAUG that cover a wide range of topics in the Oracle applications community. There is no fee to sign up for a Web Subscription. "

This is a great chance to renew membership or join the OAUG for the first time. Having been an OAUG member for many years...this is the first time I remember a promotion this good so take advantage.

OAUG, OpenWorld, Membership

Steven Feuerstein Loves PL/SQL

2007-10-29T08:47:00.000-07:00

Steven Feuerstein just launched a new website in conjunction with Apex Evangelists to obtain assistance from Oracle Developers in fixing the top ten irritants/pet peeves in the Oracle PL/SQL language.

There is a section on the site where you can send questions and or enhancement requests

directly to Bryn Llewellyn; Oracle's PL/SQL Product Manager, Database and Application Server Technologies Development Group.

Some of Steven's pet peeves/irritants include:

Recommendations to fix the pet peeve/irritant are also forwarded along to Oracle:

Developers rarely get a one on one opportunity to forward enhancement requests to Oracle (Unlike E-Business Suite Developers who have a formal enhancement request system in place with the OAUG and Oracle) so this is great chance to get your voice heard.

PL/SQL, Oracle

Oracle Embraces Social Media

2007-10-22T07:23:00.001-07:00

This is not your fathers Oracle....

Oracle, led by the efforts of visible bloggers like Jake Kuramoto and Justin Kestelyn has fully embraced social media over the past year.

Oracle was described as a "Blog Heaven" in the 8 October edition of Network World. Oracle came ahead of traditional bellweathers such as Sun and Apple.

The most visible changes at Oracle are on the Oracle Technology Network.

Not only have the number of blogs exploded in the past year, but Oracle is ahead of the game in terms of creation of a semantic web and other Web 2.0 - Enterprise 2.0 tools.

Oracle Open World Connect is one of the better examples of using social media to create community around a conference.

Here you can set up individual blogs, create a quick connect card for Open World (see mine below) and use other cool community building tools

Finally one of the high points in Oracle's evolution is the unconference that will be held at Open World 2007.

The concept of the unconference is similar to unconferences like Foocamp or Seattle Mindcamp that have taken a hold over the past 3 years and I predict that the unconference will be one of the most popular events at OpenWorld. (In the old days...3 or 4 years ago..Oracle would never have considered holding an unconference within OpenWorld or any Oracle Event)

What are your thoughts on Oracle's move to embrace Social Media/Web 2.0?

Web 2.0, Social Media, Unconference

Oracle E-Business Suite Rel 12 Forms Personalization

2007-10-11T06:49:00.001-07:00

Alex Vachon created this excellent overview of Oracle release 12 forms personalization.

This doc goes into detail about how to declaratively alter the behavior of forms based screens in E-Business Suite Release 12.

E-Business Suite Release 12, Forms, Forms Personalization

Oracle Acquires LogicalApps

2007-10-10T07:44:00.001-07:00

Oracle announced yesterday that they have agreed to acquire LogicalApps.

I know quite a few of the team at LogicalApps and this seems to be a great acquisition for Oracle. Logical Apps provides automated Governance, Risk and Compliance control solutions.

LogicalApps (Especially Chris Capdevila and Paul Brunskow) have presented to our SIG in the past and have been great OAUG advocates and supporters.

Logical Apps, Oracle, Sarbanes Oxley, Governance, Compliance Control

Oracle E-Business Suite 11.5.10 Forms Personalization

2007-10-09T09:17:00.001-07:00

Joël Asselin has created and shared an excellent overview of how to create Forms Personalization for Release 11.5.10.

I will post the link to a Release 12 Forms Personalization document tomorrow.

E-Business Suite, Release 11.5.10, Forms, Forms Personalization

Oracle Applications Newsletters

2007-09-28T07:34:00.001-07:00

Oracle has a series of quarterly newsletters that provide a wealth of information on implementing, managing and supporting the E-Business Suite.

Subscribe to the newsletters by sending an email with the subject ADD ME to:

glnews_us@oracle.com (for GL news)

apnews_us@oracle.com (for AP news)

arnews_us@oracle.com (for AR news)

fanews_us@oracle.com. (for FA news)

Newsletters, Oracle