Service Contract Setup - Part : 7

Auto Numbering

Auto Number is an import feature of Service Contracts. It lays out the rules how the contract number will be generated. Contract numbers can be sequential number or a combination of defined prefix and suffix that can alpha-numeric.

There are number of attribute provided by Oracle that can be used in different combinations to achieve a numbering sequence. These are:

• Site - The rule can be setup at Site level that impact the entire site. All contracts created under that site even of different business group / Operating Unit / Class will follow as numbering sequence.
• User Function - You can write you own pl/sql to generate the numbering sequence. Till now what ever I worked I haven't seen using function to generate contract numbers.
• Business Group - If setup at this level all contract under the business group use the same number sequence unless a specific Class or Category is chosen. If it further dependent on Class / Category then it will unique numbers with the specified combination.
• Operating Unit - Same goes with Operating Unit. All contract under same Operating Unit will have same numbering sequence unless is further classified based on Class / Category.
• Class - If set only at Class, all contract created for a particular class have same sequence. Contract Class is like Service Agreement, Project Contract etc.
• Category - If set at Category level, all contract for a particular category will have same numbering sequence. Contract categories are like Service Agreement, Warranty and Extended Warranty, Subscription Agreement etc...
  

Service Contract Setup - Part : 6

Contract Groups

Contract Groups lets you organize the contracts that helps in accessing it and perform certain action for contracts in the group like mass change etc. A contract can be associated with multiple groups at a time.

Defining Contract Groups

• Navigate to Service Contracts Manager -> Contract Groups -> Contract Group
• Enter Name and Description
• If you want to create a group as public then click on checkbox 'Public'. If you don't check the box then group is private and its accesible by you. For you to be able to create Public group you must set the profile option 'OKC: Public Group Creator' to Yes.
• Save
  

Next : Service Contracts Setups - Part : 7

Define Serviceable Item

Define Serviceable Item

Defining warranty item is not much different from defining service item. We just need to choose few less attribute and associate it with item BOM.

• Navigate to Inventory -> Items-> Master Items
  
• Choose your master organization. For me its 'Vision Operations'.
  
• Enter Name of the Item
• Enter a description
• If your organization have already created an item template for service item, apply the template to save time, else follow the details to create it manually.
• Main Tab
• Item Type : Choose Item Type (e.g Warranty etc.).
• Unit Of Measure : Choose a primary UOM. Please note that we setup service as Time UOM like Year / Month not the quantity UOM like Each.
• Status : Select an item status which is allowed to be used and not obsolete.
  

Define Warranty Item

Define Warranty Item

Defining warranty item is not much different from defining service item. We just need to choose few less attribute and associate it with item BOM.

• Navigate to Inventory -> Items-> Master Items
  
• Choose your master organization. For me its 'Vision Operations'.
  
• Enter Name of the Item
• Enter a description
• If your organization have already created an item template for service item, apply the template to save time, else follow the details to create it manually.
• Main Tab
• Item Type : Choose Item Type (e.g Warranty etc.).
• Unit Of Measure : Choose a primary UOM. Please note that we setup service as Time UOM like Year / Month not the quantity UOM like Each.
• Status : Select an item status which is allowed to be used and not obsolete.
  

Service Contract Setup - Part : 5

Setting Up Service Item

Before we start on setting up Service Items in inventory lets spend few minutes on understanding what is Service Item and what other items in context with Service Contract available / used.

Broadly we can classify item into two categories 

1. Serviceable Item
2. Service Item

Serviceable Item : Serviceable items that are covered under a contract. Its the actual product that customer purchased and purchased coverage plan for service.

Service Item : Service items are that offers service on actual product. It determines what level of service will be offered to customer by looking at the coverage template associated with it. Service Items are further divided into four types.

• Service Item - These items will be used in service contract when contract type is 'Service Agreement'. 
• Warranty Item - Warranties are services that are given to the customer free of charge. These items will be used when contract type is 'Warranty and Extended Warranty'. Please note that warranty contracts can not be created manually. It automatically gets created when we ship the product from Order Management considering warranty item is associated in Item BOM.
• Subscription Item - These are used in service contracts when contract type is 'Subscription'. It will be used in cases where an organization is offering subscription service like monthly magazine.
• Usage Item - Usage item are used when service is offered based on the usage of a particular service. Best and most popular example is Photocopier. Many organization rent Photocopier and based on the number of copies printed in a given period, it will be charged.

Service Contracts Setups - Part : 4

Coverage Types

Coverage Types are nothing but a lookup which holds information related to the type of coverage. It just gives a reference in Coverage template that what type of coverage you are going to create.

Define Coverage Types

• Navigate to Service Contracts Manager -> Setup -> Service Offerings -> Coverage Types.
• Add a new row.
• Enter a unique value in code code. It can be any alphanumeric value like P, SVC_GOLD, G101
• Enter a name for the coverage type, like Platinum.
• Optionally Enter a description for the coverage type.
• Enter the importance level (numeric value). In the Coverage window the importance level automatically appears, after the Coverage Type is selected.
• Confirm the effective dates.
• Select the Enabled check box.
• Save.

Service Contracts Setups - Part : 3

In our last section we discussed about categories. In categories we have seen Roles. You me been wondering what it takes to define your own roles. 

The roles can be categorized in two :-

 - Party Roles

 - Contact Roles

Oracle Service Contracts provides party roles such as Vendor , Customer, Third party etc. Party roles works at Service Contracts header level, they generally represent an entity that owns the contract. You can define your own business specific roles.

On the other hand Contact roles are related contacts of party/customer associated at header level. Contact roles like Sales Representative, Service Agent etc.

If you need your custom roles in Service Contract Authoring form then perform the below two steps :-
 - Define Party / Contact Roles
 - Define Role Sources

Service Contracts Setup - Part : 2

Setup Categories

Well a category is nothing but a type type of contract like Service Agreement, Warranty and Extended Warranty or Subscriptions. In Oracle categories are seeded (Defined by Oracle) and user defined categories are not supported.

The only thing that we do here is assign responsibility for a category to allow level of access (Read Only /Modify). We can also add new party roles (Customer / Third Party / Service Provider etc.), that we will talk in  later section.

To set up categories:-

• Navigate to Service Contracts Manager -> Setup -> Service Contracts -> Categories and Sources -> Categories.
• Query the form for 'Service Agreement' class.
• Go to the Responsibilities tab. Select the responsibility from LOV to provide access.
• Select an access level (Modify / Read Only). Confirm the start date.
• Save.

Service Contracts Setups - Part : 1

Lets start with mandatory setups.

Mapping Time Unit Of Measure (UOM) :-

You might be thinking why we need to setup unit of measure in Service Contract. Well Service Contracts need unit of measure conversion for time. There is possibility that unit of measure defined in Inventory module don't suite Service Contract requirement, So we have our own UOM mapping that will be used while we create contract.

Its just the mapping that we do here actual UOM are already defined in Inventory. If the business requirement needs some special time UOM then first define the UOM in Inventory and later map in Service Contracts.

There are six internal base time units: seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, and years. Make sure to map each time unit you want to use in Oracle Service Contracts. An example of a mapping: Day (your definition) = 1 day (base definition).

Service Contracts Setups - Introduction

Setting up Service Contracts is really interesting and based on your business requirement you need to customized applications. I will take this opportunity to share the detailed steps involved in setting up Service Contract.

All right folks lets start with steps involved in setting up Service Contracts. I am going to categorize setups into two categories:-

• Mandatory
• Mapping Time Units of Measure
• Setting up Statuses and Operations
• Setting up Categories
• Defining Roles and Roles Sources
• Defining Coverage Types
• Defining Coverage Templates
• Setting up Service Items in Oracle Inventory
• Setting Up Contracts Groups
• Setting Up Autonumbering
• Setting Up Approval Management Engine (AME)

• Optional
• Extending Lookup Codes
• Defining a Process
• Defining Quality Assurance Checklist
• Registering a NEW Source as JTF Object
• Defining Service Availability
• Defining Service Cotermination
• Setting Up Multi-Org Access Control (MOAC)

We will start with mandatory setups in our next section.
Next - Service Contracts Setups - Part : 1

An unexpected error has been detected by HotSpot Virtual Machine in Oracle Reports

Today while I was working on one of RDF report used in Oracle Applications, I face this problem and I was clueless what to do. I searched on the internet with error message and it was saying some thing which is not at all related to report. The error message reflect some issue with the server configs.

Since same reports works fine for some of the order then I realized some thing must be wrong in my report only.

How To Show / Hide Diagnostics Menu Entry

At last moment you got a requirement to disable a particular field on a form. As you tried to navigate to access forms personalization what you see is 

There is no 'Diagnostics' option to navigate to Help -> Diagnostics.

Well the Diagnostics menu entry is controlled by profile option "Hide Diagnostics menu entry"

How To Enable / Disable Forms Personalization Option

Forms Personalization gives great flexibility to execute custom business logic without performing so much of technical work.

To start forms personalization navigate to Help -> Diagnostics -> Custom Code -> Personalize

But many time when we click on personalize it give below error 

"Function is not available for this respnosibility. Change

responsibilities or contact your System Administrator"

To Enable access to forms personalization function we need to set below profile option.
 - Utilities:Diagnostics -> Yes / No
It determines the diagnostics option is enabled for a user / responsibility or site, depending on the level profile option is set.

Clear Middle Tier Cache in Oracle Applications R12

As we move forward we are giving farewell of most of Oracle Forms module in Oracle R12. Things are now moving to Java based. Many times we often face issue where some of our recent changes or deployed object are not working properly. Many time its because of the Middle Tier cache as object are getting picked from cache instead of getting new updated version.

In such case best ways it to clear Middle Tier cache and try again. Please follow below steps to clear Middle Tier cache.

- Login to Oracle Applications
- Navigate to Functional Administrator
- Core Services -> Caching Framework -> Global Configuration

- Click on Clear All Cache (It gives a warning message, click OK to proceed)

After few seconds it display the task completed and we are done!!!

How To Bounce Apache Server in Oracle E-Business R12

Generally in day to days usage of Oracle Apps R12 we came up many issue which is resolved by bouncing Apache Server like :-
 - JSP page not loading
 - Changes in are not appearing after done with personalization
 - Some weird java error.

Its really easy to get this done and not a big mans job any more.

#1 Login to Unix prompt with right privilege that can let you stop and start the services. Source and the environment variable.
login as: invincibleapps
Using keyboard-interactive authentication.
Enter your PASSWORD:
Last login: Sun Sep  8 17:36:19 2013
You are now pointed to invincibleapps Apps environment
[invincibleapps@dev ~]$ . /d01/appldev/invincibleapps/apps/apps_st/appl/APPSinvincibleapps_dev.env

'No Availability Information' - Error While Booking Order From Depot Repair

We often face error while trying to book order from Depot Repair.

We get below sequence of errors :-
 - No Availability Information
- The item specified is invalid or does not exist in the warehouse you specified. Please enter a valid item-warehouse combination.
- CS_DB_ERROR
   (PROG_NAME=cs_charge_create_order_pvt.update_errors)
   (SQL_CODE=60) (SQLERRM=ORA00060: deadlock detection while waiting for resource
   ORA-06510: PL/SQL: unhandled user-defined exception)

Steps to Reproduce : -
- Create a Repair Order (Error might come if the setup of repair type allows automatically enter and book order, if the item falls under error category)
- If automatically enter and book is not checked for repair type then we follow below setup to book the order.
- Goto Logistics Tab -> Select the line you want to book -> Select the radio button 'Book' and click on Process.

Importing Oracle VM Tempate in OVM Manager 3.1.1

Hello there... lately I have been trying to import the files to into Oracle VM Manager 3.1.1 but had multiple failures. I would like to share the issues what I have faced.

Oracle VM 3x is really different in many ways that its previous 2x versions. At least I can say in terms of Creating Server Pool, storage and importing Oracle VM Template files to OVM Manager 3.1.1.

If we just talk about importing the files, in 2x version of Oracle VM we generally do 

• unzip the downloaded files (# unzip TemplateName1of2.zip, TemplateName2of2.zip). This will give us TemplateName1of2.tgz, TemplateName2of2.tgz files.
• Concatinate the the unzipped files (# cat TemplateName1of2.tgz, TemplateName2of2.tgz > TemplateName.tgz) -- If there is just a singles file we don't need this step.
• Decompress the file (# tar -xz TemplateName.tgz). This will give us 1 or 2 .img files and a .cfg file.
• Place the decompressed files to Oracle VM Server, location /OVS/seed_pool. Later we can import the file from Oracle VM Manager.

Installing EBS R12.1.3 using Oracle VM Template without VM Server & Manager (Part 4 of 4)

Section 5 – Using Oracle Applications 12.1.3

Now every ting is done and we are ready feel the first glimpse of Oracle EBS 12.1.3 on our own machine.

First update the HOST on system from where we want to access the application. For me, I am using the same laptop where I installed Oracle EBS12.1.3. So I will update the hosts file on HOST system.

You can fine the hosts file under %system32%/drivers/etc/hosts

Your login URL would be http://hostname.domainname.com:80NN (where NN is the port we have given while configuration). For me its 'http://ebsapp.apps.com:8002'

Installing EBS R12.1.3 using Oracle VM Template without VM Server & Manager (Part 3 of 4)

Section 4 –  Configuring Application Tier Template
We need to perform the exact same steps as we did for Database template configuration with few additional steps.  Below screen shot just summarizes what all need to be done before we checkout the additional steps involved. If you want details of each one then please follow the details below otherwise skip the duplicate steps and check only additional steps

Booting Linux in Rescue Mode – Start the Virtual Machine created for Application Server. Make sure the Linux bootable disk are inserted into CDROM / ISO Image and its supposed to boot from CD-ROM.

Enter ‘Linux Rescue’ at the prompt and enter to boot linux in rescue mode.

Choose the language and Keyboard layout

Installing EBS R12.1.3 using Oracle VM Template without VM Server & Manager (Part 2 of 4)

Section 3 – Configuring Database Tier Template
Booting Linux in Rescue Mode – Start the Virtual Machine created for Database Server. Make sure the Linux bootable disk are inserted into CD-ROM / ISO Image and its supposed to boot from CD-ROM.

Enter ‘Linux Rescue’ at the prompt and enter to boot linux in rescue mode.

Choose the language and Keyboard layout

Installing EBS R12.1.3 using Oracle VM Template without VM Server & Manager (Part 1 of 4)

Let’s start with installing EBS R12.13 instance using Oracle VM Template. Using the guided steps any one will be able to have its own vision instance. The prerequisites will take most of your time (I would say 80-90%), otherwise the installation will take just an hour or so. This is divided into 5 sections.

• Section 1 –  Hardware and Software Pre-requisites
• Section 2 –  Downloading software and making it available to use
• Section 3 –  Configuring Database Tier Template
• Section 4 –  Configuring Application Tier Template
• Section 5 –  Using Oracle Applications 12.1.3

Section 1 – Hardware and Software Pre-requisites

It’s a best to have two different machines to (one for database server and another for application server), but spending on two physical machines is very costly and just to practice and use oracle application I don’t think any once is willing to pay much. So I thought of using virtualization and used Virtual Box to install oracle application.

I have used my personal laptop to implement this guide and it works fine. My laptop runs on Windows 7, I used virtual machines inside my Host OS to install EBS 12.1.3 visions instance. We can use this guide even we have Host Operating System as Linux, just we need to install the Linux version of Virtual Box / VM Ware.

Hardware Requirement

Recommended configuration

Processor	Intel Dual Core / Core2Duo 2.5 Ghz
RAM	6 GB of RAM (we can live with 4 GB but that will be too tight fit)
HDD	500 GB of HDD (We need extra 300 GB of HDD to convert VM template image to Virtual Box readable format)
Network	Network adapter

Used configuration

Processor	Intel Core i5 2.5 Ghz
RAM	8 GB
HDD	500 GB internal HDD + 500 GB external HDD
Network	Network adapter

Software Requirement

Virtualization	Oracle Virtual Box / VM Ware Player
Operating System	Oracle Enterprise Linux Release5 Update6
EBS Software	R12.13 OVM Template
Other Software	CygWin, Unzip Utility

Installing Virtual Box and Creating Virtual Machines

This guide is built to support the effort to build our own Oracle EBS 12.1.3 SandBox (Vision Instance) system. Let’s start with downloading Virtual Box and Creating Virtual Machines.

First of all download Oracle Virtual Box or VM Ware Player. I have choosen Oracle Virtual Box as its Oracles and free.

Download Oracle Virtual Box - https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads and save the file based on your Host operating system. Mine is Windows so I got a version of windows.

Run the executable file and follow the steps on the coming windows to install it.

Installing E-Business Suite 12.1.3 Vision instance using Oracle VM Templates

Ever since I started working in Oracle application it’s been a dream to have my own environment installed with EBS. It really makes life much easier to learn something new or try some new solutions before proposing to client.

The time I started with EBS it was time of EBS 11i(11.5.10.2), which I installed on my system. When I tried for the first time it took me many days because of failures or issues that occurred while installation.

Later R12 is introduced and I tried installing Release 12.0.6, but it’s getting crashed very frequently. I don’t know the reason as I am not a DBA :(. Once I tried with 12.1.1 which is more stable it worked fine. But the time, pain and the pre-requisites in installing makes the task very difficult. Also on a normal Dual Core 3 Ghz, 4GB machine it barely runs. It takes 15-20 mins to start the database and application services. I also tried to have it on Virtual Machine and it worked well but lack of resource forced me to remove it from my system.

Today when world is going gaga over Virtualization and Cloud computing, more over getting a hardware is much more cheaper we can easily have virtualized system installed to work as EBS server. With the evolution of virtualization Oracle went a step further and now providing pre-installed virtual machine templates which really minimize the effort to install and new EBS 12.1.1 / 12.1.3 instance.

There are two methods which I know till date that can be used to have our own Vision Instance (SandBox) using Oracle Virtual Machine Templates (will be referred as VM Templates in this document)

• Method -1: Installing EBS R12.1.3 using Oracle VM Template with VM Server and VM Manager

The Method-1 also I call it as ‘The Oracle Way’ of using VM template. The process is little exhaustive and more resource consuming than the other method. Please use the below link to check out how to use VM template ‘The Oracle Way’

• Method -2: Installing EBS R12.1.3 using OracleVM Template without VM Server and VM Manager

Compared to first method this is less exhaustive and resource consuming on a long run. It also takes less time to have your own Vision instance.