Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Oracle Diagnostics Support Pack and the Applications Collection Tool (ACT)

This post contains information on a very useful feature of the Oracle E-Business Suite that allows you to perform diagnostics on your instance and the related setup.

For quite some time now I’ve been making use of the Oracle Diagnostics Support Pack when implementing and supporting Oracle E-Business Suite. I’ve found it an invaluable tool to check applications setups, compare setups between different instances/environments and diagnose specific problems with a particular module or process. In addition to this, when raising a TAR with Metalink, quite often you will find that they will require you to run some of the scripts in the Diagnostics Support Pack.  Surprisingly not many implementor’s I’ve dealt with know about this tool so hopefully I will be able to raise the awareness of it.

March 2005 saw the release of the Diagnostics Support Pack version 5.3 which contains diagnostic scripts for the following components of Oracle E-Business Suite: -

• ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning
• Applications Core Technology
• Distribution/Supply Chain
• Financials
• Human Resource Management Systems
• Manufacturing
• Projects Suite
• Public Sector
• Self-Service Web Applications
• CRM - Customer Relationship Management
• CRM Applications Foundation
• Service
• Contracts
• E-Commerce
• Marketing
• Sales

The details of how to setup the Diagnostics Support Pack can be found in Metalink note 167000.1 entitled eBusiness Suite Support - Oracle Diagnostics Support Pack Installation Guide. According to this note: -

Oracle eBusiness Support initiated an automation effort to ensure customers are successful at installing, using and upgrading Oracle eBusiness products. The goal of this program is to create tools that will increase customer problem avoidance, customer self-service and support engineer efficiency.

The diagnostic tests provided as part of this Oracle Diagnostics Support Pack gather information and perform a set of tests on that information. The results include the output of information gathered, the results of the tests and appropriate actions to take. The tests provided do not alter data or setup.

The Support Packs are updated and released every other month and include the latest updates to existing tests and all new tests that are available.

The note provides you with the URL from which you can access the diagnostics, namely http://<web-tier-host:port>/OA_HTML/jtfqalgn.htm, and contains the following sections: -

1. Diagnostic Support Pack Overview - An overview of the diagnostic support pack and how it can help you
2. System Requirements - System/Version requirements for the diagnostic support pack
3. References
4. Installation Instructions - Instructions for installing the diagnostic support pack
5. Usage - Instructions for running tests included in the diagnostic support pack
6. Recent New/Updated Diagnostic Tests
7. Complete List of All Tests Contained in the Diagnostic Support Pack

Applications Collection Tool

The Applications Collection Tool (ACT) is another tool that collects detailed information about your technical environment as well as any module you specify. E-Business Suite R11 users can run this as a separate programme (see Note:293127.1)  whilst 11i users can run it from the Diagnostics Support Pack under the Applications DBA responsibility.

Other Useful Metalink Notes

• Note:235307.1 - OSS Application Diagnostics Tools: FAQ and Troubleshooting Guide
• Note:179661.1 - Applications Support Diagnostic Tools Catalog
• Note:293198.1 - How To Use Support Diagnostics Tools Most Effectively
• Note:296261.1 - How To Install And Run The Applications Collection Tool (ACT) - On-Line Trainings

Tags
Oracle, Applications, Blog, Metalink, Diagnostics, Support, OSS, ACT, Applications Collection Tool, Scripts