OracleAppsBlog

Friday, July 23, 2004

Oracle Financials R11.5.9 at Stanford University

Recently I came across the Oracle Financials site at Stanford University. This post contains a review of the various sections of the site.

The Oracle Financials Site at Stanford University is an excellent resource for anyone interested in learning and reading about Oracle Financials implementations. Being a University, the site gives you a good idea of how Oracle E-Business Suite can be implemented in a Higher Education Institute. It’s also interesting to note that Stanford has recently upgraded to the latest version of Oracle E-Business Suite, namely R11.5.9. You can read about Stanfords Upgrade from 11.5.8 to 11.5.9 here. The Oracle Financials System site is categorised in to the following sections: -

• Learning Centre
• Chart of Accounts

According to this page: -


The Chart of Accounts is the underlying structure for organizing financial information at Stanford. Stanford adopted a new Chart of Accounts along with the new Oracle Financials system in 2003. News and general information about the Chart of Accounts and associated issues may be found here.

In the news item "What is the Chart of Accounts" the University explains: -

The Chart of Accounts is the set of codes used to classify and record financial transactions in meaningful ways. These codes enable Stanford to: -


• identify specific “pots” of money; 
• specify what that money may be used for; and 
• record the transactions related to that money


By fulfilling the above functions, the Chart of Accounts also: -


• facilitates financial reporting;
• provides a framework for understanding the financial results of Stanford’s operations; and
• controls how financial transactions and balances are collected and stored in the Oracle system




Under this news item you will also find the Universities Chart of Accounts Segment Structure as well as mapping tables and spreadsheets which outline how the legacy Chart of Accounts translates to the new structure.

• Authority
• Reporting
• iJournals
• Purchasing
• Reimbursements
• Labor Distribution
• PCards
• Sunflower

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

WebDesignBlog - a new blog by Richard Byrom

This post contains details of a new blog dedicated to the design and build of Web Sites.

I’ve just launched a new block called WebDesignBlog - a definitive guide to designing and building web sites. The purpose of the blog is to create a web log and portal that is dedicated to the designing and building of web sites. Having been involved in the set up of my own web sites for the past year or so I decided to create a blog which could transfer the knowledge that I have gained to other members of the web community. There are certainly many sites which can give you information on designing web sites, however, I have not come across many blogs that can give you this type of information - hence I decided to start one.

Should you wish to participate in the blog either as an author or simply by being a reader, please register and let me know to what extent you would like to participate.

New Oracle Tutor, OPM, Order Management and Logistics Author

This post contains details of a new author that has joined OracleAppsBlog who has experience in the areas of Oracle Tutor, Process Manufacturing, Order Management and Logistics

Chris Killington - a technical writer and consultant who works directly for companies implementing Oracle 11i Tutor, as well as a Tutor Trainer/Consultant/Technical Writer for Oracle Corporation (when required) - has joined OracleAppsBlog as an author. He has worked in the Process Manufacturing, Airline and Education industries using the Tutor methodology to identify business processes, documenting them in the Tutor format, creating student guides, building online document repositories and conducting end user training. Chris has also worked as an OPM4.10.10 Order Management and Logistics consultant in Malaysia, and Order Management Consultant in China.

His Tutor experience spans 5 years. In this time Chris has implemented Tutor in Australia, New Zealand, China and Malaysia and has used the courseware output, from these implementations, to ‘speed up’ the learning curve for implementation teams in Europe and the United states.

I wanted to welcome Chris to the Blog and introduce him to all the other members. It’s not often you come across someone with experience in Oracle Tutor and I am sure his contributions in this area will be very useful to readers.

You can read Chris’ membership profile here or if you’re a member you can e-mail Chris via the profile e-mail console.

Friday, July 16, 2004

Online Business Office Environment at Yale University

This post takes a look at the Online Business Office Environment at Yale University, an ideal place for implementors of ERP systems to take a look at what types of documentation should be prepared when undertaking an implementation.

Recently I discovered the Online Business Office Environment (OBOE) Site at Yale University. I felt it’s the type of site that would give implementors of ERP Systems an idea of what types of documentation would need to be prepared. The thing I’ve always believed with ERP systems is that clients, implementors or consultants do not make enough effort to document the processes. Even if the processes are documented, the knowledge of how the new process is executed is not adequately transferred to those making use of them. Placing this information online and updating it frequently is one way of resolving these issues. It also ensures that continuous learning and education on systems and processes within the organisation is undertaken. Below I have highlighted the two major sub-sections of the Online Business Office Environment and provided a brief summary of what’s available in these particular areas. I am sure the information contained on this site will prove useful to implementors of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems and in particular Oracle Applications.

Learning Modules

This section contains user guides, training scenarios, tutorials and presentations for each of the following functional areas.

• Procurement


• i-procurement
• VIP - Contract Purchases
• WIP - Web Invoice Payment
• SWAP - Simple Web Allocation Process
• General Procurement
• General Accounting


• Journal Staging Area (JSA)
• Custom Commitments
• Receipt Identification Form (RIF)
• Labor Distribution (LD)
• FPM - Financial Planning and Management


• Data Warehousing Portal
• Budgeting - with Oracle Financial Analyzer (OFA)
• HR/LD/Payroll Reporting Using DataWarehouse Portal and Brio BUG
• Other Training


• System & Technology Access Request Tool (START)
• Training Management System (TMS)
• Human Resources and Payroll


• KRONOS Time Keeping System
• C & T Payroll (Casual and Temps)
• Casual and Student Payroll
• Casual Hiring

Policies, Procedures, Forms and Guides

This section of the site contains policies, procedures, forms and guides for the following functional areas: -

• Accounts Payable
• Purchasing
• Internal Services
• Information Technology Services (ITS)
• HR Services
• Payroll
• General Accounting
• Financial Management

There’s plenty of good reading material on this site - enjoy browsing it!

Thursday, July 15, 2004

Installing GNU Make for E-Business Suite

The Oracle E-Business suite R11i installation on a Windows platform requires certain software to be pre-installed as outlined below. Without this software up and running you will not pass the system installation check. The software is required to meet the interpolarity needs of Oracle Apps E-Business suite, allow linking of a Unix and Windows environment (Oracle Apps is designed to run on Unix platform), run patches, etc. MKS toolkit is an interpolarity tool (besides other professional uses) which allows users to make use of UNIX features on a Windows platform. Cygwin is another alternative to MKS. GNU MAKE will allow MAKE utilities to run alongside others under the command prompt. Installing GNU Make is sometimes a time consuming task. However, if all the steps are followed and nothing goes wrong, it can be a relatively simple installation.

Installation of GNU Make is required when installing Oracle Apps 11i. Following some simple steps will get the job done in a single go.

Before you begin:

• Check on Installation/Related Documentation at Metalink
• Browse the Oracle Applications Documentation Library or Oracle Store
• Examine the Getting Started CD which details all system and environment requirements.

Tips on preparing for Oracle Apps Installations

You need to follow some steps before you start the Rapid Install wizard. These are:

• You must have a domain up and running - for this you need Windows 2000 Advance Server with the Latest Service Pack.
• Create a user with Domain Level Admin Group Privileges.
• Install VC++ with the latest Service Pack (Note: where you install VC or any of the preceding software, directory names must not contain any spaces e.g. use ‘MSVisualC’)
• Whilst installing VC you must choose to ‘Register Environment Variable’ - this option is in the VC Install wizard. Alternately you could go to Control Panel> Systems Advance Tab Page / Environment Variables Button; edit the Environment Variable yourself as follows: -


• In systems variables find a ‘variable name’ Path, add your VC directories to it, then save and exit
• Without Environment Variables being registered it will not be possible to run executables from the command line.
• Install MKS Toolkit - It used to be available for trial download it doesn’t seem to be any more, alternately you can try Cygwin.

GNU Make Pre-Install Files

Before you install GNU Make download the following files from the utilities and from utilitiesdirectory: -

• Readme
• Djtarnt.exe
• Gunzip-.12.4-i386.exe
• Gzip-.12.4-i386.exe
• Tar-1.11.2-i386.exe
• Tar-1.11.2a.exe

You will require only two of them for this installation (Gunzip-.12.4-i386.exe and Tar-1.11.2a.exe)

• Rename these files as gunzip.exe and tar.exe respectively
• Copy and paste both files in to the system32 directory or alternately create a folder for these files and register it in environment variables.

Installing GNU Make for use with E-Business suite R11i.

• Download it from the GNU FTP site
• Download make-3.79.tar.gz or a later version
• Unpack the files using c:\folder_where_u_downloaded>gunzip make-3.79.tar.gz
• The files will be unpacked and extension gz will be removed.
• Now un tar the files c:\ folder_where_u_unpacked >tar –xvf make-3.79.tar
• This will create a new sub directory MAKE-3.79 under folder_where_u_unpacked
• Now test for VC environment with this command c:\make\make-3.79>vcvars32. this will give a message “petting environment for using Microsoft Visual C++ tools.
• Create a new sub directory MAKE-3.79 under folder_where_u_unpacked has a batch file build_w32.bat
• Run it from command prompt. C:\make\make-3.79\build_w32.bat
• If the build is successful check for a directory name winrel. It should have a file GNUKAME.EXE
• Rapidwiz checks for this file at installation time.
• You might have to run bat file twice for build to be successful.
• In case build is not successful, you could use a file LS.EXE (present in MKS Toolkit Subdirectory MKSNT), rename it as GNUMAKE.EXE and put it in the system32 folder. But this option is only a crude way of finishing your installation.
• Note that unzipping gnumake using winzip v7 or other zip utilities may rename the file config.h.w32 as config_h.w32. Other files may well be renamed like this one. This could lead to build failures.
• Lastly, you need to install JDK1.3.1 or higher.

You are now ready to install Oracle Apps E-Business Suite using rapid wiz! Good Luck.