OracleAppsBlog

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Why ITIL implementations fail

Although I’ve been in the IT industry for some time now, ITIL is something I only recently became aware of. The Wiki Encyclopedia provides a really good definition of what ITIL is, as follows:

The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a customizable framework of best practices that promote quality computing services in the information technology (IT) sector. ITIL addresses the organisational structure and skill requirements for an IT organisation by presenting a comprehensive set of management procedures with which an organisation can manage its IT operations. These procedures are supplier independent and apply to all aspects of IT infrastructure.

The Wiki Encyclopedia ITIL definition page also provides a really good overview of the ITIL frameworks and the supporting sets.

I recently came across an interesting article by Malcom Fry at CIO Online entitled the The Pitfalls of ITIL. The article outlines the top ten reasons why ITIL implementations fail and discusses IT Service Management (ITSM).

10 reasons for ITIL implementation failure:

1. Lack of Management commitment
2. Spending too much time on complicated process diagrams
3. Not creating work instructions
4. Not assigning process owners
5. Concentrating too much on performance
6. Being too ambitious
7. Failing to maintain momentum
8. Allowing departmental demarcation
9. Ignoring solutions other than ITIL
10. Not reviewing the entire ITIL framework

What grabbed my attention was the 1st point. This is also listed as the main reason why ERP implementations fail in all the books and articles I have read on the subject - something for management to be aware of and to try and rectify!! A case in point is this Rockford Consulting article which provides the following list of the 12 Cardinal Sins of ERP implementation:

1. Lack of Top Management Commitment
2. Inadequate Requirements Definition
3. Poor ERP Package Selection
4. Inadequate Resources
5. Resistance to Change/Lack of Buy-in
6. Miscalculation of Time and Effort
7. Misfit of Application Software with Business Processes
8. Unrealistic Expectation of Benefits and ROI
9. Inadequate Training and Education
10. Poor Project Design and Management
11. Poor Communications
12. Ill-advised Cost Cutting

Useful ITIL Links

I’ve added these links to my link blog as well as referenced them in the del.icio.us tags at the end of the post.

• Dr. ITIL (Blog)
• ITIL wiki
• ITIL definition site
• ITIL Community Forum
• ITIL Service Leadership

Tags

del.icio.us: CIO, ERP, implementation, ITIL, ITSM, malcolm+fry, rockford,
technorati: CIO, ERP, implementation, ITIL, ITSM, malcolm+fry, rockford,

Oracle Apps Link Blog powered by del.icio.us

In a post entitled furl and del.icio.us linking and tagging strategy for this Oracle Blog I mentioned that I was now maintaining all the links from this site in del.icio.us. I realised the other day after reading that Steve Rubel was doing the same thing that I have effectively been maintaining a “link blog”.

Hence, I’ve changed the links option on my main pages menu to link blog. So far I’ve managed to accumulate 325 links on my del.icio.us account and it’s growing rapidly each day. If you’re interested in receving updates of the links and text I’m adding on a daily basis relating to Oracle, ERP and IT, then add my del.icio.us RSS feed to your feed reader. You will also find this link to the Oracle Apps Link Blog on the left hand column of my main page under the Syndicate heading.

Tags

del.icio.us: del.icio.us, link+blog, social+bookmarking, steve+rubel,
technorati: del.icio.us, link+blog, social+bookmarking, steve+rubel,

Monday, May 30, 2005

Confessions of an Oracle Apps Consultant - a new Oracle Applications Blog by Joanne Davis

Jo Davis, an Oracle e-Business Suite Functional Consultant in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia has just started a blog entitled Confessions of an Oracle Applications Consultant.

Jo works for Red Rock Consulting, an Oracle Certified Advantage Partner. Her first post discusses the Report Manager as follows: -

This week’s grand adventure - had to work out what on earth is in the latest release of Report Manager and get a straight answer on “is this really available or just vapourware?” - the answer, for those who care is.... yes, it’s there, it’s a patch on 11.5.10, prereqs include a patch to the framework so not for the fainthearted but it does actually deliver the long promised Request Centre functionality from desktop ADI in the web-enabled format.... now if they can just get around to doing a GL Budget Upload in Web ADI we can throw the client-server ADI install CDs on a ceremonial bonfire!

It’s nice to see another functionally orientated Oracle blog on the scene. Welcome to the Oracle blogging community Joanne!! 

Tags

del.icio.us: joanne+davis, oracle+blog, oracle+functional+blog, oracle+partner, red+rock,
technorati: joanne+davis, oracle+blog, oracle+functional+blog, oracle+partner, red+rock,

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Adding an OracleAppsBlog post to your del.icio.us bookmarks

Thanks to a recent post on the del.icio.us blog I’ve inserted a small snippet of code to this blog which enables readers to bookmark specific posts they may want to add to their existing del.icio.us links.

If you want to bookmark a specific post on OracleAppsBlog to del.icio.us then click on the Bookmark this to del.icio.us option at the bottom of each post. You will subsequently have to log in to del.icio.us (if you are not already) and then you can add an extended description and tags for the post.

For ExpressionEngine users who may be interested, the code I used to enable this option is as follows: -

<a href="http://del.icio.us/post?url={title_permalink=weblog/index}&title={title}">Bookmark this to del.icio.us</a>

You can also find more advanced options for enabling bookmarks on posts at anildigital’s Blog

Happy Bookmarking

Tags

del.icio.us: ExpressionEngine, Bookmark, del.icio.us
Technorati: ExpressionEngine, Bookmark, del.icio.us

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Blogroll added to OracleAppsBlog using EE’s new Link List Module

I finally added a blogroll to the blog. I hadn’t added it before because I was going to add a separate links page but in the end came to the obvious conclusion that having a blogroll combined with del.icio.us links would be the best way to manage my links to blogs and traditional web sites. 

Fortunately, at the time of compiling my blogroll a new ExpressionEngine link list module was developed that enables me to run my own blogroll as opposed to generating my blogroll using a third party service. You’ll find the blogroll in the left column towards the bottom of the main page. Immediately under the blogroll heading you will also find links to where I maintain my blogroll online with Bloglines, furl and del.icio.us. This means you can copy my blogroll quite easily depending on which service your are using. In particular, bloglines allows OracleAppsBlog readers to generate an OPML file of the sites public subscriptions. The other nice thing about bloglines is that you can create folders to categorise the different types of blogs you subscribe to. Herewith the list of folders I’ve created for this blog: -

• Blogging
• Business and Corporate
• Conferences and Events
• Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
• ExpressionEngine
• Financial
• Oracle Feeds
• Oracle Functional
• Oracle Technical
• Podcasting
• Project Management
• Social Networking and Folksonomy
• Technology and Professional

The EE Link List module is still in beta so if you notice any problems please point them out. I will at a later stage add a separate listing of links comprised of all the links on this blog but can only do this once the EE Link List module has the ability to import my del.icio.us and furl link lists. Lastly, if you know of any good blogs that you think should be added to my blogroll then please add your comments to this post.

Examples of Other sites using the EE Link List module

• Distant, Early Morning - this site, in particular, is a really good example of how you can use all the features of the link list module.
• Oh ... Really?
• ExpressionEngine Blog

There’s also a really good tutorial compiled by Lisa Jill at the EE wiki. Of course, your votes in the poll below would be appreciated.

Tags

del.icio.us: Bloglines, OPML, blogroll, Business and Corporate, Conferences and Events, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP, Folksonomy, Oracle Feeds, Oracle Functional, Oracle Technical, Podcasting, Technology and Professional, Project Management, Social Networking and Folksonomy, Link List, Financial, EE, ExpressionEngine, del.icio.us, furl

Technorati: Bloglines, OPML, blogroll, Business and Corporate, Conferences and Events, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP, Folksonomy, Oracle Feeds, Oracle Functional, Oracle Technical, Podcasting, Technology and Professional, Project Management, Social Networking and Folksonomy, Link List, Financial, EE, ExpressionEngine, del.icio.us, furl

Friday, May 13, 2005

Scobleizer gives OracleAppsBlog the nod

Finally, the much needed attention I crave In a post entitled OracleApps blogger coming to UK geek dinner, has fun poll Scoble said this blog is cool and voted NO in my poll to determine whether he should be elected president of the Blogosphere. Results are looking good for Rob so far 25 Yes votes (56%) and 20 No votes (44%) - very close!! 

I was wondering why such a high profile blogger is using Radio Userland for his blogging software as opposed to other more widely used products like MoveableType, Wordpress or ExpressionEngine (EE) so I posed the question to Rob who subsequently replied “I used to be director of marketing for UserLand and still like Radio UserLand a lot. I just haven’t found enough of a reason to switch yet.”

I noticed that Adam Curry had mentioned on one of his sites he was intending to upgrade to Userland’s Manila and e-mailed him to ask if he was now using this software as I couldn’t see from his existing site exactly what he was using. I was really impressed to get such a fast response from such a busy man, which was:

Yes, using manila, which now supports enclosures in news items for podcasts, that’s the upgrade


Pretty good stuff, but not very scalable, basically it needs to be rendered statically to be of any use, which breaks most of the cool features like macros

If you’re interested in finding out what the best blogging software to use is you should try read this Blogware Choice post and analyse this associated comparison table. François Nonnenmacher’s site also has a good comparison of EE and Moveable Type. There’s a lot of blogging software out there and the most important thing is to use the software that supports your strategy whatever it may be. No use buying a Rolls Royce when you only need a Mini. I bought ExpressionEngine primarly because it was a good solution for a community oriented blog and I found it much easier to install and setup than MoveableType. The support by the EE community and pmachine has also been great.

Tags

del.icio.us: Robert Scoble, Blogosphere, Scobleizer, Microsoft, geek, Blogger, President, Userland, Marketing Director, Adam Curry, Radio, Manila, MoveableType, EE, WordPress, pMachine, François Nonnenmacher

Technorati: Robert Scoble, Blogosphere, EE, MoveableType, ExpressionEngine, WordPress, Scobleizer, Userland, Microsoft, geek, Blogger, President, Marketing, Director, Adam Curry, Manila, Radio, pMachine, François Nonnenmacher

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Geek Dinner in London with Robert Scoble (blogosphere President?)

I’ll be attending the Geek Dinner in London on the 7th of June 2005 which will be hosted by Hugh Macleod and Robert Scoble (Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger).

If you’re interested in attending add your name to the attendance list put up by Lloyd Davis on this wiki. The existing list shows that there’s people coming from as far as Paris and Amsterdam!! The restaurant where this will be held is the Texas Embassy Cantina and you can find out it’s location using Google Maps. I don’t know why this restaurant was chosen as I read this review which doesn’t have good things to say about the place. If you’re interested in looking at what’s gone on historically at Geek Dinner’s then check out these flickr and technorati links. I’ve also added a variety of geek dinner links to del.icio.us so that they can easily be copied.

In a post entitled If the blogosphere were a nation Paul Chaney nominated Robert Scoble for blogosphere President. In the interests of democracy I’ve decided to run a poll at the end of this post to get some votes on the matter.

Tags

del.icio.us: Robert Scoble, Blogosphere, Hugh Macleod, Lloyd Davis, Paul Chaney, wiki, Scobleizer, Texas, Microsoft, geek, Blogger, President, Google Map.

Technorati: Oracle, Applications, Blog, Oracle Applications Blog, Robert Scoble, Blogosphere, Hugh Macleod, Lloyd Davis, Paul Chaney, wiki, Scobleizer, Texas, Microsoft, geek, Blogger, President, Google Map.

Monday, May 09, 2005

furl and del.icio.us linking and tagging strategy for this Oracle Blog

I’ve recently moved all my links to the Social Bookmark Manager site del.icio.us and furl. This will enable me to manage the links more efficiently as well as share and categorise/tag them for use by readers and subscribers. 

The nice thing about del.icio.us is that it generates an RSS feed for your links or for various tags so you can get updates on the latest links added. If you open up an account with del.icio.us you can easily gain access to my links and copy them as well as copy the links of other people who have used the same links or make use of the same tags/categories.

From today onwards all sites that I make reference to in my posts will be added to my del.icio.us page and will have links back to the relevant post on my site so I would encourage you to subscribe to my del.icio.us RSS feed (I’ve also added this to feed to my sidebar under my RSS feed listing). I will also be replicating my del.icio.us links to furl on a monthly basis so you can also subscribe to my RSS feed there.

You may also have noticed that I’ve been adding technorati tags at the bottom of my posts. This enables me to more effectively categorise my posts so that they can be searched from technorati using the various tags/keywords. At the moment I’m manually adding the tags in but very shortly I will be installing the ExpressionEngine Keywords plugin which will allow me to automate the process a whole lot more. Hopefully these changes will make for a richer blogging experience for readers and allow people to find the content they want quicker.

Tags
del.icio.us: ExpressionEngine, EE, Oracle, Oracle Blog, Technorati, del.icio.us, furl, tag
Technorati: Oracle, Applications, Blog, Technorati, del.icio.us, furl, ExpressionEngine, plugin, EE

Friday, May 06, 2005

ExpressionEngine Polling Module (EEPoll) installed on OracleAppsBlog

I’ve just installed the polling module for ExpressionEngine on the blog. I’d be interested in getting your votes for the most recent polls I have conducted.

On the last two posts I made I’ve asked the following questions: -

• Have you ever used the Oracle Diagnostics Support Pack?
• Do you think Oracle will take over Siebel?

Please go to the appropriate post and cast your vote. I’ve also added a poll to this particular post which I would appreciate readers answering. Since this is a fairly new module I would appreciate if you let me know of any bugs as well as provide some general feedback on the feature. In addition to this, if you have a particular question that you think would be worthwhile conducting a poll on then let me know.

Tags
Oracle, Applications, Blog, Diagnostics, Support, Poll, EEPoll, EE, ExpressionEngine, Siebel

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

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Oracle to gain control of CRM software market by Siebel purchase?

Having recently purchased Peoplesoft, Oblix and Retek it seems that Oracle has now set it’s sites on a new software company, namely Siebel. 

A recent article by InternetNews.com suggests that Siebel may be the target of a potential take over by Oracle for an estimated amount of US$5 Billion. If this is true, Oracle would stand to take control of the CRM software market and strengthen it’s overall position in the ERP market against it’s fiercest competitor, SAP. By taking over Peoplesoft, Oracle has effectively increased it’s market share in the CRM software sector from 5 to 10%. If they manage to successfully purchase Siebel their market share in the CRM software sector would theoretically grow to 35% compared to SAP’s 15%.

I think taking over Siebel would be an excellent move by Oracle and I’m going to keep a watchful eye on development’s in this area. If the buy out does go ahead, hopefully it won’t be a long and protracted process, although I’m sure merging the various software components into the Oracle E-Business Suite will!!

Tags
Oracle, Applications, Blog, Oblix, Retek, Peoplesoft, CRM, Customer Relationship Management, Software, ERP, SAP, InternetNews, Siebel