Thursday, March 27, 2014

Oracle Applications 11i File system

                      

Oracle Applications 11i File system
An Oracle Applications Release 11i system utilizes components from many Oracle products. These product files are stored below a number of key top-level directories on the database and application server machines. Depending on how you chose to install Applications, these product directories may be located on a single machine (the simplest case) or on multiple machines (the most common type of deployment). Operating system environment settings indicate the location of the various files in the file systems of the database and application server machines.
This topic discusses the association between these environment settings and the corresponding files and directories.
Note: is the name of your system determined through Rapid Install at the time of installation. For example, PROD.
·  The DATA or DATA_TOP directory is located on the database server machine, and contains the system tablespaces, redo log files, data tablespaces, index tablespaces, and database files.
·  The DB directory is located on the database server machine, and contains the ORACLE_HOME for the Oracle9i database.
·  The APPL or APPL_TOP directory contains the product directories and files for Oracle Applications.
·  The ORA directory contains the ORACLE_HOMEs for the Applications technology stack components.
·  The COMN or COMN_TOP (or COMMON_TOP) directory contains directories and files used across products.


Figure 2. Applications Directory Structure

The DATA Directory

The DATA file system contains the data (.dbf) files of the Oracle database. Rapid Install installs the system, data, and index files in directories below several mount points on the database server. You can specify the directory names of the mount points on the database server during installation.

DB and ORA Directories

Oracle Applications supports employing an Applications database of one version, while linking Applications programs using the tools from a second or third version of the database. This multiple ORACLE_HOMEs configuration allows new features of the database to be supported, while maintaining compatibility with earlier releases. Release 11i utilizes three ORACLE_HOMEs:

1. The 9.2.0 ORACLE_HOME (Applications database home) is located in the DB directory. It contains the files needed for running and maintaining the Oracle Applications database.

2. The 8.0.6 directory contains the ORACLE_HOME for the Developer 6i products (Forms, Reports, and Graphics). The product libraries in the 8.0.6 ORACLE_HOME are used to relink Oracle Applications executables.

3. The iAS directory, also under the ORA, contains the ORACLE_HOME for Oracle9i Application Server.

The APPL Directory

Oracle Applications files are stored in the APPL directory, which is known as the APPL_TOP directory.

The APPL_TOP directory contains:

1. The core technology files and directories.

2. The product files and directories (for all products).

3. The main applications environment file, called .env on UNIX, and .cmdon Windows.

4. The consolidated environment file, called APPS.env on UNIX, and APPS.cmd on Windows.

Product Directories

Each product has its own subdirectory under APPL_TOP. The subdirectories are named in accordance with the product’s standard abbreviation, such as gl for Oracle General Ledger. Within each product directory is a subdirectory that is named using the base Oracle Applications release number, such as 11.5.0. This directory contains the various subdirectories for the product files.






Figure 3. APPL_TOP Sub-directory structure

The COMN Directory

The COMN or COMMON_TOP directory contains files used by many different Oracle Applications products, and which may also be used with third-party products.

Figure 4. Common Top directory structure

The admin Directory

The admin directory, under the COMMON_TOP directory, is the default location for the concurrent manager log and output directories. When the concurrent managers run

Oracle Applications reports, they write the log files and temporary files to the log subdirectory of the admin directory, and the output files to the out subdirectory of the admin directory.

The html Directory

The OA_HTML environment setting points to the html directory. The Oracle Applications HTML-based sign-on screen and Oracle HTML-based Applications HTML files are installed here. The html directory also contains other files used by the HTML-based products, such as JavaServer Page (JSP) files, Java scripts, XML files, and style sheets. Rapid Install and the AD utilities copy the HTML-based product files from each _TOP directory to subdirectories in the html directory.

The java Directory

The JAVA_TOP environment setting points to the java directory. Rapid Install installs all

Oracle Applications JAR files in the Oracle namespace of this JAVA_TOP directory. The java directory also holds third-party Java files used by Oracle Applications, as well as other zip files.

The portal Directory

The portal directory contains the Rapid Install Portal files. The Rapid Install Portal is a web page that provides access to post-install tasks that may be necessary for your installation, plus server administration scripts, installation documentation, and online help. Using a browser, you can view the Rapid Install Portal after you run Rapid Install.

The temp Directory

The temp directory is used for caching by some products such as Oracle Reports.

The util Directory

The util directory contains the third-party utilities licensed to ship with Oracle Applications. These include, for example, the Java Runtime Environment (JRE), Java Development Kit (JDK), and the Zip utility.

The scripts Directory

The scripts directory contains application tier control scripts such as adstrtal.sh and adstpall.sh, which are located in the subdirectory.

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Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Getting started with Oracle Applications

This document will explains about Oracle Apps login, Choosing Responsibility, Choosing Function / Opening Form, Switch Responsibility, Query Form and Keyboard Shortcuts. This chapter would tell a user about the basics of login to the Oracle Applications instance. It would also demonstrate the basics of working with Oracle Applications. To understand the complete functionality of a particular responsibility please refers to the respective User Guide.

Oracle Applications Login

Before you connect to Oracle Applications you must know the URL of the Oracle Applications server you want to connect to. Clicking on the URL would lead you to the Oracle Applications Login Page as shown in figure 1 below.
Oracle Applications Login Page


Choosing Responsibility

To connect to the Oracle Applications, you must have an Oracle Apps login ID created by the System Administrator of the Oracle Applications instance.

Enter the appropriate Login ID and password and click login. If the login is successful it will lead you to the responsibility page as shown in figure 2 below. This page will show all the responsibilities that have been assigned to your Login ID by the System Administrator.

List of Responsibilities




Choosing Function / Opening Form

Once you click on a responsibility, it will show you the menus and functions associated with the responsibility. Click on the Sys Admin, Vision Services (USA) responsibility. The page will look like as shown in the figure 3 below.
Menus and Functions attached to a responsibility


Each function under a menu opens a form when clicked upon. The forms are basically an interface between you and the applications for various functionalities. These forms are run on Oracle Jinitiator. Once you click on a function, the jinitiator is invoked and it then opens the respective form. If you are login for the first time, Oracle Applications automatically downloads and installs the jinitiator for you. It, therefore, takes a longer time to open the form for the first time. Once the jinitiator is installed, it opens an intermediate window (figure 4) before the form is opened. Please do not close this window as it will close the Oracle Applications session. Wait till the form window opens up automatically. The intermediate page would go to the background.
Intermediate Window

Click on the Define link under the Concurrent: Program Menu. This will open the form to define the Concurrent Program in Oracle Applications. The form is shown in the Figure 5 below.
Figure 5. Concurrent Programs a Define form

Switch Responsibility

The details about using the above form are given in the document on Concurrent Programs. To switch to another responsibility, you can either go to the page which was shown in the figure 3 above and click on the required responsibility and follow the step 4 and step 5 or you can click on File tab and choose Switch Responsibility as shown in figure 6 below.

Figure 6. Swicth Responsibility
Clicking on Swicth Responsibility would lead you to the list of the available responsibilities to choose from as shown in figure 7 below.

Figure 7. List of Available Responsibilities
If you want to go to Application Developer responsibility to check the responsibilities attach to your username then follow these steps.


Click on File->Switch Responsibility
Choose Sys Admin responsibility among the list of responsibilities displayed.
Choose Security->User->Define from the following screen. The screen would look like as shown in the figure 8 below.

Figure 8. System Administrator à Security à User à Define
Once the Define Function is clicked, it will open the Define form which looks like as shown in the figure 9 below.

Figure 9. Define Form
Query Form
The Define shown in the figure 9 above is used to create Login Ids for the Oracle Applications users by the System Administrator. The same form can also be used to query the existing users’ data. To view (query) the existing data go to View->Query By Example->Enter to enter the query criteria as shown in the figure 10 below.

Figure 10. Query Method
Once you click on Enter as shown in the form above, the Define form switched mode to query mode and the color of the fields changes to BLUE. Enter a value in a field in the form above for which you want to query the data.

If you want to query for your username, type your username in the ‘User Name’ field on the form. The form would look like as shown in the figure 11 below.

Figure 11. Enter Query
To fetch the results matching the entered criteria, you need to run the query. This can be done by clicking on View->Query By Example->Run as shown in the figure 12 below.

Figure 12. Run Query
The data would be displayed in following fashion as shown in the figure 13 below. The form shows a lot of details about the username entered in the query. All the responsibilities attached to the user name are shown in the form.

Figure 13. Query Results

Keyboard Shortcuts

The same process can be used to query data on any form in Oracle Applications. You can also use the keyboard shortcuts for entering and running the query. For example, F11 key puts the form in the query mode and Ctrl + F11 runs the query. You can get the list of the complete key board shortcuts by clicking on Help->Keyboard Help as shown in the figure 14 below

Figure 13. Keyboard Shortcuts

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Monday, March 24, 2014

What is Oracle APPS

Oracle initially launched its application suite with financials software in the late 1980s. The offering as of 2009 extends to supply-chain managementhuman-resource managementwarehouse-managementcustomer-relationship managementcall-center services, product-lifecycle management, and many other areas. Both in-house expansion and the acquisition of other companies have vastly expanded Oracle's application software business.

Is it just the short name of Oracle Applications? may be yes, however this question is an excuse for me to explain to you the evolution of APPS schema.

Previously each module had its own database schema(which we still have). However, a purchasing user (until version 10.6) used to connect to PO schema (by the virtue of the screen being a PO screen).

Hence, if a report or screen of AR ( Oracle Receivables ) module wanted to access a table named PO_HEADERS_ALL, they would then use notation PO.PO_HEADERS_ALL.However, now we have several database schemas(in most cases one schema per module).The tables are still owned by their respective schema, but now we have a central schema named APPS. Oracle ERP simply connects to APPS database schema for all its operations(with a couple of exceptions that are best ignored for now).


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