ORACLE APPLICATIONS WHITE PAPER ORACLE PAYABLES PROACTIVE TROUBLESHOOTING

NOV 2012

Author:

Mohamed Nazih CPA, PMP, Senior Business Analyst m.nazih@gmail.com

Version

1.0

Contents

Oracle EBS R12 Payables Proactive Support .................................................. 5 Overview ................................................................................................... 5 Generic Data Fix patches (GDFs) ...................................................................... 5
Master GDF diagnostic ............................................................................................ 5 Running as a standalone SQL script ................................................................................... 6 Running as a Concurrent Process ..................................................................................... 12 Reviewing Output ....................................................................................................... 13 Working with GDFs ............................................................................................... 14 Considerations .................................................................................................... 15

Period Close Helper ..................................................................................... 16

Consideration ..................................................................................................... 16

Proactive Patching Strategy ........................................................................... 18 Suggested Proactive Approach to Troubleshoot AP Issues ........................................ 18 Information Sources..................................................................................... 19

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About the Author

Mohamed Nazih is a Proficient functional consultant in Oracle e-Business Suite with more than nine years of experience of solutions design, configuration, testing and documentation and three full life cycle implementations. Prior to Oracle, he worked as a certified accountant and auditor for six years. This experience gave him an advantage to team up with financial staff in many companies in delivering high quality professional services, such as consulting, support, and training. While not working, Mohamed Nazih takes care of his family. Furthermore, he is a self-learner and avid reader in project management, change management, business intelligence, science, and environment issues. Mohamed Nazih values an atmosphere of ethics, punctuality, and team-working.

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Introduction
Oracle Payables has many bugs that may hinder period closing. Troubled transactions could be swept to next period(s) but manual journals to fix their accounting effect could cause reconciliation issues and may be hard to maintain.

Purpose
This paper suggests a proactive approach to tackle Oracle Payables issues before they occur or fix them shortly after their occurrence in order to close period properly.

Who Should Read This

This paper is aimed to super users, applications support staff, and functional consultants.

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Oracle EBS R12 Payables Proactive Support Overview

Oracle Payables has many bugs in its code which could prevent the proper: 1- Processing of transactions 2- Period closing The passive course of actions is to: 1- Sweep troubled transactions to next period(s) 2- Open a service request with oracle support to fix data corruption Providing a solution by oracle support may take few days or few weeks. The troubleshooting process always includes running diagnostic scripts. Oracle Development team provided two tools: 3- Generic Data Fix patches (GDFs) 4- Period Close Helper The suggested approach is to implement proactive patching strategy and use these tools regularly in order to fix issues as soon as possible and limits service requests to issues with unknown fixes.

Generic Data Fix patches (GDFs)

Generic Data Fix Patches (GDFs) are written after 30+ customers reported data corruption. Currently, there are 148 GDFs available [Doc ID 874903.1] to fix the followings: Area Invoices Payments Subledger Accounting # of GDFs 71 23 54

Master GDF diagnostic

As a single issue may be caused by one or many bugs, an identification script (Master GDF) was created to produce a report shows exactly: Which corruptions exist

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Which GDFs are needed to fix these corruptions

Master GDF diagnostic detection process can be: Run as a standalone SQL script Registered and run as a concurrent process

Running as a standalone SQL script

Doc ID 1360390.1 includes zip file ap_gdf_detect_pkg.zip which contains: ap_gdf_detect_pkg.sql single_trx.sql date_range.sql

Figure 1

Simply download the file and open each script in SQL Developer (or any other tool)

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1- Run ap_gdf_detect_pkg.sql to create the reporting package AP_GDF_DETECT_PKG. This is required each time you download a new version of the script.

Figure 2

2- Run date_range.sql to diagnose transactions within a date range

Figure 3

You will be prompted to enter:

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Start Date

End Date

Org ID

Transaction types to be diagnosed

And the results are:

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Figure 4

If you are not the sysadmin, ask him/her to provide mentioned files. 3- Run single_trx.sql to diagnose a single transaction

Figure 5

You will be prompted to enter: Invoice ID

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Check ID

Vendor ID

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And the results are:

Figure 6

If you are not the sysadmin, ask him/her to provide mentioned files.

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Running as a Concurrent Process

Doc ID 1361255.1 details the steps required to register above scripts to run as concurrent process which can be scheduled to run regularly. Date Range script can be registered as:

Figure 7

Date Range script can be registered as:

Figure 8

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Reviewing Output
For every corruption, Master GDF report will pinpoint: 1- Bug Number 2- Note ID which explain the bug and how to fix it 3- Transactions affected

Figure 9

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Working with GDFs

1- Review Doc IDs identified by Master GDF report. This Document provides: Patch number and instructions to download and apply GDF patch Specific What? Why? When? How? details for each GDF patch "Known Root Cause Bugs/Notes for this Issue" to prevent issue from reoccurring

2- Download and apply GDF patch to deliver the select and fix scripts. 3- Run the SELECT script from the GDF patch 4- Review the HTML output

Figure 10

5- Verify/Adjust the records the fix script will update 6- Run the Fix script to correct the data 7- Verify the data updated in the HTML output

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Figure 11

8- If no fix occurred, then a service request should be raised with Oracle Support attaching the output of: Master GDF Applied GDF to fix the issue

Considerations
1- Many of the GDF patches require subledger accounting to be undone and recreated. The following documents should be reviewed: Doc ID 753695.1 for more details on undo accounting Doc ID 605707.1 for more information on how manual entries created by the undo fix can affect reconciliation

2- All fix scripts will first backup tables to be updated so there is always the restore option should the fix need to be unapplied 3- MOS approval is not needed prior to running these fixes. They are already fully approved by Support and Development for all Oracle customers 4- Logging a data corruption Service Request without running the Master GDF diagnostic, and acting on the results by applying recommended GDFs,is only going to delay resolution. Since MOS Support Engineer will ask to run them first

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Period Close Helper

Is a diagnostic script that identifies transactions prevent Payable period close along corrective actions suggested to resolve Doc ID 1489381.1 includes ap_pclose_detect_pkg.zip which contains: ap_pclose_detect_pkg.sql to create the reporting package (it must be run by user APPS) period_close.sql to submit the detection process by validating all invoices and payments. Prompts include: a) period name b) ledger id c) operating unit id

The detection process can: be Run as a standalone SQL script Registered and run as a concurrent process [Doc ID 1489916.1]

Consideration
Period close helper script 1- Can be used proactively to scan all transactions and head off potential issues. 2- Will not create, update, or deleted any data 3- Has an option to run AP Data Validation Report as well to check for data corruptions. a) If set to N, report output will be an enhanced version of Period Close Exception report that: Pinpoints actions should be taken by user after each section of invalid transactions (instead at the end of Period Close Exception Report) Details unaccounted invoices section in Period Close Exception report into: o Unposted Invoices Distributions o Invoice Lines Without Distribution o Unaccounted Transactions b) If set to Y, process will submit master GDF report as well (though this is generally not recommended for performance reasons). Thus, report will be a combination between: Enhanced version of Period Close Exception report Master GDF report which identifies corrupted data and Doc ID of GDFs to fix them
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Figure 12

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Proactive Patching Strategy

Proactive Patching is the process of applying patches as a preventative measure, periodically, in an effort to keep up with the release of new features and fixes. Prevents systems from experiencing known issues Reduces the number of individual fixes needed to apply Provides the ability to plan ahead and perform adequate testing before patch deployment

Kindly refer to the following documents: Patching & Maintenance Advisor: EBS R12 [Doc ID 313.1] Patch Wizard: Overview [Doc ID 1077813.1] R12.0 Oracle Financials Critical and Recommended Patches [Doc ID 557869.1] R12.1 Oracle Financials Recommended Patch Collection (RPC) [Doc ID 954704.1]

Suggested Proactive Approach to Troubleshoot AP Issues

1- Keep application updated by applying critical patches to avoid known problems: Give priority to patches recommended by GDFs Make balance between the volume of changes to be made by patch and issues it fixed. In other words, patch may affect other applications that are running without problems but it fix single issue in AP. You may opt to bear the burden of applying data fix instead of fixing root cause by patch that requires extensive testing 2- Urge end-users to create accounting for transactions on daily basis 3- Register Master GDF and Period Close Helper and make them available to application support staff. 4- On regular basis, application support staff should: a) Run Master GDF / Period Close helper b) Apply GDF as necessary in collaboration with DBA on test server c) Document issue and resolution

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Information Sources
GDFs available for Payables [ID 874903.1] Master GDF diagnostic [ID 1360390.1] Register Master GDF as a Concurrent Program [ID 1361255.1] Undo accounting [ID 753695.1] How manual entries created by undo fix can affect reconciliation [ID 605707] Period Close Helper [ID 1489381.1] Register Period Close Helper as a Concurrent Program [ID1489916.1] Patching & Maintenance Advisor: EBS R12 [ID 313.1] Patch Wizard : Overview [ID 1077813.1] R12.0 Oracle Financials Critical and Recommended Patches [ID 557869.1] R12.1 Oracle Financials Recommended Patch Collection (RPC) [ID 954704.1]

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