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One of the most enjoyable and rewarding parts of working on the Oracle Fusion HCM team is getting the opportunity to attend and participate in industry events and conferences. Sometimes we, here on the Oracle team, get to share our perspectives and insights about Human Capital, Talent Management, Recruiting, and of course HCM Solutions; sharing thoughts about industry trends, workforce management challenges, and how technology can support, enable, and help drive better business outcomes. But more importantly, when we attend industry events, we get to spend time with customers, partners, and the larger community of incredibly talented, passionate, and dedicated professionals that are collectively moving the industry and the practice of human resources forward.

Recently I had the privilege of attending and presenting at two recent industry events, the IHRIM Annual Conference in Chicago; and the Human Capital Institute, (HCI), Strategic Talent Acquisition event in New York City. Both of these events, while certainly focused on differing audiences and subject matter, were in equal parts filled with interesting and engaging content and speakers, enthusiastic and eager attendees, and provided excellent forums for myself and the rest of the folks on the Oracle team to meet, get to know, and learn more about the challenges and opportunities facing organizations today.

IHRIM Annual Conference, April 2012, Chicago, IL

At the IHRIM Conference, I presented two sessions; one on the challenges facing organizations in an increasingly competitive environment, and where fostering innovation is fast becoming a priority for Human Resources and business leaders the world over. Needless to say, the challenges facing the modern organization are numerous, but by thinking differently about jobs and skills, understanding talent needs and capability, improving internal and external collaboration, aligning rewards with strategies, and taking advantage of the tremendous advances in cloud-based HCM technologies, we think organizations can adapt and continue to innovate and succeed.  The session I had at IHRIM was about the Millennial Generation in the workplace, and as always, the conversations about generational attitudes, preferences, and work styles were lively, challenging, and definitely illuminating. The topic is interesting mainly because almost everyone has an opinion and can relate at least a little to how the workplace is changing as more and more Millennials enter positions of responsibility.

2012 Strategic Talent Acquisition Conference, April 2012, New York, New York

At the HCI Talent Acquisition event, and with an audience composed of senior leaders in talent acquisition and recruiting from many of the world’s largest and recognizable organizations, I talked some more about the innovation challenges facing companies today, as the battle for the best talent continues to rage, the need to compete globally and locally becomes more acute, and how social and mobile technologies continue to disrupt industries and practices everywhere. The job of a talent acquisition leader gets harder and harder all the time, as today it seems that in many areas needed skills are in short supply, and demographic conditions, (rapidly retiring ranks of more experienced workers, relative shallowness of succession pools in middle management, etc.), are combining to place more pressure on the recruiting function than in recent years. Again, we think that by thinking a little more expansively about talent sourcing, leveraging the latest tools to help connect with potential candidates, and making sure the organization’s employer value proposition aligns well with the target talent pool are some ways in which organizations can rise to these challenges, and continue to feed the innovation engine.

In Summary

Both IHRIM and HCI Talent Acquisition were fantastic events, and many thanks to the organizers for allowing me to participate. As I mentioned at the open, meeting and engaging with so many interested and interesting people in both of these communities was the highlight of the experience for me, and for the teams we had at the events. Look for future updates later in the year as the Oracle Fusion HCM team looks forward to continue participation, dialog, and listening to the important conversations happening in the Human Resources and HR Technology spaces.

Collaborate is always worthwhile but it forces you to work hard to catch back up after a week out of the office.  The time since Collaborate has given me a chance to reflect on all that I learned there.  This posting will net out my reactions to a great conference. The JD Edwards community was [...]

While everyone is aware of the issues of mixing EHCC compression and OLTP type activities, I had a customer who was interested in finding out what happens upon adding a column to a table that has EHCC compression enabled on it.

As I could not see any definitive statements in the documentation on this particular scenario I ran up some tests to see the behaviour.

First of all they are using partitioning by date range, so we create a partitioned table:

SQL: db01> create table t_part  ( 
username varchar2(30), 
user_id  number, 
created date ) 
partition by range (created) 
( partition p_2009 values less than (to_date('31-DEC-2009', 'dd-MON-YYYY')) tablespace users, 
partition p_2010 values less than (to_date('31-DEC-2010', 'dd-MON-YYYY')) tablespace users, 
partition p_2011 values less than (to_date('31-DEC-2011', 'dd-MON-YYYY')) tablespace users, 
partition p_2012 values less than (to_date('31-DEC-2012', 'dd-MON-YYYY')) tablespace users )

/

Table created

The customer is particularly interested in using partitioning for ILM type scenarios in that they will compress historical partitions but not more up-to-date ones. Lets enable HCC compression on the table and check that it’s on:

SQL: db01> alter table t_part compress for query high 
/

Table altered

SQL: db01> select table_name, partition_name, compression, compress_for 
from all_tab_partitions 
where table_name='T_PART' 
/

TABLE_NAME                     PARTITION_NAME                 COMPRESS COMPRESS_FOR 
------------------------------ ------------------------------ -------- ------------ 
T_PART                         P_2009                         ENABLED  QUERY HIGH 
T_PART                         P_2010                         ENABLED  QUERY HIGH 
T_PART                         P_2011                         ENABLED  QUERY HIGH 
T_PART                         P_2012                         ENABLED  QUERY HIGH

Lets insert some data and check that the actual row is compressed (thanks to Kerry Osborne)

SQL: db01>; insert /*+ APPEND */ into t_part select * from all_users 
/ 
3008 rows created
SQL: db01> commit
/
Commit complete

SQL: db01> select max(rowid) from t_part
/

MAX(ROWID) 
------------------ 
AAAexSAANAAHGoUAAN

SQL: db01> select decode( 
DBMS_COMPRESSION.GET_COMPRESSION_TYPE ( 'SYS', 'T_PART', '&rowid'), 
    1, 'No Compression', 
    2, 'Basic/OLTP Compression', 
    4, 'HCC Query High', 
    8, 'HCC Query Low', 
   16, 'HCC Archive High', 
   32, 'HCC Archive Low', 
   'Unknown Compression Level') compression_type 
from dual;

Enter value for rowid: AAAexSAANAAHGoUAAN 
old   2: DBMS_COMPRESSION.GET_COMPRESSION_TYPE ( 'SYS', 'T_PART', '&rowid'), 
new   2: DBMS_COMPRESSION.GET_COMPRESSION_TYPE ( 'SYS', 'T_PART', 'AAAexSAANAAHGoUAAN'),

COMPRESSION_TYPE 
------------------------- 
HCC Query High

So we are confident we have a row that is compressed. Now we add a new column to the table and give it a default value, we then check again what compression the row has:

SQL: db01> alter table t_part add city varchar2(30) default 'Oxford' 
/

Table altered.

select decode( 
DBMS_COMPRESSION.GET_COMPRESSION_TYPE ( 'SYS', 'T_PART', '&rowid'), 
  2    3  1, 'No Compression', 
  4  2, 'Basic/OLTP Compression', 
  5  4, 'HCC Query High', 
  6  8, 'HCC Query Low', 
  7  16, 'HCC Archive High', 
32, 'HCC Archive Low', 
    'Unknown Compression Level') compression_type 
from dual; 
Enter value for rowid: AAAexSAANAAHGoUAAN 
old   2: DBMS_COMPRESSION.GET_COMPRESSION_TYPE ( 'SYS', 'T_PART', '&rowid'), 
new   2: DBMS_COMPRESSION.GET_COMPRESSION_TYPE ( 'SYS', 'T_PART', 'AAAexSAANAAHGoUAAN'),

COMPRESSION_TYPE 
------------------------- 
Basic/OLTP Compression

Oh Dear! Our compression has changed.

This maybe is not that surprising. But what if you have a requirement to add a column but with no default value, and you just want to update more recent records, can we avoid downgrading all records from HCC compression?

So we are using the same table and data as before. We will focus on two rows, one in the 2011 partition and one in the 2012 partition.

SQL: db01> select max(rowid) from t_part where created  > TO_DATE('31-Dec-2010', 'DD-MM-YYYY') and created < TO_DATE('01-Jan-2012', 'DD-MM-YYYY');

MAX(ROWID) 
------------------ 
AAAezbAAHAAFwIKAE/

SQL: db01> select decode( 
DBMS_COMPRESSION.GET_COMPRESSION_TYPE ( 'SYS', 'T_PART', '&rowid'), 
    1, 'No Compression', 
    2, 'Basic/OLTP Compression', 
    4, 'HCC Query High', 
    8, 'HCC Query Low', 
    16, 'HCC Archive High', 
    32, 'HCC Archive Low', 
    'Unknown Compression Level') compression_type 
from dual;  
Enter value for rowid: AAAezbAAHAAFwIKAE/ 
old   2: DBMS_COMPRESSION.GET_COMPRESSION_TYPE ( 'SYS', 'T_PART', '&rowid'), 
new   2: DBMS_COMPRESSION.GET_COMPRESSION_TYPE ( 'SYS', 'T_PART', 'AAAezbAAHAAFwIKAE/'),

COMPRESSION_TYPE 
------------------------- 
HCC Query High

SQL: db01> select max(rowid) from t_part where created  > TO_DATE('31-Dec-2011', 'DD-MM-YYYY') and created < TO_DATE('31-Dec-2012', 'DD-MM-YYYY');

MAX(ROWID) 
------------------ 
AAAezcAAHAAHdoSADf

SQL:xldnc911001hdor:(SMALLDB1):PRIMARY> select decode( 
    DBMS_COMPRESSION.GET_COMPRESSION_TYPE ( 'SYS', 'T_PART', '&rowid'), 
    1, 'No Compression', 
    2, 'Basic/OLTP Compression', 
    4, 'HCC Query High', 
    8, 'HCC Query Low', 
    16, 'HCC Archive High', 
    32, 'HCC Archive Low', 
    'Unknown Compression Level') compression_type 
from dual; 
Enter value for rowid: AAAezcAAHAAHdoSADf 
old   2: DBMS_COMPRESSION.GET_COMPRESSION_TYPE ( 'SYS', 'T_PART', '&rowid'), 
new   2: DBMS_COMPRESSION.GET_COMPRESSION_TYPE ( 'SYS', 'T_PART', 'AAAezcAAHAAHdoSADf'),

COMPRESSION_TYPE 
------------------------- 
HCC Query High

Now we add a column to the table and update the records in only the 2012 partition:

SQL: db01> alter table t_part add city varchar2(30);

Table altered.

SQL: db01> update t_part set city='Oxford' where created > to_date('31-Dec-2011', 'DD-MM-YYYY');

448 rows updated.

SQL: db01> commit;

Commit complete.

And now we again check the compression status of our two rows:

SQL: db01> select decode( 
DBMS_COMPRESSION.GET_COMPRESSION_TYPE ( 'SYS', 'T_PART', '&rowid'), 
    1, 'No Compression', 
    2, 'Basic/OLTP Compression', 
    4, 'HCC Query High', 
    8, 'HCC Query Low', 
   16, 'HCC Archive High', 
   32, 'HCC Archive Low', 
       'Unknown Compression Level') compression_type 
from dual;  
Enter value for rowid: AAAezbAAHAAFwIKAE/ 
old   2: DBMS_COMPRESSION.GET_COMPRESSION_TYPE ( 'SYS', 'T_PART', '&rowid'), 
new   2: DBMS_COMPRESSION.GET_COMPRESSION_TYPE ( 'SYS', 'T_PART', 'AAAezbAAHAAFwIKAE/'),

COMPRESSION_TYPE 
------------------------- 
HCC Query High

SQL: db01> select decode( 
DBMS_COMPRESSION.GET_COMPRESSION_TYPE ( 'SYS', 'T_PART', '&rowid'), 
    1, 'No Compression', 
    2, 'Basic/OLTP Compression', 
    4, 'HCC Query High', 
    8, 'HCC Query Low', 
    16, 'HCC Archive High', 
    32, 'HCC Archive Low', 
        'Unknown Compression Level') compression_type 
   from dual; 
Enter value for rowid: AAAezcAAHAAHdoSADf 
old   2: DBMS_COMPRESSION.GET_COMPRESSION_TYPE ( 'SYS', 'T_PART', '&rowid'), 
new   2: DBMS_COMPRESSION.GET_COMPRESSION_TYPE ( 'SYS', 'T_PART', 'AAAezcAAHAAHdoSADf'),

COMPRESSION_TYPE 
------------------------- 
Basic/OLTP Compression

So that is great, we have a way of evolving table definitions without having to suffer the whole set of historical data to not be in HCC compression.

It happens to be very short blog post as installation the Oracle VM Manager 3.1.1 under Dom0 host isn’t different from installing the previous version. For all tricks that you need to use please see my Oracle VM Manager 3.0.3 under Dom0 post. Just to make this post to look like a proper blog post :) I am sharing the [...]

During last couple of month I was seeing some discussion and question in different online conferences and user groups about upgrade RAC and exadata to 11.2.0.3. The questions were mostly about upgrade procedure, timing, what can happen during the upgrade and how a system behaves after upgrade. I’ve recently upgrade couple of exadata to 11.2.0.3 and want [...]

Cool! Since BPM 11g PS4FP you can import Oracle Workflow models in BPM 11g. From PS5 (11.1.1.6) it should be possible as well. See this whitepaper.
I'm going to try. 

It’s no secret that the online experience has been completely transformed by social computing.  Increasingly, individuals are looking to interact with brands socially and to share their experiences with their extended social networks.  For online marketers, this creates a host of challenges. Businesses need to incorporate social computing capabilities into their online presence in order to create an interactive experience that helps build community engagement. At the same time, businesses must take care to assert a level of control that safeguards brand integrity. With the latest release of Oracle WebCenter Sites, online marketers have an even more comprehensive set of social computing capabilities that enable them to offer engaging and interactive online experiences.  Let’s take a closer look at some of the new social computing features in 11g:

Facilitate Social Login and Social Sharing
Oracle WebCenter Sites removes barriers to site visitor registration and facilitates social interaction through out-of-the box integration with Facebook and Twitter for social login.  This enables site visitors to be authenticated on an organization’s Website based on their familiar social network credentials, making the experience easier for those who may not wish to create and maintain a separate traditional account.  Social login also encourages site visitors to contribute comments, reviews or other user-generated content using their existing social network identities.

The Oracle WebCenter Sites Social Networking Integration Offers Social Login and Social Sharing Capabilities

Organizations can also extend the reach of their brands and promote site visitor engagement via social sharing of website content with Facebook and Twitter.  This out-of-the-box capability makes it easy for site visitors to share and comment on information they like with their extended social networks. With social login and social sharing, site visitors’ onsite experience is seamlessly integrated with the rest of their online interactions and networks, driving relevance, engagement, and ultimately customer loyalty. Social login and social sharing can be further expanded to over twenty social networking sites.

Encourage Social Participation with User-generated Content (UGC) Widgets
Social computing features such as comments, ratings, reviews, polls and corporate blogs have become essential capabilities for driving customer engagement and sales. With Oracle WebCenter Sites, enterprises can easily implement social features throughout their existing web presence and manage them as a seamless part of their web platform. Business users can quickly insert UGC features into the context of their web pages making sure the look and feel matches that of the website as a whole. These social capabilities cultivate loyal and satisfied customers.  To enhance Oracle WebCenter Sites’ already robust UGC capabilities, the following new UGC widgets are now available:

Polls: A new and simple to use poll widget is now available with attractive charting options. Site authors can easily deploy polls using an intuitive and easy interface that allows them to precisely controls the display of the poll widget, results views, themes and poll status.

Ratings Widgets: Oracle WebCenter Sites now offers dynamic new rating widgets like Thumbs Up/Down, Like It button and Recommend (Email a Friend). Ratings results can then be used to help drive dynamic content on the web presence.

Some of the User-generated Content Widgets Available with Oracle WebCenter Sites

Pluggable Login Bar: A new, individually deployable login bar helps improve the look and feel of the site and can be placed on any part of the website. User login is recognized across all UGC widgets deployed on the website.

Enhancements to Existing UGC Widgets: The new release also includes a number of enhancements to existing UGC widgets for comments and reviews. Website visitors can now preview their comments or reviews before posting, get a permalink to their contribution or rate the helpfulness of the comment or review posted by other users.

More Power for UGC Moderation: Moderators also have new options to further streamline the management of user generated content in Oracle WebCenter Sites:

•    Categorize comments/reviews under custom buckets
•    Set limits on the number comments/reviews posted on a page
•    Set limits on the number of days a webpage accepts comments/reviews
•    Blacklist/whitelist website visitors with a single click

The WebCenter Sites 11g release is an exciting one that provides organizations with the tools they need to create engaging and interactive online experiences.  To learn more about the features in this new release download the data sheet, Oracle WebCenter Sites: Build Community Engagement Through Social Computing, or view the launch webcast on demand below.

On Demand Webcast - Introducing Oracle WebCenter Sites: Transforming the Online Experience
View Now

Enabling marketers and business users is a key requirement for creating and managing contextually relevant, social, and interactive online experiences. Oracle WebCenter Sites transforms the online experience into one that is simple and intuitive to manage as a content contributor, encourages interaction between site visitors and their social networks, and provides marketers with automated targeting options for optimizing online engagement. View this webcast now to learn more.

Infernal is the ninth book in the Repairman Jack series by F. Paul Wilson.

Another family tragedy has the effect of reuniting Jack with his brother Tom, the judge. It turns out Tom is not as squeaky clean has he appears and needs Jack’s help for something less than legal. As you can probably guess by now, it all turns sinister and mystical…

I’ve definitely become desensitized to the darkness now. Every time a new character is introduced, pretty much my first thought is, “I wonder how they will die?” It’s a bit like watching Star Trek and knowing the security officer (in the red top) you’ve never seen before is the one that’s going to eat lead/laser…

Cheers

Tim…

Infernal… was first posted on May 16, 2012 at 9:02 am.
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It's been a few weeks and hopefully everyone is fully recovered.  Here are a few presentations that really stood out.  No offense to any not mentioned, there were too many to attend and describe here.

Adam Crigger of Preferred Strategies presented "Using Oracle BI Publisher for JD Edwards Operations and Financial Reporting" He unveiled some fabulous layouts he built using BI Publisher 11.1.1.6 on top of JD Edwards EnterpriseOne data.

John Peters of JRP JR, Inc showed us some very useful tips when modifying data templates in E-Business Suite in his presentation, "Adding Data Elements to BI Publisher Documents" He outlined very clearly the different types of data sources and best practices for updating the seeded E-Business Suite data extracts.

In her presentation, "Using Oracle BI Publisher to E-mail Customer ACH Payment Confirmations" Kristina Boone of MediaNews Group went over the step-by-step procedure she followed to create custom payment confirmations using an RTF template in BI Publisher. She then showed how to configure her JD Edwards EnterpriseOne system to run it. Great Stuff!

Glen T. Ryen, from Prisio Technologies presented "Oracle Payments in Release 12 – Take It To the Bank!" on Thursday to a nearly SRO crowd - impressive for get away day.  Those who stayed for this presentation were well rewarded.  Perfect balance between Functional and Technical and it gave enough detail and pointers to go deeper.  Several of the attendees around me commented that it was exactly what they were looking for.

I see that the Collaborate site is no longer hosting the presentations and white papers - bummer.  I'm told that the user groups - OAUG, Quest and IOUG will be making those available to members on their sites in a few weeks.  Please check with your user group or the presenter if you're interested in the material.

New features are always good to have in JDeveloper - but missing new features, this is something really new :-) It looks like documentation is released faster than actual functionality. If you read What's New in This Guide in Release 11.1.2.2.0 document, it provides new documentation section about how to setup security for ADF Methods (see Chapter 35). There are nice step by step instructions available in Chapter 35, how to enable security for ADF Methods. This guide says you need to have command component to execute ADF Method, also ADF Security must be enabled. Finally documentation says - "The Resource Grants page of the overview editor displays all methods that your application defines.". Well, may be I'm missing some magic check-box, but methods are not listed in the overview editor. I will be really happy, if its just me - and there is hidden check-box that enables this functionality.

Download test case application - ADFMethodSecurity.zip.

Documentation steps are pretty straightforward - see highlighted stament, it says methods will be shown automatically:


I have defined custom method inside AM implementation:


Custom ADF Method is exposed in Data Control:


Its all good for Web page - it is visible is security overview:


But not so good for ADF Method - its not visible (even Source Project selection is disabled), as supposed to be per documentation:


This is really powerful and required feature, sadly its missing - I hope it will be available with next release of JDev.

Contributions by Angela Golla, Infogram Contributor
Advisor WebcastsDid you know that Oracle offers a wide array of webconference training across Oracle's product line.  Check out the current schedule and access past webconferences at Note:740966.1. 

After a hectic month or so, I’m finally getting around to reading.

I’ve been meaning to share this thoughtful piece from Scott Porad, CTO of Cheezburger (squee!), that does an excellent job encapsulating some reasons why software is so difficult.

His main points, or rather, those made by his friend are:

1. Software is entirely hand-made, and compounding this, software is distributed at very large scale. Looking back through history, machine-made goods have always replaced hand-made goods to account for large scale distribution. Software isn’t there, yet.

2. Software production lacks standards. Think about software projects, and you’ll find a variety of methods, e.g. waterfall, agile. However, even within an established method for running a software project, there is variance from team to team, even within the same company.

3. Everyone has an opinion on how long a project should take, an anomaly for producing goods that require high levels of experience and skill from the people doing the work. Project estimation is hard.

Scott’s second point about standards is similar to one that nags me, titles. Software uses titles like engineer and architect, but these jobs don’t require the same levels of certification and training that their namesakes do.

So, while it makes sense to use titles that mirror physical construction, this isn’t really a fair comparison.

I’ve noodled the reasons behind why software is both difficult and misunderstood for years, and this is the best encapsulation I’ve read to date. Even so, I’d add a few other points.

4. Everyone uses software, at home, at work, on the go, and software usually requires substantial learning investment. This tends to make everyone feel like an expert, and it tends to trivialize the effort required to produce this or that small tweak.

This is a scaling problem for  producers of software, e.g. every time Facebook makes a chance, revolt ensues. It’s exceptionally difficult to make changes to software because of the investment in relearning. Plus, software is highly emotional to the end user, making the effect of changes impossible to estimate.

5. Software relies on hardware, which is an older, more mature production model. Therefore, hardware tends to advance more quickly than software can keep up, and replacements cannot be assumed. So, when software is produced, it must account for old hardware and new hardware, which compounds the all other problems.

I’m sure there are other points too. This is a good starting point, and I’m interested to know your thoughts, given that most of you are close to the problem.

Find the comments.Possibly Related Posts:

• Testing is Tough
• Musings on IT, Side Projects and Users
• I’m Smart, I Don’t Read or Write Anymore
• Why It Just Works
• On Product Management

The call for papers for the UKOUG 2012 conference ends in less than three short weeks!  If you were planning on going to the conference (and even if not) - you should consider submitting a paper.

I've been a long time supporter of all of the user groups and their conferences and I can attest to the quality of the UKOUG event.  The conference is chock full of technical talks with hundreds of sessions to choose from.  There is something for everyone there.
If you've never presented before, don't let that deter you from submitting a paper.  No one knows the anxiety that public speaking can bring better than I - I've written about it before. You'll find the conference to be an entirely different experience on the other side of the podium.  In addition to the experience of presenting, the networking and exposure that comes with being a speaker won't hurt you at all.  Whether you are a DBA or developer - having good public speaking skills is a necessity today - and using the conference as a way to build those skills is a great way to start.
Additionally - what you have to say is important and relevant to the user community as a whole.  A good conference needs a lot of speakers, from many diverse disciplines, with diverse backgrounds - the more speakers the merrier.  Don't think you don't have anything to offer - everyone does.  And don't feel that your topic wouldn't be interesting to someone else - it will be.  There are a lot of people out there trying to do some of the same things you've done and they'd love to hear how you did it.
That is one of the things about user groups I really like - they bring together a lot of people doing similar things - but in a different way.  You'll learn something new - and they will too.  
The UKOUG is one of the larger and well run conferences out there - don't be afraid to talk.  Challenge yourself to get up there and just do it.  You won't be sorry (ok, maybe in the minutes leading up to it you will be - but you'll get over that :) ) 
Hope to see you there - and don't chicken out!

If you are an instructional designer with an eye for technologies like ADF, or if you are an ADF enthusiast and excel at creatively producing technical content, then ADF Product Management would like to hear from you. We’re looking for a curriculum developer to join our ADF Curriculum team, which is tasked with ensuring that [...]

I had a chance to talk to several Oracle Database Appliance users at the annual Collaborate 2012 conference last month in Las Vegas. And a common theme in this discussions, as well as discussions with Pythian clients, is an interest in using the ODA as a large-scale consolidation platform. ODA offers all the benefits of [...]

Oracle Unified Method 5 Essentials (1Z0-568) exam tests partners who are skilled in Oracle’s all inclusive methodology. The certification covers the core features the Oracle Unified Method suite, including but not limited to, Focus Areas, Use Cases, and Requirements Gathering. The certification proves a baseline of the consultant’s knowledge and allows the implementation team to work as a cohesive team from day 1. The exam targets the intermediate-level implementation team member. Up to date training and field experience are recommended.

Oracle Unified Method 5 Certified Implementation Specialist, The Oracle Unified Method Certified Implementation Specialist Certification identifies professionals who are skilled in Oracle’s all inclusive methodology. The certification covers the core features the Oracle Unified Method suite, including but not limited to, Focus Areas, Uses Cases, and Requirements Gathering. The certification proves a baseline of the consultant’s knowledge and allows the implementation team to work as a cohesive team from day 1. Up-to-date training and field experience are highly recommended.

This certification is available to all candidates but is geared toward members of the Oracle Partner Network who are focused on selling and implementing this technology. OPN Members earning this certification will be recognized as OPN Certified Specialists, which helps their companies qualify for the Oracle Unified Method Specialization.

http://www.oracle.com/partners/en/knowledge-zone/applications/oum-exam-426119.html

Configurable Dimensionality:

‘Configurable dimensionality’ is the significant update to this version. We can probably say that this is the long awaited and biggest change that developers made to HFM.

So what is ‘Configurable dimensions’ is all about? There had always been a need for HFM customers to go beyond the four Custom dimensions, which are provided by default for their business needs. For e.g. they worked by stuffing two different details like Balance Sheet movements and Products details into a single Custom dimension. This was being addressed by Oracle in this release. Now, the users can have as many custom dimensions as required for their implementation. Let us see how this can be done starting by creating a new classic application.

Creating application:

Desktop Client: Many existing functions are cut down in Win32 client. Now, it has only Profile Manager and Metadata manager, rest all functions are available via Web including Create Application task. Profile Manager is used to define the application profile (.per). It can be installed in any machine since it can only be used in offline mode and has no dependency on HFM server component.

In addition to defining Year, Periods and Frequencies, we can now define the number of Custom dimensions as a part of the application profile. So basically, when you create application using this profile file, all these custom dimensions are created. The size (Small, Medium or Large) for a custom dimension must be determined depending on the number of members its hierarchy contains. Custom1&2 by default, are Large size.  As shown in the screenshot, we’ve created a total of 6 Custom dimensions.

Login to the Workspace to use this profile and create the application. As you can see, web server URL need not be provided.

I’ve loaded some sample metadata and data for few periods. !CUSTOM_ORDER section is introduced which specifies the order in which the custom dimensions are displayed. This has to be specified in the metadata load file.

.app

.xml

Now, let’s skip the complexities and move the data up the Value dimension. At this point, I’m eager to see the application database structure.

Sub-cube Architecture:

Financial Management stores its data in database blocks called subcubes rather than in records. Subcube contains Page and Subcube dimensions. The Page dimensions are Scenario, Year, Entity, Value and the Subcube dimensions contain all the members of ICP, Account, View and Custom dimensions (in our case 6 custom dimensions). So typically, for a single Page dimension intersection, if we have 100 accounts and 10 valid members for each Custom dimension and all intersections are populated, then it would be 100000000 records.

HFM stores all this data for these dimensions in three tables:

• DCE (Currency Subcube)

Stores Entity and Parent Currency values and their adjustments.

• DCN (Parent Subcube)

Stores remaining value dimension members

• DCT (Journal Transactions)

Stores Journal Transactions and when posted, they are transferred to DCE (<Entity Currency Adjs>/<Parent Currency Adjs>) or DCN ([Parent      Adjs]/[Contribution Adjs])

In the below table, DPx_INPUT and DPx_INPUTTRANSTYPE are repeating fields for each period that the application contains. The columns are numbered from zero so for 12 periods, the column names will be DP0_INPUT to DP11_INPUT and DP0_INPUTTRANSTYPE to DP11_INPUTTRANSTYPE.

Compared to the older versions, the column structure almost remains the same. Interestingly, if you’ve noticed, in older versions, there are four LCUSTOMx columns one for each custom dimension. In this version, I anticipated that for each extra custom we add to the application, there would be a new column added to these tables like LCUSTOM5 etc. But the structure doesn’t even contain LCUSTOM3 & LCUSTOM4 and it is tempting to know how data for other Custom dimensions are identified. We are working to find out the same and any comments from the readers are really appreciated.

The supporting products for HFM viz. Financial Reporting, FDM, Application Upgrade Utility and existing HFM rule functions were also being updated to support HFM’s Configurable Dimensionality. Although we have the flexibility of adding any number of custom dimensions, time taken for calculations, consolidation and other performance issues need to be considered and application should be designed accordingly.

 

UI Enhancements:

The new User Interface for HFM is definitely a notable update when compared to the earlier version.  It is easier to navigate and includes some special features as well. This is an outcome of migrating EPM components like HFM and Planning to Oracle’s ADF (Application Development Framework).

Let’s take a look at all these UI enhancements –

Multiple applications in Workspace:

Different HFM applications can be opened at the same time.

Multiple modules in an application:

Different HFM application modules in each application can be opened simultaneously.

POV enhancements:

There are significant changes to the way we select dimensions to Rows and Columns. We can relate this approach to Hyperion Financial Reporting wherein we ‘drag and drop’ dimensions to Rows and Columns in dimension layout. This approach is simpler and made common to both data grids and data forms. We can also add dimensions manually in data forms.

Data grid enhancements:

Again, we can relate the creation of data grids to how we create the reports in Financial Reporting. In HFR, we create/design the report and run the report to view it. Similarly, we have Grid designer and Grid Viewer in data grids.

Grid Designer

 

 

Grid Viewer

 

Display options were docked to the right hand side thus decreasing the time wasted on navigation.

Another new feature is the indication of cell colors at the bottom of the Grid Viewer. This will be very helpful to the business users and they don’t need to reach support or documentation to understand the Cell Colors.

Data form enhancements:

Member selection process is pretty much similar to what we do in data grids. And there exists designer and viewer in data forms too. Export to/Import from Excel options were disabled.

Designer

Viewer

 

Favorite members in Member selection:

Frequently used members can be selected and saved as favorites. These are available across other modules of the application as well.

Loads and Extracts page:

Load and Extract tasks like Security, Metadata, Member Lists and Rules are consolidated in one single page.

Journals Module Enhancements:

Journal tasks functionality is pretty much same but with major changes in UI again. Journal reports module exists both as a separate task and as a part of Manage Journals (opens in a new window when clicked).

Intercompany transactions module is not available and will be included in the upcoming patch – 11.1.2.2.101. It might take some time for the old version users to get used to navigating the new interface. Hope we can leverage from these ADF features. There are other enhancements to the HFM Win 32 client and Custom dimension configuration, which will be covered in a different post.

All

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