discoverer portlets for sharing 11i om & shipping data with customers
DESCRIPTION
Discoverer Portlets for Sharing 11i OM & Shipping Data with Customers. NorCal OAUG 2007 Training Day Event January 17, 2007 Eric Guether Opnext, Inc. [email protected]. Learning Objectives. Understand why Opnext implemented a Portal with Discoverer portlets - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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Discoverer Portlets for Sharing 11i OM & Shipping Data with Customers
NorCal OAUG 2007 Training Day Event
January 17, 2007
Eric Guether
Opnext, Inc.
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• Understand why Opnext implemented a Portal with Discoverer portlets
• Find out some things that Discoverer portlets can and cannot do
• Learn how to create a shipment tracking link to an external website in a Discoverer portlet – or even in a Discoverer workbook!
• Receive an overview of Discoverer portlet key setups
Learning Objectives
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Today’s Speaker: Eric Guether
• IT Director at Opnext in Eatontown, NJ• Manages Opnext’s Oracle EBS 11i system• Provides user support for some 11i modules, Oracle
Alerts and Discoverer 9i Desktop• Member of OAUG and NJOAUG• Began career as an accountant and then CPA
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Who Is Opnext?
• Lasers!– Designer & maker of active fiber optic components
• Spin-off of 2 Hitachi businesses– Headquarters in Eatontown, NJ
– Manufacturing in Yokohama & Komoro, Japan
– U.S. Sales based in Fremont, CA
• Global sales to customers such as Lucent, Alcatel, Cisco, Siemens, Kodak, NEC, and Hitachi
• Running multiorg, single global instance of EBS 11i– 11.5.10.2 (CU2) American English with Japanese NLS
– Financials, OM, Inventory, Purchasing, Cost Mgmt., Discrete MFG & Master Scheduling/MRP
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Examples of Opnext Products
Laser Diode Modules Transmitters Receivers
Transceivers10GbE XENPAK
Modules
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• Oracle Portal– Provides hubs of information from EBS 11i and
other systems– Used by many organizations
• Discoverer– Provides users with queries against EBS 11i data– Used by many organizations
• Discoverer Portlets– Objects within Oracle Portal to cache and display
data directly from Discoverer workbooks– Rarely used?
Introduction
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• Grant Discoverer Desktop access to external customers & sales reps– Allow external parties to run real-time Discoverer
queries on open sales orders and recent shipments
– Arose from frustration: Internal staff was burdened with weekly filtering & exporting of Discoverer data to e-mail to customers
Business Case: Initial User Request
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• Denied the initial request– External users would need a Discoverer client
installation and VPN access to Opnext’s network– Support burden for Opnext’s IT staff– Security concerns about customer access to other
EBS 11i data• Proposed an alternative solution using Oracle Portal
– Originally Portal 9i– Subsequently upgraded to Portal 10gR2 (v 10.1.2.1)
Business Case: IT Dept. Response
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• Public website built from Oracle Portal 9i– No client installation or VPN access required– Unique Portal ID and password for each external
user• Use Discoverer portlets to provide OM data from
Discoverer 9i worksheets• Portlet data would be cached
– User sees data immediately on Portal page– No waiting for the Discoverer query to run– Cached data refreshed hourly or daily– Date/time of cached data displayed on Portal page
Business Case: Proposed Solution
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Internet
Internet Client
[Desktop or Laptop]
Verisign
Certificate Authority (CA)
validation
Secure policy / NAT
translation
FirewallTo Portal
Certificate Authority (CA)
validationSSL-128 bitEncryption
Encryption Key
Encrypted User Access from Internet
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Original Application Server (AS) Architecture
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Portal Login Page
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Portal Page # 1: Open Sales Orders
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• Open sales order lines for the customer (not yet ship confirmed)
• Columns include:– Sales Order # and Line #
– Customer PO #
– Product and Customer Item #
– Quantity and Price
• Queried EBS 11i tables or views include:– ONT.OE_ORDER_HEADERS_ALL
– ONT.OE_ORDER_LINES_ALL
– APPS.MTL_CUSTOMER_ITEM_XREFS_V
Open Sales Orders Worksheet
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Portal Page # 2: Current Month Shipments
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• Fulfilled shipments with ship confirm date in the current month
• Columns include:– Sales Order # and Line #– Customer PO #– Product and Customer Item #– Quantity and Price– Ship Method Code and Waybill– Receivables Invoice # (NULL until AutoInvoice runs)
• Queried EBS 11i tables include:– WSH.WSH_NEW_DELIVERIES– WSH.WSH_DELIVERY_DETAILS– AR.RA_CUSTOMER_TRX_ALL
Current Month Shipments Worksheet
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Portal Page # 3: Prior Month Shipments
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• Prerequisites– Create new Portal ID for external user– Create a new Portal page for the new Portal ID– Assign new page as default for new Portal ID– Create a user-defined connection [explained later]
• Highlight region on new Portal page• Add Discoverer portlet (undefined worksheet)• Select user-defined connection• Select workbook & worksheet from EBS 11i
database’s Discoverer 9i End User Layer (EUL)• Select Discoverer portlet refresh options
Overview of Key Portlet Creation Steps
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Highlight Region on Portal Page
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Add Discoverer Portlet
• Creates an undefined portlet (no worksheet selected)
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Select User-Defined Connection
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Select Worksheet from EBS Database EUL
• Lists all workbooks to which Portal ID has access via the selected user-defined connection
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Edit Portlet Defaults
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Select Portlet Refresh Options
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• Portal offered no way to export the result set table• Browser’s “Save As” functionality was inadequate• Highlighting the table and copying into Excel
produced weird results• Critical enough to kill the project if not resolved
Issue: Export from Portal Page to Excel
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• Discoverer Viewer has Export Data functionality– Can export its result set table to many file
formats, including to Excel XLS format• Each Discoverer portlet has an optional link to
Discoverer Viewer– Link appears in lower left bottom of portlet
Link in Portal 10gR2: Analyze Link in Portal 9i: View Worksheet
– Opens a Viewer page and runs a real-time query of the Discoverer worksheet used by the portlet
Resolution: Discoverer Viewer
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“Analyze” Link on Portal Page . . .
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. . . Opens Viewer & Reruns Sheet Query
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Export Action in Viewer . . .
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. . . Gets the Result Set into Excel
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• Risk # 1: Could the user remove a worksheet’s conditions in Viewer to see records of other customers?– Opnext used worksheet conditions to filter by customer
– No Risk: Viewer users cannot modify or remove worksheet conditions
• Risk # 2: Would the security allow the portal user in Viewer to open other database workbooks?– Portal 9i users who accessed Viewer 9i via the portlet’s View
Worksheet link could open any workbook in Viewer to which their connection had access (not just the worksheet used by the portlet)
– Opnext’s implemented security relationship limited the user to only the workbook used by his/her 3 portlets
Issue: Restricting User Access in Viewer
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PORTAL_USERPORTAL_USER
EBS 11i ID Responsibility Workbook Portal ID
US – Portal for Demo
US – Portal for Demo
US – Portal for Customer1
US – Portal for Customer1
US – Portal for Customer2
US – Portal for Customer2
PORTAL – DEMO PORTAL – DEMO
PORTAL – CUSTOMER1PORTAL –
CUSTOMER1
PORTAL – CUSTOMER2PORTAL –
CUSTOMER2
DEMODEMO
CUSTOMER1CUSTOMER1
CUSTOMER2CUSTOMER2
Assign ResponsibilityAssign Responsibility
Grant Workbook AccessGrant Workbook Access
User-Defined Connection linking Portal ID to ResponsibilityUser-Defined Connection linking Portal ID to Responsibility
Solution: Security Relationships
Key to Solution
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• An EBS user account, PORTAL_USER, created only once – not once per Portal ID
Create One EBS Account for All Portal IDs
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• One unique responsibility for each Portal ID• Responsibility only has access to Preferences menu
Create New EBS 11i Responsibility
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• Assigned to shared EBS user account: PORTAL_USER• Used to grant access to Discoverer workbook
Assign New Responsibility
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• Granted within Discoverer Desktop (EUL in EBS 11i database)
• Restricts other Portal users from viewing workbook through Discoverer Viewer
Grant Workbook Access to Responsibility
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“PORTAL_USER” is the EBS 11i user name (EBS ID)
Create User-Defined Connection
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Create User-Defined Connection (cont.)
“US – Portal for DEMO” is the EBS responsibility
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• On Current Month and Prior Month Shipments portlets, change the FedEx, UPS, or DHL tracking number in the “Waybill #” column to a hyperlink to the shipping carrier’s website
• Not part of initial requirements– Requested during user testing
• Dilemma: How to add a Tracking Link URL column to the cached result set of a Discoverer portlet?
Issue: Shipment Tracking Hyperlink
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• New item “Tracking Link” created in Discoverer Admin and added to Discoverer Desktop workbook
• Content type of new item set to FILE [default = <None>]• Data type set to Varchar• Formula:
– Uses “Ship Method Code” in DECODE to determine external web address
– Concatenates tracking # from “Waybill” column
Resolution: FILE Item Type in Workbook
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FILE Item Type in Discoverer Admin
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DECODE(Ship Method Code, 'UPS','http://wwwapps.ups.com/WebTracking/processInputRequest?HTMLVersion=5.0&sort_by=status&tracknums_displayed=5&TypeOfInquiryNumber=T&InquiryNumber1='||"Waybill"||'&AgreeToTermsAndConditions=yes&track.x=42&track.y=11',
'FEDEX','http://www.fedex.com/Tracking?tracknumbers='||"Waybill"||'',
'DHL','http://track.dhl-usa.com/TrackByNbr.asp?ShipmentNumber='||"Waybill"||'',
NULL)
“Tracking Link” Item Formula
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Desktop Workbook with Tracking Link
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Portlet with Tracking Link
• Click triangle (1st click)
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Portlet with Tracking Link (continued)
• Mouse over URL and click (2nd click)
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Portlet with Tracking Link (continued)
• Tracking website pops up in new browser window
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• FILE item type solution worked well “as is” with Portal 9i portlets and Discoverer 9i (Desktop, Viewer & Plus) . . . and even with Discoverer Desktop 10gR2– 9i Portlets treated Tracking Link values as hyperlinks
• Solution did not work when migrated to Portal 10gR2– Solaris OS Server: Needed to apply Patch 5231969 for
FILE item type hyperlink to work on 10gR2 portlets Begged Oracle for 5 months for the Solaris patch
– Linux OS Server: Patch 5231969 does not work for 10gR2 portlets on a Linux server Waiting for 3 months for a Linux patch from Oracle Oracle bug # 5713987
Solution Worked in 9i But Not in 10gR2
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• Drill Link to Internet URL– New hyperlink functionality added to Discoverer
Viewer & Plus 10gR2– Not added to 10gR2 portlets!
Oracle bug 4969310 To be resolved in Portal version 11.1.1
Alternative Functionality in 10gR2
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• Configuring Application Server 10gR2 For Discoverer Portlets, Mark Rittman [http://www.rittman.net/2005/03/04/configuring-application-server-10gr2-for-discoverer-portlets/]
• Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Administration Guide, Chapter 18, “Using Discoverer with components of Oracle Application Server” [Oracle Discoverer 10g Release 2 doc # B13916-04]
• OracleAS Web Cache 10g (9.0.4) FAQ [Metalink note # 270154.1]
• How To Tune Discoverer 10g (9.0.4) Portlets To Avoid Refresh Problems [Metalink note # 266540.1]
Additional Resources
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• Discoverer Portlets Fail To Refresh With Error 'Could not get a free session‘ In PTM5_CACHE Table [Metalink note # 303231.1]
• Oracle 10g Discoverer (9.0.4) Best Practices for Performance and Scalability Information [Metalink note # 266818.1]
• Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Plus User's Guide – 10g Release 2 (10.1.2.1), Chapter 10, “How to create drill links to Internet URLs” [Oracle Discoverer 10g Release 2 doc # B13915-04]
Additional Resources (continued)