So you’re going to patch from 12.0.6 to 12.1.1?  It’s basically like any other major upgrade with Oracle’s e-Business Suite; tons of pieces to upgrade, patch, validate, and a high potential for running into problems.  The documentation for all the “gotchas” is all over the place, but Metalink document 752619.1 is the best place to start and has all the major steps listed.  In general, the following is required:

• Confirm database version
• Upgrade 10.1.3 home to 10.1.3.4
• Upgrade 10.1.2 home to 10.1.2.3
• Apply necessary pre-req patches
• Apply maintenance pack (7303030)
• Apply post-maintenance pack patches
• Do all the post-upgrade steps

Below are some of the lessons learned in an environment in which we patched 12.0.6 to 12.1.1 and along the way, upgraded the 10.2.0.4 database to 11.1.0.7.

Oracle XDB core-dumps (look for ORA-31114)

• Follow Metalink document 760611.1
• We’re not sure exactly why this happened, but something in the XDB upgrade from 10.2.0.4 to 11.1.0.7 failed

AZ tables/objects invalid and workers fail on 7303030 (azR12active.sql)

• Result of XDB core-dump issue above
• Follow Metalink document 832459.1

Worker fails on EGOSILDU.sql

• Per Metalink document 847687.1, this is a bug patched with 8485942.  This patch, 8485942, isn’t available as of 10/10/2009
• Per the recommendation in 847687.1, skipped worked and continued

Relink fails on RAXTRX

• Choose to continue.  This is due to bug
• Look in 841113.1 for patches.  These are the ones I found that fixed this, plus some other issues found during testing …

8239041

7721420
7660309
7673650
8393427
8414254
8414069

Failures during 7303030 compiling multiple forms and libraries

• Choose to continue.  Manually recompile using adadmin after the patch, and if things still fail look for patches

Issues applying 10.1.3.4 IAS_ORACLE_HOME patch (7272722)

• Receive failures trying to start OPMN while at 83% complete on initial screen
• Environment was cloned and adcfgclone’d successfully from a 12.0.6 instance
• adcfgclone.pl will update all the right stuff in $ORA_CONFIG_HOME correctly, but several files in $IAS_ORACLE_HOME will not be updated with the correct environment-specific values
• Change hard-coded paths in the following:

$IAS_ORACLE_HOME/inventory/Clone/clone.xml
$IAS_ORACLE_HOME/config/ias.properties
$IAS_ORACLE_HOME/opmn/bin/opmnctl
$IAS_ORACLE_HOME/Apache/Apache/bin/iasobf

• Make sure you can run $IAS_ORACLE_HOME/opmn/bin/opmnctl startall|stopall|status
• Resume 7272722

Failures with 7303030 doing FndXdfCmp

• I’m pretty sure this was a site-specific issue related to not cloning cleanly
• If the adworkxxx.log file looks like this …

java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor1.invoke(Unknown Source)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
at oracle.apps.ad.worker.AdJavaWorker.invokeUtility(AdJavaWorker.java:501)
at oracle.apps.ad.worker.AdJavaWorker.main(AdJavaWorker.java:356)
Caused by: java.lang.NoSuchFieldError: mTypeData
at oracle.apps.fnd.odf2.FndInitType.doCmpType(FndInitType.java:156)
at oracle.apps.fnd.odf2.FndXdfCmp.doOdfCmp(FndXdfCmp.java:98)
at oracle.apps.fnd.odf2.FndXdfCmp.applyXDF(FndXdfCmp.java:186)

• … hopefully you’ve got an existing 12.1.1 instance to refer to
• Look in $JAVA_TOP/oracle/apps/odf2 for class files containing mTypeData.  You should see 3 class files
• Restore anything missing from a clean instance
• Generate all JAR Files
• Kill patch
• Resume

Patch takes a very long time on adobjcmp.sql (11.1.0.7)

• This will take a long time, it’s compiling all  invalid objects and there will be 50,000+
• Look for lots of time on “resmgr:cpu quantum” wait event
• Do “alter system set resouce_manager_plan=””
• Bounce the database when everything is done

Are you trying to use RapidWiz to Upgrade to 12.1.1 from 12.0.6?

• Don’t.  This is for an 11.5.x upgrade

More to come as I find them, I’m sure …

IFRS…Global Accounting Standards are changing

IFRS -  International Financial Reporting Standards is a series of accounting standards, developed by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), that is becoming the global standard for the preparation of public company financial statements.

IFRS focuses on the standardization of financial reporting standards across international borders. This standardized reporting practice provides a uniform view of a corporations accounting statements. Companies with international subsidiaries can use consistent cross-company financial reporting.

More than 12,000 companies in approximately 113 nations have adopted IFRS, including listed companies in the European Union.  Other countries, including Canada and India, are expected to transition to IFRS by 2011.  Mexico plans to adopt IFRS for all listed companies starting in 2012.  Other countries, such as Japan and Mexico, have plans to converge (eliminate significant differences) their national standards to meet IFRS.

Over the years Enterprise applications such as Oracle eBusiness, Peoplesoft, and SAP, have evolved to embed more and more, of the local accounting standards and regulations. Embedding functionality to support GAPP, SOX, etc.

Whilst these applications are exceptional an keeping up with the continually changing landscape of Financial/Accounting regulations, conforming to IFRS has may people befuddled.

IFRS represents a series of guidelines, unlike GAAP, which provides exceptional detail in accounting practices. GAAP consists of volumes of detailed instructions, whilst OIFRS can be consolidated down to the size of a paperback novel.

As these guidelines are incorporated and consolidated into the current GAAP construct, companies face what seems like an impossible task on once again changing their accounting practices to ensure compliance.

Oracle eBusiness Release 12 introduces the concept of Sub Ledger Accounting (SLA). Sub Ledger Accounting provides a interim step to translate, and derive accounting logic, prior to recording GL Entries. Whilst SLA continues to be a buzz word, in the Oracle community, it’s regarded with both awe, and disdain. However, SLA proves to provide the most expedient  roadmap for corporations to start converting to IFRS.

SLA introduces a very powerful feature called Multiple Representation : A Single accounting entry can be represented for multiple reporting requirement. Organizations are able to have a primary ledger to represent primary accounting requirements such as GAAP. Accounting representations can be created to represent additional/secondary reporting requirement such as IFRS. Each secondary ledger can have a different subledger accounting method.

As IFRS becomes more widely adopted, expect to see greater adoption of SLA as a path to achieving global accounting compliance.

Oracle eBusiness Release 12 introduces the concept of Subledger Accounting (SLA). Subledger Accounting provides an interim step to translate, and derive accounting logic, prior to recording GL entries. SLA is designed to provide an extremely flexible solution to facilitate the accounting needs of a corporation. Whilst SLA continues to be a buzz word, in the Oracle community, it’s regarded with both awe, and disdain.

In the old days, Oracle provided Auto-Accounting, and Account Generator as the options available for deriving accounts. Both were somewhat limited. Any accounting logic outside of a set of predefined rules required customization. Splitting a single accounting entry into multiple accounts required major customizations.

The transition from the individual sub-ledgers to the General Ledger was a single step process. Accounting entries were derived/recorded in the sub ledger, once the entries where completed, they were posted to the General Ledger.

The major concepts within SLA are :

• Rule Based Accounting Engine : With the introduction of SLA, an additional layer has been created. Accounting entries were derived/recorded in the sub ledger, once the entries where completed, they are posted to SLA. During the posting to SLA, the SLA engine derives the accounting entries based on the rules established within SLA. The SLA engine has the ability to derive each segment of the chart of account from any defined location with the Enterprise. The rules can be defined based on pre-populated data, or customized using PL*SQL hooks to the database.
• Multiple Representation : A Single accounting entry can be represented for multiple reporting requirement. Organizations are able to have a primary ledger to represent primary accounting requirements such as GAAP. Accounting representations can be created to represent additional/secondary reporting requirement such as IFRS. Each secondary ledger can have a different subledger accounting method.
• Straight Through accounting processing : Subledger Journal entries can be posted to the GL directly form the transactions screen

SLA whilst on the surface seems to be the holy grail for managing accounting processes, it does hold some drawbacks:

• Visibility of Accounts : Accounting entries generated via the rules engine are only visible in the SLA. The data in the sub ledgers (INV, RA, AP etc.) may not represent the same set of accounts as within SLA
• Debugging : Due to the flexibility of the rules engine, debugging accounting derivations can be a complex and involved process. The rules engine provides both configuration, and SQL based derivation rules. Requiring a combination of functional, and technical knowledge to debug issues.
• Adoption : Industry knowledge of SLA is still very limited, outside of the marketing and sales material. Educational, and professional services knowledge of SLA is sparse, making deployment of SLA a risk for many organizations.

As knowledge of SLA expands, and the continuing changes in accounting practices force more and more corporations to abide by Nations, and International accounting practice, SLA will prove a valuable asset. Oracle is well poised with SLA to meet the future reporting needs.