Oracle E-Business Suite Online Patching

Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2 introduces Online Patching, a new feature that greatly reduces the downtime that was needed in previous releases for application of Release Update Packs (RUPs), Critical Patch Updates (CPUs), and other patches and bug fixes of various kinds.

Key Features:

• In Release 12.2, all patching operations are carried out while the applications are in use and users are online.
• Patching is performed using the new adop (AD Online Patching) utility.
• A short period of downtime is required, but this amounts to little more than a restart of the services: the time the applications are unavailable is measured in minutes rather than hours, and this can be specified to be at the most convenient time.

Note: The classic patching model is designed to minimize downtime by running as fast as possible, using whatever resources are needed. In contrast, the online patching model is designed to minimize downtime by allowing patching operations to be performed while users remain on the system.

Principles:

In essence, online patching is performed as follows:

1. A copy is made of the running system.
2. Patches are applied to the copy while users continue to access the running system.
3. Transparently to users, the copy becomes the new running system.
4. What was the original running system (now obsolete) is deleted.

This introduces the concept of a patching cycle that consists of several phases, in contrast to the model used in previous releases. These phases are denoted prepare, apply, finalize, cutover, and cleanup.

Implementation:

Any mechanism that uses a copy of the running application must take into account that an Oracle E-Business Suite application comprises both code and data, stored in the file system and database.

The file system is the easier of the two to cater for, simply requiring an additional copy to be created and maintained. The resulting dual file system consists of one file system that is used by the running system and another one that is either currently being patched, or (as will be the case for most of the time) standing ready to be patched. The two file systems swap roles at the end of each patching cycle, with the transition between them being managed by AutoConfig.

Creating a copy of the database portion of the running applications system is more complex. It has been accomplished by taking advantage of the Oracle Database 11g R2Edition-Based Redefinition (EBR) feature. This allows an application to efficiently store multiple copies (editions) of its application definition in the same database, and thereby enables online upgrade of the database tier.

The database patch edition only comes into existence during a patching cycle, and becomes the new run edition at end of the cycle. The former database run edition (the old edition) and the obsolete objects it contains are discarded at the end of a patching cycle, and the space reclaimed during the cleanup phase.

Tools:

Patching is performed by running the new adop (AD online patching) tool. This tool invokes the adpatch utility that was run directly in previous releases of Oracle E-Business Suite.

Warning: Running adpatch directly is not supported in an online patching environment, except under explicit instruction from Oracle.

The adop tool orchestrates the entire patching cycle, and can be used to run individual phases as required.

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Making Delivery and Billing Region available at all time in iProcurement Shopping Cart

Applicable to Version 12.2.4 and later

In Oracle iProcurement, Release 12.2.4 and later, in the Shopping Cart pop-up window, the user has to manually "expand" the Delivery and Billing region.

However, there are fields in that region which are required to be entered. In this post we will see how to default Delivery and Billing Region as expanded at all time.

Pre-requisite:

Set the following profile options at the required level to enable personalization page link in OAF pages.

Profile Name	Value
FND: Personalization Region Link Enabled	Yes
Personalize Self-Service Defn	Yes
Disable Self-Service Personal	No

Solution:

Create a Catalog / Non-catalog requisition. Go to Shopping Cart by clicking ‘View Cart and Checkout’

We can see Delivery and Billing details is not displayed, each and every time we have to click ‘Show Delivery and Billing’ to enter the details.

Click Personalize Stack Layout: (ShoppingCartStack)

Personalize Region: /oracle/apps/icx/por/req/webui/ShoppingCartPopupRN.ShoppingCartStack page will open

Search for Hide Show: (ReqSummaryHideShow) & Click Personalize button

Personalize Hide Show : (ReqSummaryHideShow) page will appear

Change the value of Disclosed Property to True at Site level

Screenshot of the page before changing:

Screenshot of the page after changing:

Click ‘Apply’

Click ‘Return to Application’

Now we can see that ‘Delivery and Billing’ region is displayed and ‘Hide Delivery and Billing’ link is displayed instead of the Show Delivery and Billing link.

Change the profile option values back to null & Logout.

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Enabling Personalization links in OAF Page

To enable Personalization Page link in OAF Page, we have to set the following profile options at required level (Function, Site, Responsibility and User)

Profile Name	Value
FND: Personalization Region Link Enabled	Yes
Personalize Self-Service Defn	Yes
Disable Self-Service Personal	No

Personalize Self-Service Defn

Set the value to ‘Yes’ to allow ‘Personalize Page’ link to appear at the right top of the OAF page.

FND: Personalization Region Link Enabled

It renders the ‘Personalize Region’ links above each region in a page. Each link takes you first to the Choose Personalization Context page, then to the Hierarchy Personalization page with focus on the region node from which we selected the “Personalize Region” link.

Set the value to ‘Yes’ to display all the personalization links above each OAF page region.

Set the value to ‘Minimal’ to display key regional links.

Disable Self-Service Personal

Set the value to ‘No’ - will enable all OAF personalization links on all pages.

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Double dashes are replaced with – in Email Notifications

When an approver takes action via email (using MS Outlook) and uses a special character (in this case an en dash symbol) the en dash is converted to its html number value (which is –) and that is recorded in the Requisition action history instead of the actual en dash symbol.

Double dashes are replaced with – in Email Notifications

Steps:

The issue can be reproduced at will with the following steps,

1. User submits Requisition for approval

2. Approver responds with response action and in Note field enters text with an en dash special character

Requisition Action History records html number for the en dash instead of the actual en dash symbol

Reason:

Auto formatting feature in MS Outlook is enabled by default and it is replacing some of the character sequences in outlook.
 
This is the original text:
approve via email -- do you see this comment?

This is how it is replaced:
approve via email – do you see this comment?

Solution:

Change the MS Outlook settings to stop replacing the dashes.

Navigation: Outlook → File → Options → Mail

Under compose messages click on 'Editor Options' → 'Auto Correct Options'

Under 'Auto Correct' tab unselect the check box 'Replace text as you type' or you can remove only the rows that replaces '...' to '¿', '--' to `¿` and the quotes which you don't want

Retest the issue.

Note: You can also unselect the check box’s which you don't need that are under each tab of 'AutoFormat As You Type', 'Auto Format' and 'Auto Correct' etc

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