tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57504842024-03-05T08:26:34.385+01:00Implementing Oracle Payroll & others : my daily adventuresPayroll, Oracle Apex, data visualizations.thierryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11767682220351777439noreply@blogger.comBlogger140125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-63565174782129479752022-07-14T16:58:00.003+02:002022-07-14T17:14:31.336+02:00A web browser extension to automate invoice data entryMonthly invoices come in as (text based) pdf files, and the hours worked (quantity) by hourly rate (price per unit) have to be entered manually in a 3th party web application by day.In case such invoice contains hours worked over many days with multiple rates, the manual data entry becomes a very tedious and time consuming job.An option for automation ..Starting point is a pdf file, from which thierryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17707728313129840091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-37147852786534911652018-10-27T12:33:00.002+02:002018-10-27T12:33:51.591+02:00One stone - 2 birds
We are upgrading Oracle Apex behind our hr/payroll popay.net solution, and in the mean time we are looking into minimizing network bandwidth.
The last years we were rolling out many modules within popay.net, like learning, performance management, time management, etc. That focus left us on an older version of Apex. Now time to go to Apex 18..
Our solution uses a few Apex plugins. One is Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-53213531362025374292017-06-05T21:27:00.001+02:002017-06-06T19:29:59.052+02:00net pie - a payslip visualisation
I wanted to spice up the payslip self service part of popay.net, so adding a visual touch could do.
We finally landed on a sunburst, or a pie diagram with two levels, in this case. It shows the earnings, the deductions and finally the remaining net. Employer charges are left out.
This example (image) comes from the Kenyan legislation.
Given that the net, earnings and deductions make up a Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-45439740325920160212017-01-23T23:38:00.004+01:002017-01-23T23:41:11.698+01:00LOV with unicode symbols in Apex
I discovered the unistr sql function, which shows the unicode symbol of an hexadecimal input.
eg> select unistr('\2713 ') tick from dual;
As such I constructed a dynamic (sql) LOV in apex, converting the Y/N codes into a unicode symbol. See the tick symbol query above.
Linking the LOV to a reporting column (text shown as LOV) changed the Y/N values of the column in a nice symbol.
✓ &Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-63647127338241309622016-11-14T12:10:00.000+01:002016-11-14T12:10:06.181+01:00Netsuite integration
We are working on a native plsql integration between popay.net and Netsuite. We need such for some new customers in Kenya and South Africa. The solution will be based on raw SOAP messages, all handled with plsql, including the token based authentication (TBA).
By pure coincidence, Larry opted to acquire Netsuite during the same period.
The documentation is sometimes a little though to get Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-37389294519478397652016-09-12T19:10:00.001+02:002016-09-12T19:10:18.485+02:00issue with security profiles while upgrading
TL;DR: Do not use secured view in the definition of a security profile
During a migration from 11i to R12.2 we noticed that whatever chance in the assignment screen had as side effect that the employee was not visible anymore under secured responsibilities.
So Oracle deleted all records for such employee from the per_person_lists table, but the call to renew them did nothing.
The Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-78941943200919720652016-02-05T21:52:00.003+01:002016-02-05T21:52:46.129+01:00R12.2
A long time I was not really active on eBS, a long time I was not blogging anymore.
I just want to document my R12.2 adventures.
One was that the fast formula text is now stored in a clob column, gone is the long column. Finally. Our Documentool for Payroll supports this little change already for a while.
Value set security. I was not able anymore to enter values for a value set. Reading Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-71754568781774640462014-05-12T15:29:00.002+02:002014-05-12T15:29:43.314+02:00hr visualizations
Having great fun with HR visualizations. 9 boxes for talent management, org charts, workforce comparison charts, .. you name it.
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-32490234095123770082012-06-17T11:33:00.000+02:002012-06-17T11:33:46.252+02:00Pay Value trick
When Pay Value is filled, no fast formula attached to the element type will trigger. Basic stuff.
But I learned recently that when a prorated fast formula is attached to the element type, pro ratio will kick in, and will eventually modify the Pay Value...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-8533214474604317042012-06-17T11:19:00.001+02:002012-06-17T11:19:43.268+02:00Quick RetropayOracle Payroll came with a new feature on top of 12.1.3: Quick Retropay. We had build a similar functionality ourselves before, but it is good to see we have it now out of the box.
Quick Retropay comes as a concurrent program. You specify the assignment and a date where you want the retro entries to be created. The start date is optional. The program is smart enough to find out from where to thierryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11767682220351777439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-63155976395134152562012-01-15T18:05:00.001+01:002012-01-15T18:05:32.834+01:00Making Quickpay fasterFor years we know that quickpay is not the fastest payroll process, and we pointed to the wait time of the concurrent manager.
But we had a closer look, and saw that even an empty Quickpay took always at least 5 seconds, excluding the time doing nothing in a concurrent queue.
A sql trace file was generated at concurrent program level.
OVERALL TOTALS FOR ALL NON-RECURSIVE STATEMENTScall &thierryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11767682220351777439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-43026551462840931892011-09-08T13:51:00.001+02:002011-09-08T13:51:29.614+02:00Some challengesDesigning a payroll system for a few million employees. Mapping cash management reconciliation, costing of payments, continuous calculations and voiding of payments on the core process.thierryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11767682220351777439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-75790342281154984012011-05-18T20:17:00.002+02:002011-05-18T20:23:34.262+02:00eBS 12.2 : summer sleepWe went throught the updated RCD docs today on metalink and very little has been added for HCM. Succession planning got some extra features.For Payroll, they only announced that Enhanced Retropay will be the only supported flavor of Retropay. So when you upgrade to 12.2, and your localisation is not yet on Enhanced Retropay, you have to pay attention.thierryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11767682220351777439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-40575297609423832142011-04-24T10:27:00.003+02:002011-04-24T10:35:43.070+02:00Fusion HCMThe radio silence of Oracle around Fusion is over. Last week a webcast explained the Next Generation of Hr software in the cloud.If the Easter tea leaves are right, Fusion HCM will be available within a few weeks. Fusion Talent management will be Saas-ed by Oracle.thierryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11767682220351777439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-39673661516354399552011-04-22T10:46:00.004+02:002011-04-22T10:59:08.885+02:00mission accomplished : apex on appsYears ago we developed a solution to integrate Apex with Oracle's eBusiness suite.It worked fine on 11i, and we came with a jsp solution for some of our initial R12 customers.We had sometimes the "Apex is not supported by Oracle for the EBusiness Suite" discussion.On the Apex site you can now read the "official" white paper how to integrate Apex on Apps. You should be on a recent 12.1.3, and it thierryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11767682220351777439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-18867576577932185012011-02-18T14:29:00.002+01:002011-02-18T14:42:33.470+01:00Upgrade stories : Web Adi againWe had a nasty web ADI issue on a few of the upgraded instances. It worked before, it works on some other R12 instances, but we are not able to make it working again.It throws all the time "Mail Merge Aborted due to error in creating the Mail Merge Data Source". Nothing in the log files.Escalated the P2, but no reactions from support side. After some background fighting, a senior support analyst thierryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11767682220351777439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-52402410453963140342011-02-18T14:22:00.002+01:002011-02-18T14:28:14.002+01:00Upgrade stories : Apex integrationThe security model in 12.1.3 is a little bit more picky, so we had to add a few more configuration steps to made the secured HR views working again. Without these 2 steps, the secured views returned 0 rows.First, we registered the APEX_PUBLIC_USER in eBS via the regular Forms, and then a little update was needed to make it working. update fnd_oracle_userid a set a.read_only_flag = 'U' where thierryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11767682220351777439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-68404113019569615782011-02-10T08:38:00.002+01:002011-02-10T08:44:53.101+01:00No electricity, but the application is upDakar is having more troubles then normal with electricity. Never thought that the SaaS model would be that useful when the light goes out. And the extra battery in the office dies, and the router goes down. But you still can access the application over your smartphone and finish your payroll run.And hope you can charge your phone's battery some time in the evening ...thierryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11767682220351777439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-54904016427734392712010-12-20T19:33:00.002+01:002010-12-20T19:39:58.556+01:00Payroll 13th monthA monthly payroll has 12 periods, but a customer requested a 13th run, so that all corrections made over 2010 would still be processed in 2010.By using the standard processes a little bit smarter, we achieved the goal.Retropay was launched so that the differences were created in December again.The Payroll ran again for December with an element set, that contained only retro element types. So onlythierryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11767682220351777439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-33832657069297323242010-10-29T13:12:00.002+02:002010-10-29T13:16:27.343+02:00Upgrade stories : BurstingThe parameters of the concurrent "XML Publisher Report Bursting Program" have changed between 11i and R12. Oracle added a new parameter, before the previously defined 2 parameters.The new and hidden parameter is called "Dummy for Data Security", and is defaulted by "select xdo_cp_data_security_pkg.get_concurrent_request_ids from dual".thierryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11767682220351777439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-68110903462859757042010-09-12T09:46:00.002+02:002010-09-12T09:53:32.805+02:00Upgrade stories : Web Adi errorLaunching Web ADI from HR forms throws a http 404 error under Internet Explorer. Firefox shows a more meaningful "Resource /OA_HTML/oracle.apps.bne.webui.BneApplicationService not found on this server".After some digging, it was found that the web html call of seeded and custom Web ADI forms functions had 'oracle.apps.bne.webui.' before 'BneApplicationService'.It looks like the upgrade scripts dothierryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11767682220351777439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-53598818299987491182010-09-12T09:33:00.003+02:002010-09-12T09:45:27.477+02:00Upgrade stories : 12.1.2 or 12.1.3So which version to choose from?12.1.2 is out for a while, so a nice list of fixes exists already. 12.1.3 is new on the block from August 2010 on. Going for this version brings you to the latest and finest verion of the eBusiness Suite. And will fix some previous bugs. And will introduce some new bugs.To make things a little more complicated, Metalink states:"R12.HR_PF.B.Delta.3 (9114911) - thierryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11767682220351777439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-40890660130754086192010-09-12T09:17:00.003+02:002010-09-12T09:32:30.164+02:00Upgrade stories : Extended support for 11.5.10Plan is to blog some articles about ongoing R12 upgrades, within the HCM domain. If you are on 11.5.10 right now :- Premier support ends by November 2010- you are forced into Extended support from December 2010 on- Oracle does not bill extra money for the extended support for the first year- So you pay extra money for Extended support from December 2011 onYou can avoid the extra money, if- you thierryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11767682220351777439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-10109392291840374392010-07-17T10:14:00.002+02:002010-07-17T10:23:55.214+02:00Retropay by EmployeeI'm posting the last time a lot about Apex. While in reality I'm mainly busy with Oracle Payroll.If your legislation uses advanced or enhanced retropay, there is the RetroNotifications process to run, to identify which employees have retrospective changes.And in a next step, you run the RetroPay process. The enhanced version does not have any assignment set parameter anymore. In other words, the thierryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11767682220351777439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5750484.post-20913104224619880702010-06-18T12:37:00.002+02:002010-06-18T12:42:31.468+02:00Apex 4.0Oracle will never confirm this, but I guess Apex 4.0 will see the light before the end of the worldcup.This could be understood in between the lines of what was told at the OBUG Apex SIG day in Belgium yesterday.The feature list looks impressive, and with all demonstrations seen yesterday, I have a way better understanding of the way forward.But I'm still wondering how to use Websheets in an thierryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11767682220351777439noreply@blogger.com