Apex 4.0

Oracle 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 eBusiness suite context.

And by the way: how to integrate Apex with a version control system is still an open question for me.

Apex on R12 - patch 7377023

This patch brings back the good old SSWA plsql menu functions on R12. And in more recent versions of R12, they are part of the base install.

That does not mean that the eBS team supports mod_plsql. No. But it gives more possibilities to integrate Apex on Apps.

Again:
- Oracle supports Apex
- Oracle supports mod plsql
- Oracle does not support customizations
- Oracle eBS does not support customizations
- Oracle eBS does not support mod plsql anymore
- Oracle eBS does not support Apex applications

So bottomline: Apex on Apps in R12 is supported within Oracle, but not by the eBS team.

The readme of the patch says :

Mod_plsql technology is supported by Oracle Server Technologies Support teams.
Oracle E-Business Suite Support and Development is unable to provide
instructions or diagnostic assistance on any issues that arise from custom
development using mod_plsql.

Fusion on the iPad?

Too many posts these days about the iPad, so one more will not make the difference.

The last (and only) demo I saw from Fusion looked a lot like Flash. But there is not a lot of love lost between Apple and Flash. Meaning that Oracle has still to release their next gen platform, but will not be able to use the next gen client device.

Apex 4.0 Release date

Patrick Wolf shows again a good reason why we should look forward for the 4.0 release of Apex. Cascading LOVs for dummies.

But one little phrase makes me think that the 4.0 production release is not yet for tomorrow. "(Note: Popup LOV and List Manager will be added as well in the final product)". So not yet code complete ...

Busy busy busy

3 customers are live this month with payroll in the Netherlands. So i hope you understand that there was not that much time to maintain this blog.

So 14000 people more receive an Oracle payslip this month.

The errors we correct next month with Retropay.

NL Daily tax tables

Two NL Payroll customers ask in the same week if one can activate the NL daily taxation tables. Coincidence.

While i answered the first time NO, except when an employee is hired or fired in the middle of the month, the second time i dived a little deeper in the seeded fast formulas and plsql functions, to discover a hidden fast formula to configure.

Define the fast formula NL_OVERRIDE_SOCIAL_INSURANCE_DAYS with the business logic required, and you have full control over the proration (daily tax) happening.

Apps - Apex on R12

We just got the Apps-Apex integration working on R12.

Yes you need a separate Apache server, but the rest is almost the same. Nothing has to be changed within the Apex application, you still set the VPD call to initialize the apps session.

Only the menu function to launch Apex from is changed from a plsql based one, into a jsp menu function. So yes, an extra jsp page needs to be compiled on the Apps j2ee server.

Exit 2.0 & SOA

The cloud is now the buzzword. SOA and Web 2.0 are losing popularity.

I tried also to translate Web 2.0 concepts into HR processes, but no luck. It looked good on the powerpoint, but not on the workfloor.

Oracle Fusion development started within the SOA and 2.0 hype period. Curious how marketing will convert that into the buzzword popular at the time Fusion will pop up.

Good things is that marketing has still a few months to come up with a twist.

One more customer on R12

One of our HR customers in the Netherlands upgraded to R12 last weekend. It was mainly a technical DBA exercise. Operating system became linux, the database became a full 10 and the upgrade scripts pumped the eBusiness Suite up to the 12.0.6 level.

Release 12.1: Oracle Payroll for India

I never saw a functional business driver to migrate towards the 12 Release. R12.1 should overcome that. I hope. I hoped. For payroll, only some stuff for our India colleagues is present.

For some more details in the other HR modules, check the RCD doc.

back to basics

We wanted to extend the Dutch localization so that the mandatory assignment extra info fields where defaulted automatically when entering a new employee.

First step was to cook up some plsql, based on api's, that creates the assignment extra infos. Easy.

Now we only need to fire that code when they create a new employee.

So a user hook would be nice, but since the assignment screen is still not using an api, that was not an option.

Ok, so let's go dynamic triggers, which in this case corresponds to a real database trigger.

Oops, mutating table errors. Oops, cannot perform rollback/commit in a trigger (hidden in the api calls).

Ok, so let's transform the original piece of plsql into an autonomous transaction.

Oops, no data found. Sure, since it operates as a separate transaction, it does not yet sees the assignment that fired the trigger.

Finally we changed the dynamic trigger into an Update trigger, and pieces felt together.

Apps doesn't like the Apex datepicker

The default DatePicker of Apex was throwing a security error when we were testing our Apex application. We had to pass a user/password for a call on the wwv_flow_utilities package.

Just registering that package as secure plsql as System Administrator in Apps solved the issue (table: fnd_enabled_plsql).

But when we changed the month in the DatePicker, the same error popped up again.

Seems Apex adds the schema name to the package call, and as such the secured plsql scan can not handle the call.

So we were forced to go for a custom DatePicker.

A pity we can not wait for Apex 4.0 were jQuery will be included by default. Demostuff.

Use the Organization on the User's Assignment(s) as the Top Oganization

We ran in a small HR security issue, where it seems that future hires are not visible for a manager, when using a security profile that lists all employees in and under the manager's organization.

When digging into the Oracle code, we understood why.

Please enjoy the comments and the trunc( sysdate) piece of magic, found in the hr_security_internal package.

FUNCTION get_effective_date RETURN DATE
IS
BEGIN
--
-- Default the effective date to sysdate. This could potentially
-- be used in the future to set the effective date to the
-- date-track effective date, but as it stands now, security
-- is also determined as of sysdate.
--

RETURN trunc(sysdate);

END get_effective_date;

Apex on Apps

The Apex statement of direction mentions for the 4.0 version a j2ee Apex listener, as an alternative for mod/plsql, and additional Authentication schemes.

Knowing that R12 doesn't support anymore mod plsql, i read in the tea leaves that the 4.0 release will add an Apps EBS Authentication scheme connecting via the new listener.

In the mean time, some more posts will follow that describe how we integrated Apex with Oracle's eBusiness suite.

Documentool for Forms personalizations

Tired of creating your setup documentation by copy/paste? Or via print screens? Me too. 

So we added a new module to the Documentool family. Payroll, Hr, Flexfields and Alerts welcome Forms Personalisations. 

Documentool for Forms Personalisations is now in beta, and you can participate in the beta program by simply sending a mail request to documentool@popay.be.

Some people asked also for a solution to generate documentation for Framework Personalizations. Thanks for the suggestion.

Lasagna with french fries, welcome in the Netherlands

Oracle NL invited me to conduct a 2 days Fast Formula training, so far so good.

Found a nice family run hotel nearby, so far so good.

Went to a restaurant nearby, by far no good. Ordered tuna, got Lasagna. With French Fries. Skipped the menu dessert, had to pay the whole bill.

It's really not the first time I'm in the Netherlands, but this was an Olympic top, by far.

Documentool - JavaScript - Chrome

The html output of Documentool renders a tree via Java Script. A little slow sometimes for huge trees, really slow on Internet Explorer 6.

So i was curious to see how Chrome would do, and was simply blown away. The new JS implementation does make a difference. And this is only a start, knowing that Firefox and Safari also have new stuff on their way. Microsoft has to follow. Browser War 2.0.

But why i see on the workfloor only IE6?

One click slip, part II

The payslip solution we developed over here is a concurrent program based on BI Publisher. So adding an optional PROFORMA watermark in the rtf template was not that hard with the latest Word in place. Also, we show the Pay Advice Message from the Quickpay form on the One Click Slip.

Data security in the streets of Dakar

I spent 2 weeks in Senegal. One week of holidays in the South, Casamance, and one week work on an internal Popay project.

We ordered a take away sandwich, and great was my surprise that the sandwich was wrapped within printed paper. My first reflex was about health.

Then i had a closer look into the paper, and i saw a listing, dating from September 2002.

An old style print, listing bank account numbers, employee names, employee numbers, net amount.

Doudou Sonko, 114816 cfa net à payer, based in Ziguinchor. The relaxed, quiet town we were one week ago. How twisted can a souvenir be for a payroll consultant.

Why Apex is there to stay

Some people asked me recently how sure it is Oracle will continue support and developement of Apex. Never say never, but the fact that it comes pre-installed with XE and the 11g database tells already something.

But the most striking fact for me is that Oracle development uses Apex themselves as part of their database solutions. Oracle Vault, the build-in auditing tool, uses Apex as reporting layer. Just have a look into the online documentation. Interactive reports, someone?