Written by Brian Lewis Monday, May 09 2011
Maintaining Oracle Support is business-critical to your enterprise. Because of this, Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) users are reasonably apprehensive about losing support when making changes to their core EBS configurations such as charts of accounts/accounting flexfields, calendars, or making changes such as merging instances, moving or splitting operating unit/inventory orgs., etc. This article documents our research to determine whether there have been any occurrences of EBS customers who actually lost their Oracle Support and to explore the basis of these concerns.
Research Sources
We queried both Knowledge Browser and Community forums at the Oracle Metalink Support website, reviewed Oracle EBS Users’ guides and other authority cited in responses from Oracle employees, and reviewed two outside Oracle online user community sites. We reviewed posts specific to whether there were support issues caused by changing a core configuration in EBS, accounting flexfields (chart of accounts). Based on our review of approximately 2,300 Knowledge Base (~222) and Community Forum (~2,100) posts, there was no definitive statement from Oracle employees or in cited Oracle publications that ongoing support would be denied to EBS customers due to making changes to accounting flexfields. There were no cited instances or anecdotes of ongoing support being denied to EBS customers due to making changes to accounting flexfields. Our additional review of two other widely-used online Oracle communities, the Oracle ERP User Community and the LinkedIn group Oracle ERP User Network, revealed a total of 17 discussions related to changes to the chart of accounts. In several instances users in the discussions noted concern over violating their Oracle support agreement, but there were no cited instances or anecdotes where a customer lost ongoing support due to making changes to the accounting flexfields.
Basis of Concern Regarding Loss of Oracle Support
Globally, the Oracle responses cited that "Development and Support do not support changes to the accounting flexfield. Changing your flexfield definition once you have used it to acquire data can cause serious inconsistencies with existing data, which could cause data corruption." Cited authoritative guidance included Oracle Applications Flexfields Guide, Release 11i, and the Oracle General Ledger Users’ Guide. Both of these guides noted that accounting flexfields should not be changed because of the risk of "serious inconsistencies with existing data." It is notable that neither cited guide indicates that support would be lost if changes to accounting flexfields were made. The GL Users’ Guide indicated that "limited support" would be available if changes were made to the standard GL workflow, but this is the only reference to limited or denied support.
Consistent with this, the Flexfields Users’ Guide indicates that once a user begins to use flexfields, they "cannot change them easily," which seems to acknowledge that flexfields can be changed, but that "data may require a complex conversion process."
There were no statements from Oracle employees or in cited Oracle publications that support would be (or had ever been) denied to EBS customers due to making changes to accounting flexfields.
This is consistent with the Oracle Support Policy which is analyzed in Analysis of Oracle Software Technical Support Policies: A Legal Review of Oracle's Contract in Relation to Third-Party Software in this issue of TEChanges.
There are documented cases of customers losing Oracle Support. Fact or Fiction? |
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This is fiction. According to the Oracle Support Policy Oracle can not deny support to customers who have paid for Oracle Support and have not changed the Oracle source code. |
There are customers who have run eprentise software and lost their Oracle Support. Fact or Fiction? |
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This is fiction. After hundreds of production runs on everything from simpler, single instance environments to complex multi-instance global implementations our customers have never had an issue related to eprentise software for which Oracle support was required. This is because eprentise is a knowledge-based system that incorporates hundreds of thousands of rules about an EBS environment. eprentise software gathers these rules through a process called Metadata Analysis. The knowledge from Metadata Analysis allows eprentise to perform the functions of copy, merge, filter, and change to any data or data object in the database. The rules serve as selection criteria to allow eprentise to manipulate the data and maintain the relational integrity of the database. |
eprentise has a track record of ZERO errors in any production environment that were a result of using eprentise software. Fact or Fiction? |
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This is a fact. Our customers include some of the largest companies in the world, public and private sector organizations, and very complex environments. All of our customers are excellent references for our software and have told us that theirs was a risk-free project, and that they have had no issues with their Oracle Support agreement, no issues when they upgrade, add new modules, or applied patches to their production environment. |
eprentise software is an unsupported program under the Oracle support agreement. If we use unsupported programs it will invalidate our Oracle support agreement. Fact or Fiction? |
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This is fiction. The term "Unsupported Programs" as used in the Oracle Software Technical Support Policies document refers to unsupported Oracle software programs. The policies indicate that "unsupported programs" are not eligible to receive Oracle "updates, maintenance releases, patches, telephone assistance, or any other technical support services." The only products for which Oracle is in a position to provide those items are Oracle programs, or programs of companies that Oracle has purchased. This policy statement could not be used to justify Oracle in withdrawing purchased support for properly licensed EBS programs as a consequence of using third party software in conjunction with the EBS because it makes no reference to third party software as being part of the category of "Unsupported Programs." |
Running eprentise software alters an Oracle licensed program and invalidates/precludes Oracle technical support. Fact or Fiction? |
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This is fiction. eprentise software does not alter an Oracle licensed program. Oracle does stop providing support if the customer changes the E-Business Suite source code, but eprentise software does not change source code. Oracle will continue to support all standard E-Business modules, even after changing the data using eprentise or FlexField software. Oracle does not support any enhancements or additional functionality provided by third-party software or other consultants. eprentise will support any changes made using eprentise software, and any problems that you might encounter in your E-Business Suite that might have resulted from using eprentise software. Our customers have not had any issues in a production database that were a result of using eprentise software. Oracle continues to provide E-Business Suite support to all eprentise software customers. |
If using eprentise does not violate my support agreement, then I can make changes to the chart of accounts or calendar myself or use consultants to make changes without violating the support agreement. Fact or Fiction? |
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This is a fact. Oracle will continue to support you, however, this is a very risky strategy. Without using eprentise metadata analysis, it is very difficult to know all the places that need to be updated or changed. There is a significant risk that you will miss something that will introduce problems when you upgrade or apply patches, and that you will compromise the data integrity of your EBS environment. Since the earliest releases of Oracle E-Business Suite, users have been told that charts of accounts and instance core configurations cannot be changed. This is because the EBS environment is very complex. Many of the products have been acquired from other sources and integrated into the E-Business Suite and as a result have inconsistent development standards. Over 70% of the rules discovered by eprentise Metadata Analysis do not appear in the Oracle Technical Reference Manuals or are enforced at the database level. Without the powerful metadata analysis engine of eprentise to ensure that 100% of configurations are changed and transactional history is correctly handled, the only viable solution is a reimplementation path. |
There is other software available that does the same things eprentise does. Fact or Fiction? |
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This is fiction. There is not another software solution that does what eprentise software products do. Our unique approach to changing core EGS configurations is not duplicated by or in any other software product(s). Without eprentise software, the only reliable way to change core configurations such as charts of accounts is to reimplement or to manually migrate the data, which is very risky, and a costly and time consuming process. With eprentise there is no need to reimplement to change core configurations. |
Based on our research, there are no documented cases of customers losing Oracle Support due to making changes to accounting flexfields. eprentise software does not alter an Oracle licensed program and does not invalidate or preclude Oracle technical support. After hundreds of successful runs, eprentise has a track record of zero errors in any production environment that were a result of eprentise software. There is no other software available that does the same things that eprentise does.
Our customers love eprentise software for what it is – the most effective, efficient, and low risk way to make changes to EBS core configurations. Fact. See the ways we have helped customers maximize the value of the Oracle EBS in our Case Studies section.
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May Puzzle
David is often referred to as Rainman due to his peculiar ability to effortlessly figure out a certain date's day of the week. He recently displayed this talent when I asked him if there was a conflict with the upcoming Fuzzy Dice Conference and our weekly court-ordered community service. He asked the date of the convention. It was April 20th, 2012.
"Oh, that’s a Friday," he said, effortlessly. "And your sentences have you committed for the next few dozen Wednesdays so you'll be able to go." And of course he was right.
One day a few weeks ago I asked out loud in the office about the date June 5th. And of all people, my brother Tommy piped up and said "Oh, that's a Tuesday."
"That's right," said David.
Well how about Otcober 3rd?
"That's a Wednesday," said Tommy. Then I asked about Christmas Day 2012.
"Oh, that's a Tuesday." David nodded in agreement.
Do we now have two rainmen? Or had Tommy figured something out?
Solution
Here's what was going on. Tommy was using something called anchor dates. And these dates apply to each and every year. April 4th, or 4/4 we’ll call it from now on, June 6th or 6/6, 8/8, 10/10, 12/12, are all the same day of the week, each and every year.
So too are 5/9 and 9/5, May 9th and September 5th. So too are 7/11 and 11/7, and all the above dates are the same day of the week, as is the last day in February, Leap Year or not. And they’re all the same day as January 4th, it would otherwise be January 3rd, but this was a leap year, and that’s changes the anchor day from January 3rd to January 4th.
Tommy also knew that New Year's Day was a Sunday. He was sobered up by then. And he knew it was a Sunday because Christmas was a Sunday in 2011, so New Year's Day is a Sunday, so the Anchor Day for 2012, January 4th, has to be a Wednesday!
So if that's a Wednesday, then 4/4, 6/6, 8/8, 10/10, 12/12, 5/9, 9/5, 7/11, 11/7, and February 29th are all the same day of the week, and they're all Wednesdays. So when I ask for example, about October 3rd, he knew October 10th was a Wednesday, 10/10. So 10/3 must also be a Wednesday. 12/12 is a Wednesday in 2012, so it’s 12/26, which is two weeks later. So 12/25, or Christmas Day, must be a Tuesday.
Success Tips for Oracle Project Management
- Create a standard for documentation at the beginning of your project, and hold team members accountable for completing documentation requirements as well as keeping them at and above the standards required.
- Before promulgating user documentation or training, it’s also a good idea to choose a representative from the among the business users base to review materials first.
- If you are not sure about the resources and budget required, obtain several estimates from people that have experience with the same size and scope of your project.
- Be explicit, before beginning the project, what internal resources are required for execution. This includes people, infrastructure, hardware, and software.
- Help the project champion understand the impact your project will have on the organization and how its successful completion will make him or her an internal hero or heroine for supporting it.
- Break up your project into smaller projects (try for projects that can be completed in 4-6 months, especially early on) to get success and demonstrate momentum.
- Make sure that your testing includes reports, upstream and downstream interfaces, customizations, enhancements, and workflows.
- Ensure that comprehensive transition reports and meetings between departing and incoming personnel are completed.
- Instead of spending time and resources implementing third-party reporting, consider consolidating multiple instances, moving to a global chart of accounts (CoA), and/or standardizing on a consistent calendar.
- Include governance, risk, and compliance management as part of the project plan.
- Finally, celebrate the successes. Too many projects focus on defects, failures, or small cost over-runs without looking at the big picture and what was accomplished.
The Analyst Corner
John Van Decker, Research VP of Gartner, states:
"A single chart of accounts allows consistency in financial reporting across the enterprise by standardizing on common metrics and reporting structures, reduces dependencies on a separate financial consolidation system, and significantly reduces the costs incurred with ongoing, complex conversions and translations."
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