Oracle Support Accreditation – Level 1 Study Guide

Copyright © 2016, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. |
Oracle Support Accreditation – Level 1
Study Guide
Support Accreditation for Oracle Customers and Partners.

A word from the program team
Thank you for deciding to include Oracle Support Accreditation as part of
your learning experience.
The content in this accreditation is fast-paced and targeted to experienced
users actively using My Oracle Support core functions on a regular basis.
Make sure the content and level of information is right for your current
level of experience. If any topic is new to you, take time to study it in more
detail before continuing.
Accreditation is self-paced. You can begin your accreditation at any time.
3
Welcome to Oracle Support Accreditation

The Accreditation Process
Be sure you have
good foundational
knowledge of My
Oracle Support
core functions.
Use this Study Guide
along with the
learning content to
prepare for your
exam.
We recommend you
preview the series
modules and study guide
before you begin this
accreditation.
This guide provides links
and information to help
you get the most from
your learning experience,
so refer to it throughout
your accreditation.
Use the Comment/Sticky
Note feature in the study
guide to note your
comments and questions.
Make the program work
for you by pausing or
replaying any video or
testing actions in My
Oracle Support.

Get Help and Provide Feedback
• Get Help
– If you have questions during your accreditation, please click Contact Us from the
Oracle Support Accreditation Level 1 page, Doc 1579751.1. The program team
will answer your questions and provide recommendations.
– How to use My Oracle Support How-To Video Series – Doc 603505.1
• Providing Feedback
– Use the Rate this Module link next to each video to provide feedback on that
video. Be specific about what you liked and what you would like to see improved.
– Use the Contact Us link to provide general feedback to the program team.
– If you get accredited, post updates to the Oracle Support Accreditation
Community with examples of how you are changing your business with
accreditation best practices. Tip: see the post-accreditation roadmap at the end
of the study guide.
• The Exam
– Please do NOT post specific questions and answers in community.
– Questions about specific exam questions should be forwarded to the program
team.
5

Accreditation Results
Service
Requests
Tools
Insights
Best
Practices
Toolkit
Enhance your expertise with proactive tools for
Oracle products.
Leverage insights about capabilities you already use –
and take your experience to the next level.
Adopt recommended best practices from the use
cases for faster results.
Build your personalized toolkit of key documents,
resources, and tools – customized to your role.
Create fully qualified Service Requests to help you work
with Oracle Support more effectively.

Module Checklist
• We recommend completing the modules in order.
• As you navigate through the series, check off modules you have
completed. If you need to take a break, you can easily resume your
accreditation.
Module Completed
01 Introduction to Accreditation Program
02 Customer User Administrator and Support Identifiers
03 Introduction to My Oracle Support Dashboard
04 Knowledge Searching and PowerView
05 Product Certifications
06 Patches and Updates
07 My Oracle Support Community
08 Best Practices for Hardware and Software Support
09 Creating and Managing Service Requests
10 Mobile My Oracle Support
11 Technical and Lifetime Support Policies
12 Recap and Summary
Track your progress

Build Your Toolkit
• A key Best Practice in Oracle Support Accreditation is building and maintaining a personalized toolkit of key resources.
• This is an easy way to keep track of content of interest (and locate it again when needed).
• Start by making knowledge documents a Favorite by clicking the gold star.
• From My Oracle Support, click on the Favorites folder in the top navigation (Gold Star) and select Manage Favorites.
• Click ‘New Folder’ to create a personalized folder such as My Oracle Support or create a series of product-specific
folders for topics like troubleshooting and patching.
• Click the arrow to the left of My Folders to expand it and see your new folder.
• Locate your newly marked documents and move them to your folder.
8
Best Practice:
Also create a browser folder for your
products to find that content quickly as part
of your extended toolkit.

Set Up Hot Topics Emails
• Another recommended best practice is to set up Hot Topics E-mail notifications. This functionality works with the documents you marked as Favorites in your toolkit. From My
Oracle Support, navigate to My Account from Settings or from your user name. Select ‘Hot Topics E-Mail’ from the left navigation. Fill out the options based on how you want
to be updated.
9
“Add products of interest and select options like
Knowledge Articles, Alerts, and Bugs. Apply your
changes and update at any time.”

Copyright © 2016, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | 10
Technical User
Our technical user has SR Create and Update privilege in My Oracle Support and access
to Patch downloads.
User Profiles for Our Examples
Functional User
Our functional user has general access to My Oracle Support, which includes the
knowledge base and My Oracle Support Community. This user searches the portal for
knowledge content to research and resolve issues or questions.
Our examples are demonstrated with standard functional and technical
user types. Depending on your organization, your role could be either
user type (or a hybrid of these functions).

Path Objectives
• Build your personal support toolkit of My Oracle Support capabilities
• Implement high-value best practices to manage ‘information overload.’
• Fully leverage Oracle tools and spend more time on your primary business role with easy-to-implement suggestions.
• Address common questions with product use cases from subject-matter experts.
This content is intended for both
functional and technical users who
regularly use My Oracle Support and
want to be proactive with Oracle
support tools and products.
The modules will refresh your
knowledge and proficiency with
resources and tools available to
help you get started and then
stay up-to-date with Oracle
support tools.
Nothing our users demonstrate should
be new to you, as they are recapping
common activities you need to know to
pass the accreditation exam.
If any topic being demonstrated is new,
review any additional knowledge
documents highlighted as important.
11

Get Proactive Portfolio
• Throughout the Oracle Retail Accreditation Series,
our users will highlight many Retail support
resources.
• We will often cite the Retail Get Proactive catalog as
the source for resource links our Oracle Retail team
recommends.
• The Get Proactive catalog is a dynamic resource
that is updated over time by the Oracle Retail team
to highlight various high-value resources.
• There may be occasions when a specific resource in
a user example is not highlighted in the catalog.
• The highlighted resources are available and can be
located by searching.
Finding Resources – Best Practices
• Search terms – use natural language searches with
full search terms, not single words.
• Use a product filter. Create a PowerView (PV) for your
primary products and leave it on. Or, create a PV at
the product-family level.
• Add double quotes around only "important terms"
that MUST be returned in the search.
• Check additional ‘sources’ like Documentation or Bug
to expand your search.
• Use "inline" product refinement (within your search
result lists) to quickly broaden or narrow down your
search results.
Resource Examples and Searching
“I can easily find content in My Oracle
Support by using a search phrase most
applicable to the content I need.”
Become a searching expert to ensure you
find relevant content.
12

Oracle Support L1 Accreditation Modules
13

Accreditation is a self-paced learning program.
You pick the time that works for your schedule to complete the content
and take the exam. We suggest setting aside 3-4 hours (minimum) for the
accreditation. Your individual time will vary.
Use the Study Guide content as a companion resource to the video
content.
The majority of learning content is provided in video format. Each video is
short (approx. 6-15 min) and opens in the page.
Tip: There are no questions from Module 1 on the exam; it’s just
foundational information for you as you go through your accreditation
experience.
14
1.0 – Introduction to Level 1 Accreditation

Use the control bar on the bottom of the video frame to pause, play, make the video
full screen, or adjust the volume. Or, click and drag the cursor on the control bar to go
back a few seconds. If you mouse-over the video, the video name appears on top of the
header bar (along with an information button). If you click the information icon, details
about the video appear. Click the video image to return to the video view.
When you take the exam, you receive immediate notification about your accreditation
status in the exam interface. The accreditation exam is 60 questions (multiple choice,
T/F) and requires a score of 80% to become an Oracle Support Accredited User.
1.1 – Introduction to Accreditation

1.2 – Manage Your Accreditation Experience
A few suggestions to help you have a great experience:
• Study Guide – Download the Study Guide and use it along with each video to prepare for your exam. You can use the Sticky Note feature to add comments or questions for
follow-up.
• Closed Captions – Make use of Closed Captions in the video console to display the script onscreen if prefer to read the narration. Use the options to adjust your display.
• How To Series – Leverage the My Oracle Support How-To Video series for any new topics. These short videos provide step-by-step demonstrations of basic functionality.
You can watch any of the videos at any time, and then return back to this accreditation. Be sure to make this document a favorite for your toolkit.
• Try It Yourself – Try it yourself to reinforce your understanding. Click the Pause button on your video and try the suggested action.
• Get Help – Finally, use the Contact Us link on your accreditation home page to engage the program team. We are here to help, so please let us know if you need anything.
“You can influence the Accreditation program by posting
ideas into the Accreditation community or contacting us
directly. Based on input from our users, content
improvements are prioritized. Do more than take
accreditation … become part of our team.”

You need a minimum of 2-3 hours to complete the learning content and
the exam. Your actual time will vary.
When ready, select Take the Exam on the final module page.
Your exam includes questions from each module presented in random
order, and a passing score of 80% is needed to become a My Oracle
Support Accredited User.
When you pass your exam, use the Certificate link on the accreditation
home page to print your completion certificate.
1.3 – Completing Your Accreditation

We will cover recommended best practices for both users with the
Customer User Administration (CUA) role and non-CUA users.
What you should know for your exam:
• The scope of the Customer User Administrator role
• Number of CUAs recommended for your business
• How to Locate your Support Identifier (SI)
• Receiving full Service Requests updates via email
• Support Identifier Groups
18
2.0 – Customer User Administration and SI
Bonus Content – Establishing the first CUA
Obtaining the SI and establishing the first CUA: the process starts
when your organization purchases products from Oracle and the SI is
assigned. The technical contact is sent an email-based welcome pack
with the new SI. The contact signs into My Oracle Support and
requests access to the SI. Oracle validates the request and approves
the first CUA for the SI.
It is now the CUA’s responsibility to manage access for other users
and set up SI-related features. Alternatively, the first person to
register for an SI can become the CUA.

2.1 – Core Concepts • WHERE your access and assets are
managed.
• Your CUA will leverage My Oracle Support
and Mobile My Oracle Support portals to
manage access for your users.
• WHO is managing your
access and assets.
• Your administrator for roles
and privileges within My
Oracle Support. Your
contact for new access or
updates to existing access
if your role changes.
• WHAT is being managed.
• Your SI (numeric value
associated with your products
and services), your portal
access, plus HW for some
users.
CUA
Support
Identifier
My
Oracle
Support

2.2 – Customer User Administrator & SI
• My Oracle Support – is Oracle’s online support portal. A personalized, one-stop shop for knowledge, solutions, community,
proactive tools, and service requests. Leveraged by both functional and technical users to meet the objectives of the role.
• Support Identifiers – A Support Identifier or SI is a numeric value assigned to orders when you purchase Hardware and all
software. SIs can be hardware only, software only, or a combination of hardware and software. Partners also have Support
Identifiers – OPN software Support Identifier, Support Partner SP software SI, or SP hardware SI.
• Under My Account, view products associated to your Support Identifiers and the type of access you have associated to that
Support Identifier. If you need any assistance to locate your SI, log a non-technical Service Request in My Oracle Support,
located under Contact Us. Or, for partners, access the Oracle Partner Business Center and log a non-technical Service
Request.
• Your Customer User Administrator (CUA) performs an administration role that includes managing user access and support
identifier features.
• Best Practice: Establish a minimum of two CUAs per support identifier. Why is this important? Managing user access requests
in an ongoing function of the CUA. Having multiple CUAs in place ensures that users like yourself have adequate coverage and
back-up coverage if any CUA is unavailable.
Support Identifiers are assigned per
Oracle Purchase Order.
Oracle customers asked for the ability
to manage assets in a way that closely
aligned to how they manage their
organization and administrators.
Oracle created Support Identifier
Groups. These allow you to group
assets and products from different
Support Identifiers into virtual groups
called containers.
Customer purchases
products from
Oracle and a
support identifier is
assigned.
Technical contact is
sent an email
welcome pack with
the new support
identifier.
Technical contact
signs into My Oracle
Support and
requests access to
the Support
Identifier.
Oracle validates the
request and
approves the first
CUA for the Support
Identifier.
The CUA is now
responsibility to
manage access for
all other users and
set up SI-related
features.
“The process to obtain
the support identifier and
establish the first CUA.”

2.3 – Best Practices for CUA
• Best Practice: have a minimum of two CUAs per support identifier. This gives your organization adequate coverage
for access requests, especially if your CUA is unable to respond to a request. If you are the only CUA for a support
identifier, talk to your manager about expanding the coverage with at least one back-up.
• Best Practice: understand your organizational strategy for user access. What do you need to know before granting
access for SR Create and Update? Your organization can guide you on how to effectively manage the number of
users who are logging service requests.
• Best Practice: plan time in your schedule to manage access notifications. Maybe you spend 15 minutes early in
the morning to process all pending requests. Make it work for your typical workday, number of requests, and how
you like to work.
• Best Practice: Take advantage of both My Oracle Support and Mobile My Oracle Support to easily review and
respond to user requests.
• Best Practice: Keep your access model current. On a quarterly basis, review users with access to each CUA and
add or remove access as required. Export a list of all users associated with the SIs you manage and implement any
desired changes.
• Best Practice: Enable full text in the email notification to improve the productivity of your users. Check with your
organization to confirm if this aligns with corporate direction. ONSCREEN – This functionality is available for most
Oracle products.
• Best Practice: If you manage many SIs and have users who need access to the SIs you manage, add the other SIs
they will be using once you approve the first SI.
• Best Practice: Add more detail to the SI Name and Account. Access the SI and update the Name and Description
fields. Your users can now see the more detailed Name (SI) and Description (Account) and this improves which SIs
are selected when users create SRs.
How the CUA sets up Support Identifier Groups
• Request and receive access to set up support
identifier groups.
• Group assets to mirror how the admin staff
are grouped; select Support Identifier and
Create New to view container creation page.
• Enter name and description for the container
and validates the access defaults. Tip: if this
container is for Admins, they should have SR
Create and Update, patch download, and
Asset View.
• Select Create and the container is created.
• Add users and Assets and software to it.
• Add users who are already approved to a
support identifier you manage.
• Select users, locate them, and add them. It is
the same process for adding software and
hardware.
• That’s it, you are done.

2.4 – Best Practices for CUA
• Best Practice: Use SI Groups to organize your users, assets, and SIs into groups that mirror how your organization
works. Setting up Support Identifier Groups (or SIGs) allows you to group users to only see the assets and
products of interest.
• Best Practice: Set up auto approval for functional user access to knowledge base and community. This saves you
review time and allows the user to immediately begin searching for solutions.
• Best Practice: If you have hardware, associate the Hardware settings to the HW users who need to manage the
assets and Auto Service Requests.
Action Plan;
• So, if you are the CUA, think about
implementing at least a few of these
suggested best practices in your business.
• You have an opportunity to ensure easy and
fast access for your users and a great
experience for yourself.

2.5 – Best Practices for the non-CUA
• Best Practice: Get help from your CUA via My Account – Your CUA is your primary contact for access requests and
SI needs. This best practice includes knowing how to look up and email your Administrators in My Account and
use the general functions related to SIs, hardware, and access. In most cases, your CUA will address your question
or need.
• Best Practice: Provide justification for your access request to let the CUA know about your access needs. A
detailed business justification for SR Create and Update and patch downloads is a key best practice. Include your
role, team, project, and any manager approvals. Why is this important? Your CUA could refuse your request
without a full understanding of the business need and that could delay your work. ONSCREEN – I am part of the
upgrade team for this product area and will need to log service requests to support the XYZ project that kicks off
at the beginning of the month. If you need confirmation, please contact Greg Jones.
• It’s a similar process if you need access to a new Support Identifier. Select Request Access and enter your SI. If you
have a serial number, select Find a Support Identifier and enter your serial number. ONSCREEN – Again, be sure
to include the business justification.
• Best Practice: Enable SR Details – this option is available when the CUA enables this feature on the SI. This
enables you to receive email updates with the body of the update in the email for most product lines.
• Best Practice: If you need assistance to locate your SI, log a non-technical Service Request, located under Contact
Us in My Oracle Support. Or, for partners, access the Oracle Partner Business Center and log a non-technical
Service Request.
• Best Practice: Think about the future – If you know that your role is changing, make sure your access levels and
support identifiers are in alignment. Let’s say you just joined a new project team for a different product. Although
you log service requests, this is a new team and they use a different SI from your current team. Find out which SI
they use for service requests and submit a request to add that SI. Remember to include a business justification
that explains why this specific SI is required.
Action Plan;
• So, if you are the CUA, think about
implementing at least a few of these
suggested best practices in your business.
• You have an opportunity to ensure easy and
fast access for your users and a great
experience for yourself.

The content today will refresh your understanding of the My Oracle
Support layout, how to set up the dashboard based on your role, a review
of the best practices for My Account settings, how to stay informed, and
available resources.
• Understand Assets widget
• Setting up and Using Hot Topics Emails
• Customizing your dashboard layout
• Getting up to speed on My Oracle Support
24
3.0 – Introduction to My Oracle Support

3.1 – Introduction to Oracle Support
• Spending just a few minutes customizing your dashboard adds ongoing value. It can help you quickly focus on your areas of
interest every time you access My Oracle Support. And, you can easily change the dashboard as your role changes. The
objective is to make My Oracle Support work best for you.
• The number of tabs you see depends on the Support Identifiers associated to your account. If you have more tab options
than the space available, they are located under the More tab. The top section displays the global content that appears on
every page in My Oracle Support.
• The search option shown is about searching the knowledge base. When you are on a specific tab, such as Service Requests
or Patching, there is an additional search option available on those tabs for searching within those topics specifically.
• If you need access to a Support Identifier once you have registered, select Request Access and enter your SI. If you have a
serial number, select Find a Support Identifier and enter your serial number. Add the reason you need access and the
request will be reviewed by your CUA.
• Most user access issues can be addressed by the CUA for the SI. It is the role of the CUA to make sure the correct level of
access is established for each of their end users.
• You have flexibility to the layout of the dashboard based on the tasks you perform. Take time and spend a few minutes to
lay out the dashboard exactly how you like.
Hardware Assets
If you are on the Systems home page
(and do not see a list of your hardware
assets), it could be due to two reasons:
1) You need to have a Support Identifier
associated to your account for hardware
and 2) you need to be approved to view
assets to see the related content.
• You can resolve these issues by
accessing My Account and checking
your Assets status – if says No
Access, it needs to be changed to
View in order for you to see assets.
• If you do have No Access, contact
your Administrator (CUA) and
request access.
“Be sure to engage your CUA for
any access issues as they are your
first point of contact.”

3.2 – User Examples
Database Administrator System Administrator SP Partner for HW
• From the dashboard page, select Customize Page.
• Select Add Content to view a pop-up and select
widgets available for the dashboard page.
• In this example, we will look at what is specific for
a database user.
• This user may add health recommendations,
inventory report, etc. Then, close the pop-up by
selecting the Close button and close the Customize
feature.
• Then, view the new layout. There are options to
move things around on the dashboard by dragging
the current regions.
• In the Targets area, this user can select the Targets
names to view information or configuration.
• On the dashboard, the user can view information
about the actual systems. One of the cool features
here is that you can directly go and log a service
request.
• The next example is for a user associated with
Hardware.
• As you can see, the Assets is at the top, and the
user has added two service request regions – the
first being for those that the user created and the
second one for everyone else with the Support
Identifiers.
• And, the HW user includes draft service requests
because ASR is set up and the user also has
patching and knowledge.
• Note: As a system administrator for hardware, the
assets region is a key feature and we will be
covering that in two later sessions where we look
at best practices for hardware and service requests
for hardware.
• As a service request partner, this user is often
dealing with multiple end customers. And, the
dashboard has great filtering properties for that.
• For the Assets, this user can filter by support
identifier to quickly toggle between end customers
looking at different types of assets and ASR
qualifications.
• Likewise, with the service requests, the user can
filter by support identifiers to quickly see what is
happening.
• In addition, there are multiple service requests
regions.
• Is this user has a few different customers with
some hot Severity 1’s, the user can have all those
open either in the left-hand bar or in the main bar.
Again, it’s easy to see what is happening and
effectively manage multiple service requests.
“You have flexibility to the layout
of the dashboard based on the
tasks you perform.”

3.3 – Stay Informed
• There are many ways to stay informed about changes and content within My
Oracle Support. Here are some examples – My Oracle Support Resource Center,
the Hot Topics Email, Blogs, and Twitter.
• My Oracle Support Resource Center – You can search for ‘My Oracle Support
Resource Center’ in My Oracle Support. You can also locate it within the Getting
Started on the dashboard home page (Existing Users: What’s New, Doc
873313.1 ). Click the star icon to make it a favorite and check back often as this
is a great resource. Navigate through the tabs when you have time and look at
the available content. With every portal release, there are release notes under
What’s New which provide the latest information about updates in My Oracle
Support.
• Hot Topics Email Notifications – To subscribe, select My Account and go to the
Hot Topics Email. Take a few moments to check your preferences. For this
example, click Add from Selected Products and type ‘My Oracle Support’ for the
product and select Knowledge Articles. Each time a new knowledge article is
updated for My Oracle Support, you will receive an email notification with those
links in it.
• Best Practice: Try options to stay informed and see how they work for your role
– and how you like to be updated. If you are getting too much email, change
your options. You could change your frequency to Weekly if that is a better fit
than daily emails.

3.4 – Blogs, News, Webcasts, and Help
• There is also a lot of great information in the product lines.
• Product Support Blog and Newsletter Index – each of the product lines often have great content about how to stay informed about their product or how to stay informed
about product-specific features within My Oracle Support. Over time, many of the product lines have transitioned from the traditional newsletter to a product blog format.
Find your product of interest and locate their product updates. Product Support Blog and Newsletter Index, Doc 222.1.
• Blogs – there are two blogs we would like to highlight. The first is Support Portal and this is the My Oracle Support Blog and the second one is the Get Proactive Blog. This
also has tips and tricks for using My Oracle Support and from this one you can see there is a link through to Twitter. If you select that, it will take you through to the My
Oracle Support Twitter account, which you can subscribe to. The link for the My Oracle Support Blog is in the Getting Started region – Support Portal Blog. Access the Get
Proactive blog from the Get Proactive Index, Doc 432.1 – Get Proactive Blog
• Essentials Webcast Program – The Essentials webcast program has a great list of topics including the My Oracle Support basics that provides more detail topics covered in
this module you can select the time and language available to you. My Oracle Support Essentials Webcast Series, Doc 553747.1.
• Help menu – There is always the Help menu located up in the top right-hand corner in My Oracle Support. It is content-sensitive based on the page where you select it. Best
Practice: Leverage the help menu. This resource is often under-used. It takes just a minute to look up content of interest to learn more about the topic, how to use it, and an
explanation of the feature.
Need More Content on The Basics?
If anything I have discussed today is new to you, be sure to
check out Doc 6035051, the My Oracle Support How To
Series. If you still have questions, please post them in the
community and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Our expectation is that you have been searching in My Oracle Support on
a regular basis and you have completed Part 1 and 2 of the search training
in the My Oracle Support How-To training video series, Doc 603505.1.
This module is intended as a refresh of your knowledge about searching.
We will cover knowledge settings, searching and search results, refining
your search terms by product, search assistants, and additional resources.
• Managing your search responses in My Oracle Support
• Searching use search terms
• Search refinement
• PowerView filtering
29
4.0 – Searching and Browsing

4.1 – Knowledge Search
• There are more than 500,000 active knowledge articles. There are over 9 million searches per month, resulting in over 12 million article views by users. More than 50% of
service requests are resolved with known solutions from the knowledge base.
• So, why does this matter to you? We want to help you find relevant content and solve your problems and answer your questions – quickly and easily. That’s it. The full value of
My Oracle Support is delivered to you when you are able to find what you need.
• Most users start their search by entering in a key word in global search; the knowledge search engine works best with a natural language search where you type a phrase or a
question or more than one keyword. For example you might have noticed that as you type – a list of suggestions appear. This list is displayed based on your knowledge settings,
located under My Account, Knowledge Preferences.
• The search suggestions are displayed based on the settings in this preference and you have a few options – either ON or OFF, and if ON, how many do you want supplied (5 or
10). For example, I can edit this and select 5 and apply. Now, when I start to type, only 5 suggestions are returned. The other options are all best left ON as they support your
search experience within My Oracle Support.
• Global search is available on most tabs. If you search within the global search box, your results are displayed on the knowledge tab. Search performs best when you enter a
phrase or a set of key words.
• If I enter My Oracle Support Training – the words are treated as My Oracle Support and Training. Notice the difference in the results if I put quotes around ‘My Oracle Support
Training’ – now I have results with my exact phrase. When I type in just the word training, the tips recommend what I should do to improve my search. When the results are
displayed, you can change your search results by clicking on the different knowledge bases. You can click to add or remove and the results are updated in real time. Did you
notice that if the search has no results in the Knowledge base, the search automatically includes the other sources?
• Best Practice: Think about exactly what you need to make sure your results are targeted and effective and filter by selecting the product, adding more terms, etc.

4.2 – Searching Tips and PowerView
• Notice that you can enter a product and/or version. This allows you to enter your product and version (and then additional key words to refine your results). Additionally, we’ve
been working to co-locate content around activities users often perform. The co-located content is called an information center. If I navigate to the knowledge tab, now I have the
ability to pick a product. And, if an information center exists, it’s automatically displayed. By now, you should be very familiar with the layout of an information center. These
documents are a great way to learn about a product. Other information centers are focused around products or tasks. For example, if I wanted to check the configuration of my
software, I could make use of ORAchk and Doc 1268927.2 provides everything I need in order to get started using this tool.
• Have you used PowerView to streamline your search for specific products or support identifiers? You can create a PowerView to filter by product. How PowerView works is
covered extensively in the PowerView training video accessed from the My Oracle Support Video How-To Training Series. Best Practice: check if your PowerView is ON or OFF if
you are not seeing the results you expect from your search. If you have a product-specific filter on, it will limit your results to that product and may not be applicable to a more
generalized search need.
• Sometimes when you search, the results include documents with the word ‘assistant’ in the title. These documents have been created to assist you in locating answers for a set of
symptoms. For example, a troubleshooting assistant document co-locates typical symptoms you may be experiencing. The document displays a set of prompts for you to select
from – based on your answers, the assistant displays one or more documents that may have the solution for your set of symptoms.
“Notice how the dashboard and
other tabs that make use of
PowerView will display content
filtered based on your selection. If
you use PowerView, you will see
the icon displayed in the region.”

Example #1 – PowerView for product line
• Sue wants to find content related to JD Edwards EnterpriseOne.
• She has tried several searches in the global search field, but did not find exactly
what she wants. And, it feels like it is taking too long to get results.
• Which search or filtering technique should she follow? In this scenario, we would
recommend that Sue create a new PowerView filter.
• She could select Product Line and then JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, and Create.
• She can see that the new PowerView is set to ON as it appears in the global area at
the top of My Oracle Support.
• If she types in a search for JDE patches, all her results on the knowledge tab are
related to JDE. And, she can see that the Knowledge tab shows that PowerView is
filtering by Product Line.
• She can now refine her search to be more targeted and know that she is reviewing
all the content the JDE product team has developed.
Example #2 – Search Refinement by Update Date
• John wants to search for content related to Siebel CRM but with a more specific
parameter.
• He was talking to a support engineer about fix packs and the engineer indicated
that he had just updated a knowledge document that has information relevant to
John’s question.
• Is it possible for John to review content based on update date? Yes, he can use the
Knowledge tab and input his product, version, and select ‘Updated in the last 2
weeks’ as the time filter.
• This allows him to focus his search to recently updated content.
• In this scenario, John uses the inline product refinement option on the Knowledge
Tab to narrow his search results. The date parameter is especially helpful if he does
not know the exact wording of a document name but knows that it was just
updated.
4.3 – User Examples Let’s take a look at a few examples and see which search approach is going to fit best
with her needs. As you build your search expertise, you’ll be able to quickly and easily
locate content based on the objective and product.

4.4 – Help Menu and Best Practices
• One of our favorite best practices is to leverage context-sensitive help as part of your
search toolkit.
• It is a very fast and targeted way to learn about content in My Oracle Support that
can help you understand terminology, how things work, and give you information
that may help you further improve your search technique.
• If you click the Help menu in the upper right of the global banner, it displays the
documentation manual focused on your current page.
• For example: if John is on the Patches & Updates tab and clicks the Help menu, he
sees content for patch topics like Patching Quick Links, Patch Searches, and Patch
Details. If he switches to the Service Requests tab and clicks Help again, he can see
content such as How do I search for a service request? or How do I create an SR?
• Best Practice: try out some of the search techniques covered in this module. Make
sure you understand the best way to find content of interest. Frustration with
searching is often related to search technique. Effective search technique saves you
time, helps you avoid unnecessary service requests, and benefits your company by
helping you find (and leverage) the latest information available.
“The Help Menu offers users a powerful filtering
mechanism and is easily accessible as you navigate. You
can save a lot of time by simply clicking Help wherever you
are in My Oracle Support to find targeted content (without
setting filters or creating a search).”

This module covers product certifications using the Certifications tab with
a focus on best practices for leveraging this information for your business.
The content builds on your foundational knowledge about using the search
functionality on the Certifications tab.
• What is available on the Certifications tab
• When and why to check the Certifications tab
• Finding your product certification information
34
5.0 – Product Certifications
Foundational Knowledge
Need help with the basics for Certification?
• How To Use My Oracle Support Certifications, Doc 1945326.2

A combination of Oracle and third-party
products, operating systems, or hardware that
Oracle has tested and should work together.
5.1 – Oracle Product Certification
What is Oracle Product
Certification?

5.2 – What Can You Find on the Certifications Tab?
Application
ServersDatabases
Desktop
Applications
Directory/
LDAP
Enterprise
Applications
Operating
Systems

5.3 – Product Certification Common Scenarios
Why would you need to look up product
certifications?
Let’s start with some common scenarios.
1 2 3
You purchased new hardware
and need to determine what
products are supported on that
release.
You plan to upgrade specific
products or operating systems
and need to review the target
version combinations to validate
or modify your upgrade plans.
You want to proactively
manage support and
certification as part of your
business model.
Upgrade
New Hardware
Get Proactive

5.4 – Product Certification Common Scenarios

5.5 – Best Practices
1
2
3
4
5
6
7 Get Proactive
Develop effective
search technique
Leverage Certification
Quick Links
Prepare for
Upgrades
Search My Oracle
Support
Ask questions in
My Oracle Support
Community
Provide Feedback
Ready to change your
business with Certifications
best practices?

5.6 – Details on the Recommended Best Practices
Best Practice Make It Work For You
1 Get Proactive Review your product combinations on a quarterly basis to make sure your products continue to be certified to work
together. This is a good way to avoid surprises when you begin your next upgrade cycle. If there are noted concerns
with length of support or a specific combination, review that data with your leadership team. Be sure your components
and versions are documented to easily research support availability for your current footprint.
2 Develop effective search technique for
our products
Find what you need quickly at any time during your product lifecycle. Confirm if your products are available on the
Certifications tab. Consider saving searches for easy access in the future.
3 Leverage the Quick Links region There are helpful links to training content, tips, and certification news.
4 Prepare for Upgrades Check to make sure your planned product combinations are certified to work together. Review the available support for
the product combination and any patches required to enable the products to work together. If you are researching an
upgrade for your team, provide several options for the upgrade plan.
5 Search My Oracle Support If you don’t see the exact information you need on the Certification tab, search in the portal to confirm if product-
specific certification data is be available from your product team. If you find certification resources for your product,
make them a Favorite for your customized toolkit. Save time by not having to search for the same content again.
6 Ask questions in My Oracle Support
Community
Questions about Certifications can be asked in your specific Product Community. Locate the Product from the Space
List and look for a certification sub-space or the most appropriate product sub-space. This is also a great way to see
what your peers are saying about specific upgrade paths that may relate to your upgrade plan. If you find a relevant
sub-space for discussion, follow it for future updates.
7 Provide feedback Use the Give Feedback… link in the upper right from the Certifications tab to send your feedback directly to the product
team. Let them know about your experience, specific content you found helpful or additional information you need.

5.7 – Upgrade Search Example (Step 1)
• Our technical user, Bob, is ready to research a proposed upgrade plan for his team. He has the current footprint of components and versions documented to make the process
easier. He also has the upgrade target versions from the leadership team. Now it’s time to research the combinations to see what’s certified and the associated support
coverage dates. He will document a couple certification combination options to review with the team to discuss the strengths of each approach and fit with objectives.
• Bob’s company wants to upgrade their E-Business Suite products to Release 12.2.5. He needs to get ready for a project meeting later in the week by investigating certified
combinations for the proposed upgrade path.
• He logs into My Oracle Support and navigates to the Certifications tab. His first step is to create the search. He doesn’t have a saved search for the current product set, so he
will create a new one. He enters E-Business Suite, Release 12.2.5 and the Platform, Linux 5, and selects Search.
3.
Adding a Platform further
targets the search.
2.
This search relates to a
proposed upgrade, so he
selects a future release.
1.
Start typing the product
name to bring up a list of
products in the system.

• The search brings up results based on the
input parameters.
• The Certification Results section provides
high-level details for the product
combination he provided in his search.
• The results indicate that Oracle E-Business
Suite 12.2.5 is certified on Linux x86-64
Oracle Linux 5.
• He can click into the details on that to learn
more about the support duration for the
combination.
1.
Always check out the Top
Level Certification Results
2.
Expand and review the
relevant components here to
see what combinations are
certified.

• He starts reviewing his additional product components by reviewing Database options. The team wants to validate if Data Guard 11.2.0.4.0 is certified for the target upgrade
path. He needs to review this combination and provide feedback on feasibility.
• From here, he can select 11.2.0.4.0 from the Data Guard row to learn more.
1.
Select the desired version
associated to the Database
product.

• He sees that 12.2.5 is certified
with his planned combination.
• He can also review the Support
Information which will be key
to the upgrade path planning.
2.
The team wants to ensure the length
of coverage aligns to their planned
roadmap, including availability of
patches for Ongoing Support.
1.
In particular, check out
the Ongoing Support for
future planning.

• There is a lot of great functionality on the Certifications tab. Take advantage of these options the next time you search for certification data.
2.
Select ‘Edit Search’ to
edit the current search or
Save it.
3.
Use the View link to
export to Excel or
print.
1.
Use the breadcrumb
trail to easily
navigation your path.
4.
Send the link to your
team if you want
others to review the
data.

5.7 – Proactive Certification Example
• Another reason that users may leverage the Certifications data is to proactively validate the current footprint of components and versions. In this example, your team does not
have an upgrade window on the roadmap, but you have planned for a quarterly proactive review to ensure the team is aware of any possible support coverage concerns.
• The search process is the same as covered for the upgrade, except the focus is on the current versions. Review each component and the associated support coverage.
2.
Review current
versions in your
combination to note
support dates.
1.
This search relates to the
current release in
production.

This module covers best practices for patching and will build on some of
the concepts already covered in the series including product certification
and access privileges.
Patch refers to code that may fix or provide additional functionality to your
software. Some product lines call these a Quick Fix, some call them
updates, firmware, or patch. Regardless of the name, your process to
locate and download the patch is the same.
• Patch downloading
• Patch search technique
• Getting help with patching
• Patch Advisors and patch plans
47
6.0 – Patches and Updates

6.1 – Patching Basics
Watch the Video
Patches and Updates Video,
Doc 1543731.1
Review the Center
My Oracle Support Patches and
Updates How To, Doc 1966784.2
Patch Conflict Checker,
Doc 1941934.1
Find Targeted Advisors
Oracle Support Lifecycle
Advisors, Doc 250.2
(upgrade advisors, patching
& maintenance advisors)
• Take time to learn about patching. The foundational video training walks you through patching with step-by-step instructions.

6.2 – Patching Basics
• Patching and upgrading are common activities many technical users like support administrators are asked to perform.
• From the certification video, you discovered how to validate different releases of software, operating system and
hardware platforms to see if they work together.
• Once your environment is certified, you may need to upgrade or patch to keep the configuration current over time.
• Or, you may run into some type of issue and your application or hardware is not performing as expected.
• You may have an error string or code problems and you search the knowledge base and a patch is recommended.
• Or, you had an issue and called Oracle Support.
• Regardless of the trigger, you need to download a patch – and there are a number of simple ways to do this.
Lifecycle Advisors
Make use of patching and maintenance
content available as part of the lifecycle
advisor series, Doc 250.2.
These articles are easy to locate by entering
in terms such as patch advisor.
Select the lifecycle advisor, locate the
product of interest, and select upgrading or
patch advisor.
The content is laid out in a tab format, using
a step-by-step approach to evaluate, plan,
test, and implement patching and
maintenance activities.
Take time to explore this resource, including
the content-specific videos about patching
for your product.

6.3 – Patches & Updates Example
• As part of a service request, you may be given a patch number to download.
• For example, you want the patch set for database 11.2.0.2 and are provided patch number 10098816. Just enter the patch number, click Search, and the results are displayed.
The table is sorted by selecting the column names.
• Based on the details you provided, this search shows every platform. Select Edit Search, and add your platform (Oracle Solaris x86) and the results are refined.
• If you are working with a team, you can share the results using the Share Link feature.
• Selecting the patch number provides additional information (if available) such as a list of the bugs covered by this patch, download access level, and related knowledge articles
referenced by this patch. There is even a count of downloads and a trends option.
• Best Practice: be sure to notice if a patch has been superseded. The Download Patch page will provide that data for you and recommendations.
• If you have questions, you can enter them directly into the community from this page. In addition, you can review what others have been posting about this patch.

6.4 – Additional Patching Examples
• JD Edwards – For JD Edwards patches, the search process is the same. However, select JD Edwards
Patches link from the Patch Search region. Select your configuration, the release, and platform,
agree to the license and select Search. Once you locate your patch, you can download it.
• Recommended Patch Sets – Some teams, like E-Business Suite, have created a Quick Link to the
patch sets or recommended patch sets for its products.

6.5 – Advisors, Plans, and Patching Content
Advisors
Similar to certifications,
recommended patch advisor (Patch
Search > Search) allows you to enter
a product and get the latest release
by selecting Oracle Solaris, release
11, for your x86 64-bit platform and
the latest release is displayed.
Or, select between two products
such as Oracle E-Business Suite
latest version and Oracle Database
latest version.
You select search and the list of
recommended patches are
displayed.
Plans
Patch plans and upgrade plans
require configuration manager
10.3.2 or higher to be installed.
Patch plans allow you to review the
patches against a specific
configuration and patch plans are
currently available for the product
lines shown here.
Example: you have a collector
installed for one of your systems
and you select one of your
configurations and select latest DB
release and run an analysis.
Note that it provides the order of
patches to install and there are no
conflicts.
Patch-Related
This section is similar to an audit
trail of your activity. You can see
what you’ve downloaded, viewed,
discussed and any patches you’ve
flagged as favorites.
Similar to certifications, sometimes
you can’t quite find what you are
looking for. Many of the product
lines have created content in the
knowledge base to directly link to a
matrix of patches, versions, and
releases.
Many of the different product lines
have created how-to documents for
patching, searching, and provide
additional background about how
patching and maintenance works for
their specific product.

6.6 – Patching Tips
• Help Menu – Remember our best practice of leveraging context-sensitive help? It’s a great option for patching – just access the help menu in the top right-hand corner. On
the patches and updates tab itself, there are Quick Links located on the left-hand side which also provide additional support and information. Or, you can search the
knowledge base as I advised previously where there is a lot of content related specifically to patching by product family.
• Document Your Plan – Best Practice: Have your current product, OS, and patch levels documented and readily available. When you look for patch information in My Oracle
Support, update your upgrade or patch plan with your latest information. Do you know your patch level at any given time? Do you proactively look at available patches on a
quarterly basis? Finding patches or patch information is only part of the equation, the big picture is about keeping your platform up to date and delivering against your
business objectives.
• Ask Questions and Get Answers – If you still have questions, find your product family in the My Oracle Support Community. Look to see if there is a patch-related discussion
and if not, post a question at the product level and the support team will investigate and provide the answer you are looking for.
“Finding patches or patch
information is only part of the
equation … the big picture is
keeping your platform up to date
and delivering against your
business objectives.”

6.7 – Patch Regions – What’s on Your Tab?
Region Description Requires OCM
Patching Quick Links • Add this region to access a set of links to other patch
related resources.
Patch
Recommendations
• Add this region to view the set of recommended
patches based on your system. Requires Oracle
Configuration Manager (OCM).
▲
Patch Related Activity • Add this region to view a history of your recent activity
including patches viewed, downloaded, discussed or
marked as favorites.
Patch Search • The most commonly used patch region. Add this region
to search for patches. You can search by patch name or
by product and release.
Plans and Patch
Requests
• Add this region to create patch plan and manage patch
requests. Requires Oracle Configuration Manager
(OCM).
▲
Upgrade Planner • Add this region to build upgrade paths to help you
upgrade to more recent releases. Requires Oracle
Configuration Manager (OCM).
▲
“Customize the regions on the
Patches & Updates tab. What
regions work for your environment
and search needs?”

6.8 – Best Practices for Technical Users
1. Get certified and Get Proactive – Take time to validate that your products are certified to work together. The strategy you develop to monitor certification can also be used
for tracking patches. Consider adding a proactive regular patch maintenance process.
2. Track Critical Patch Updates – Review Critical Patch Updates as part of your Oracle Product patching strategy, including being able to locate and deploy Critical Patches.
3. Customize the regions on your Patches tab – Take a minute to review the patching regions available and update the tab options to best meet the needs of your role.
4. Become an expert on product-specific patching – Use Get Proactive to locate patching content under Upgrading for product-specific information. Review Patching modules
in the Level 2 Accreditation series for the products you support. Leverage Patch Advisors for detailed instructions and targeted information. Use Quick Links and the
Knowledge Base to locate additional content about patching.
5. Manage your SIs and patch download privilege – Check your Support Identifiers to ensure you have the access you need for patching. If you are not sure about your current
privileges, view My Account under your name. Locate the Patches column and validate you have Download access.
6. Expand your Toolkit – Use additional tools available for products supported by collector.
7. Leverage patching community – Use patching community for your Oracle products to stay current on the latest patching questions and answers. If you want a peer review
of your patch strategy, use the appropriate product patching sub-space, and ask Support Engineers and your peers for feedback.
8. Use OCM – If you have Oracle products installed that can use Oracle Configuration Manager, install and use it.
9. Review your Support Policies – Understand the relationship between Patching and your lifetime support policy. You can look up content such as
Critical Patch Updates and availability against the support stages.

Research patches for your product combination and
access the readme to learn more about the patch.
If your role includes being part of the test team for a
new patch/release, the readme is a good first look at
the content you will be testing for your users.
Post questions directly to the patching community
associated to the patch you are viewing to learn about
the experiences of your peers.
If you locate a patch that you believe resolves an issue
or adds desired functionality, work with your internal
technical support team to have the patch reviewed and
tested.
6.9 – Best Practices for Functional Users

Today, we will recap some of the features available within the My Oracle
Support Community, starting with updating your user profile, locating
spaces and sub-spaces, following spaces and people, creating discussions,
managing your notifications, and participating in the community.
The content today will refresh your understanding of how to interact
within the My Oracle Support Community.
Many My Oracle Support users log service requests for issues which are
just questions.
Did you know that the same support engineers who resolve technical
support requests also work within the community?
In addition, the many active users who participate in My Oracle Support
Community make this a great place to get questions answered.
• Locating the best community for your need
• Who is in community?
• Managing email notifications from My Oracle Support Community
• Using sub-spaces
57
7.0 – My Oracle Support Community

7.1 – Value of Community
• Value of Community – My Oracle Support Community is available 7x24 and the communities are staffed with Oracle Support
engineers and My Oracle Support users. Both groups will react and respond to your questions as soon as they are able. You
can leverage the shared experience and expertise at any time. Post your question and the community members will share
their known solutions. The community is NOT somewhere to post private corporate data and it is NOT a replacement for the
technical support experience. If you need help with the basics, check out Doc 1616733.1 for documentation and training
videos on community.
• Manage Your Profile – Your profile is managed by selecting Edit Profile, Your Profile. If you only choose to do one thing,
change your user name from a number to your name. Being able to reply to a user’s name is much nicer than replying to a
number. And, take time to add a photo to make the community experience more personal for other users.
• Sort your activities by making different connection streams (you can have up to 10). Then, within the connection streams,
turn ON or OFF notifications based on what you want. The tip here is if you follow a product space, then you get notifications
about all the activity in that space and your inbox may become large very quickly. Another example is if you follow the My
Oracle Support Community at the top level, then you are following EVERY space and every sub-space within the whole
environment – and your inbox will explode.
• You will notice there are always a few gurus who seem to have answers for questions in your sub-space community. You may
wish to follow those individuals by mousing over their avatar and selecting FOLLOW. Users become gurus by answering
postings with replies that are marked correct by the original poster.
• Learn more about how the points are assigned by clicking your avatar and then View Profile. Mouse-over your points total to
see how points are earned.
• Be sure to indicate which reply resolved your issue and mark it Correct. This enables other users to find questions with
answers skip your question as they can see a Correct reply has been provided and no further update is needed.
Locate Sub-Spaces
Use the navigation banner to locate
product spaces and associated sub-
spaces of interest to follow. By
default, everything you follow goes
into the connection stream in your
activities.
Post Questions
Best Practice: Always find the most
relevant sub-space before posting a
question. This gets your question
directly to the right experts rather
than having it re-assigned to a
different community.
“New Questions: include product,
version, and details on what you need.
What are experiencing or attempting to
do? Is there an error message? Give
some background about what it is you
are trying to do and some examples.”

The content today will refresh your understanding of Oracle recommended
best practices: for your Oracle operating system, software, and hardware,
to ensure you resolve known solutions and create fully qualified service
requests that enable faster issue resolution.
• Assets and permissions
• Understanding Oracle Configuration Manager (OCM) and basic
collector tools
• Auto Service Request (ASR)
59
8.0 – Hardware and Software Best Practices

8.1 – Get Proactive for Your Products
• The Oracle Support teams have worked to ensure you have an easy time locating the tools and resources to help assist you resolve known issues for your products.
• Best Practice: Make use of the product-based resource tools co located in the Get Proactive Portfolio.
• The Get Proactive Series can be accessed from either the Getting Started Region, the Knowledge Tab, or by Searching on Get Proactive. Document 432.1 is the introduction
page to learn about the portfolio, and allows you to select a product of interest and then access Best Practice Tools and resources highlighted by the product team to Prevent
and Resolve issues and Upgrade your Oracle Products.
• For each link there may be an ACT link to provide more content and a DISCOVER link to access a video that explains more the feature or tool.
• Many of these product-based resources are reviewed in the Level 2 product based accreditation series. Some of the features listed in the Get Proactive pages require the
installation of Oracle Configuration Manager or the Oracle Hardware Support Tools bundle.
• If these terms are new to you, I would recommend that you review the Essentials Advisor Webcast program, Doc 553747.1 and look for sessions covering Oracle
Configuration Manager or Oracle Hardware Best Practices for a deep dive on this topic and the ability to ask questions during the live presentation.

Oracle Enterprise Manager
Upload configuration data through EM Harvester.
Oracle Configuration Manager
Centralized configuration information based on your Oracle technology stack.
8.2 – Tools to Know

8.3 – Key Tools
• Did you know it’s a best practice for Oracle Software support to enable Oracle Configuration Manager (OCM)? This application only collects your product configuration data
to enable Oracle Support to quickly assist resolving your issues and to enable the Health and Patch Recommendations displayed in the System Tab on My Oracle Support.
• The first two collection tools are Oracle Collection Manager and Oracle Enterprise Manager Harvester collection job. These tools are available for the displayed products, as
you can see many of Oracles Products can make use of this feature. The data collected is analyzed and made available within My Oracle Support and based on your product
you can make use of the following features available in the Systems Tab.
• There are many existing knowledge articles that explain how to set up these tools in your environment. The core point I would like to stress is that these tools only collect
your configuration data in Oracle Home and automate the sending via a secure method of this data to Oracle. We don’t collect your data and we have a very strict Data
Security and Privacy policy in place to ensure only the Oracle Support Engineer working your issue has access to your configuration information.
• The configuration information supplied by you, is made available within My Oracle Support in the System Tab or the Dashboard. The analysis is done on our side, therefore
there is no impact to your systems and you can view an analysis output on the Systems Tab in each of the regions, for example: System Patch Recommendations, System
Health Recommendations and an overview of your configuration.
• Based on how frequently you send this data, you can track changes that have occurred in your systems. Best Practice: Use the configuration data to ensure you apply
recommended patches, make use of the upgrade planner, and address the Health recommendations. This data can also be used when triggering a Service Request to provide
the Support Engineer with everything they need to get started.
• ORAchk – Another tool available for Software users is ORAchk. This tool checks your configurations by performing an Audit. It does this by interrogating your Oracle stack
components and provides a series of output files that cover your System Health Score, known issues and recommended solutions. Use the link below to further research
ORAchk for your role and business. Review, download, and install ORAchk to resolve known issues on your Oracle Software Products.
• Get Proactive Portfolio, Doc 432.1 | ORAchk, Doc 1268927.1 | Oracle Services Tools Bundle (STB), Doc 1153444.1 | Proactive Analysis Center (PAC) – Doc 1634073.1

8.4 – Best Practices
• Best Practice: A best practice for Oracle systems is to download and install the Oracle Services Tool Bundle and enable Auto
Service Request (ASR) on your hardware. This enables you to prevent known issues, automatically log service requests for a
range of errors and faults as they occur and enable you to create a fully qualified service request. Use the Get Proactive
Portfolio for Oracle Systems to locate these tools. From the ACT link, find support documents that cover the installation
steps, frequently asked questions, and deep-dive how-to videos to learn more.
• Best Practice (Hardware): Install the ORACLE SERVICES TOOLS BUNDLE.
• Once you enable the sending of explorer data to Oracle, you can make use of the Proactive Analysis Center.
• Best Practice (Hardware): Use the PROACTIVE ANALYSIS CENTER to analyze your system risk. How at Risk is your Oracle
Hardware and Operating System? Can you answer this question easily? If you have enabled Service Tools Bundled and
installed Explorer can you can make use of the Proactive Analysis Center accessed via My Oracle Support.
• There is a detailed instructional document, Doc 1634073.1 that provides screen snapshots, an overview, and a video to
explain how to use this application. Using the Proactive Analysis Center enables you to diagnose how at risk your systems
are by displaying a risk index and providing detailed information on how to address and resolve each risk identified.
• This Best Practice resource is a holistic proactive system solution and has been known to assist with quickly identify
vulnerabilities for at Risk Systems, decrease the operational cost by managing downtime and reduce the number of service
requests and potentially the time to resolve the issue.
Oracle Services Tools Bundle
Self-extracting tool with four components:
• Explorer is a set of shell scripts that
gather information configuration,
snapshot and current state.
• RDA captures the comprehensive
snapshot of your environment for
support for Mac OS, UNIX, VMS, and
Windows.
• SNEEP allows for easy serial number
identification for those older systems.
• ACT is a crash dump analysis tool.
Installing the Oracle Services Tools
Bundle installs the Explorer and
enables you to automate the data
collection.
• You can also automate the transport of
data to Oracle via Oracle Secure File
Transfer (SFT).

8.5 – Auto Service Request
• Best Practice (Hardware): Enable Auto Service Request for your business.
• Set up Auto Service Request to enable your system to automatically notify Oracle
Support and open a prioritized Service Request on your behalf when a specific
hardware fault has occurred.
• After installing the Sun Service Tools Bundle, review the information on
oracle.com/asr to learn more about installing, configuring, validating, completing
the activation and testing your ASR installation.
• Once enabled, the electronic fault telemetry data will be sent securely to Oracle
using a one-way method; therefore, there is no risk to your environment.
• This best practice resource enables Oracle Support to work the issue before you
are even aware of it and parts are dispatched on receipt of the service request.

The content today will refresh your understanding of common SR best
practices, and creating and then managing your service request. What is
NOT covered in this video is the management of service requests created
by Auto Service Request (ASR) – that is covered later in our Level 2 series
for Oracle Systems.
Throughout the video, a number of best practices will be highlighted. My
assumption is you have reviewed the basic SR creation process in the My
Oracle Support How to Series, Doc 603505.1. This resource covers the
different methods for hardware, software, and Cloud. If you are a Cloud
user, please review the Cloud: How to Log a Service Request video from
the Cloud Users tab.
• Handling non-urgent questions with Oracle Support
• Process to validate your access levels to My Oracle Support
• Understand fully qualified Service Requests
• When and how to use Severity 1
• Process to log service requests
• Process to bring Management Attention to your service request
65
9.0 – Creating and Managing Service Requests

9.1 – Before You Log A Service Request
Community
It is a best practice to use the My
Oracle Support Community to post
any ‘how do I’ type of questions.
The community is available 7x24.
The same Oracle support engineers
who work your service requests also
participate in the community.
MyAccount
It is a best practice to validate your
My Account access levels.
Do you have the right Support
Identifier associated to your
account? And, do you have the
Create and Update access level if
you need to log SRs?
Be proactive. Gather what you need
to log the service request. Do you
have the log files, diagnostic output,
error messages, and business
impact?
Diagnostics
Many products will require you to
upload some type of output or
diagnostic message. Have you
followed the hardware and software
best practices? For example, have
you enabled collector for your
software? If you have enabled Auto
Service Request for your hardware,
your system may have logged a
Service Request for you.

9.2 – Logging a Service Request
• Let’s review the Service Request process. Typically, the service request flow is a four-step process.
• Step one is the problem-definition stage where you outline the problem and where the problem is located. Based on your product selection, you may be prompted to answer
more questions, and it may even trigger a guided resolution. The guided resolution is triggered when there may be a known solution to your issue.
• Based on the data you entered, the second step is to identify if your issue is a known issue and a solution already exists. If the guided resolution does not resolve your issue,
it displays instructions about data to collect. If the guided resolution was not triggered, you may be presented with questions to gather more information about your issue.
• The third step is more details. Again, based on the product problem definition, a number of uploads may be requested. We will not ask for data that we don’t need. The files
being requested aid in the timely analysis of your issue.
• The final step is to determine how critical the issue is to your business. Best Practice: review your support policy for a correct understanding of the severity levels. Not every
issue is a severity 1. If you select Severity 1, additional data is required.
• Be sure to include a customer reference to easily identify the service request.
• Submit the service request and you are done.
Your SR
1. Problem
Definition
2. Known
Issue?
3. Problem
Details
4. Severity
“Before logging a severity 1, validate that your manager and
additional contacts are associated with the Support Identifier
you used to log the service request. If these users are NOT
associated to the SI, you will not be able to select them when
attempting to populate the manager details field.”

9.3 – Managing Your Service Request
• Favorites – Be sure to make your Service Request a favorite and this will enable you to quickly access it from your
mobile phone or mobile device.
• SR Updates – Best Practice: Enable SR Updates to be included in the body of the email. This helps you be more
efficient by allowing you to read the full update that the support engineer has entered. Check with your CUA to ensure
they have activated this feature for the SI you are associated with and that your organization supports the use of it.
• Online Chat – When in the office, enable the online chat feature. Being available for chat can save you and the support
engineer time. The support engineer may initiate a chat session to share a solution, validate a solution, or request
additional information.
• Primary Contacts – Manage who is the primary contact for your service requests. If you will be out of the office, you
can easily adjust this field. If you resolve your issue before Oracle does, select the reason and provide a comment. This
improves our knowledge and enables Oracle Support to create knowledge documents to assist other users.
• Ensure Your Data is Complete and Accurate – During the SR process, there may be times when you feel the SR is not
progressing. Be proactive. Validate your problem statement, business impact, and severity. Are there any milestone
dates documented in the SR or against the particular support identifier? Is there a workaround? Did the workaround
work for you? Or, is there something stopping you from implementing the suggested workaround?
• Request Management Attention – You can request Management Attention by either updating the SR by providing the
answers in the template displayed or by calling the Support Hotline Number and provide the same information to the
support engineer working your service request. Management Attention is about bringing the right resources to your
servicer request, improving the communication process, and creating an action plan to resolve your issue. To learn
more: How to Engage Management Attention to a Service Request with Oracle Support Services, Doc 199389.1.
Managing Your Service Request
Now, let’s look at managing your service
request.
This is quite easy, especially when you
follow recommended best practices.

• If you are a technical user and work service requests, be sure you can
easily upload any content required by Oracle Support as part of the
investigation.
• Do you know what to do if your attachment is larger than 2GB and you
have been asked to attach it to the Service Request?
• Sometimes your crash file or other files being requested by Oracle
Support are larger than 2GB.
• There are a few different ways to upload files to Oracle:
1. Upload using File Attach
2. You can use the FTP using Filezilla
3. FTPS or HTTPS using cURL
• Learn more – How to upload and attach files to Service Requests, Doc
1596914.1.
69
Bonus Content: Upload Files to Your SR

Today’s session is for those of you who are busy at work, in meetings, or
have stepped out for a coffee and need to be able to quickly update your
service requests or respond to a user request for access to My Oracle
Support if you are the CUA.
We call this Mobile My Oracle Support.
You can access it from mobile phones with Internet access and I’m going to
quickly recap how to update your service requests while having a cup of
coffee, search the knowledge base, and I’ll include how to manage user
requests if you happen to be the CUA for your Support Identifiers.
Just remember when I say mobile phone I mean cell phone or whatever
you call the phone you walk around with that has Internet access.
• What is Mobile My Oracle Support?
• Available functions for general users and CUA users
• Best practices
70
10.0 – Mobile My Oracle Support

10.1 – Using Mobile My Oracle Support
• In this example, you are away from your desk and you want to see how your service request is progressing.
• Log into Mobile My Oracle Support – http://support.oracle.mobi. You let the engineer know you uploaded some
files prior to stepping out of the office, and you post a message and provide your update. Best Practice: Bookmark
the Mobile URL for easy access on the go.
• While getting your coffee, you received a Tweet about something to do with Solaris 11; you selected the link to find
out more information. You view the knowledge document within your mobile device, reading through the details
and accessing any hyperlinks; this one has some terms you have seen before and it has a bug, so you mark the bug
a favorite and also mark the document a favorite. When you are back in the office in 10 minutes, you can go back
and this information is available to you under your favorites.
• If you are the CUA, you can view notifications and in this example, a user is requesting access. You can approve or
deny. Best Practice: Approve for just default level (general access) until you determine who they are and what
access they need for their role. You remind the user to learn how to use My Oracle Support so they can get started
quickly and reduce possible questions back to you as their CUA.
• There are additional resources available in My Oracle Support:
– The Help menu in the top right-hand corner. Once you view the table of contents, enter ‘Mobile My Oracle
Support’ to view the full how-to guide
– My Oracle Support Resource Center resource guide, Doc 873313.1.
Let’s review what we have on the mobile version of My Oracle Support. You have access to knowledge,
service requests, and some settings. You can create filters for your service requests such as SRs where you
are the contact. From here, you can select a service request of interest and mark it a favorite. You can
review the content to date by scanning through all the updates.

The content today will refresh your understanding of what the support
policies are, where to locate them, what’s covered and not covered under
a technical support policy and additional resources.
Oracle support policies provide the coverage you need, when you need it.
They are simple, predictable, and flexible – providing support for the
complete Oracle technology stack.
There is support for your Oracle service and storage or Oracle software or
engineered systems and solutions.
Complete support is an essential element of customer success and a
critical enabler of high system availability, operational efficiency and
continuous business innovation.
• Locate the support end date for your products
• What is covered by the policies?
• Locate the support policies
• Understand when you might need to access your policies
72
11.0 – Support Policies

11.1 – Support Policies
• A part of the Oracle support policy is Oracle lifetime support.
• There are three stages of coverage – Premier provides full system support and is a 5-year commitment.
Extended is an additional 3 years for selected Oracle software and operating systems. Sustaining offers
unlimited technical and knowledge support and access to pre-existing content.
• Best Practice: Understand the stages of support coverage and know how to locate and review your policies
as needed.
• In the module that covered certification, the use case demonstrated how to review the support
information for products.
• If you are not using the Certifications tab or if the content is not available there, you can locate the
information by following the links on oracle.com. Download the PDF and search within it to quickly see
what is covered for each product.
• The policy PDFs outline what is covered for support. The policy covers troubleshooting and problem
diagnostics that use experienced implementation and use of Oracle products.
• The Oracle support team assists with the fixing of product-based support problems.
• Oracle Lifetime Support Policies | Oracle Technical Support Policies
What is Not Covered in Your Support Policy
This is a commonly asked question. Let’s take a look at a
few examples that would not be covered by your policy:
• Oracle support engineers are not available to assist
with mapping business requirements to product
functionality.
• Educating system admin staff on how to write and
run scripts.
• Addressing issues with debugging code that is part of
a unique customization you have introduced that is
not listed as supported in the specific product user
guide.
• Assisting with schema and attribute design or the
proper tuning of index or search filters against Oracle
software products.
• Oracle Roadmap – The support staff cannot discuss
what is in or out of any future product release,
release dates, or roadmaps.

11.2 – Support Policies and Patch Download
• This accreditation previously covered your Support Identifier and the different levels of access within My
Oracle Support.
• The level of Patch Download is directly associated to the type of Oracle Support policy you have purchased.
• You can locate your page download access under My Account.
• If you do have issues downloading a patch, review your Patch Download Access levels under My Account.
• Check back often to the support policy pages on oracle.com as content does change and this is your source
of truth for what is covered.
• Within My Oracle Support, you can locate documents where specific product teams have listed out
additional content. Search using terms such as Technical Support Policies.
• Best Practice: Develop a strategy for managing your product installments against your support policies.
Consider checking your policies quarterly to ensure alignment with your goals and any upgrade plans on the
horizon. This is a good opportunity to be proactive and make sure you have the coverage you need.
• Oracle Lifetime Support Policies | Oracle Technical Support Policies
Are You Covered?
Note: once a patch moves out of Premier Support into
Extended Support, you may find that you cannot access
patches created in the Extended Support period – your
organization will need to purchase Extended Support to
access the patch.

11.3 – Reviewing Your Support
Breadcrumb trail
of your selections
Key Support Dates to
track in your plan
Availability of patches
Are You On Track?
This view elaborates on the best practice we just covered. If you are
planning for future upgrades or monitoring your current product
combinations, you can easily see your support end dates and how
long patches will be available for the specified combination.
Edit your current
search
Jump to your
support policies

Bonus Content: Creating Your Fully Qualified SR
76
If users need to log an SR, a recommended best practice
is to ensure it is a fully qualified SR. That means it
includes a complete set of facts about all aspects of the
problem and any relevant log files or results from issue
replication. The objective is to avoid significant back-
and-forth dialogue with your support engineer to fully
define your issue.
Develop Your Fully Qualified SR – Get Your Issue Moving to Resolution ►►►
ACTION DETAILS
Gather
information for
your SR
• Before you initiate the new SR, gather data that Support will need to start working your issue – exact error message, log files, screen captures of what
you or your users are seeing, detailed business impact of the issue.
• Best Practice: If you note an unusual behavior with your product, go ahead and grab a screen capture. You may be able to solve it with known solutions,
but this screen capture may be important to a future SR. If you are not able to reproduce the issue, this is your evidence of the problem. Note the day,
time, user actions, and results observed.
Problem
Statements
• What is the problem – Your problem statement should be very specific.
• Users impacted – One user unable to complete a process is different from all users are unable to conduct business. Are users completely unable to
perform a function or just limited in performing the function. Only users with XYZ privilege or role.
• Occurrence – Just a single time? Happens repeatedly? Only happens when XYZ occurs.
• What happened before the issue – Any change in your environment? Patch applied? New users added/removed from system? Upgrade? Process
change? Do you have a clear date of when it last worked?
• Can you reproduce – Is the issue reproducible? Have you tried to reproduce? If so, what happened?
• Actions you took – After the problem was noted, did you apply any solutions or changes? Apply a fix? Change a setting? Reboot the system? Add or
remove a user or parameter? Roll-back a fix? Change a user’s privilege?
Products, versions,
systems
• Be sure your selections match your set up. These details ensure your issue gets to the right engineer with the right product knowledge and avoids a
delay if SR needs to be re-assigned to the correct product team.
Search the
knowledge base
Ask the
Community
Gather Data for
your SR
Log your Fully
Qualified SR

Bonus Content: Community
77
Expanded
Space List
Top-Level Spaces
(Communities)
Click here to go to
the Top-Level Space
Click a Sub-Space of interest
Best Practice: Increase your expertise with Community. That includes finding a sub-space of
interest, searching for posted content for a specific question, and following discussions of
interest to get emails when that content is updated. Always take a moment to find the most
relevant sub-space before posting a new question to target your product-specific experts.

Are You Ready to Get Accredited?

Leverage Your Study Guide to Prepare For Your Exam
Did you use the study guide throughout your accreditation? Take a few minutes to
review the study content now and check on any notes you took during your learning
experience. Make sure you understand the core functions and the suggested best
practices.
79
Take Your Exam
Click on Take the Exam from the final module page. Start your exam by clicking Play.
Carefully review and answer each question. Click Finish Test to submit your exam. If
you do not pass, you can re-take your accreditation exam once per 24-hour-period.
You Have Completed the Learning Content!

Print Your Completion Certificate
2
Click the Completion
Certificate link to open and
print your certificate
1
Navigate to the Index page for
this accreditation
Print your certificate
Q. Why do I get an error when
clicking on the certificate?
A. The certificate will only launch
and auto-populate with your
name if you pass the exam with
a score of 80% or higher.
80

Accreditation Roadmap – Next 30 Days
My Oracle Support
• Customize your Dashboard with
regions of interest.
• Leverage the Getting Started
region for ongoing learning.
• Validate your access levels are
aligned with role.
Make Your Accreditation Work for You
Toolkit
• Create your personalized
toolkit in Favorites with a few
relevant folders for frequently
used tools and resources.
• Mark documents as Favorites
and add to your toolkit.
Hot Topics Email Notifications
• Set up Hot Topics
notifications with a minimum
of knowledge documents
selected.
Community
• Set up your profile and know
the basics.
• Find at least one community
of interest to review.
• Follow 1-2 discussions
relevant to your role.
Change your business by adopting 2-3 best practices

Oracle Support Accreditation – Level 1 Study Guide

Oracle Support Accreditation – Level 1 Study Guide

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Oracle Support Accreditation – Level 1 Study Guide