The document discusses several initiatives by Ahmed Jassat to improve the Oracle E-Business Suite implementation at his company through proactive measures. This includes setting up a daily test instance using DataGuard to enable quick testing and issue resolution. Other improvements included automating the extraction of payroll and tax files, improving generic data fix processing, and working with Oracle to optimize payroll processing. The benefits realized were reduced downtime, improved performance, and the ability for users and support staff to independently test changes without impacting production.

2. Oracle Ebus Products Implemented
Human Resources
Payroll
Finance
Performance Management
Moved from an critical account to customer reference

3. • Who am I ?
Ahmed Jassat has over 14 years of experience in working as
an Oracle APPS DBA; he has done numerous
implementations in the financial services, mining,
manufacturing, information technology and healthcare
sectors. He works as being Pro-active is improving customer
experience in the Oracle Ebus suite. Ahmed is a member of
the Oracle customer advisory board and has presented at
the SAOUG 2011 & 2012 . He has mentored and trained
clients around South Africa. Ahmed’s white papers have
been recognized globally and he has been interviewed by
Oracle Media network, Oracle Customer success and Oracle
Advanced customer services. He is passionate on being
PRO-Active and resolving issues before they occur
Winner Best Speaker SAOUG 2012

4. Users
SRs
Support staff

5. No dedicated testing team
No user acceptance / quality assurance team
I had to support the application for any issues
Performance ?
Impact of functionality finance vs HR
DBA testing
Don’t know what changes are going in
Clones

6. Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact

9. Archives Shipped
To
DGuard
Current setup

10. Users
SRs
Support staff

11. Users
SRs
Support staff

12.  No additional costs
 Backups can be tested
 No requirements of tapes
 No requirements for assistance of Linux admin
 No requirements for restores
 No human interaction , only to check logs
 No functional support or super users on production
 Time saved from 24 working hours to 20 minutes for clones
 DR available immediately
 DataGuard environment is read only which means it can be used for reporting
 Production Servers are up and running 24 X 7 X 365
 Clones to DEV, UAT, Training and dba environments takes 1 hour as clones on local servers
 Users and support team can test anything at anytime
 Copy of production available 7 days a week.
 Backup of production can be verified by dataguard.
 Rman backups can be run from the DataGuard instance.
 No need to purchase expensive software for cloning.
 Daily copy of production which functional support team can use
 Assistance with OWC with Oracle as scripts and updates can be tested with production data immediately
 We noticed a reduction in TARS as support team could test solutions from metalink
 Patches can be tested immediately using Production data
 No more P1 SRs
 Super users can test changes to the system
 Demos can be given to Directors using latest data
 Training can be given with data from Production
 Disaster recovery environment is available immediately
 Changes can be made on TEST system and user acceptance testing can take place easy
 Emergency changes can be tested
 No additional money was spent on this solution

18. User
picks up
problem
Oracle requires
information
User contacts
DBA
Both work
on
collecting
files
DBA uploades file to
Metalink and this
process can take place
a number of times
Oracle Support Process for HR

20. Environment
Health Script
:
Ahmed Jassat
Oracle E-Business DBA
ICT Infrastructure / Operations

31. Issues faced with the above process
{Electronic tax file}
1. Payroll Users had to e-mail the apps dbas for files
2. Payroll users had to have the apps dbas available if running payroll
afterhours
3. Auditing risk as the apps dba have access to these files
4. Too many steps involved to retrieve .mf file from server, 5 steps
5. If payroll is rerun the apps dba needs to extract the files again
6. Payroll User dependent on APPS DBA
7. Overtime for both APPS DBA and Payroll User
8. APPS DBA needs to be available all the time
9. Miscommunication causes issues between Payroll and APPS DBA
10.Customers is not happy with the above process

33. New process benefits
1. Saves on resources
2. No more required to e-mail APPS DBA
3. Complies with Auditing
4. No more storing the files on PCs for APPS DBA
5. No more storing the files on PCs for HR USER
6. Adds feature to Oracle ebus
7. Saves costs on overtime for APPS DBA
8. Saves costs on overtime for HR user
9. Saves costs no need to purchasing a FTP tool
10. Customer will be happy
11. I have spoken to HR users & APPS DBAs … all of them want this
feature
12. Oracle ZA clients want this feature
13. Users will be kept working in the application
14. Single point of failure

34. Step 1 , Create bin directory under $PER_TOP

35. Step 3 , Concurrent Request(Application Developer>>Concurrent>>Program)

36. Step 4 , Sysadmin>>Security>>Responsibility>>Request Group

37. Step 5 , Run the concurrent request

38. Step 6 , file will be e-mailed to you

39. Current – Electronic Tax files
Added …Extext files {payment files}

40. Old GDF Process
Issue in Finance APPS dba asked to
apply GDF
Finance User
runs GDF on
EBus
Finace User asks APPS
dba for GDF ouput
Apps DBA then e-
mails output

41. Issues with the above process
• 6 Steps to resolve single issue
• APPS DBA needs to be available all the time for
finance user
• Too many steps
• Too many e-mails
• If there was a communication issue the process
had to be started again
• Standby for finance User
• Standby for APPS DBA
• Two client resources to resolve finance issue

42. Ahmed Jassat has worked on SR 3-
6128961691 : Pro-active - Generic Data
fix improvement for 2 months convincing
Oracle development on the need for a
improvement

45. New GDF Process after the patch
Issue in Finance APPS dba asked to
apply GDF Finance User
runs GDF on Ebus
without the need
of apps dba

46. Benefits are
• No Need for APPS DBA
• Finance User can work independently
• From 6 steps to 3 steps
• No more overtime for finance user
• No more overtime for apps dba
• No more e-mails
• Huge improvement for Oracle Ebus
• All South African Customers benefit

47. • Old Payslip Generation Process
Payroll could only be run at night…… due to the high
CPU usage and ran for 3 hours (180 minutes)
Issues where
•Payroll could only be run after hours
•Payroll ran for extremely long time
•A lot of testing and hours spend due to payroll
running along time
•Overtime for payroll admin
•APPS DBA needed to be available all the time
•If a issue is pickuped, payroll could not be run after
hours which means time is wasted
•Planning … Planning … Planning

48. • Looking at Oracle Tuning advisor, I had a Idea
& decided to logged an SR explaining to
Oracle this needs to be tuned

49. • Worked on SR 3-5675377601 : 14057355
Proactive : tuning the payslips sql for 5
months begging Oracle for a fix

50. • Oracle development agreed with the help of Paddy
Toner – Oracle HRMS support and delivered the
following patch

51. • Uses less CPU

52. • Completes in 20 minutes
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
Old RUN After tuning working
with HR development
Minutes
Minutes

53. • After the patch is applied
• Payroll can be run anytime during the day as it
uses less CPU and completes in ….20 minutes

54. • Benefits are
• Payroll can be run anytime
• No more working at night for payroll admin
• No more working at night for apps dba
• No more overtime for payroll admin
• No more overtime for apps dba
• Payroll issues can be fixed during the day and run
again during the day
• Huge improvement for Oracle Ebus
• Huge improvement for payroll
• All South African Customers benefit

55. Taken Part in the HR Tax early adopter program
Trained Payroll & HR staff
Trained Management
Discussed tax setup with Oracle development
Moved from re-active to pro-active
No Oracle issues on tax this year verses last year
Improved the Oracle Products reputation

57. Daily copy / clone instance / Support environment
Self Extraction of Payment files & Tax files
Link to development
Assisted with the South African Payroll User Group
Improved GDF for finance Team
Support Staff can do system checks { patches , file versions, RDA }
Improved Payroll
Improved HR tracing
Constant performance Tuning , improved Performance management
, finance reports & Custom reports
Taken part in Oracle early adopter program
Taken part in Oracle Pro-active program { workflow & concurrent
Analyzer}
Improved Product Value onsite
Customer reference program

58. Wayne Wright { SYSADMIN}
Benefits of having the TST environment are:
No developers have access to production (Benefits of this are: no “accidental” data changes, proper segregation of
duty, any change a developer does has to be tested as they cannot just do it via the back end, they have no
access to do any change in PROD)
Data is available the next day to do problem solving on PO’s
Workflows can be checked the next day to get a solution, no more waiting for a refresh. If you break the
workflow, the next day the environment is refreshed so you can try another solution.
Post production checking can be done on TST, this is especially nice as if you have a targeted user group, you can
reset there passwords can check, this allows for faster checking of the post implementation.
Phil Louw { Workflow Consultant }
From a developer point of view:
It is great to have a accurate and dependable environment where one can debug critical production
issues with up to date data without the risk of impacting on production processes.
It is also good to be able to test the deployment of patches and custom developments to a near
production environment before they are moved over to the live system. The risk of faulty
deployments is greatly reduced.

59. Juan Ferera { Oracle Developer }
The most crucial aspect of our TST environment for me is that we have access to the latest data. It is very difficult to re-
create problem scenarios otherwise.
It is almost more of a benefit for me that the instance is refreshed daily, seeing that changes can be re-done
and tested if unsure, on a fresh environment. This is the closest instance we have of Production, and
therefore the closest reflection of how changes will behave in PROD.
Christine Abrahams { Payroll Department }
We as Payroll benefit from having TST which is a daily clone of PROD for the following reasons :
Able to do corrections on errors received on PROD
Different scenarios can be done on TST with package structuring or other changes required by staff
Quick fixes on reports and testing (using latest data)
SR Resolution as we do our testing on TST and not PROD for scripts received or other data requirements
Use TST as a general ‘playground’ for any change you want to implement on PROD to check all results
first.

60. • Thank You !!!
Ahmed Jassat
+27 76 44 11 873
Ahmedj@rdc.co.za
“Take challenges / issues and turn
then into opportunities! "