Agile PLM

Agile PLM 9.3 Service Pack 1 (9.3.0.1) is available on Oracle Support Patch 9219938, released December 18, 2009. AUT 1.6.2.0 is Patch 9224203 and Averify 1.6.2.0 is Patch 9224196.

9.3 SP1 adds support for IE8, Firefox 3.5, and Safari 4. Windows 7 has been added as a client operating system. It also adds platform support for HP-UX 11.31 Itanium (database) and IBM AIX 6.1 (database and app server). Like 9.3 NLS, 9.3 SP1 also adds support for Oracle Database 11gR2 for Linux and Solaris SPARC platforms. In addition, this service pack incorporates several Hot Fixes and bugs from 9.3 as well as improving table rendering performance in Web Client. Please see the readme in the patch for all the details about which HFs are incorporated and which bugs are resolved.

AUT 1.6.2.0 is recommended for any upgrade to 9.3. It specifically resolves some Agile Advantage upgrade bugs which are documented in the readme. AUT is very flexible and can be configured to stop at 9.3 or at 9.3 SP1, as well as other earlier releases.

A new document set, Product Lifecycle Management Documentation Library Release v9.3.0.1 (updated Monday Dec 21 to Part Number E15898_03 with the correct Capacity Planning Guide), is now available on OTN.

9.3 SP1 can be applied to either 9.3 EN or 9.3 NLS, even though any new 9.3 SP1 strings will not be translated until 9.3 SP1 NLS is released. There will be a 9.3 SP1 NLS release to fix the translations.

Try these direct URL links into the Patch Sets: 9219938, AUT 1.6.2.0, Averify 1.6.2.0.

The Agile PLM 9.3 NLS software was published to Edelivery this week (Monday, December 14, 2009). 9.3 NLS allows administrators to configure available languages (Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Korean, and Russian). This full installer replaces the previously available Agile PLM 9.3 EN (English Only) installer. Customers wanting to use multiple languages should download and use this version of Agile PLM. For more details on these features, please see the Multiple Language Support section of Chapter 3 in the Agile Administrator guide.

All 9.3 EN hot fixes can be applied on top of 9.3 NLS.

Continue reading "Fusion Middleware Best Practice Center for Agile Launched" »

Agile User Productivity Kit for Agile Product Collaboration 9.3 (Revision 1) GA'd on October 29, 2009 and is available on the Oracle E-Delivery web site!

This release revision includes 16 new UPK topics: nine Variant Management UPK topics, and seven AIA 2.5 Agile PLM Integration with E-Business Suite UPK topics.

Continue reading "Agile User Productivity Kit for Agile Product Collaboration 9.3 (Revision 1) available on Oracle E-Delivery" »

Oracle Open World was exciting last week, and Agile PLM 9.3 was very well received. The keynote and other sessions were heavily attended. The PLM demo booth saw pretty good traffic!

I was asked this question by a PPM customer at the PLM Demo Booth. "How do I make sure that a project deliverable does not get deleted by a user?" I explained to the customer that this can be done rather easily, and that has been an existing feature since 9.2.2. The customer's response was "That information right there was worth the cost of attending Openworld!" I thought I would write a quick blog post explaining how this can be done, to the broader audience.

Continue reading "Mandatory Project Content" »

Did you know that you can automate the whole process of quarterly BOM costing process through SDK APIs in Agile PLM? Consider a case where, every quarter, the sourcing user needs to create a Sourcing Project, add items to the Sourcing Project, evaluate existing prices, create RFQ and submit to the Suppliers. Rather than having to do all of the above steps manually, the whole process can be automated. Product Cost Management (PCM) supports SDK APIs for the following steps to simplify the process:

• Create Quarterly Sourcing Project
• Add Items (including BOM/AML) from Product Collaboration
• Lookup existing published prices or contracts - you can do sequential lookups as well
• Create RFQ for parts that need new pricing from the Suppliers
• Assign Suppliers - you can search for Suppliers using additional SDK APIs
• Open RFQ to Suppliers

With the above automation, the whole process can be completed in one-click, thus saving sufficient time for the sourcing user.

Come with questions, leave with answers.

Wish there was an event like this for life questions. However, for any questions that you might have about how Oracle can help you run your business more efficiently and profitably, join us at Oracle Openworld in San Francisco next week. PLM Product Managers will be there along with some of our field experts to answer any questions that you might have about Oracle Agile PLM, and to show you a demo of the product. Come visit us on the Demogrounds at booth S018.

Besides the demos, there will be a host of very informative sessions to educate you on how PLM can help you innovate and stay ahead of the competition. Senior executives from our Strategy, Product Management and Development organizations will talk about the vision and future direction of Agile PLM. There will be customer presentations and panel discussions on driving innovation, compliance and margins with PLM. A number of industry-specific sessions throughout the conference are sure to get you the answers that you need, while offering an invaluable opportunity to network with peers from other companies. Click here for a complete list of sessions around Agile PLM.

But after a day of learning and networking, it is important to relax and have some fun. To that effect, there are a number of events hosted by Oracle as well as our partners. Or, if you prefer, just head on outdoors and enjoy the many sights and tastes of the beautiful city that is San Francisco. Hope to see you there.

Design to Release PIP 2.4 has been updated to add Agile PLM 9.3 Support. The patchset 8583449 has been posted and is available for download through oracle support (Metalink).

Remember that the patch does not pack any other fixes or enhancements.

Along with the Agile PLM 9.3 release, Oracle also released Business Intelligence (BI) 3.1 which supports PC and PQM modules through "New Product Risk and Change Management Analytics" and "Quality Analysis" . Many customers have needed more reporting from Agile PLM than is supported in the out of the box reports - BI 3.1 delivers very diverse reporting options with 400+ total pre-built reports, 9 role based dashboards, and 6 functional dashboards. These reports can be extended using 300+ dimensions and 450 measures.

Understanding the impact of Business Intelligence goes beyond the individual reports and is more about understanding how operating your business with better information can improve results. What if you could quickly identify key product risks, critical process bottlenecks, and supply chain issues before they affect a product launch? Agile PLM organized your product data and enables your business processes, while Business Intelligence enables you to analyze the product data and process results to make better decisions about which actions to take next.

Synaptics will be talking about BI at their organization tomorrow, Tuesday October 6 at 11 AM US Pacific Time. Register at http://www.oracle.com/webapps/events/EventsDetail.jsp?p_eventId=101332&src=6769271&src=6769271&Act=36 to attend. From the event page "In this informal reference call, participants will have the opportunity to speak firsthand with Anan Siharath, Application Lead at Synaptics. The call will open with a brief overview, followed by candid discussion and an open question and answer session. Please allow one hour for the call."

Usability was greatly improved in the 9.3 release. This is evident in the Web 2.0 look and feel as well as more intuitive interaction with the user.

This is a short post to illustrate usability improvement in one area of PPM. The use-case is that of adding new content to a project. Prior to 9.3, users had to search for content from the Content tab, and had to go through a couple of clicks to add that content. 9.3 retains that method and adds another (and in my opinion, cooler) method to add new content to the project.

Continue reading "9.3 Feature: Drag & Drop Content to a Project" »