Still Using Personal Home Page With EBS 11i? (Oracle E-Business Suite Technology)

Still Using Personal Home Page With EBS 11i?

By Mike Shaw on January 16, 2009 4:13 AM

We seem to have had a spate of problems reported to Oracle Support recently whereby there have been some odd issues with session handling in EBusiness Suite 11i. In most cases, the problem was seemingly introduced after applying an ATG RUP patchset

Personal Home Page login screen EBS

I won't trouble you with the specifics of the problems, as it was quickly identified that the issue was only occurring when the profile option "Self Service Personal Home Page mode" (APPLICATIONS_HOME_PAGE) was set to "Personal Home Page" (PHP) rather than "Framework Only" (FWK)

Using "Personal Home Page" has not been recommended nor supported for a considerable time now, as documented in these Metalink notes:

About Oracle Applications Technology 11i.ATG_PF.H Rollup 4 (RUP 4) (Metalink Note 365228.1)
Is The 'Personal Home Page' Mode Supported In Oracle 11i Applications? (Metalink Note 368628.1)

Even if this profile option is set correctly at SITE level, it could be set incorrectly for specific users, so recommend you use the following SQL to quickly confirm that you are only using the FWK setting in all cases


          
REM START OF SQL 

          
set linesize 120 

          
set pagesize 132 

          
column SHORT_NAME format A30 

          
column NAME format A40 

          
column LEVEL_SET format a15 

          
column CONTEXT format a30 

          
column VALUE format A60 wrap 

          
-- 

          
select p.profile_option_name SHORT_NAME, 

          
       n.user_profile_option_name NAME, 

          
       to_char(v.last_update_date,'DD-MON-RR') "Last Updated", 

          
       decode(v.level_id, 

          
  10001, 'Site', 

          
  10002, 'Application', 

          
  10003, 'Responsibility', 

          
  10004, 'User', 

          
  10005, 'Server', 

          
  10007, 'SERVRESP', 

          
'UnDef') LEVEL_SET, 

          
       decode(to_char(v.level_id), 

          
  '10001', '', 

          
         '10002', app.application_short_name, 

          
         '10003', rsp.responsibility_key, 

          
         '10005', svr.node_name, 

          
         '10006', org.name, 

          
         '10004', usr.user_name, 

          
         '10007', 'Serv/resp', 

          
                'UnDef') "CONTEXT", 

          
      v.profile_option_value VALUE 

          
from fnd_profile_options p, 

          
     fnd_profile_option_values v, 

          
     fnd_profile_options_tl n, 

          
     fnd_user usr, 

          
     fnd_application app, 

          
     fnd_responsibility rsp, 

          
     fnd_nodes svr, 

          
     hr_operating_units org 

          
where p.profile_option_id = v.profile_option_id (+) 

          
and p.profile_option_name = n.profile_option_name 

          
and n.language = 'US' 

          
and p.profile_option_name = 'APPLICATIONS_HOME_PAGE' 

          
and    usr.user_id (+) = v.level_value 

          
and    rsp.application_id (+) = v.level_value_application_id 

          
and    rsp.responsibility_id (+) = v.level_value 

          
and    app.application_id (+) = v.level_value 

          
and    svr.node_id (+) = v.level_value 

          
and    org.organization_id (+) = v.level_value 

          
order by short_name, level_set; 

          
REM END OF SQL

If you do find anyone still using "Personal Home Page", my recommendation is to immediately switch to the "Framework Only" setting to ensure your environment is running a supported value and conforms to security best practice

Comments (9)

suresh:

Hi Mike

is there a enhancement bug raised with ATG to remove this option in the APPLICATIONS_HOME_PAGE profile LOV? by that way all users have to move to framework when they upgrade to next level of RUP.

Does that makes any sense to you?
Thank You.

Thanks
Suresh
http://applicationsdba.blogspot.com

Posted by suresh | January 16, 2009 4:13 PM

Posted on January 16, 2009 16:13

Mike Shaw:

Hello Suresh,

Thanks for the prompt. I should have mentioned that I raised enhancement request 7714228 requesting this be considered.

regards

Mike

Posted by Mike Shaw | January 18, 2009 3:01 AM

Posted on January 18, 2009 03:01

Eugene:

Hi Mike,
I have the following settings in my environment.

LEVEL_SET CONTEXT VALUE
------------------ --------------- -----------
Application IBU NONE
Site PHP

How do I go about changing them? Is there a ML that explains it?

Thanks,
Eugene

Posted by Eugene | January 18, 2009 2:39 PM

Posted on January 18, 2009 14:39

Mike Shaw:

Hello Eugene,

I couldn't find a Metalink note that gives specific steps to change profile options, however this task is documented in "Oracle Applications System Administrator’s Guide - Maintenance" (http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B25516_18/current/acrobat/115samg.pdf) on page 7-6

As with any change to your environment, you should update in a TEST environment first and confirm there is no detrimental impact before updating your PROD instance

Hope this helps

Mike

Posted by Mike Shaw | January 18, 2009 11:57 PM

Posted on January 18, 2009 23:57

Madhu:

Hi Mike,

In our manufacturing instance we use PHP to invoke multiple 11i applets with different responsibilities. For example: I can have 'System Administrator' in one applet and 'Application Developer' in another applet. If i change the profile option to 'FWK' only, i'll end up having one applet. I'm not sure if this is a feature but some our users use applications this way so that they will not have to switch between responsibilities.

Regards,
Madhu

Posted by Madhu | January 19, 2009 10:25 PM

Posted on January 19, 2009 22:25

Mike Shaw:

Hello Madhu,

I didn't realize that still worked (unless you are on very early version of the code) Note 272585.1 "Users Cannot Open Multiple Forms Sessions On The Same PC In Applications 11i" documents that since the FND.G patchset level we are not expecting it to

In any case, the approach should be to analyse why the users need to access multiple responsibilities at the same time.

The issue is more typically with data entry or customer service type roles, where the user may need to flick between order entry and account inquiry (for example) so to resolve the issue you would create a custom responsibility with all the functions that type of user actually needs to do their daily job

Apart from making it much easier for users to navigate around (and reducing the cpu/memory footprint on their PC), it also conforms to security best practise of only allowing users access to functions they actually need to fulfil the requirements of their role

Hope this helps

regards

Mike

Posted by Mike Shaw | January 20, 2009 12:42 AM

Posted on January 20, 2009 00:42

Greg:

Hello,

Not sure if this message hits us --even after running the sql above.
We constantly have issue around purcasing users user the sefl service apps -- then tyring to open PO's from the SS pages -- session seem to get lost or they have multiple sessions of the apps open. Mostly they get stuck and we have them close all windows out and reboot IE.
Anyway - can you look at the results below and let me know if we should change the N setting to FMK?
SHORT_NAME NAME Last Upda LEVEL_SET CONTEXT VALUE
------------------------------ ---------------------------------------- --------- --------------- --
APPLICATIONS_HOME_PAGE Self Service Personal Home Page mode 21-SEP-04 Application IBU N
APPLICATIONS_HOME_PAGE Self Service Personal Home Page mode 27-MAR-03 Site FWK

Thanks,
G

Posted by Greg | February 5, 2009 11:51 AM

Posted on February 5, 2009 11:51

Mike Shaw:

Hello Greg,

In this case the "Self Service Personal Home Page mode" setting is not a factor for the problem you are seeing. Best plan is for you to raise a SR with Oracle Support to have the issue looked into

regards

Mike Shaw

Posted by Mike Shaw | February 6, 2009 12:12 AM

Posted on February 6, 2009 00:12

Mike Shaw:

Another issue with using PHP Home page that has recently come to light is described in Note 782315.1 "After Migrating to Sun JRE on the Client Forms Does Not Start When Selecting Responsibility"

regards

Mike Shaw

Posted by Mike Shaw | February 26, 2009 6:10 AM

Posted on February 26, 2009 06:10

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