This is a guest blog by Oracle ACE Director Susan Behn
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to discuss a few key new features impacting many end users in EBS Application Technology 12.2.4 – 12.2.12+. This will help organizations focus testing strategies and change management during the upgrade process from earlier releases. This article will provide specific instructions on how to use these selected new features.
Selected New Features
Default Favorites – Defaults and Quick Select Using Star by Icon
Starting in 12.2.9, Administrators can set default favorites in Functional Administrator – Personalization – Favorites. This allows users to quickly set up their home page to access functions directly, rather than the previous method of searching for specific functions on the ‘Manage Favorites form’ using the name of the prompt which was somewhat tedious. Only the favorites for applications assigned to the user will appear. In 12.2.9 and later, to add functions to the home page for a user, the user can simply click the star for the icon representing the function. There is an enhancement request to allow an administrator to set up favorites for user using an API. Users can click https://community.oracle.com/ideas/28025 to vote on this idea.
Record History on OAF Pages
While it continues to be a work in process, Oracle has made significant improvements on enabling record history on OAF pages. Users can rest assured that record history is stored in the tables even if it is not visible. The following configuration steps can be performed to enable a user to view record history on OAF pages. These steps are in order and subsequent steps are only required if the previous step did not enable the record history on the desired page.
Set the profile option “FND: Record History Enabled” to Yes to enable record history for a Header, Table or Advanced Table region. This will fix many pages.
Personalize the page to turn on record history for a specific region. Click the region where record history is needed; find the object to personalize in the property pallet and set the “Record History Enabled” property to True.
Manually add the fields to the page with an advanced personalization described in my presentation titled OAF Personalization Examples – Great rewards with low effort which is available on the OATUG conference paper database and on www.infosemantics.com/presentation-downloads.
As shown in the picture, when the user clicks the record history icon, highlighted in green, the record history popup, highlighted in yellow, will display.
Read-Only Flexfield Segments – 12.2.9
Flexfield segments can now be defined as read-only by unchecking the Insertable and Updatable checkbox.
Flexfield segments used as concurrent program parameters can be defined as read-only by unchecking the “Allow” Update checkbox.
Earlier releases do not have these checkboxes on either form.
Secure Configuration Console
The secure configuration console was introduced in 12.2.6. In 12.2.9, verification of security configurations became required. EBS is locked down and will display an error message until the system administrator configures or acknowledges the recommended security configurations in the Secure Configuration Console. Log into EBS using the local login page (http(s)://[host]:[port]/OA_HTML/AppsLocalLogin.jsp), navigate to the console and unlock the system. If a user with local system administrator privileges is not available, access the Secure Configuration Console through the command line utility AdminSecurityCfg. For each row, the issue must be fixed or suppressed. In 12.2.10 info tiles were introduced to quickly access security checks by status. Additional security checks have been added in every release from 12.2.6 to 12.2.11 to harden EBS security. The only change in 12.2.12 was the addition of a new profile option “FND: Disable Diagnostic Console” to hide the Diagnostic Console button on the home page.
Concurrent Request Viewer Options 12.2.12
In System Administrator – Install – Viewer Options, file extensions can be associated with file formats to enable the correct program to open when viewing to open when viewing concurrent requests to streamline the user experience.
Workflow Enhancements
Release 12.2.9 includes several Workflow enhancements. One key new feature to reduce exposure of personal identifiable information (PII), is the ability to choose which workflow item types and which specific messages within each item type can be delivered via email. This provides an added level of security for these specific emails containing PII or other personal information such as many HR emails. Users will utilize the notification worklist within the application for messages that are not delivered via email.
To utilize this feature, go to Workflow Administration Workflow Configuration and scroll down to the “Notification Response” section which is the last section at the bottom of the configuration page. Change the Email Notification Preference to either Disable Specific or Enable Specific. Then click the Plus sign and choose the Item Type such as “HR”. Click the Arrow to expand the message list. Finally, scroll through the message names and check the box to either enable or disable specific messages from the email distribution. Click the Apply button when you are finished.
References
For more information and a list of references providing additional related content, consider the following sources:
Oracle Release Content Documents (RCDs)/Product Release Notes – Review the release content documents which provide a list of new features grouped by release. For example, the latest Application Technology Group (ATG) RCD covers 12.1 and 12.2 can be found at: https://support.oracle.com/epmos/faces/DocumentDisplay?id=1302189.1. These documents present a very brief description of each new feature, but it does not provide instructions on how to implement the feature or references to more detail. Product release notes contain more details on “how to” but are still limited. The release notes for 12.2.10 can be found at https://support.oracle.com/epmos/faces/DocumentDisplay?id=2666850.1.
Oracle Strategy and New Feature Presentations – Oracle strategy presentations are an excellent starting point showing the value of new features and showcasing their continuous improvement strategy. Oracle packs a lot of information into these great presentations, but they tend to be focused on the “what” is new rather than the “how” to use the new feature.
OATUG Conference Paper Database and Events/Regional Events and web content – We cannot stress enough the value of content provided by OATUG and affiliate local and regional groups. Joining OATUG gives you access to content from these other groups as well which may contain presentations not presented at National events.
n page (http(s)://[host]:[port]/OA_HTML/AppsLocalLogin.jsp), navigate to the console and unlock the system. If a user with local system administrator privileges is not available, access the Secure Configuration Console through the command line utility AdminSecurityCfg. For each row, the issue must be fixed or suppressed. In 12.2.10 info tiles were introduced to quickly access security checks by status. Additional security checks have been added in every release from 12.2.6 to 12.2.11 to harden EBS security. The only change in 12.2.12 was the addition of a new profile option “FND: Disable Diagnostic Console” to hide the Diagnostic Console button on the home page.
