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EBS File Comparison Report Now Available
If your Oracle E-Business Suite customizations are still making you hesitate about upgrading from Release 11i to Release 12, we have another useful tool to help you along: the brand new EBS File Comparison Report. This new report joins the related EBS Seed Data Comparison Report and the EBS Data Model Comparison Report in our collection of handy upgrade comparison reports.
You can download the new file comparison report here:
You can download its companion reports here:
File Comparison Report Contents
The new report provides detailed information about what files were added, removed, or stubbed (made inactive) during changes between Releases 11.5.10.2 and 12.1.3 of Oracle E-Business Suite. For text-based files such as .xml files, you can drill down into the files to see the actual changes between the file versions. The File Comparison Report includes the following file types:
- Forms (.fmb files)
- Libraries (.pll files)
- Reports (.rdf files)
- Java (.class files)
- Java Server Pages (.jsp files)
- Oracle Application Framework (OAF) Pages (.xml files)
- Oracle Application Framework (OAF) Personalizations (.xml files)
- Workflow Definition (.wft files)
- Workflow Business Event System Object Definitions (.wfx files)
- BI Publisher (XML Publisher) Reports - Layout template formats
- BI Publisher (XML Publisher) Reports - Data Definition formats
Using the File Comparison Report
One example of how you might use the File Comparison Report is for assessing upgrade impacts on your personalizations. Start by getting a list of your personalizations as described in “Upgrading Form Personalizations and OA Framework Personalizations from Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i to 12.1” (Note 1292611.1).
Three categories of personalizations might be affected by upgrades. Here is how the File Comparison Report can help you with those:
- Personalizations shipped by product teams that you might have modified further: look at “Oracle Application Framework (OAF) Personalizations (.xml files)” to see which shipped personalizations have changed. You can drill in to see exactly what has changed for each affected personalization.
- OA Framework Personalizations where the shipped base page may have changed: look at “Oracle Application Framework (OAF) Pages (.xml files)” to see which shipped pages have changed. You can drill in to see exactly what has changed for each affected personalization. If a page you have personalized hasn’t changed between releases, you probably do not need to change your personalizations for the page in the new release.
- Oracle Forms Personalizations where the shipped form may have been removed: look at “Forms (.fmb files)”. Because these are binary files, you cannot see exactly what has changed for each form, but knowing what forms have been removed will still save you time in assessing what form personalizations can be retired.
Personalization assessment is just one example of how you can use the File Comparison Report. We expect you will find many ways to use it!
Your feedback is welcome
This new tool was produced by our hard-working EBS Release Management team, and they are actively seeking your feedback. Please feel free to share your experiences with it by posting a comment here. You can also request enhancements to this tool via the My Oracle Support Community mentioned in Note 1446430.1.
Related Articles
- Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1.3 Now Available
- New Whitepaper: Upgrading EBS 11i Forms + OA Framework Personalizations to EBS 12
- Five Key Resources for Upgrading to E-Business Suite Release 12
- Whitepaper Update: Planning Your E-Business Suite 11i Upgrade to R12.1 (Third Edition)
- New Whitepaper: Upgrading your Customizations to Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12
These File comparisons are doing only for the major releases, there is no way to identify on the point releases (example 12.1.1 to 12.1.3) and also for the RPC5 changes other than relying on Patch impact analysis which does not give information on what has actually changed. Is there any way to do that level of comparison.
No, I'm afraid that we do not generate these reports with every new RPC or point release.
Regards,
Steven