Quest Q&A Issue 1 2010

Issue 1 2010 THe MAGAZINe OF QuesT INTeRNATIONAL useRs GROuP seRVING ORACLe’s PeOPLesOFT, JD eDWARDs AND ORACLe uTILITIes useRs WORLDWIDe.

THERE IS NO FOOLPROOF SYSTEM Page 26

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iSSue 1 2010

CoNTeNTS

Feature Story Page 26

There iS No FoolprooF SySTem

FeaTure STory

14 Palazzo, Inc.

After the Upgrade: An Anatomy of Going to 9.0 in ‘09 Oracle Certified Partner Palazzo, Inc. was actually the first company to go live on JD Edwards 9.0 – hear their own upgrade story.

26 There is No Foolproof System

Q&A brings you an exclusive interview with Frank Abagnale, real-life subject of Catch Me if You Can and Quest’s keynote at the Meeting of the Members at COLLABORATE 10

16 Oracle Utilities Customer Profile

The City of St. Petersburg’s Water Resources Department unifies four divisions with Oracle Utilities Asset Management Solution

For your BuSiNeSS 7

Putting the Business in Business Intelligence

Download Installments 1 and 2 of Quest’s newest whitepaper, giving you a new perspective on BI and where it can take your organization. By Rick Beers.

17 Magic Software

A Dozen IBM i Integration Patterns that your I.T. Systems Should be Able to Work With Nothing frustrates ERP users more than duplicate data entry, mismatched data and a lack of access to needed information. System integration can help you avoid those issues.

18 Oracle and Sun: Impact Analysis

What does the acquisition of Sun really mean? Where can you go to get additional resources? Hear from Debra Lilley – a first-hand account from someone who was at Oracle’s big announcement.

32 Fusion Architecture at COLLABORATE 10

Where can you go at COLLABORATE 10 to find Fusion Architecture resources? Get an insider’s scoop.

20 JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Executive Q&A

Staying Current and Plugged In Q&A asks Lyle Ekdahl, Group Vice President and General Manager, JD Edwards, what he’s hearing from CIOs today.

uSer TipS aND TeChNiQueS 36 Creating Query Criteria From An Excel List

Have you had a list of items in Microsoft Excel and needed to create a query based on the list? Find out how.

21 JD Edwards World Executive Q&A

A Continued Commitment Q&A asks John Schiff, Vice President Applications Unlimited/General Manager, JD Edwards World, about JD Edwards future developments and getting customer feedback.

38 Paying Vendors Via Credit Card without the use of Purchasing Do you want to pay vendor with a credit card, but can’t get the detail charges in PeopleSoft because you aren’t using purchasing? Get this and more tips.

22 PeopleSoft Executive Q&A

Oracle and Sun: What does it mean for you?

Q&A asks Paco Aubrejuan, Vice President of PeopleSoft Enterprise Development, about Sun and what his plans are for COLLABORATE 10.

33 Facing the Challenge: Business Technology Convergence

A new perspective on merging Business and Technology from Faisal Hoque, Chairman and CEO of BTM Corporation and Quest’s closing keynote at the CIO Forum 2010.

42 Roadmap for New Technology – SOA

One user’s take on SOA and where Oracle’s going next.

appliCaTioNS aND TeChNoloGy 8

Ask the Experts: More of Your Questions Answered through Quest’s Blog Partnership

See the Q&A from Hexaware’s PeopleSoft Fieldbook blog, and get yours answered online.

10 ARCTOOLS

Learn How Purging and Archiving ERP Data Delivers Real Business Benefits Do you only consider purging and archiving data when levels are critical? Get ahead of the game – see how George P. Johnson’s staff incorporated it into their ERP management plan.

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The QueST CommuNiTy 5

What’s new online?

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News and Notes: The Latest from Around the Quest Community

New navigation and changes to your Quest online experience.

An overview of the latest news from Oracle headquarters, including information about Oracle’s Applications User Experience team, a new Oracle Utilities study and more.

13 Women in Technology – Joanne Brennan

She’s a vital part of Quest headquarters now – but see how Joanne Brennan got her start in I.T. and what working in technology has meant to her.

24 1 in 50,000

Quest sits down with James Watson, leader of Quest’s Manufacturing and Distribution SIG.

34 Find Quest in Your Area

Updates on Quest’s 2010 regional events and international chapters

iSSue 1 2010

CoNTeNTS Editor Jennifer Rogers

Assistant Editor Mary Kate Raffetto

Quest Q&A Magazine is published quarterly by and for the members of Quest International Users Group.

Quest International Users Group is a catalyst to maximize members’ business investments through the power of our community, tools and experiences. We provide relevant, timely, unbiased information and create decision-making tools and networking events to help our members make informed choices – not just related to ERP applications, but to benefit the total information technology and best business practice experience.

Quest, an independent, not-for-profit association with more than 50,000 members and subscribers, focuses on the JD Edwards, PeopleSoft and Oracle Utilities applications, and membership is open to all users worldwide.

QUEST EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE President Sue Shaw Cenovus Energy, Inc. Executive Vice President Darrell T. Hawkes Jr. Turner Industries LLC Treasurer Robert K. Lieberman Centro US

Officer Amanda McWilliams Alliance Beverage Distributing/Glazer Officer Edward Gillis Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance

QUEST DIRECTORS Sue Duggins YUM! Brands, Inc.

Gerhard Karba Westfield, LLC

Andrew Gatensby Baxter Canada

Kirby Miner Trex

Elizabeth Goins School District of Manatee County

Jeff West Questar Corporation

Please contact us with comments and questions, or send letters to the editor:

Stanton Jones TPI

Michael Whitmer Hudson

Q&A Quest International Users Group 2365 Harrodsburg Road Suite A325 Lexington, KY 40504 USA editor@questdirect.org

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For more information about Quest, call 1.800.225.0517 (U.S. and Canada) or 859.226.4307, or visit QuestDirect at www.questdirect.org.

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Production and design by Aaron Kirker

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Senior Director, Customer Advocacy Mary Lou Dopart Oracle

Jesse Howard Advocacy Specialist

Julie Lewis Project Coordinator Jonna West Senior Manager, Conferences and Marketing Matt Whitaker Alliances Specialist Jeff Willett Director of Conferences Viki Young Product Advocacy Director

oN The WeB

www.questdirect.org

IF YOU HAVEN’T VISITED THE QUEST WEB SITE IN A WHILE YOU MIGHT NOTICE SOME SLIGHT CHANGES IN THE LAYOUT AND WE’D LIKE TO TAKE A MOMENT TO LET YOU BECOME MORE FAMILIAR WITH THE NEW AREAS. AND AS ALWAYS, CONTACT QUEST@ QUESTDIRECT.ORG WITH ANY QUESTIONS, COMMENTS OR CONCERNS. NOW, HERE’S WHAT YOU’LL FIND ON THE HOME PAGE:

Education Calendar – review weekly to find out about up coming online sessions, series and webinars. Visit www.questdirect.org and check out the upper right hand corner. Also be sure to roll over Learn in the navigation bar for even more learning opportunities.

Upcoming Events – Looking down the left hand side of the Quest home page, you’ll find the latest information and news surrounding our events. Most of the time discounts will be listed, education available for browsing or just the quickest way to get to information about the events and conferences happening soon. Select Events in the navigation bar for a complete calendar of events and meetings.

Hot Topics – After you check out the upcoming events,

look to your right and you’ll find the hot topics. It’s updated weekly, and each Monday we specially select content from the Oracle community to broadcast to our members. You could find your chance to vote for the oncoming board members, the latest information about Oracle releases, or the opportunity to submit enhancements.

Connect To Your Community – Toward the bottom-left of the page you’ll find the area for easiest access to other community members. Find a user group to join, a vendor for solutions or products, join a forum or browse the member directory to find others with similar interests. You can also take a peek at the Business Intelligence Portal or the Upgrades Portal, where you’ll have access to files and discussion to answer any of your questions. You can also take a moment to connect with Quest on Facebook, Twitter or Linked In. Spotlight On – Get to know one of your fellow members. Each month we choose a special person within our community and highlight some of their good deeds, special successes or interesting stories. Be sure to check this person out – you never know what you might learn from them.

Visit www.questdirect.org to explore the home page and find out more about Quest today.

making the most out of your visit Read a past Q&A by scrolling over Learn and in the drop-down you’ll find access to Q&A. At the bottom of the page we’ll have past editions of Q&A.

Discover content-rich Blogs listed under Connect, where you’ll find the Blog Roundup. Here we’ve gathered several blogs that cover a variety of interests.

Search and find Quest-produced Online Education for event-quality education at your desk. Select Online Education from the Learn drop-down, then Browse and Purchase for Live sessions, On-Demand sessions, past Conference CDs and podcasts.

Browse Online Sessions (Webinars) by scrolling over Learn and selecting eVAS and Webinars from the drop-down.

Mark your calendar by selecting Events for a complete listing of RUG Meetings, Quest conferences and select partner events.

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News aNd Notes the latest from arouNd the Quest commuNity for eVeryoNe Are you going to COLLABORATE 10?

Follow Quest on Twitter – @questusergroup, and follow and include in your tweets the hashtag #c10 for all updates on the conference.

VOTE for the newest members of the Quest Board of Directors Balloting will take place online (and if you’re coming, in person at COLLABORATE 10) through April 20. Results of the balloting will be announced during the annual Meeting of the Members on Tuesday, April 20, 2010. Those elected to the board will take office during the Board of Directors meeting in June.

Submit your presentation now for Quest Northeast The call for presentations is open! Quest and five of our affiliated users groups in the Northeast invite you to submit an education session proposal for the Quest Northeast conference. Review the education tracks and Submit your Presentation today. The deadline is April 12.

Where Will the Oracle Applications UX Team Be in 2010?

The Oracle Applications User Experience (UX) team works closely with Oracle product managers to conduct usability testing and presentations at Oracle user conferences. The UX team will be at several conferences in 2010 as well. Planning and preparation for these events is already in the works. Here’s a list of conferences that we will attend in the first half of the year: • OBUG Benelux Connect 2010: Arnhem, Netherlands; March 23 • COLLABORATE 10: Las Vegas, Nevada; April 18-22 • OHUG: Las Vegas, Nevada; June 13-17 Will you be there too? Sign up for one of the on-site product usability testing sessions to get a peek at nextgeneration enterprise applications and learn about Oracle’s pioneering user-centered design process. These events are by invitation only, so please let us know if you are interested by e-mailing angela.johnston@oracle. com or checking out the Usable Apps Web site for more information.

Live Webcast: Make the Move to Oracle WebLogic Suite Do you need a more flexible way to scale applications, simplify operations or manage SOA? Then discover how quickly you can develop and deploy a modern application server platform with Oracle WebLogic Suite. Join the live webcast on Thursday, April 1.

for PeoPlesoft users Prebuilt Integrations Offer Access to Talent Management 9.1 Without an Upgrade Oracle is delivering a series of prebuilt integrations that closely link Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise Human Capital Management 9.1 talent management applications with the core PeopleSoft Human Capital Management (HCM) platform.

PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 The following Upgrade Scripts now available: Click here to review the scripts.

• HRMS 9.1 Upgrade Scripts Resolution #: 817759 • ELM 9.1 Upgrade Scripts Resolution #: 815127

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for Jd edwards users Have a question? Get an answer Post your JD Edwards questions in Quest’s online forums for both JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and JD Edwards World customers. And if you see an unanswered question, offer your expertise! It’s easy – and it’s free!

for oracle utilities users Oracle Announces – Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing Release 2.3 Enhancements Help Utilities Boost Customer Service, Further Support Smart Grid Initiatives, Reach New Markets and Lower Total Cost of Ownership.

New Oracle Study - Testing the Waters - Smart Metering for Water Utilities “Smart grid” has received a lot of buzz in recent months – with electric utilities receiving most of the spotlight and launching initiatives that improve network reliability, enhance efficiency, and help drive more-informed consumption decisions. But, electric utilities aren’t the only ones facing aging infrastructures, sustainability challenges, and customer demand for better service. Read full story or download Oracle’s report.

Sun Products are now part of Oracle’s Solutions for Utilities Oracle has broadened its utilities offerings with the acquisition of Sun, a leading provider of standards-based computing systems, service, and storage. Oracle’s Sun products for the energy and utilities industries are extensive and innovative. The acquisition combines best-in-class enterprise software and mission-critical computing systems, enabling Oracle to engineer and deliver an integrated system – applications to disk – where all the pieces fit and work together so that customers do not have to do the integration themselves.

Utility customers can benefit as their system integration costs go down, while system performance, reliability, and security go up.

dowNload “PuttiNg the BusiNess iN BusiNess iNtelligeNce” With this six-installment BI Whitepaper series written by Rick Beers, Quest International Users Group begins an expansion of the education provided to its members. As an addition to the traditional focus on Products and Technologies themselves, Quest is opening the door to an additional focus on the ways in which those products and technologies are used in the course of real work.

These whitepapers will incorporate views, experiences and research from Quest customer and vendor members and, in the future, industry research organizations. They are intended to be collaborative, with participation from solution and service providers who will be offering valuable thought leadership (rather than focusing on their particular products, technologies and services). The intent is to deliver to Quest membership a truly balanced view of the impact that IT products and services are having on our businesses.

Get Installment 1: A Business Overview of BI Get Installment 2: A Practical Approach to Business User Adoption

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http://blogs.hexaware.com/peopl ASK THE EXPERTS: MORE fROM THE QUEST And HEXAWARE BLOg PARTnERSHIP THE AnSWERS TO YOUR MOST POPULAR QUESTIOnS SUBMITTEd OnLInE ONE OF THE GREAT THINGS ABOUT BEING INVOLVED IN A USERS GROUP LIKE QUEST IS YOUR ABILITY TO FIND THE RESOURCES YOU NEED TO GET YOUR MOST CHALLENGING IT QUESTIONS ANSWERED. That’s why Quest is excited to bring you the next installment of Ask the Experts – a selection of the most pressing questions from users like you, answered by our partners at Hexaware. Your questions will be answered both here in Q&A and on the Hexaware PeopleSoft Fieldbook blog at http://blogs.hexaware.com/peoplesoft.

Q: Can you please tell me the steps for an Application Upgrade? Also, any documents or resources you have to share would be wonderful as well.

1.

A:

All the documents required for an Application Upgrade are available at the Oracle Support site (https://support.oracle.com) classified for each application version release. If you are new to upgrade, you can download and read the document ‘Getting started with PeopleSoft Upgrade’ which will give you a good start.

Q: I want to install PT 8.48 on Solaris 10 with Oracle as my database. How can I do this? Is there any Web site available for this with screen shots or an explanation of this procedure? I want to use VMware to install Solaris 10 and use my personal computer as a client.

2.

A:

An installation document for PT 8.48 (for all database and OS versions) is available on the Oracle Support Site (https://support.oracle.com).

Q: Can anyone let me know the equivalent of %UpdateStats in PeopleCode? I know %UpdateStats can be used for object type SQL.

3.

A:

%UpdateStats is used to update Index table (database table) which stores key row (Like ROWID, INDEXFIELD DATA) information. Once you execute above statement your table and system table are in sync. By above command index in query works properly and fetches data faster.

Q: Can anyone help me learn how to incorporate workflow notifications in Application Engine programs?

4.

A:

It’s simple. Create Component Interface and call that CI in your Application engine. Once you do save your workflow, notifications will be triggered.

Q: Is it possible to redirect the user to an external Web site on clicking a hyperlink on a PeopleSoft page? Also, this redirect has to happen as a http form post while passing some parameters. I’m trying to use an IScript for this purpose and here’s the code for it below, but the OnLoad function is not working and control remains in PeopleSoft. Can an expert help?

5.

function firstrun () { document.forms[0].submit(); return false; } A:

OnLoad will not work properly, as during execution/call of your function HTML object is not created. You will have to call your attach event function once page is completely load means at the end.

Also, to open it in a new window set target=new it’s a form tag document.forms[0]. target=new

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lesoft http://blogs.hexaware.co 6.

Q: I want to know why the events are ordered in this way: 1. SavePreChange 2. Workflow <> 3. SavePostChange <> My SavePostChange Code is resulting in error. The data is getting rolled-back but my Workflow code triggers the mail - which should not happen when transaction fails, right?

A:

PeopleSoft gives us the option to validate all business rules before saving data into the database which can be written in SavePreChange.

Now, since all your data’s are saved a WorkFlow event is triggered to inform about the activity in the current transaction.

If there is any SavePostChange you have to handle it first, in SavePreChange. There is no way you can rollback it. You have three options: validate every scenario in SavePreChange, don’t use WorkFlow instead can use AAF (Active Analytic Framework) or use by CI trigger the WorkFlow event in SavePostChange once all your data is saved.

7.

Q: Can you teach me how to display the date in a particular format in the CSV file? The users want the date in ‘YYYY-MM-dd’ format, but once I generate the CSV using AE then it is displayed as the default excel format. Please help!

A:

8.

Q: Is it possible to use “In List” in the Query using Query viewer dynamically? If not, is there is any other alternative to achieve the “In List” criteria in the Query dynamically?

A:

9.

Store it as text format instead of Date; just concanet ‘in front of your data for each row. Now, Microsoft Excel will not change the format.

The “In List” cannot be a dynamic prompt; instead you can use this “In List” with a subquery which can give dynamic values to the list.

The subquery can be built in such a way that you group the values of the “In List” with some criteria which can be selected using prompt.

Q: How do you execute external software (exe) from PeopleSoft? The software is installed on another system which is in network (but not on the PeopleSoft server). It is able to run from Command Prompt, but not with PeopleSoft Exec function.

A:

For running external software: 1) Since the software is installed on an external system, we need to map the network drive and give absolute path to run the command, or 2) Create a batch file (which runs the same way as he is doing it from Command Prompt) and call the batch file from PeopleSoft.

However, this option needs to be tested out before posting.

10.

Q: Hi! I am working on delivered CI_JOB_dATA in HRMS 8.8. When I dragged the delivered CI in to an App Eng and tried to validate, it gives an error for “End-for”. On further investigation, I found that “End-for” is not generated in the PeopleCode for JOB_JR and COMPEnSATIOn collection which is expected. After adding the “End-for” PeopleCode works fine for this CI code. I tried the same in HRMS 8.9.9.0 instances and got the same error. Is this the PeopleSoft bug?

A:

11.

The End-For for the collections you have mentioned is correct - it is required but not generated. Maybe we need to ask PeopleSoft for a resolution, but a developer can easily understand that the End-For is required at certain collections, which is missing.

Q: I’m facing a problem with the worklist. When I enter a particular component through the menu navigation, the component launches. But when I try to enter to the component through a worklist entry, it shows “you are not authorized for this page”.

And this occurs only for a particular User Id. What might be the problem?

A: This should not happen in case of worklist even. The only possibility is that the worklist is directing you to some other Page/ Component.

Please investigate further to confirm that you are checking the correct component/page. If this doesn’t solve your issue, please let me know the component name and the worklist so that I can check it at my end.

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Learn How Purging and arcHiving erP data deLivers reaL Business Benefits a Q&a witH Brian Bartkowiak, vice President, information tecHnoLogy worLdwide at george P. JoHnson (www.gPJ.com)

Many coMpanies only start looking at purging and archiving erp data when levels are already critical and disrupting key business processes. however, tackling a purge and archive project in fire fighting Mode is not the Most efficient way of doing things. what’s More, incorporating purging and archiving into your erp ManageMent plan generates real benefits for both the it departMent and the business as a whole. in 2009, george p. johnson (www.gpj.com) undertook an erp purge and archive project with arctools (www.arctools.com) and whitehouse consultants (www.whitehouse-consult.com). in the interview below, brian bartkowiak, vice president, information technology worldwide at gpj discusses why they decided to purge and archive their erp data and the results achieved. he also gives some great tips and advice about how to successfully run a purge & archive project.

tell us about george P. Johnson’s history with Jd edwards. we started using jd edwards enterpriseone release Xe in 2001. in line with our strategy to continuously innovate, we have kept upto-date with the various product evolutions, upgrading to release 8.10 in 2006 and to release 9.0 in november 2009.

How does Jd edwards support your business? our approximately 1,000 users worldwide use a single, global instance which is live 24-7. jd edwards is used to manage the complete lifecycle of our business. with a heavy job cost emphasis, all client projects are managed from inception to completion. all of our business functions rely on jd edwards for tracking all operational and financial information. specifically, we use financials, distribution, human resources and benefits, payroll, expense management, as well as several custom modules which we have built using the jd edwards toolset. we have also integrated jd edwards with other applications including a data warehouse which is used for business intelligence.

why did you decide to upgrade to 9.0? at gpj, information technology is considered a strategic asset of the organization. as a forward-thinking and forward-acting agency, gpj has always been an early adopter of technology. while many companies look at an upgrade as a painful process, at gpj we see it more as an opportunity to ensure that we are bringing value, innovation and efficiency to our clients.

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why did you decide to purge and archive your data? we had been contemplating an archiving initiative for several years due to the volume of data we had accumulated. performance of our production system had begun slowing down as queries were taking place over eight years worth of data. however, the fact that we had an upgrade on the horizon was a real catalyst for the project. for our previous upgrade, from Xe to 8.10, the data conversion process had taken several days to complete. for our upgrade to 9.0 we wanted to reduce the amount of time spent on data conversion and minimize the interruption to our business users. we were very proactive and started planning the project in the fall of 2008, well in advance of our projected upgrade target date of november 2009.

Purging and archiving projects often get pushed down the to-do list. How did you build the business case? we worked with the arctools team and whitehouse consultants to determine the software and consulting costs. the roi analysis included the downtime impact during the upgrade data conversion process as well as reviewing the impact of improving overall daily system performance for our user community. a major advantage that arctools had over the competition was that the consulting work could be completed remotely. this seriously helped our roi as costs were kept to a minimum. finally, before purchasing the product we did a “proof of concept.” this helped us to prove to our board of directors and to our end users that the purging and archiving project would deliver clear and measurable value.

what options did you look at? well, i guess like most people, we looked at what products were on the market, what was available within jd edwards and whether it was worth building a tool internally. we realized fairly quickly that the functionality in jd edwards was just not sufficient for our needs. that left us with the choice of either buying a piece of software or developing a tool ourselves. in the end, we realized that we would get a better roi from buying a solution.

why did you choose arctooLs? after looking at several products, arctools emerged as the clear leader in terms of ease of use, cost effectiveness and flexibility. arctools was efficiently able to handle archiving from custom jd edwards tables as well as data from other applications.

we were also reassured by the fact that arctools had already been used by hundreds of jd edwards users worldwide and had been built and fine-tuned by jd edwards experts.

can you talk us through the different stages of the project? we began the project with a one month “proof of concept” before making our final decision to purchase the product. the “proof of concept” was really beneficial as it allowed us to not only validate the product, but also to gain a thorough knowledge of how the purge and archive process works. we then extensively tested each module that we wanted to purge and archive: a/r, a/p, g/l, job cost, purchase orders, inventory, time card history, expense Management, custom estimating Module, and our custom sales forecast Module. this was done by using data in our test environment. once we had validated the purge and archive rules, we then began the purge and archive process over our production data. after purging was complete and the g/l detail had been summarized, we performed some database reorganization in order to remove fragmentation and optimize the database performance of the production tables. the final step in the project was to enable access to the archive for our business users. this was straightforward because we are using the standard jd edwards interface to access archived data.

what, if anything, would you do differently? i would not make any changes to the process we followed – we completed the project on time, on budget and with positive results.

what were the results of the project? application performance improved after archiving over 35,000,000 rows from our production database. over 20,000,000 rows were archived from the account ledger table (f0911). our data conversion during the 9.0 upgrade was able to complete in a very reasonable timeframe. during our last upgrade the data conversion process took approximately thirty-six hours and during the 9.0 upgrade this took less than twenty-four hours.

tell us a little about the project team. we had a core group of three working on the project. in addition, there were others from it involved in the initial investigative stages (knowledge gathering to understand the impact on other applications, as well as server and network impact) as well as during testing.

given the multiple projects we had in process (upgrade planning included), i was the project sponsor as well as project manager and one of the business analysts. also working on the project was a dba, a cnc administrator/systems administrator and someone from the arctools/whitehouse consultants team.

tell us a little bit more about running the project remotely. one of the things we really liked about arctools was the fact that a lot of the project was done remotely. this not only kept consulting costs down but it also meant that there was less of a time impact on our internal team. we were able to work on the project in small time chunks, giving us time for other day-to-day responsibilities. of course, when a lot of the work is being done remotely, you have to be extra vigilant when it comes to communication. however, thanks to clear processes that were put in place and the expertise and professionalism of the whitehouse/arctools team, we avoided any communication issues and the project ran very smoothly.

what advice do you have for others planning a purging and archiving project? there are three main pieces of advice i would give to anyone planning a purge and archive project. first, i would stress the importance of having a cross-functional team. you need to have both technical and functional people involved, ideally; a dba, a cnc administrator, business analysts and business users. secondly, an extensive testing phase is imperative. testing is particularly important for custom tables to ensure that the archive scripts provide the results required. arctools makes testing easy due to its ‘proof mode’ and also due to the fact that you can easily undertake ‘a reverse purge.’ finally, it really helps to work with consultants like those from arctools and whitehouse who are not only experts in data purging, but who also have a deep knowledge of the jd edwards application and table structures.

what about purging and archiving going forward? arctools makes purging and archiving erp data easy. we got some help from the arctools and whitehouse team initially but we now feel comfortable purging and archiving our data independently. every year we plan to archive an additional year’s worth of data. the benefits can be seen not just during the upgrade process, but also on a daily basis by end users and the it department – with less data in the production environment, enduser queries run more efficiently and database maintenance is simplified.

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About ArCtooLs arctools is the leading purge and archive solution for jd edwards enterpriseone and world. developed by recognized jd edwards experts, dcsoftware and whitehouse consultants, in collaboration with the jd edwards company, arctools is a proven solution. arctools delivers a set of standard rules to enable quick and efficient purging and archiving. these rules ensure that data integrity is protected and can also easily incorporate client specific configurations and customizations.

About GeorGe P. Johnson (GPJ) george p. johnson (gpj) is one of the foremost event and experience marketing agencies in the world. the company specializes in using branded live experiences and environments to help fortune 1000 clients cut through marketplace noise, differentiate themselves from the competition and create lasting relationships that make a direct impact on the bottom line. with 26 offices and more than 1,000 employees worldwide, the agency plans, creates, activates and measures nearly 5,000 events annually, ranging from award-winning entertainment sponsorships to trade shows, conferences, mobile marketing and more. gpjâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s customers include category leaders such as ibM, cisco systems and toyota.

arctools is easy to understand and use, which guarantees a short implementation time. over two hundred and fifty jd edwards customers on six continents have already chosen arctools. www.arctools.com

About whitehouse ConsuLtAnts established in 1991, whitehouse consultants is a leading jd edwards consultancy with offices in france and the uk. whitehouse consultants are experts in the field of purging and archiving and have a strong reputation as a â&#x20AC;&#x153;localâ&#x20AC;? european partner with extensive international experience.

gpj has been using jd edwards for ten years. www.whitehouse-consult.com www.gpj.com

About briAn bArtkowiAk brian bartkowiak, vice president, information technology worldwide, has been with george p. johnson for more than eighteen years. a graduate of the university of notre dame, brian leads the twenty-five person global information technology team responsible for erp, business intelligence, telecommunications, messaging and collaboration, internal software development, networking, hardware and desktop support. brian is a certified public accountant and has extensive erp experience both with jd edwards and other erp solutions.

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About DCsoftwAre dcsoftware was founded in 1996 by dave shea. prior to founding dcsoftware, dave spent six years with one of the largest systems consulting firms in the world working in defense and commercial manufacturing. he has also held a number of senior it positions including: director of information services for a multi-national manufacturer; director of information services for an international pharmaceutical company; and director of information services for a medium-sized biotech firm. dave has more than twenty-five years experience in erp environments.

1MeetinSiG50,000 Leader JaMeS WatSon Connect with the JD Edwards Industrial Manufacturing/Distribution SIG Onsite at COLLABORATE – Tuesday, April 20 at 8 a.m. (Jasmine G). Come for a discussion of the issues surrounding the industrial manufacturing, automotive and distribution industries from a JD Edwards EnterpriseOne perspective. Discuss needed enhancements within JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, and discuss topics of interest to the represented industries.

Online at http://questers.questdirect.org/p/co/ly/gid=118

name: James Watson SiG: Manufacturing/Distribution SIG Childhood ambition: To become a rock star.

First job: Dragging a lawn mower down the street looking for lawns to mow. inspiration: My wife. Her intelligence and decision making ability always impresses me.

Favorite movie or book: One of the best books I read recently was “Lone Survivor” about a tragic Navy Seal mission in Afghanistan.

These guys are real heroes.

indulgence: Finding time to play my bass.

Position and Company: CIO, Energy Alloys Location: Global company with headquarters in Houston, Texas.

Size: 250 – 300 employees with locations in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, U.K., Dubai, Singapore and still growing. role: Responsible for global I.T. strategy and management.

History: I like to quip that I’m a CPA that went to the dark side. Actually though, the move from accounting to I.T. was a natural progression. From the First ERP project, I was hooked.

What have you learned? People matter most. Technology only brings value when people use it effectively. My favorite example is the treadmill. A treadmill sitting in the corner with clothes hanging on it is a very expensive clothes hanger. The true value of the treadmill is when it’s used for its purpose.

What was your call to action? Energy Alloys had some gaps in functionality where we had to add some custom modules. I was looking for ways to communicate our needs to Oracle to hopefully get that functionality built into future versions of the software. I was really only looking to join an active SIG but found that the Industrial Manufacturing SIG was not active.

What would you tell someone thinking about getting involved in Quest? Most people are interested in what the SIGs offer but already have full time jobs so finding time to participate is difficult. The benefits you gain from networking with peers, vendors and Oracle is worth the investment. As a customer you’re one voice in a crowd. Together we can have a much bigger impact on the success and direction of our products.

How do you make the business case for being involved in your SiG? in Quest? ROI. Involvement in your SIG will help drive enhancements to the product, networking with peers will broaden your knowledge of how other companies have resolved a business need, and you’ll get visibility into the development pipeline. Your investment in time will impact the direction of the product you’re using.

What’s your vision for your rUG? What’s your vision for Quest?

Each customer has made a significant investment in their ERP application and continues to pay maintenance for support and enhancements. My vision of the SIG is for customers to come together as a group to work with Oracle to continue enhancing the product.

A good example of a successful SIG is the Technology SIG. As a customer, I have seen the benefits of this collaboration each time I upgrade to the next tools release.

My life is… Better than I imagined it could be.

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After the UpgrAde: An AnAtomy of going to 9.0 in ’09

Just twelve short months ago, Palazzo Inc., a JD eDwarDs enterPrIseone customer as well as an oracle certIfIeD Partner, was the fIrst comPany to go-lIve on 9.0. as wIth all uPgraDes, the Process was challengIng but rewarDIng. lookIng back on the ProJect a year later we’ll reflect on the motIvatIons to uPgraDe, the methoDology we emPloyeD, the hurDles we encountereD anD the oPeratIonal results we’ve exPerIenceD sInce comPletIng the uPgraDe. organizations are still feeling the sting of the economic challenges of the past year or so and those memories are leading them to make smarter, savvier business decisions. companies are cautious about what initiatives they invest in and how they make the decision to fund those initiatives. In this culture of caution, it’s often difficult for an organization to even consider, much less undertake, an upgrade project. however, wellsupported, planned and executed upgrade projects may provide a company with exactly the type of benefits, both in monetary and in efficiency gains, that organizations are seeking.

If only companies had a crystal ball to know what kind of results they might achieve after upgrading. not all situations are similar, but learning about one organization’s experience might provide a glimpse into life after upgrading. so, to start at the end of our story:

“Optimized applications have increased system speed by 30 percent and we have seen a 15 percent increase in enterprise server efficiency.”

a year later after upgrading to 9.0 in January 2009, Palazzo, Inc. has experienced improved back office and accounting efficiency and reduced personnel usage time significantly. optimized applications have increased system speed by 30 percent and we have seen a 15 percent increase in enterprise server efficiency. month-end financial close time was decreased by 50 percent and gl posting time decreased by 30 percent. with faster applications, employee usage time spent entering time and expense information has decreased significantly.

with results like this, it’s easy to see why upgrading was a good decision for Palazzo. but this type of data certainly wasn’t available when the upgrade project was being first considered. Identifying key areas for process improvement that matched the system enhancements was a strong motivator when the project was being discussed as well as the fact that support for 8.10 was expiring in 2009. and in its unique position as an oracle partner as well as a customer, Palazzo saw the upgrade as having strategic value for professional services and an opportunity to provide early feedback on the 9.0 release. by way of background, Palazzo, Inc. was founded in 1995 and specializes in solutions for engineering and construction; professional services; manufacturing and distribution; government contractors; homebuilding; and real estate. In 2003, Palazzo acquired JD edwards enterpriseone 8.0 for its internal use and upgraded to 8.10 in 2005. JD edwards enterpriseone modules that Palazzo uses include accounts Payable, accounts receivable, general ledger, time and labor, fixed assets, contract billing, Procurement, Inventory, crm, Job cost and expense management.

Planning for the upgrade started in august of 2008, with documenting of all business processes and re-visiting all accounting procedures. upgrades, like other “out of the norm” activities, provide an opportunity to engage in an often overlooked or avoided task of evaluating current practices and procedures. It’s easy to put off

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process improvements when getting the daily work done is the top priority. But during an upgrade project, especially one where efficiency gains are a stated goal, suddenly re-thinking processes and procedures becomes key. This part of the project can take some significant time, in Palazzo’s case almost two months, but the initial effort proved to be invaluable later in the project.

“October was spent installing and resolving installation issues. An IBM Blade Server as well as Tools Release 8.98.0.1 were installed.”

In late September 2008 EnterpriseOne 9.0 became available and the download began. October was spent installing and resolving installation issues. An IBM Blade Server as well as Tools Release 8.98.0.1 were installed.

After installation was complete on November 4, testing began of all processes including custom processes. After becoming aware of the first Electronic Software Update (ESU) in late November, the cumulative ESU was applied in early December and all testing was restarted. December was spent resolving errors, issues and problems so that all processes could be signed-off. After conducting final testing using new End-of-Month (EOM)/End-of-Year (EOY) checklists, there was an executive decision point of whether or not to go-live.

On December 18, “YES!” was the word and everyone went on a well-deserved vacation in order to be ready to start on 9.0 in ’09.

New accounting procedures were put in place early January 2009 in order to quickly complete monthend and year-end prior to deployment. Conversion and tools upgrade then began and on January 8, 2009, Palazzo went live on JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.0.

As with any upgrade, of course there were some post go-live hiccups. Checks couldn’t be printed but after a conversion to BI Publisher that issue was resolved. Oracle announced in March 2009 BI Publisher would replace Crystal Reports and that it would be delivered in 9.0 and available to all customers currently on technical support. There also were issues with the American Express (AMEX) upload/download. After learning how to run the table conversion correctly and how to run an external CSV correctly, which required a redesign process for writing the file, the AMEX issue was resolved. Timecards had to be reset, which resulted in requiring additional cleanup. An issue was found in internal expense management workflow and after identifying the problem approval routes were implemented. Browser issues may have proven to be the most frustrating of all problems, with frequent HTTP 500 pages cropping up, and discovering the differences in working on Chrome vs.

Safari vs. Firefox vs. Internet Explorer.

To hear Ira Frosch, President of Palazzo, discuss Palazzo’s upgrade experience view the video on Oracle Media Network at http://www.oracle. com/pls/ebn/live_viewer.main?p_direct=yes&p_ shows_id=8275812 or to learn more about Palazzo, visit www.palazzoinc.com.

But when all was said and done, Palazzo found that the deployment of 9.0 was 50 percent faster than that of 8.10. and experienced the significant improvements in efficiency as outlined earlier.

After the upgrade there were still follow-up tasks to do such as convert from Red Stack to Blue Stack, implement invoices in BI Publisher, rewrite the AMEX interface in Web services, and implement Business Services Server and convert to portal.

A year after the go-live, Palazzo finds itself with unfinished tasks still on the to-do list but with good reason. As expected, other JD Edwards EnterpriseOne customers found that despite the economic climate, upgrading to 9.0 was the right business decision for their organization. Palazzo has been busy helping other organizations design, plan, implement and execute their own upgrade go-live strategies.

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The City of St. Petersburg Water Resources Department, through its various divisions, provides the treatment and distribution of potable (drinking) water; the collection and reclamation of wastewater; the distribution of reclaimed water for irrigation; and the scientific and technical expertise to ensure compliance with public health and environmental regulations.

Challenges • Deploy a central standardized system for tracking maintenance, assets, and inventory among the department’s four divisions • Integrate the new solution with the department’s existing geographic information system (GIS) for tracking maintenance of water management assets

Solution • Replaced three dispersed systems with Oracle Utilities Work and Asset Management and integrated the existing GIS to allow users to click on one or multiple assets on the GIS map and access a history of the work done on each asset • Enabled users to reference previous work orders and print a map of the GIS asset’s location with the work order, preventing confusion when determining what asset requires repairs • Captured inspections done on manholes and sewer pipes, enabling the department to color-code the assets in GIS— providing a quick visual analysis of asset conditions and frequency of inspections • Enabled the city to identify potential asset problems in advance and conduct preventative, proactive maintenance • Reduced the amount of spare parts and stock in inventory by enabling the department to forecast its need for specific parts • Provided field staff with standardized reports and processes that allow them more time in the field, and less time doing paperwork • Used Oracle Utilities Work and Asset Management for proactive planning to deliver quality citizen services and respond more quickly to break and fix incidents

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City of St. Petersburg Water Resources Department St. Petersburg, FL www.stpete.org/water Industry: Utilities Annual Revenue: US$90 million Employees: 331 Oracle Products & Services: Oracle Utilities Work and Asset Management

“Previously, none of our three dispersed systems integrated with our GIS solution. With Oracle, we have been able to unify the department on one work and asset management system and optimize the legacy systems we already had in place.”

– George Cassady, Director of Water Resources, City of St. Petersburg Water Resources Department Copyright © 2010, Oracle. All rights reserved. Published with permission.

A Dozen IBM i Integration Patterns that Your I.T. Systems Should Be Able to Work With Nothing frustrates ERP users more than duplicate data entry, mismatched data and lack of access to needed information. The purpose of system integration is to avoid these issues and ensure smooth running business processes across multiple systems. To do this, an I.T. department needs to be armed with integration and business process management tools that can recognize all of the needed integration patterns for your environment.

If you are running applications on IBM i for Power Systems including AS/400, iSeries and System i, then your systems are in a unique and powerful environment that requires special integration capabilities. IT managers overseeing an IBM i-based I.T. environment well understand the advantages of IBMâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s midrange platform: excellent middleware, superior scalability, top-level security, superior reliability and resilience, and straightforward operations and storage management. For some years, however, IBM and the IBM i user community seem to be on different tracks when it comes to application development and integration. Every few years, IBM introduces a new approach that never fully takes hold in the user community: Java and PHP are the most obvious examples when it comes to application modernization. Various iterations of the WebSphere brand come to mind when EAI and BPM requirements have been in focus. This has created a layering of application logic capabilities and integration modes between legacy RPG and COBOL and newer approaches to development and integration that some might even call a fracturing of business logic. Add to this the normal application integration disparities inherent to every platform and you find challenges in identifying optimal integration patterns for IBM i. Each application, whether a home-grown application or an off-the-shelf application such as JD Edwards, will typically present a number of unique integration patterns of its own.

The IBM i operating system or platform provides a rich variety of integration patterns that can be used for various aspects of an integration project. We take time here to identify available IBM i integration patterns and consider the strengths, weaknesses and best-use of each approach. Our Table of IBM i Integration Patterns identifies twelve important integration requirements for IBM i.

At a high level, these requirements address unique needs for composite business processes and application logic through remote procedure calls, capabilities for system level commands, attribute string manipulation, access to the user space, manipulation of the data queue, access to spool files, working with IFS Objects, working with Java, database access (DB2400 and SQL databases), multi-platform integration, Web services and other requirements.

Reduce the Level of Coupling. The integration patterns that you ultimately select will be based on a number of considerations including available patterns, technical knowledge, and access to metadata. Ideally, the decision should also be driven by an evaluation of the level of coupling that takes place between the components to be integrated. Loose coupling is desirable because it means that there is less interdependency between any two elements -- a change in one component is less likely to require a change in the other.

Next Steps. Existing patterns for IBM i integration will ideally support as many of these patterns as possible while providing an EAI and BPM orchestration architecture that allows for loose coupling. For our FREE White Paper, Twelve IBM i Integration Patterns That You Should Be Prepared to Access, Manipulate and Control, click here or find other resources at www.magicsoftware.com.

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Oracle and Sun: Impact analySIS

By Debra Lilley, Fujitsu read more from debra: Visit her blog at http://debrasoracle.blogspot.com/

Quest InternatIonal user Group asked me to wrIte thIs artIcle on the Impact of the sun/oracle merGer, and I saId, “why not?” so here I am a week later, just before the deadlIne, puttInG my thouGhts Into wrItInG, and I am not so sure now. on january 27, oracle had a big showcase event to talk about their acquisition of sun, and as a user Group leader, I was privileged to have a VIp seat (at least at the start). the only thing missing from a very polished and informative morning was a few comfort breaks. you can actually watch the whole event, and oracle has cut it into seven manageable webcasts. the links are at the bottom of this article, so I am not simply going to regurgitate the presentations for you, but tell you what I thought it meant to applications users. at a minimum, watch the first section, where you get an overview, and the last, which is the Q&a session with larry ellison. first on was charles phillips, discussing how the acquisition transforms the industry, and it certainly transforms oracle. this makes oracle not only able to supply the entire stack for their customers, but it also changes them into a manufacturing company, with operations and logistics they have never had to manage before. sun is foremost a hardware company, and this remains an area I am particularly interested in, because although I work in the services organization, my employer (fujitsu) provides the sparc64 processors and sparc enterprise m-series servers for sun; the acquisition, we hope, will be good for us. oracle acknowledged their continued strategic partnership and codevelopment, and I was very pleased with that. the newspapers, blogs, tweets and all other commentary talks about the end of a great era, but if sun was that great, why was it not making any money? and if it was unprofitable, how does larry ellison think it will make a profit within its first quarter? It was not a problem with the product – look what oracle and sun had already done with their joint venture around the database machine. what I understood from the day was that oracle believes two fundamental changes will turn sun hardware around.

1. first, they will sell direct to the top 3,000 customers, and to prove they were serious, each oracle executive had wore a “we’re hiring” badge (for 2,000 sales and development posts).

2. the second major change: oracle intends to move from a ‘build to stock’ to a ‘build to order’ model, making the manufacturing process more lean and cost effective.

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another big savings area is in efficiency; oracle has great back office systems, a single global instance of oracle e-business suite and siebel, and a very slick and well-rehearsed consumption of acquired companies process that will strip costs out of the sun operation. yes, they did lay people off, but said about 1,000 roles, so even with hiring the 2,000 I mentioned earlier, there’s still a net gain of 1,000 jobs. they will have to add manufacturing and logistic systems, but again, they have them in their portfolio. It is also interesting to note that this may delay oracle’s own migration to fusion applications as an entire suite, as manufacturing is not in the first release expected later this year. however, my belief is that it will make them an even better reference for fusion, as they will have some core functionality in fusion and integration to these more niche areas, the model I believe most customers will take initially.

If you are a sun hardware customer, your account manager may change, and that means yet another oracle person ‘on the bus,’ but hopefully they will all know your oracle investment. does it mean better service in purchasing? I hope so. If you run oracle applications over oracle middleware and database, you will be a full stack oracle customer, and oracle went on to say you would have an improved experience with support. the migration of sun support to myoraclesupport will be fast, and you will have visibility of all your issues in one place. their proactive tools will prompt you for interoperability issues or improvements. they will also offer a fully integrated service through advanced services. my first reaction was, “yeah, at an extra cost,” and, yes, advanced services is an additional cost. but if you could have all your support simplified and integrated, it may well be cost effective, so don’t dismiss it out of hand without careful consideration. they also promised to keep support windows for the sun products, so no hidden price hikes. solaris as an operating system gives oracle full coverage. their move into linux gave them a lot, but the majority of customers still wanted their enterprise to run on unix, and solaris is one of the major players.

“They will continue the Open Standards strategy to will allow this.”

If you don’t use sun or solaris, does it mean oracle will stop supporting what you use? no: they want to ensure keeping their customer base, as this is what funds their research and development. they will continue the open standards strategy to will allow this. It is likely that solaris and sun will get certified first against products, and over time some functionality will (I expect) move into the stack to encourage you to use sun.

oracle wanted java; it’s the backbone to their next generation applications. oracle has bet heavily on java – it’s taught in school, there’s a vast pool of well-trained but realistic-salary-expecting developers, and these skills are transferrable. they’re not proprietary like oracle forms or peoplesoft tools. oracle wants to ensure java does not go off at a tangent, and they unveiled plans to work on the mobile versions of java which have already started to move that way, with a slightly different version for each device. they intend to move to a write-once, deploy-many concept, which was very well received.

“Oracle has a proven track record in supporting open standards.” the area that had most press was mysQl. since it’s open source, many people – and especially the european commission – were worried the healthy competition between mysQl and oracle database would be eroded. I am the deputy chair of the ukouG, and our chair, ronan miles, along with Ian abramson of IouG, travelled to brussels to address the european commission. miles said, “oracle has a proven track record in supporting open standards.” (you can read their input at http://www.ukoug.org/news/ show_news.jsp?id=12606.) true to their word, oracle announced improvements for mysQl and that it would remain a separate Global business unit. oracle did a great job talking about what specific products would move into existing oracle portfolios, like sun role manager, analytics for your security moving into the oracle security family and the records software sun master Index joining the master data management suite. as they said, oracle had a nine month delay, waiting for approval – they used the time to plan. as soon as they got the go ahead, the oracle machine set rolling – it resulted in a great, thorough and in-depth update of what they will do with sun. with every acquisition, the acquired customers are understandably nervous, and with each acquisition oracle has proven they can improve on customer satisfaction. this is why Quest and all other user groups believe the acquisition is good for both existing and new customers, and why we backed the acquisition. a successful oracle is good for user group members, and so whatever oracle product you use, you will benefit from another successful acquisition. your user group will help ensure that happens. when larry ellison held his amusing Q&a at the end of the day, heli helskyaho, president of the finish user Group and the joint spokesperson for the emea oracle user Group community, stood up and said, “we as user groups made the decision to support you on sun. please don’t let us down.”

Hear the Oracle Sun presentations:

Charles Phillips: Welcome and Oracle + Sun: Transforming the Industry View the Webcast (43 min.)

Download the presentation (PDF)

John Fowler: Hardware Strategy View the Webcast (39 min.)

Download the presentation (PDF)

Thomas Kurian: Software Strategy View the Webcast (48 min.)

Download the presentation (PDF)

Edward Screven: Operating Systems and Virtualization View the Webcast (19 min.)

Download the presentation (PDF)

Juergen Rottler: Customer Service and Support Strategy View the Webcast (23 min.)

Download the presentation (PDF)

Jeff Epstein: Operational Strategy View the Webcast (8 min.)

Download the presentation (PDF)

Larry Ellison: Oracle + Sun View the Webcast (59 min.)

Download the presentation (PDF)

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Staying Current and Plugged In A Q&A with Lyle Ekdahl, Group Vice President and General Manager, JD Edwards

Q: Since being named General Manager and Group Vice President of the JD Edwards Product Line, what has been your involvement with the User Groups and JD Edwards community?

A: I am a big believer in getting out to our customers and partners and pulling our discussions into actionable goals for the organization. I encourage my team to gather as much information about our customer issues and successes as possible so we can make fact based decisions on moving forward.

Starting in October with Oracle OpenWorld, members of my team and I traveled to several user groups and customer workshops around the world. We met with more than 600 JD Edwards customers, partners and employees in Europe and the Middle East in November. We opened the calendar year by hosting an “invitation only” Partner Summit in Denver for 44 reseller partner organizations. At the Summit we brought the partners up to speed on our release strategy and upgrade programs. The partners brought with them success stories on their customers which you will be seeing soon on our Oracle websites.

We have a strong program planned for COLLABORATE 10 in Las Vegas, the largest customer run User Group meeting of the year.

Q: What are you hearing from CIOs? A: I’ve had several discussions with CIOs about how they appreciate our current strategy for Applications Unlimited and the continued support for the JD Edwards products. Our policy of continued support for the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Tools Releases in particular has been very popular. Customers have been able to keep up with their product certifications and technical requirements without having to upgrade their customized application environments at the same time.

We are now planning updates to EnterpriseOne Tools approximately twice per year. If you haven’t updated your Tools environment consider doing so to reduce your cost of ownership and improve your user experience. Updates have been made in each release to System Administration, Security, Integration Infrastructure, Web Design and more. Look for EnterpriseOne Tools product news at the COLLABORATE conference.

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Q: What advice do you have for COLLABORATE 10 attendees looking to maximize their conference experience?

A: All JD Edwards customers should attend my session of course to hear the latest and greatest about innovations in the product line and through integrations to best in class Oracle products. My leads for EnterpriseOne and World will have Roadmap sessions to level set on our plans and directions which are “don’t miss” for their respective sessions.

The SIGs and World User Group are important stops in your conference to share and give input to us at Oracle. We also have Upgrade Consortium Meetings which have become very useful to customers considering or in any stage of upgrading. Consider the Upgrade Consortium the place to meet other customers who are willing to share their experiences and tips and techniques.

My staff as well as customers, partners and other Oracle groups have a strong offering of breakout sessions over the week. There are so many we find most customers divide up the sessions to get as much coverage as possible.

Definitely plan to attend the Quest networking parties and receptions. When you see me, come by and say hi, and let me know what’s on your mind!

Submit your question now for the next issue: email jennifer.rogers@questdirect.org.

aa Q&aContinued CoMMitMent with John SChiff, ViCe PreSident, aPPliCationS

unliMited and general Manager, Jd edwardS world

Q: what are you hearing from Cios lately? a: We have been hearing from CIOs that they are glad to see that Oracle continues its commitment to both JD Edwards’ product lines through Applications Unlimited. They are pleased that we are still very committed to supporting our product by coming out with an update to A9.2 as well as developing A9.3. Our Lifetime Support Policy has also shown our commitment to our product.

Q: how is customer feedback being incorporated into the development process for a9.3? what should customers do if they’d like to get involved?

Submit your question now for the next issue: email jennifer.rogers @questdirect.org.

a: Our Product Strategy Managers are constantly looking for input on enhancements that provide value and reduce total cost of ownership for our customers. The World User Group is a great forum to explore and discuss solutions for our customers. This group meets via conference call every other month on the second Tuesday of the month. My team is always listening to requirements that come through Quest and the World User Group. I would encourage customers to get involved with Quest and use the tools that are available to them such as the enhancement paper process. The program outlines a process that gives Quest’s community a way to submit and discuss their ideas and proposals for enhancement request to the Oracle products they use. Our dedicated JD Edwards World team is currently defining our next release, A9.3, so now is the time to get those enhancements in.

Q: what discussions do you anticipate having this year with attendees at CollaBorate 10? what will the results of those talks be? a: We expect to hear from customers who have upgraded and how it is going. We want to know what new features they are using and what benefits they receive. From our older release customers, we want to help with their business case to upgrade.

Our customers will have the opportunity to explore the wide range of Oracle solutions and services at the Conference. With the ability to integrate to other Oracle products such as Demantra, Agile and CRM On Demand we can broaden our JD Edwards solution.

Q: what advice do you have for CollaBorate 10 attendees looking to maximize their conference experience? a: My advice to attendees to maximize their conference experience is to make it a networking event. Go to the sessions. Meet with other customers as well as the JD Edwards Strategy Managers. Have an open dialogue with other customers. When you go back to your office, implement what you learn. Meet. Discuss. React.

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oraCle and Sun: what doeS thiS Mean for you? a Q&a with PaCo auBreJuan, ViCe PreSident, PeoPleSoft enterPriSe deVeloPMent

“Currently we have identified over 450 customers who are deploying PeopleSoft Enterprise 9.1...”

Q: what discussions do you anticipate having this year with attendees at CollaBorate 10? what will the results of those talks be? a: I expect the predominate discussion topic around PeopleSoft at COLLABORATE 10 will focus on the delivery and adoption of PeopleSoft Enterprise 9.1. Customers want to know what value the latest PeopleSoft release can provide them and who is taking advantage of release 9.1. Whether they are talking to me, my team, or their peers who are adopting PeopleSoft Enterprise 9.1, our customers will see the latest release has tremendous value and traction in the market is exceptionally strong, Currently we have identified over 450 customers who are deploying PeopleSoft Enterprise 9.1, with many go lives already occurring a mere 5 months after GA.

Q: over the last several months, oracle has announced many new product releases across the oracle product portfolio including PeopleSoft enterprise 9.1. how do these new releases affect PeopleSoft customers? a: With each new Oracle application release, Oracle is executing on its Applications Unlimited strategy and demonstrating its commitment to continuing enhancement to existing product lines. What this means specifically to PeopleSoft customers is twofold: One, it means PeopleSoft customers can invest in the existing PeopleSoft deployments with the confidence. Two, it means PeopleSoft customers can leverage a complete set of solutions; all delivered by Oracle that work with their existing PeopleSoft deployments.

Q: what advice do you have for CollaBorate 10 attendees looking to maximize their conference experience? a: I strongly recommend attendees to have open dialogs with their peers on how effective I.T. strategies can enable the business for success. Conferences like COLLABORATE 10 are the best opportunity for customers to network with their peers. Now more than ever customers are focused on their near and long term I.T. strategies; they should seize this opportunity to discuss PeopleSoft upgrade and expansion plans with their peers.

Submit your question now for the next issue: email jennifer.rogers@questdirect.org.

“Conferences like COLLABORATE 10 are the best opportunity for customers to network with their peers.”

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FINALLY, A WEB SITE WHERE YOU WON’T HAVE TO STOP AND ASK FOR DIRECTIONS. The new Quest online experience. Coming summer 2010.

Women in Technology: highlighTing leaders in our communiTy Q: Tell us a little about your current position. a: I am thrilled to have an ideal position as a Quest Relationship Manager – one that allows me to leverage my education, work in the field of Information Technology and user group leadership along with an extensive network that has been nurtured over the years.

In this role, I am responsible for the development and facilitation of collaborative working relationships among Quest-affiliated regional user groups, Oracle, complementary service and solution providers and, of course, Quest. Our collective goal is to serve Oracle customers, with a focus on the JD Edwards, PeopleSoft and Oracle Utilities communities, to ensure that they truly optimize their investment in Information Systems and meet their business needs.

I can also use my past I.T. leadership experience to work on special projects, such as interaction with I.T. decision makers, both within and outside of the Quest community, to address the Quest value proposition and how Quest is focused on better serving their needs.

Q: describe your journey – how did you get to where you are today? how did you first become a part of Quest? how and when did you make the transition from customer leader to Quest staff member? a: My journey in Information Technology started when I was an undergraduate student and secondary education/mathematics major at Boston College. During my freshman year I was chosen to participate in a government-funded program designed to train a qualified group of students to become computer programmers.

After completing courses in the summer, we were placed in various university departments to support their programming needs on a part-time basis – which I did during the school year and summers until graduation. After a short stint as a junior high school math teacher, I began full-time employment at Boston College in Management Information Systems. Many may recall those infamous “MIS Departments” that professed to know what the user needed and developed systems pretty much in a vacuum. My goal even back then was to “listen to the needs of the customer” and serve in a business/programmer analyst position to bridge the gap between I.T. and the user. During my tenure at BC, I was also active in academic consortia, where I benefited from the sharing of knowledge, experiences and expertise, so my transition into active user group participation was a natural. After my longest employment tenure to date of 15 years, I left the university to become Director of Information Systems at M.W. Carr, a picture frame manufacturing company, where in the early 90’s we selected and implemented JD Edwards World, replacing legacy systems.

Joining APICS (The Association for Resource Management) and getting my MBA in Operations Management and Organizational Behavior were invaluable with the transition into the world of manufacturing. This was also the starting point of a long history with the JD Edwards product line, regional user group leadership, Quest

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Joanne Brennan Quest Relationship Manager

volunteer service, commencing with co-leadership of the first Quest conference planning committee in 1995 and serving two terms on the Quest board of directors. After six years at Carr, I accepted the I.T. leadership position at Unicco Service Company. After four years at Unicco, I accepted a position with Whittman-Hart/marchFIRST to start a JD Edwards consulting practice in their Boston office. After ten years in the JD Edwards “world,” I was able to quickly gather a high-powered consulting team. I served a total of three years in an I.T. practice leadership position -- the last year in the Boston office of Resources Global Professionals. At the end of 2001, I was ready for a major career move. I had been an active user group and APICS volunteer since the early 90s. Recognizing that there are a lot of synergies between Quest and APICS, as both are committed to providing education and the sharing of best practices, I wanted to remain active in both. In 2002, I accepted a position with Quest – and the rest is history!

Q: growing up, or even in the early stages of your career, did you have a mentor? Who served as your biggest source of inspiration? a: As a young teenager, I started baby-sitting for the toddler of a couple who were both neurosurgeons. They eventually had four other children and over the years I saw firsthand how a highly responsible professional and mother could successfully balance a career and raising a family. My own mother also served as a role model as she had three children and worked part-time to help support our family. With the support of my husband and parents, I was able to pursue my career, hold highly responsible positions and raise a family of four children, two of whom are now young mothers and successfully balancing professional careers with motherhood.

Q: Where do you see yourself in five years? a: I’ve joked with a Quest colleague that we probably will both be working for Quest into our 90’s, which is still some decades away!

What this speaks to is the passion that the Quest staff have for the work we do; how “the job is never done,” as Quest constantly remains on a path of continuous improvement; how the Quest team and board work so well together to face challenges and embrace new opportunities; and how there certainly is “never a dull moment” at Quest.

Q: you’ve been involved in Quest since the very beginning.

What’s changed? Where do you think this community will be in five years? a: If you go back to Quest’s roots, JD Edwards had supported the formation of an independent user group both conceptually and financially by providing seed money to get started and fostering

a collaborative working relationship. While this independence became “at risk” after the PeopleSoft acquisition, it was once again recognized and valued by Oracle, as was re-establishing a collaborative working relationship.

Quest has a proven history of resiliency, agility and ability to adapt to change. With increased surveying of member needs and it commitment to “listening to the voice of the customer,” the development of the new Quest Web site that will be launched this summer, the rollout of online education and a major initiative to interact with and better service I.T. decision makers, Quest will

continue to remain a key resource for Oracle customers in various technical and functional positions within their organizations. It will provide content and communication via delivery channels adapted to individual work styles and preferences. Quest will use its meeting planning expertise to support and deliver fact-to-face user group meetings, at various levels, while at the same time developing and supporting productive virtual communities. One thing I know for sure from my long tenure with Quest – Quest will continue to embrace and adapt to change and remain focused on meeting the needs of its members and customers.

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By Jennifer Rogers and Mary Kate Raffetto

Frank Abagnale, subject of the movie and book Catch Me if You Can, previews his keynote at COLLABORATE 10 in an exclusive interview with Q&A Magazine He doesn’t often grant interviews. So when Frank Abagnale, subject of the movie and book Catch Me if You Can, agreed to talk to Q&A Magazine in conjunction with his keynote at Quest’s Meeting of the Members (April 20 at COLLABORATE 10 in Las Vegas) – we were thrilled.

His life’s an interesting one – and what we don’t cover here you can hear at his presentation at the Meeting of the Members, at a special book signing in the Quest booth immediately following or at our executive track sessions.

(See details in the call-out box on the next page.) Catch him there if you can!

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Frank Abagnale at COLLABORATE 10

Tuesday, April 20 4:30 pm Quest Meeting of the Members 5:30 pm Exhibitor Showcase – Quest Booth (book signing)

Wednesday, April 21 8:00 am – 10:15 am Session 77910: The Art of the Steal (Quest Executive Track)

Q: After you finished serving out your agreement with federal authorities (helping them in exchange for your release), what made you decide to keep working in fraud and security? At what point did you say, ‘I think I’ll turn this into a career’?

A: Most of the work inside the government is FBI. My actual obligation ended 26 years ago. It was very interesting to me, and I worked with a great bunch of people who had a cause protecting our country from terrorism.

By now, I’ve been with the FBI for 35 years – 90 percent of the work I do is for them. I sell no products; I sell no services. My only client is really the federal government, and the only thing outside that is my speaking engagements. Most of those are for banks, Fortune 500 companies, and the like, focused on things like check forgery and cybercrime. They bring me on tour and have me speak, and I do a two or three hour presentation on the things they should be concerned about. Then we do a Q&A session about what concerns them.

Q: What changes have you seen in fraud detection and avoidance the last few decades?

A: The major thing – it never ceases to amaze me how easy it is. What I did 40 years ago is a thousand times easier today.

When I forged checks years ago, I needed a Heidelburg press. I had to build scaffolding to bring myself to the top.

But I was just a teenager and young enough to do that – there were color separations, negatives, plates and chemicals to work with.

Today, all you have to do is sit at a laptop and look for a corporation’s name on a building. You capture the logo, put on the left-hand corner of a check and screen an image in the background. ‘Step and repeat’ the lettering in the background, print it off a color printer with check paper you can buy at a local stationery story – and what you end up with is prettier than the actual check the company uses.

We live in a ‘too much information’ world. If you would have walked up to the press and said to me, ‘These checks are beautiful – but how do you know where Pan Am banks?’ I wouldn’t have known. I would have just made up a name.

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“Then all the forger does from there is create the MICR line on the check.”

Now, once someone creates the check, everything they need to know is just a phone call away. They could call the company up and ask for Accounts Receivables and tell the person they would prefer to pay their bill by wire and they need wiring instructions.

Unfortunately, they will immediately tell them their bank, the address of their branch, their routing number and their account number. Then all the forger does from there is create the MICR line on the check.

They could request a copy of their annual report, and when it arrived in the mail, they’d have on page three the signature of the CEO, CFO, Treasurer and Controller. All in nice black ink on white glossy paper . . . camera ready art.

“... the authorized signature on the check was not accurate.”

“For the crimes I committed, I was sent to prison for 12 years.”

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In the old days, Pan Am, for example, was never out any money, because the bank the checks were drawn on didn’t exist; there was no such account and the authorized signature on the check was not accurate.

Because of what you are able to obtain over the telephone today by the method described, you would in fact have the real bank, the actual account number and the actual signature of the authorized signer.

Unfortunately, this check will clear the victim’s account and the company will be out the money.

For the crimes I committed, I was sent to prison for 12 years. I served four in the U. S. and a year overseas.

Unfortunately, today if I committed the same crime, I would end up with community service, probation or 18 months in a “country club” type prison. For the criminal today, there are very few risks and tremendous rewards.

Q: how have more complex infrastructures – and for our audience’s sake, i.t. departments – had an impact? a: Well, the first thing you learn is that there is

no foolproof system. If you believe that you have a foolproof system, you have failed to take into consideration the creativity of fools. When I work on protecting a company’s assets, we start with that premise: there is no foolproof system.

The best you can do is make things very difficult – that makes it less likely bad things are going to happen and puts you at less risk. A good way to do that is to practice segregation of duties – you cannot only limit it to one or two people touching the system. There has to be numerous people involved. This is the best way to avoid collusion.

I wish everyone was honest – but not everyone is.

Today, we live in an extremely unethical society.

Ethics are not taught in the home, they are not taught in school because the teacher would be accused of teaching morality. They are very rarely taught in college and very few companies even have a code of ethics.

about Frank abagnale

Frank W. Abagnale is one of the world's most respected authorities on forgery, embezzlement and secure documents. For over 35 years he has worked with, advised and consulted with hundreds of financial institutions, corporations and government agencies around the world.

Mr. Abagnale's rare blend of knowledge and expertise began more than 40 years ago when he was known as one of the world's most famous confidence men. This was depicted most graphically in his best-selling book, Catch Me If You Can, a film of which was also made, directed by Steven Spielberg with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks. Between the ages of 16 and 21, he successfully posed as an airline pilot, an attorney, a college professor and a pediatrician, in addition to cashing $2.5 million in fraudulent checks in every state and 26 foreign countries. Apprehended by the French police when he was 21 years old, he served time in the French, Swedish and U. S. prison systems. After five years he was released on the condition that he would help the federal government, without remuneration, by teaching and assisting federal law enforcement agencies.

Mr. Abagnale has now been associated with the FBI for over 35 years. More than 14,000 financial institutions, corporations and law enforcement agencies use his fraud prevention programs. In 1998 he was selected as a distinguished member of "Pinnacle 400" by CNN Financial News – a select group of 400 people chosen on the basis of great accomplishment and success in their fields. In 2004 Mr. Abagnale was selected as the spokesperson for the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) and the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA). He has also written numerous articles and books including The Art of the Steal, The Real U Guide to Identity Theft and Stealing Your Life.

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“The risk of criminal behavior and internal fraud never goes away.”

Q: what impact, if any, has the economy had on the way companies and the government approach fraud detection and avoidance?

Q: what should collaborate attendees expect to take away from your presentation? how can they apply what they’ve learned once they get home?

a: What happens in many industries – even in banks

a: My talk about my life is a very entertaining one.

People are fascinated about what I did 40 years ago as a teenager. But I try to bring them full circle. They hopefully walk away with a different outlook on life and family and doing the right thing.

– is that the first jobs to go are security, internal fraud investigators, and the like. That’s a mistake. The risk of criminal behavior and internal fraud never goes away. If the economy is booming, then companies are not paying attention to the bottom line, they are more concerned with buying and selling. If we are in a recession, then people get desperate and do things they normally wouldn’t do.

When is crime really bad? Crime is bad, period – whether the economy is good or bad. Last year fraud in the U.S. was $940 billion. That’s a significant amount of our gross domestic product. And that’s just white-collar related – it’s enormous, and consumers end up picking up the tab.

It’s truly getting worse, and it’s getting easier and more global. Fraud is so huge that it is difficult to even try and manage from a law enforcement perspective or even to try to prosecute.

Q: what are the problems and weaknesses that expose a company to fraud? what should people be watching out for? a: I think today you have to be a little smarter. When

you hire someone and put them in a position of trust, you have to do a background check. Is their application correct? Anyone can pick up a phone and verify information, and a lot of companies just don’t do that.

In fraud rings, it’s easy to find someone and just tell them, ‘No matter what salary this company pays you, I’m going to pay you on top of that – all you have to do is work yourself into a position of trust.’ That’s why the background checks are so important.

Run credit reports on the people you hire – it will tell you a lot about them and their character. Are they really the type of person you want in a secure position? Many companies don’t even have a code of ethics or conduct to guide them. It’s easy to persuade someone to do something their company would find unethical.

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If I can educate people and say, ‘Here’s your risk,’ they’re smart enough to do the things they need to do to protect themselves. They’ll walk away with something they can use to protect their family – as well as their company. On my web site at www.abagnale.com, there is a bottom on the left of the home page marked “Publications”. If you click on it, you will find many helpful tools on protecting yourself, your family, your business and your employer.

Q: you mentioned protecting families. can you tell us a bit about yours? a: My oldest son is an FBI agent. My middle son has a degree in hotel management and he and his wife own a retail store, and my youngest son attended college in China and he reads, writes and speaks Chinese fluently.

He currently works in Beijing for a non-profit organization.

Q: Final question – and it’s a bit tongue-in-cheek. how did you pass the bar exam in the state of louisiana? a: Well, in the movie about my life, it said I passed the bar in two weeks. I actually took the two-month prep course, and at the time, you didn’t have to have a law degree to take the test. You studied including the Napoleonic code, and I did that just like anyone else prepping for the bar.

Tuesday, April 20

Meet Frank Abagnale at the Quest booth immediately following Quest’s Meeting of the Members.

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Fusion Architecture At coLLABorAte 10

By Floyd Teter

Well, isn’t this something … the Vice President of the oracle aPPlications Users groUP (oaUg) Writing an article for QUest?

Pretty cool, isn’t it? it’s a great examPle of the sPirit of collaboration betWeen the oracle User groUPs for the benefit of the Users. i’m Very gratefUl to my friends at QUest for inViting me to Write this article. and in the spirit of collaboration, let’s talk about collaborate 10 – and more specifically, about oracle fusion and the conference. y you’ll get bucket-loads of information about fusion architecture in las Vegas – in fact, there’s too much to talk about in the space i have here, so let’s just hit a few of the highlights.

First, I highly recommend the “Fusion Architecture: Soup to Nuts” workshop on Sunday, April 18.

The workshop is … you guessed it … a collaboration between multiple users groups (including Quest, OAUG, ODTUG, HEUG, and IOUG) and Oracle to overview the entire Fusion architecture stack in a single session. We’ll cover database and development tools, middleware products, using Fusion Middleware with Oracle Applications Unlimited products, usability in applications, and Fusion Applications. The session will include several customer stories and will wrap up with a panel of experts taking questions from the audience. And the sweet part of the deal is that the workshop is included in your regular conference registration.

Second, you’ll hear quite a bit about Fusion Principles. This is a new concept consisting of best practices and design patterns for using with the Fusion Architecture. You’ll get a taste of this during the “Fusion Architecture: Soup to Nuts” workshop, with more information coming later in the conference.

Third, you’ll have an opportunity to catch some new information about Fusion Middleware 11g.

Oracle’s Nishit Rao and Margaret Lee will be conducting a session about using the features of 11g to better integrate your customizations with your applications environment.

Fourth – this one alone is worth the price of the trip – you’ll hear about a JD Edwards World customer leveraging Fusion Middleware. I’m not going to spill any more of the story here. You’ll have to attend the conference and hear it for yourself! oracle will also be hosting some pretty nifty demos during the conference, including both fusion Principles and some powerful features in fusion middleware. so, the upshot here is that information about oracle fusion will be coming at you from all angles during collaborate; it’ll be hard to miss it. thing is, though, you’ve got to be there to get it. come join us for collaborate 10 in las Vegas.

Register today.

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FAcing the chALLenge: Business technoLogy convergence

Quest’s CIO Forum Closing Keynote Speaker, Faisal Hoque, Chairman and CEO of BTM Corporation, reflects on the challenges facing enterprises today and why Business Technology Convergence matters more than ever.

Join Mr. Hoque and our other presenters at this year’s CIO Forum (April 19 in Las Vegas) as they explore the challenges and opportunities facing the “CIO in a State of Change.”

There is no quesTion ThaT The business landscape across The globe has changed dramaTically over The lasT decade. only 74 of The original 500 companies in The s&p index were sTill on The lisT 40 years laTer – a morTaliTy raTe of more Than 10 per year. The average life span of an s&p 500 company has sTeadily decreased from more Than 50 years To fewer Than 25. projecTing forward, iT’s likely ThaT only abouT one-Third of Today’s major corporaTions will survive as significanT businesses for The nexT quarTer cenTury. doing nothing is not an option. The changes sweeping over corporations and other organizations will not stop because they make us uncomfortable. The only way to win is to get ahead of these changes and to manage them in your favor. you can’t do that today unless your business and technology are united as one.

To create an environment where technology helps to shape – rather than simply enable – strategic choices, leading enterprises are already working to synchronize – rather than simply align – their business and technology decision-making. and in the best-managed modern enterprises, technology and business management will converge completely. convergence occurs when business and technology activities are intertwined and the leadership teams operate almost interchangeably, managing business and technology together. our research since 1999 illustrates what leading organizations around the globe have learned about innovation through business technology convergence and not simply through innovating new technology. These include global 2000 corporations, government agencies, small to medium businesses, and social enterprises. we looked into these organizations to better understand how they create innovative business models – models that can adapt as opposed to suffer from unexpected shifts in the market.

This research suggests that leaders who place a focus on converging the business and technology management disciplines of their companies attain far more financial success than those who continue to treat them as silos. There is demonstrable economic value in advancing business technology management maturity, and the payoff is greatest for those enterprises that are approaching convergence.

The ability for technology (in its purest sense) to give an enterprise a competitive advantage is limited by the similar adoption and application of the technology across the competitive landscape. our ‘convergence index’ shows that when enterprises place the business strategy and model ahead of technology and use technology as a supporting piece of the strategy, the enterprise will continue to grow faster and with healthier profit margins than competitors who are using the same technology. would any self-respecting executive willingly throw millions of dollars at an investment without knowing how it could affect their business? The sane answer to this question is ‘no.’ a look at failed technology initiatives provides evidence that companies have faced this problem since they launched their first technology project. as the scope and risk of these initiatives increased, the effect of the disconnect did as well. by the time the internet burst onto the scene, the scale of technology projects had increased to the point that the correlation between business/technology convergence and the success of innovation (or lack thereof) became unavoidable. most organizations fail to capitalize on the technologies they already have; and many more are poised to meet this same fate with the next big technology fad. whether it’s wireless, web services, or the latest and greatest in nanotechnology, companies will never get value-real or perceived-without first solving the business/technology disconnects. as business slowly recovers from recession there are increasing signs that the economic crisis is redefining the marketplace and we need convergence now more than at any time in history to make the next generation enterprises thrive. business Technology management (bTm) is a call to arms; a manifesto for making organizations and businesses nimble, agile and able to build differentiated, innovative and adaptable processes that expand their reach and grow revenue even in the most challenging markets and conditions.

About the Author faisal hoque is the founder and ceo of bTm corporation. an internationally known entrepreneur and thought leader, faisal has written five management books, established the non-profit bTm institute, and become a leading authority on the issue of effective interaction between business and technology. © 2010 Faisal Hoque

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Find QUest near YoU Update: Quest regional conferences As 2010 begins, we wanted to give you an update on where you can find Quest’s regional conferences this year. Like all Quest events, our regional conferences feature a great mix of the general education content you need along with the focused, industry specific content you can’t get anywhere else – not to mention plenty of networking opportunities and access to Oracle executives you won’t find anywhere else. Read on to learn more and we hope to see you at a Quest event soon!

Mohegan Sun Resort & Casino Uncasville, Connecticut July 21-22, 2010 “I’ve attended all three Quest Northeast events – every year it has been held. In my opinion, Quest Northeast has improved each year in terms of the educational content and networking opportunities offered at the conference, and this year was no exception. Quest regional events offer users an excellent educational value, and I would highly recommend them.”

- Ed Gillis, Senior Architect Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Quest Northeast Attendee Quest International Users Group is once again partnering with five of our key affiliate user groups from the Northeast including the Boston RUG, Greater Philadelphia RUG, JD Edwards NorthEast User Group, Northeast PeopleSoft & NY/NJ JD Edwards RUG and the Southern New England User Group. Quest Northeast brings together hundreds of customers, vendors and key representatives from Oracle each year.

The call for presentations for Quest Northeast is open now! The deadline to submit a presentation is April 12.

This year, you’ll find education sessions at Quest Northeast focused on any one of six education tracks, including: • PeopleSoft 9.1 Features and Upgrades • Business Intelligence • When to Upgrade, When to Add Enhancements • Maintenance, Support and Training • Oracle Support • Application Optimization and Tune-Ups Education content for the conference will be live sometime soon, so keep checking www.questdirect.org for updates as we near the conference dates.

We hope you can join us in Connecticut!

The Hyatt Regency O’Hare Rosemont, Illinois August 17 - 18, 2010 Quest International Users Group will be presenting the fourth annual Quest Midwest Conference in partnership with the Midwest RUG, Ohio RUG, Indiana RUG, PackerLand RUG, Tri-State RUG, and the Upper Midwest RUG, bringing together hundreds of customers and vendors in the region with an affordable education and networking program featuring over 100 education sessions. Plans for the conference are underway now, so keep checking www.questdirect.org for updates soon.

We hope to see you in August!

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Update: From Quest’s international chapters INSYNC10 Quest Australia & New Zealand Conference Melbourne Conference and Exhibition Centre Melbourne, Australia August 16-17 Quest Australia & New Zealand is pleased to announce that the Call for Papers and Conference Registration is open for the Quest Australia & New Zealand annual user to user conference, INSYNC10. This year’s venue is the Melbourne Conference and Exhibition Centre in Melbourne.

This purpose-built facility is less than a year old, and with the latest in conference facilities should easily accommodate the increase in attendance expected this year. 2009 was a record breaking year, and 2010 is already showing signs of easily beating the numbers of attendees, presentations and exhibitors.

Primavera will also be joining this year’s Quest Australia & New Zealand conference, added to the existing topics covering JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, JD Edwards World, Oracle E-Business Suite, Hyperion, Siebel, BEA, PeopleSoft. Demantra, Agile, UPK and Fusion Middleware.

New UPK SIG Quest ANZ has launched a new Special Interest Group on User Productivity Kit (UPK). The first conference call was March 23 and was very well received. For more information on all the SIGs in Australia & New Zealand go to the Quest web site.

Regional Events Already in 2010, Quest ANZ has hosted six regional events and two SIG calls. To register to hear about the next round of free regional events and calls, email Daniel Strassberg at Daniel.Strassberg@Questdirect.org.

Quest Asia Quest Asia is busy making plans for its up and coming event in October 2010. The host cities have been narrowed down to Singapore and Hong Kong. A new conference event is being planned with more content, presentations and education sessions. More details to follow. All inquiries can be made to Daniel.strassberg@questdirect.org.

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35

USER TIPS

CREaTIng QUERy CRITERIa FRom an ExCEl lIST

By Michael Kepley, Manager â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Financial Technology, City Utilities of Springfield

Have you ever Had a list of items in microsoft excel and needed to create a query based on tHis list? it is a fairly simple process and tHis article will demonstrate How it can be done. for this example, a project manager within our company gives us a list of projects where he wants totals from proJ_resource.

this list contains 85 different projects. you could query each one separately or create an in list and type in each of these. my luck is that i would mistype a couple of them and not get all of the data that i need. Here is the trick on how to quickly query all of these projects. start off by creating a concatenate statement in excel for the first project. we will be putting the single quotes around the string variable and then adding a comma to the end. it will look something like this:

next copy this formula down to each of the other projects.

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you have now prepared your list for the query tool. this can be done in both the web version of query and the windows version of query. this article will demonstrate the windows version but simply use the same concept for the web version. first, creating your query based on any other information other than proJect_id.

the next thing to do is to setup the criteria for the proJect_id. pull over the proJect_id field onto the query tab and set it equal to an expression. inside this expression is where the magic will occur. first, add the field proJect_id to this expression (yes, we are setting it equal to itself, but you will quickly see what will happen.)

next, type in the following: and a.proJect_id in (. now, you are ready for your list from excel. simply copy all of the newly created concatenated fields into this expression.

remove the last , (comma) that is on the list and add the ending parenthesis ).

you can now execute your query.

this will work on any type of data that you may be searching on. if it is a numeric value, do not concatenate the single quotes around the value. also, if your value has zeros in the beginning of the variable, make sure that excel does not eliminate them for you. try it out and let me know what you think.

About the Author michael Kepley has been with city utilities of springfield for 20+ years. He has been a developer in it and is now a liaison between finance and it as the manager â&#x20AC;&#x201C; financial technology. His primary focuses are project lead, first-line troubleshooter and report specialist. if you have any questions about this article, you can reach michael at mkepley@cityutilities.net.

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USER TIPS

PAyIng VEndoRS VIA CREdIT CARd WIThoUT ThE USE of PURChASIng

By Alicia Kinsey, ENTAP, Inc.

Do you want to pay venDors with a creDit carD? are you paying venDors with creDit carDs, but can’t get the Detail charges in peoplesoft because you aren’t using purchasing? woulD you like to be able to track all creDit carD expenses using only the payables moDule? this article will Demonstrate an easy way to setup your existing payables moDule to track anD recorD creDit carD charges at the Detail level. also, it will proviDe steps to reconcile your creDit carD statements to the Detail charges.

Step 1: setup a new bank and bank branch that will correspond to your credit card institution. navigation: banking > banks and branches > bank information / bank branch information

Step 2: setup a new external account for your credit card account. navigation: banking > bank accounts > external accounts

External Accounts Tab • Account Number – use as much of the credit card number as needed.

• Cash – AP account – create a liability account to store the charges until the credit card statement is paid.

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Reconciliation Tab • Recon Method: select manual to manually reconcile the charges with your credit card statement; select automatic or semi man if you plan to load your credit card statements into peoplesoft.

Payment Methods Tab • Payment Method – select manual check to have the system automatically post payments to the liability account (no pay cycle required); select system check if you would like to have a form printed via pay cycle for each voucher.

• Form ID – if selecting system check, create a new form iD that is associated with the new custom layout for your credit card payments. be sure to specify the check number length in the check# len field on the account information tab for numbering your credit card payment forms.

Step 3: change the default bank account on the vendor that you will be paying with a credit card to the new bank account. navigation: vendors > vendor information > add/update > vendor > location tab

Payables Link • Bank Options – specify bank and account.

• Payment Method – specify payment method; if not using your default payment method.

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USER TIPS continued Step 4: create a new vendor for your credit card vendor. navigation: vendors > vendor information > add/update > vendor

Step 5: create a voucher for an expense to be paid by credit card. navigation: accounts payable > vouchers > regular entry • Invoice Information Tab – charge the voucher to the correct expense account.

Payments Tab • Payment Method – make sure the bank and account are pointed to your new credit card account. if needed, update the payment method.

• Schedule Payment – if using the manual method, record the payment date and reference number that will tie to your credit card statement.

Step 6: post voucher, run pay cycle (if not using manual payment method) and post payment – this will create the accounting entries to debit the expense account and credit the credit card liability account.

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Step 7: create a voucher to pay the credit card statement. navigation: accounts payable > vouchers > regular entry

Invoice Information Tab – charge the voucher to the credit card liability account, this will relieve the open liability amount in the credit card liability account.

Payments Tab – payment should be scheduled to pay from your regular bank in your scheduled pay cycle.

Step 8: reconcile payments to your credit card statement.

Manual Reconciliation navigation: banking > reconcile statements > manual reconciliation • manually mark vouchers as reconciled from credit card statement.

Automatic or Semi-Manual Reconciliation • this requires the importing of bank statements or the manual entry of bank statements.

• match vouchers to credit card statement items. congratulations, you have successfully recorded detail credit card charges and paid your credit card statement.

About the Author alicia kinsey is a senior consultant with entap, inc. alicia has been working with peoplesoft since 1996, both as a consultant and a customer. alicia has worked as an erp consultant with accenture and entap, and as a finance systems manager with finish line. if you have any questions about this article, you can reach alicia at alicia.kinsey@entap.com.

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Roadmap foR New TechNology – Soa

By Patrick Donlin

Oracle has lOng been a piOneer fOr innOvative technOlOgy and a leader in the sOftware industry. Oracle started with a database and mOre recently has cOntinued tO purchase market leaders while incOrpOrating them intO Oracle fusiOn prOducts. the best example Of this currently is Oracle middleware encOmpassing their sOa suite.

Oracle middleware is comprised of many products that Oracle has purchased from market leaders. they have taken the key players and been able to incorporate them into a unified solution. some of the key middleware acquisitions were collaxa, bea, golden gate and sun. Owning these different software technologies allows Oracle to comfortably take the strongest and deliver a best-of-breed middleware solution. sOa is not a new concept. it has been around for many years, however is now much easier and more beneficial for companies to take advantage of its methodology. universally accepted industry standards such as xml, web services and enabling technologies have evolved to the point that we are now ready for sOa. so what does sOa mean? sOa (service Orientated architecture) is a methodology of layering the business applications and using various web services to create an i.t. environment that is more agile, re-usable and effective. sOa’s goals of planning, reduced cost and flexibility are met by offering clients the ability to react to fast changing environments and business initiatives. in the traditional environment, all the components are coupled together. these layers are integrated into a single environment, and are not really separately addressable. this environment provides its own context and its own unique integration of components. all the applications are bundled together in one unified solution. an sOa architecture creates a structure where the components themselves are heterogeneous. sOa accepts general rules, such as xml and web services security, that allow for more general integration of the different application components. sOa unbundles these applications to allow new combinations. how can sOa be used in your environment? many organizations’ erp environment has matured to the point where they have a sustainable environment. this would be ideal if the business did not change, however the organization’s business requirements continue to evolve. with this change in business requirements, the i.t. organization must support and scale their solution to the business needs and this is where sOa can help. sOa’s ability to adapt and scale is key. there are challenges implementing sOa architecture. data is now exposed via the web, departments will give up individual control of their data and roles change within your team. it is important to develop an sOa roadmap outlining a governance strategy. you may want to create an sOa architecture board to ensure proper collaboration and communication throughout the process. in conclusion, sOa is the future. Oracle has developed a great solution which is integrated with the best products. most organizations have or will begin implementing sOa architecture soon. it is a flexible solution that is hot pluggable with your current environment that can deliver exceptional long term value to your business.

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