Discoverer Portlets for Sharing 11i OM & Shipping Data with Customers

NorCal OAUG 2007 Training Day Event

January 17, 2007

Eric Guether

Opnext, Inc.

eguether@opnext.com

• Understand why Opnext implemented a Portal with Discoverer portlets

• Find out some things that Discoverer portlets can and cannot do

• Learn how to create a shipment tracking link to an external website in a Discoverer portlet – or even in a Discoverer workbook!

• Receive an overview of Discoverer portlet key setups

Learning Objectives

Today’s Speaker: Eric Guether

• IT Director at Opnext in Eatontown, NJ• Manages Opnext’s Oracle EBS 11i system• Provides user support for some 11i modules, Oracle

Alerts and Discoverer 9i Desktop• Member of OAUG and NJOAUG• Began career as an accountant and then CPA

Who Is Opnext?

• Lasers!– Designer & maker of active fiber optic components

• Spin-off of 2 Hitachi businesses– Headquarters in Eatontown, NJ

– Manufacturing in Yokohama & Komoro, Japan

– U.S. Sales based in Fremont, CA

• Global sales to customers such as Lucent, Alcatel, Cisco, Siemens, Kodak, NEC, and Hitachi

• Running multiorg, single global instance of EBS 11i– 11.5.10.2 (CU2) American English with Japanese NLS

– Financials, OM, Inventory, Purchasing, Cost Mgmt., Discrete MFG & Master Scheduling/MRP

Examples of Opnext Products

Laser Diode Modules Transmitters Receivers

Transceivers10GbE XENPAK

Modules

• Oracle Portal– Provides hubs of information from EBS 11i and

other systems– Used by many organizations

• Discoverer– Provides users with queries against EBS 11i data– Used by many organizations

• Discoverer Portlets– Objects within Oracle Portal to cache and display

data directly from Discoverer workbooks– Rarely used?

Introduction

• Grant Discoverer Desktop access to external customers & sales reps– Allow external parties to run real-time Discoverer

queries on open sales orders and recent shipments

– Arose from frustration: Internal staff was burdened with weekly filtering & exporting of Discoverer data to e-mail to customers

Business Case: Initial User Request

• Denied the initial request– External users would need a Discoverer client

installation and VPN access to Opnext’s network– Support burden for Opnext’s IT staff– Security concerns about customer access to other

EBS 11i data• Proposed an alternative solution using Oracle Portal

– Originally Portal 9i– Subsequently upgraded to Portal 10gR2 (v 10.1.2.1)

Business Case: IT Dept. Response

• Public website built from Oracle Portal 9i– No client installation or VPN access required– Unique Portal ID and password for each external

user• Use Discoverer portlets to provide OM data from

Discoverer 9i worksheets• Portlet data would be cached

– User sees data immediately on Portal page– No waiting for the Discoverer query to run– Cached data refreshed hourly or daily– Date/time of cached data displayed on Portal page

Business Case: Proposed Solution

Internet

Internet Client

[Desktop or Laptop]

Verisign

Certificate Authority (CA)

validation

Secure policy / NAT

translation

FirewallTo Portal

Certificate Authority (CA)

validationSSL-128 bitEncryption

Encryption Key

Encrypted User Access from Internet

Original Application Server (AS) Architecture

Portal Login Page

Portal Page # 1: Open Sales Orders

• Open sales order lines for the customer (not yet ship confirmed)

• Columns include:– Sales Order # and Line #

– Customer PO #

– Product and Customer Item #

– Quantity and Price

• Queried EBS 11i tables or views include:– ONT.OE_ORDER_HEADERS_ALL

– ONT.OE_ORDER_LINES_ALL

– APPS.MTL_CUSTOMER_ITEM_XREFS_V

Open Sales Orders Worksheet

Portal Page # 2: Current Month Shipments

• Fulfilled shipments with ship confirm date in the current month

• Columns include:– Sales Order # and Line #– Customer PO #– Product and Customer Item #– Quantity and Price– Ship Method Code and Waybill– Receivables Invoice # (NULL until AutoInvoice runs)

• Queried EBS 11i tables include:– WSH.WSH_NEW_DELIVERIES– WSH.WSH_DELIVERY_DETAILS– AR.RA_CUSTOMER_TRX_ALL

Current Month Shipments Worksheet

Portal Page # 3: Prior Month Shipments

• Prerequisites– Create new Portal ID for external user– Create a new Portal page for the new Portal ID– Assign new page as default for new Portal ID– Create a user-defined connection [explained later]

• Highlight region on new Portal page• Add Discoverer portlet (undefined worksheet)• Select user-defined connection• Select workbook & worksheet from EBS 11i

database’s Discoverer 9i End User Layer (EUL)• Select Discoverer portlet refresh options

Overview of Key Portlet Creation Steps

Highlight Region on Portal Page

Add Discoverer Portlet

• Creates an undefined portlet (no worksheet selected)

Select User-Defined Connection

Select Worksheet from EBS Database EUL

• Lists all workbooks to which Portal ID has access via the selected user-defined connection

Edit Portlet Defaults

Select Portlet Refresh Options

• Portal offered no way to export the result set table• Browser’s “Save As” functionality was inadequate• Highlighting the table and copying into Excel

produced weird results• Critical enough to kill the project if not resolved

Issue: Export from Portal Page to Excel

• Discoverer Viewer has Export Data functionality– Can export its result set table to many file

formats, including to Excel XLS format• Each Discoverer portlet has an optional link to

Discoverer Viewer– Link appears in lower left bottom of portlet

Link in Portal 10gR2: Analyze Link in Portal 9i: View Worksheet

– Opens a Viewer page and runs a real-time query of the Discoverer worksheet used by the portlet

Resolution: Discoverer Viewer

“Analyze” Link on Portal Page . . .

. . . Opens Viewer & Reruns Sheet Query

Export Action in Viewer . . .

. . . Gets the Result Set into Excel

• Risk # 1: Could the user remove a worksheet’s conditions in Viewer to see records of other customers?– Opnext used worksheet conditions to filter by customer

– No Risk: Viewer users cannot modify or remove worksheet conditions

• Risk # 2: Would the security allow the portal user in Viewer to open other database workbooks?– Portal 9i users who accessed Viewer 9i via the portlet’s View

Worksheet link could open any workbook in Viewer to which their connection had access (not just the worksheet used by the portlet)

– Opnext’s implemented security relationship limited the user to only the workbook used by his/her 3 portlets

Issue: Restricting User Access in Viewer

PORTAL_USERPORTAL_USER

EBS 11i ID Responsibility Workbook Portal ID

US – Portal for Demo

US – Portal for Demo

US – Portal for Customer1

US – Portal for Customer1

US – Portal for Customer2

US – Portal for Customer2

PORTAL – DEMO PORTAL – DEMO

PORTAL – CUSTOMER1PORTAL –

CUSTOMER1

PORTAL – CUSTOMER2PORTAL –

CUSTOMER2

DEMODEMO

CUSTOMER1CUSTOMER1

CUSTOMER2CUSTOMER2

Assign ResponsibilityAssign Responsibility

Grant Workbook AccessGrant Workbook Access

User-Defined Connection linking Portal ID to ResponsibilityUser-Defined Connection linking Portal ID to Responsibility

Solution: Security Relationships

Key to Solution

• An EBS user account, PORTAL_USER, created only once – not once per Portal ID

Create One EBS Account for All Portal IDs

• One unique responsibility for each Portal ID• Responsibility only has access to Preferences menu

Create New EBS 11i Responsibility

• Assigned to shared EBS user account: PORTAL_USER• Used to grant access to Discoverer workbook

Assign New Responsibility

• Granted within Discoverer Desktop (EUL in EBS 11i database)

• Restricts other Portal users from viewing workbook through Discoverer Viewer

Grant Workbook Access to Responsibility

“PORTAL_USER” is the EBS 11i user name (EBS ID)

Create User-Defined Connection

Create User-Defined Connection (cont.)

“US – Portal for DEMO” is the EBS responsibility

• On Current Month and Prior Month Shipments portlets, change the FedEx, UPS, or DHL tracking number in the “Waybill #” column to a hyperlink to the shipping carrier’s website

• Not part of initial requirements– Requested during user testing

• Dilemma: How to add a Tracking Link URL column to the cached result set of a Discoverer portlet?

Issue: Shipment Tracking Hyperlink

• New item “Tracking Link” created in Discoverer Admin and added to Discoverer Desktop workbook

• Content type of new item set to FILE [default = <None>]• Data type set to Varchar• Formula:

– Uses “Ship Method Code” in DECODE to determine external web address

– Concatenates tracking # from “Waybill” column

Resolution: FILE Item Type in Workbook

FILE Item Type in Discoverer Admin

DECODE(Ship Method Code, 'UPS','http://wwwapps.ups.com/WebTracking/processInputRequest?HTMLVersion=5.0&sort_by=status&tracknums_displayed=5&TypeOfInquiryNumber=T&InquiryNumber1='||"Waybill"||'&AgreeToTermsAndConditions=yes&track.x=42&track.y=11',

'FEDEX','http://www.fedex.com/Tracking?tracknumbers='||"Waybill"||'',

'DHL','http://track.dhl-usa.com/TrackByNbr.asp?ShipmentNumber='||"Waybill"||'',

NULL)

“Tracking Link” Item Formula

Desktop Workbook with Tracking Link

Portlet with Tracking Link

• Click triangle (1st click)

Portlet with Tracking Link (continued)

• Mouse over URL and click (2nd click)

Portlet with Tracking Link (continued)

• Tracking website pops up in new browser window

• FILE item type solution worked well “as is” with Portal 9i portlets and Discoverer 9i (Desktop, Viewer & Plus) . . . and even with Discoverer Desktop 10gR2– 9i Portlets treated Tracking Link values as hyperlinks

• Solution did not work when migrated to Portal 10gR2– Solaris OS Server: Needed to apply Patch 5231969 for

FILE item type hyperlink to work on 10gR2 portlets Begged Oracle for 5 months for the Solaris patch

– Linux OS Server: Patch 5231969 does not work for 10gR2 portlets on a Linux server Waiting for 3 months for a Linux patch from Oracle Oracle bug # 5713987

Solution Worked in 9i But Not in 10gR2

• Drill Link to Internet URL– New hyperlink functionality added to Discoverer

Viewer & Plus 10gR2– Not added to 10gR2 portlets!

Oracle bug 4969310 To be resolved in Portal version 11.1.1

Alternative Functionality in 10gR2

• Configuring Application Server 10gR2 For Discoverer Portlets, Mark Rittman [http://www.rittman.net/2005/03/04/configuring-application-server-10gr2-for-discoverer-portlets/]

• Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Administration Guide, Chapter 18, “Using Discoverer with components of Oracle Application Server” [Oracle Discoverer 10g Release 2 doc # B13916-04]

• OracleAS Web Cache 10g (9.0.4) FAQ [Metalink note # 270154.1]

• How To Tune Discoverer 10g (9.0.4) Portlets To Avoid Refresh Problems [Metalink note # 266540.1]

Additional Resources

• Discoverer Portlets Fail To Refresh With Error 'Could not get a free session‘ In PTM5_CACHE Table [Metalink note # 303231.1]

• Oracle 10g Discoverer (9.0.4) Best Practices for Performance and Scalability Information [Metalink note # 266818.1]

• Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Plus User's Guide – 10g Release 2 (10.1.2.1), Chapter 10, “How to create drill links to Internet URLs” [Oracle Discoverer 10g Release 2 doc # B13915-04]

Additional Resources (continued)