RE: Oracle Apps customization help working with consultants

[Kathy Duret]

Title: RE: Oracle Apps customization help working with consultants

You have hit the nail on the head.  I realized late yesterday that I needed to get some standards in place here quick so I don't have deal with this stuff.  Since I am the first DBA here, I will probably be playing a big role in this.  But it would be nice to have another person/s involved with this project.  The major challenge will be to get the involvement we need with the consultant projects.  They just provide some documentation and there is little to no involvement in the meetings by users and developers as I can tell.  I have never been to a meeting.  This will have to change and I have to figure out a way to integrate everyone.

 

If anyone has any standards or suggestions, feel free.  I am will to exchange it for a recipe for Peaches and Cream Pie or Chocolate Baklava recipe posted tomorrow... ;)

 

Kathy

-----Original Message-----
From: Hallas John [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2001 1:31 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject: RE: Oracle Apps customization help working with consultants

Kathy,
A lot of issues there but they all seem to boil down to one thing.
What is the remit of your job? Are you responsible for ensuring standards are in place , are consistent and are maintained.

If so then get stuck in and layout a naming convention and a set of standards if they do not exist already.
If that is not your role then put pressure on whoevers role it is. If that role is not assigned then see your management team and insist that someone (not necessarily yourself!) is given that role and responsibility.

Apps is a complicated beast and from what I have seen the main tuning is done at the Application level by the developers. It is very important that a realistically sized development environment is used. That is not to say that database tuning is unnecessary but certainly the key aspect is the application.

The consultants should not be working standalone, they must be tasked with integrating with existing staff and ensuring that the final product is integrated and manageable.

Not a definite answer but I hope it helps

John

-----Original Message-----
From: Kathy Duret [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: 19 July 01 00:01
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject: Oracle Apps customization help working with consultants

First some background

We are running on Unix 8.1.6 with 11i Apps.  I know very little about Oracle Apps and I am the first DBA hired in house who has walked into several projects mid streams that consultants are working on and they continue to exclude me from design meeting and I get little or no information about the project.

A consulting group is customizing 11i Apps.  Part of this involves an EDI application that will take in files load them into staging tables that then will be loaded into the appropriate 11i App table.  There are various Oracle and Crystal Reports that will be extracting information from these tables as well.  Why use both... go figure... they are using Crystal for some reports and Oracle Reports for others.  Just like some of the screens are being done in Forms and some done in ASP.

These custom EDI app tables have 10 attribute columns defined as varchar2(100) in the middle of the table.  These are extra columns to that may be used in the future for what ever reason.  I have asked these be removed and real column names and data types be added as needed.  They refuse saying they will have to redesign the forms they have created to use with these tables.  Isn't is reasonable that the Forms should also reflect real column names not Attribute 1...10?  Isn't it better to add columns to tables as I need them with an appropriate name and data type?  At the very least I asked that they put these columns at the end of the table.  They have agreed to this.  

They are also using a lot of sequences for Primary Keys instead of using columns from the table that would make an intelligent primary key and would be unique. 

They also have many columns as NUMBER that could be defined as NUMBER(3) or NUMBER(4).  Is there any pros or cons to using NUMBER without defining a data length?   That is besides the obvious that NUMBER you don't have to worry about losing precision data precision.

Also they use a lot of char(1) in defining what they think will only be one character fields.  I was under the impression that it was better to use varchar2(1)?  Any comments...  This is probably a trivial issue but I would like to know people's opinions.

I am just a bit brain dead from arguing with them anyway about using a consistence naming convention, including me on the database design, etc.  Even with renaming a column I get "We are on a tight schedule and this would put us behind".   Or this is how Oracle Apps works.  My point is that Oracle Apps as a generic product and this EDI application shouldn't be made generic but specific to our company needs.  That is not putting in this Attribute fields into all the EDI tables, using intelligent keys not sequence numbers, defining the data length of the NUMBER Fields. 

I am really worried about performance since I will have to maintain this in January after they are long gone.  

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.  Any good books to get me quickly up to speed on how to tune Oracle Apps?

Thanks very much.....

Kathy

Confidential
This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are the property
of Belkin Components and/or its affiliates, are confidential,
and are intended solely for the use of the individual or
entity to whom this e-mail is addressed.  If you are not one
of the named recipients or otherwise have reason to believe
that you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the
sender and delete this message immediately from your computer.
Any other use, retention, dissemination, forwarding, printing
or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited.
--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
--
Author: Kathy Duret
  INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California        -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists
--------------------------------------------------------------------
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from).  You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).




**********************************************************************
This email and any attachments may be confidential and the subject of
legal professional privilege. Any disclosure, use, storage or copying
of this email without the consent of the sender is strictly prohibited.
Please notify the sender immediately if you are not the intended
recipient and then delete the email from your inbox and do not
disclose the contents to another person, use, copy or store the
information in any medium.
**********************************************************************


Confidential
This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are the property
of Belkin Components and/or its affiliates, are confidential,
and are intended solely for the use of the individual or
entity to whom this e-mail is addressed.  If you are not one
of the named recipients or otherwise have reason to believe
that you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the
sender and delete this message immediately from your computer.
Any other use, retention, dissemination, forwarding, printing
or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited.