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
Learning Objectives
• 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
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
Transceivers
Transmitters
10GbE XENPAK
Modules
Receivers
Introduction
• 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?
Business Case: Initial User Request
• 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: IT Dept. Response
• 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: Proposed Solution
• 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
Encrypted User Access from Internet
Certificate
Authority (CA)
validation
Internet
Certificate
Authority (CA)
validation
Verisign
SSL-128 bit
Encryption
Internet
Client
[Desktop or
Laptop]
Firewall
Encryption
Key
Secure policy
/ NAT
translation
To Portal
Original Application Server (AS) Architecture
Portal Login Page
Portal Page # 1: Open Sales Orders
Open Sales Orders Worksheet
• 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
Portal Page # 2: Current Month Shipments
Current Month Shipments Worksheet
• 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
Portal Page # 3: Prior Month Shipments
Overview of Key Portlet Creation Steps
• 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
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
Issue: Export from Portal Page to Excel
• 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
Resolution: Discoverer Viewer
• 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
“Analyze” Link on Portal Page . . .
. . . Opens Viewer & Reruns Sheet Query
Export Action in Viewer . . .
. . . Gets the Result Set into Excel
Issue: Restricting User Access in Viewer
• 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
Solution: Security Relationships
EBS 11i ID
PORTAL_USER
Responsibility
Workbook
Portal ID
US – Portal for
Demo
PORTAL – DEMO
DEMO
US – Portal for
Customer1
PORTAL –
CUSTOMER1
CUSTOMER1
US – Portal for
Customer2
PORTAL –
CUSTOMER2
CUSTOMER2
Assign Responsibility
Grant Workbook Access
Key to Solution
User-Defined Connection linking Portal ID to Responsibility
Create One EBS Account for All Portal IDs
• An EBS user account, PORTAL_USER, created only
once – not once per Portal ID
Create New EBS 11i Responsibility
• One unique responsibility for each Portal ID
• Responsibility only has access to Preferences menu
Assign New Responsibility
• Assigned to shared EBS user account: PORTAL_USER
• Used to grant access to Discoverer workbook
Grant Workbook Access to Responsibility
• Granted within Discoverer Desktop (EUL in EBS 11i
database)
• Restricts other Portal users from viewing workbook
through Discoverer Viewer
Create User-Defined Connection
“PORTAL_USER” is the EBS 11i
user name (EBS ID)
Create User-Defined Connection (cont.)
“US – Portal for DEMO” is
the EBS responsibility
Issue: Shipment Tracking Hyperlink
• 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?
Resolution: FILE Item Type in Workbook
• 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
FILE Item Type in Discoverer Admin
“Tracking Link” Item Formula
DECODE(Ship Method Code,
'UPS','http://wwwapps.ups.com/WebTracking/processInput
Request?HTMLVersion=5.0&sort_by=status&tracknums_di
splayed=5&TypeOfInquiryNumber=T&InquiryNumber1='||"
Waybill"||'&AgreeToTermsAndConditions=yes&track.x=42&
track.y=11',
'FEDEX','http://www.fedex.com/Tracking?tracknumbers='||"
Waybill"||'',
'DHL','http://track.dhlusa.com/TrackByNbr.asp?ShipmentNumber='||"Waybill"||'',
NULL)
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
Solution Worked in 9i But Not in 10gR2
• 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
Alternative Functionality 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
Additional Resources
• Configuring Application Server 10gR2 For
Discoverer Portlets, Mark Rittman
[http://www.rittman.net/2005/03/04/configuring-applicationserver-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 (continued)
• 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]