Oracle EBS R12 – Requests:

How to enhance the Concurrent Request Forms

Overview

The purpose of this document is to describe some possible enhancements for the EBS
Concurrent Requests form in EBS R12.

Content

Hint ................................................................................................................................1
Requirements .................................................................................................................2
Part 1: Auto Refresh Functionality ................................................................................3
Part 2: Restart Selected ..................................................................................................3
Part 3: Submit Request or Set ........................................................................................4
Part 4: Changed Column Sizes ......................................................................................4
Implementation Notes....................................................................................................5

Hint
The changes described in this document are treated as “modification”. This means
that these changes are not supported by Oracle worldwide support, only Oracle
consulting can help you during the implementation.

Keep also in mind that you may loose access to such a modified form when you
install an EBS standard patch!

Volker Eckardt, Oracle Corporation 27/11/2010

Requirements
The concurrent requests form in EBS release R12 is possibly one of the most
frequented forms at all. Therefore we have received a customer request to validate
possible improvements and come up with a suggestion.

Here are my findings:

1. It would be excellent if an Auto Refresh functionality can be implemented

2. An easier way to restart a previous process shall be implemented (one click
restart)
3. It would be helpful to divide today’s submit button into two, one for request
and another one for request set submission.
4. The column size should be optimized to see more from the executed program
name.

By implementing all 4 enhancement requests the user will be able to work faster by
minimizing any repeating task in this form.

Volker Eckardt, Oracle Corporation 27/11/2010

Part 1: Auto Refresh Functionality
Requirement:
This functionality is possibly one of the most requested. In EBS standard a user has to
refresh this form always manually by clicking the [Refresh data] button or by using
[Alt]+[R]. A better solution would be if the application could automatically determine
a database record change and refresh afterwards.

Solution:
The proposed solution is the following: We
implement a check box and name it “Auto
Refresh”. In case this check box is selected, a
permanent timer checks and updates the form
accordingly. In case there are no running
processes to track, the auto refresh functionality
stops immediately. This is very helpful because
it minimizes the number of executed database
queries.

There are two configuration options: the auto refresh can be limited in terms of the
number of executions in total (default value is 45). This means that in max 45 calls
will be executed, afterwards the auto refresh functionality stops. In addition to the
number of executions you can define how often you want to execute the auto refresh
(default every 3rd second).

This means that the auto refresh stays on for 2 ¼ minutes only (by using the defaults).
If there are still running processes to track, the user has to enable it again.

Part 2: Restart Selected

Although such a restart functionality has been already implemented, it takes too long
when using it just for an exact copy of an already existing request.

Therefore an additional button has been

implemented to allow a very easy restart.
Restart means here that we copy the request
definition completely and submit it again with a
new request id.

To use it, the user just puts the cursor on one of the lines in the request list, and clicks
then the [Restart selected] button. Directly another request will be submitted.

Volker Eckardt, Oracle Corporation 27/11/2010

Part 3: Submit Request or Set
In a daily work we usually just submit a request, a set is rather rarely used. Therefore
it makes sense to have separate buttons for every task.

The button to the left

starts a single request,
the button to the right
a request set.

If you choose [Submit a request], you will be directly routed into the New Request
form.

Part 4: Changed Column Sizes

In this 4th requirement we change the column size to give more space to the ‘Name’
field. We achieve this by using Forms Personalization.

Volker Eckardt, Oracle Corporation 27/11/2010

Implementation Notes
Unfortunately we can not achieve all these changes just by using Forms
Personalization. Especially the auto refresh functionality has to be implemented
directly into the underlying forms code.

When done this, we have to decide to whom we grant access. In general this form is
used in many applications, so if you replace the standard form (FNDRSRUN) with
this enhanced version keep in mind that immediately everyone will see and also use it.

We suggest that you roll it out first in a test environment, to make sure that the
solution is stable and does not have any negative impact to the performance.

In my project we are using this enhanced form by now only in the test environments,
where we usually have a strong demand to reschedule and execute a high number of
processes.

Please contact me if you need any further explanation!

Oracle Corporation
Email: volker.eckardt@oracle.com
Linkedin: http://de.linkedin.com/pub/volker-eckardt/0/8a7/430

Volker Eckardt, Oracle Corporation 27/11/2010