Shipping Dock

What does a dock mean ?

A dock means a place where loading and unloading of goods happens .

Learn WMS with me ....

Just thought i would scribble whatever i learn in the WMS ........

Starting again ...

Its almost six months ,i did not blog anything ,i thought i would start this again ...I hope i would write this very often ....Im now involved in a large enterprise transformation R12 implementation .Thinking of writing a lot .....

-Saravana prakash

How to display both Vertical and Horizontal Scroll Bars in Detail Block in Oracle Forms 6i?

Problem
A Detail Block in Oracle Forms 6i with many fields in tabular format needs not only a Vertical Scroll Bar, but also a Horizontal Scroll Bar so that we can see all the information we need for a Record.
But the problem is that a Data Block supports only one Scroll Bar at a time. We can choose to use or not a Scroll Bar, setting the Show Scroll Bar property to Yes or No at the Data Block level. If the Scroll Bar will be displayed, we can establish its orientation setting the Scroll Bar Orientation property to Horizontal or Vertical. So how to display both Vertical and Horizontal Scroll Bars in Detail Block in Oracle Forms 6i?

Solution
Create the Detail Data Block setting Show Scroll Bar property to Yes and Scroll Bar Orientation property to Vertical. Add some fields from the Detail Block on the Content Canvas.
Create a Stacked Canvas and put the other needed fields from the Detail Block on it. For the Stacked Canvas set Show Horizontal Scroll Bar property to Yes.

Solution description with an example
This example uses the HR schema. The Master Block contains the departments and the Detail Block contains all the employees from the department displayed in the Master Block. Suppose you already have created the Master Block based on departments table.

Step 1
Create the Detail Block based on employees table. Choose to display only a few items from this Data Block (for example, only first_name and last_name). Set the Number of Records Displayed property to 10 (or other value grater than 1). Set the Show Scroll Bar property to Yes and set the Scroll Bar Orientation property to Vertical. Then move the Scroll Bar object in the right side of the frame, like in the next image:

Step 2
Associated with the Content Canvas make a Stacked Canvas and place it on the Content Canvas in the space between Last Name Item Text and the Scroll Bar object (the green rectangle in the previous image). For Stacked Canvas set the Show Horizontal Scroll Bar to Yes.

Step 3
Place in the Stacked Canvas all the fields that you need from Detail Block, like in the next images:

Content Canvas

Stacked Canvas

The Text Items from the Detail Block placed in the Content Canvas will be synchronized with the Text Items placed in the Stacked Canvas.

How to alternate row colors using Conditional Formatting property?

It is useful to highlight some parts of a report to get the attention when some conditions are met: some sum is greater then a specific value, something is on minus etc.

Oracle Report Builder offers two ways of doing this in a report:

- With Conditional Formatting, attributes like font, text color, border, fill color can be modified when some condition is true without programming;

- Format Trigger property offers more flexibility because you write your own code to perform conditional formatting.

The next report is showing all the responsibilities from Oracle Applications that starts with ‘Oracle’. The report is based on this query:

select frt.responsibility_id, frt.responsibility_name,

fr.start_date responsability_start_date, fr.end_date responsability_end_date

from fnd_responsibility fr, fnd_responsibility_tl frt

where frt.responsibility_id = fr.responsibility_id

and frt.responsibility_name like 'Oracle%'

order by frt.responsibility_name;

The colors for the rows of the report must be white and light blue. For this, a Summary Column (in this case it has the name row_no) must be created for counting and keeping the row number (count the responsibility_id because it is never null):

We want odd rows to be light blue and the even rows to be white. A Formula Column named odd_no must be created to check for each row if row_no has an odd or an even value:

In Layout Model, for each field from the row in the repeating frame, create a new formatting rule with the Conditional Formatting property: if odd_no equals with 1 then Fill Color will be light blue.

The report will look like this:

How to load data from a text file into database table using a SQL*Loader Request in Oracle Applications?

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Create the text file containing the data and the control file (with ‘.ctl’ extension).
Then create a request in Oracle Application. This request must use as Execution Method SQL*Loader and must have a parameter for the text file path.

---

Solution description with an example
Step 1
The table test which will be populated with the data from the text file has the following columns:
Column Name--Nullable?---Data Type
X---------------No----------NUMBER
Y---------------Yes---------VARCHAR2(20 BYTE)
Z---------------Yes---------DATE

The sequence X_S is defined for column X:
CREATE SEQUENCE X_S
MINVALUE 1
INCREMENT BY 1
START WITH 1
NOCACHE
NOORDER
NOCYCLE ;

Name the text file with data to insert test.txt.
Place this file in $APPL_TOP\app_name\version\txt\ folder.
Suppose text file contains something like this:
,"aaa",10-APR-2008
,"bbb",11-APR-2008
,"ccc",12-APR-2008
,"ddd",13-APR-2008
,"eee",14-APR-2008
,"fff",15-APR-2008
"aaa", "bbb" ,"ccc" ,"ddd" ,"eee" ,"fff" are for column Y and 10-APR-2008,
11-APR-2008, …, 15-APR-2008 are for column Z. There are no values specified for
column X because for this values it will be used the sequence X_S.

Step 2
Name the control file test.ctl.
Place it in $APPL_TOP\app_name\x.y.z\bin\ folder.
The control file looks like this:
LOAD DATA
APPEND
INTO TABLE eco.test
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ','
OPTIONALLY ENCLOSED BY '"'
TRAILING NULLCOLS
(X "eco.x_s.nextval",
Y,
Z)

Step 3
Define the Request in Oracle Application:
The Concurrent Program Executable has:
- Execution Method = SQL*Loader
- Execution File Name = test

The Request must have a parameter for the full path of the text file
( for example: C:\\oracle\visappl\eco\11.x.x\txt\test.txt ).

Step 4
Assign the request to some Request Group.

Step 5
Run the request and check if the data was loaded successfully into the database
table.

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Troubleshooting
If the log file shows the error SQL*Loader-524: partial record found at end of
datafile, the last line in the text file and the control file must end with an “Enter”.

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Enterprise and its functions-Part 1

Years back ,Myself and couple of my friends joined a company ,A company that manufactures piston rings.

On the first day ,we were being introduced to different department heads Production,Stores,Purchasing,HR,Quality and Inspection,New product development,Sales and Marketing and planning.

So you got it ? A large Enterprise has many department/functions.We were very curious about our department allocation.I got allocated to shop-floor ,My friend Prakash got allocated to purchasing (Remember P for Purchase/Prakash)..

Though every department has it own functions/roles..For the success of the enterprise ,It is important the individual department effectively communicates with other department and this is what we call in the software packaged applications as seamless integration

Now ,Let us explore each and every department and its corresponding functions and a co-relation to the oracle eBusiness suite.

Taking first the purchasing department.
Unlike me ,Prakash enjoyed a white collar job in the purchase department and he is being approached by all department people to procure one or other thing.

For example..
HR department needs Uniform clothes,Stationery's,Gift coupons,Chairs etc etc.
Production department requires Raw materials,Machines
Quality department requires gauges,scales,specialised equipments used in Labs..etc
Stores requires items as monthly replenishment ..etc..etc and
Many more ...

How does a purchasing department fulfill these needs ? What processes they need to maintain for an effective procurement and how does the performance of the purchasing department is measured ?..Let us explore

A typical day-to-day activities(some) of prakash(P for prakash/purchase) includes ..
1.Collect all the Purchase Requisitions from the drop box
2.Call up vendors ,check availability,check price ,chose vendor and raise purchase
order
3.get approval for the purchase orders
4.Inform Vendors about the purchase orders ,send the purchase orders via
email/Post/collect in person
Just imagine how difficult,painstaking,cumbersome the task will be if you maintain everything manually/excel sheets or in a stand lone applications.

Let us explore the challenges/solutions/department sub functions in the next part
and co-relate to the oracle applications