Welcome to Release 12.1 of the Oracle Field Service Implementation Guide.
This guide is designed for implementers, administrators, and users of the Oracle Field Service application. It assumes that you have a working knowledge of the principles and customary practices of your business area, along with specific application knowledge of the Oracle Field Service suite of products.
See Related Information Sources for more Oracle E-Business Suite product information.
To reach Oracle Support Services, use a telecommunications relay service (TRS) to call Oracle Support at 1.800.223.1711. An Oracle Support Services engineer will handle technical issues and provide customer support according to the Oracle service request process. Information about TRS is available at http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/trs.html, and a list of phone numbers is available at http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/dro/trsphonebk.html.
Our goal is to make Oracle products, services, and supporting documentation accessible to all users, including users that are disabled. To that end, our documentation includes features that make information available to users of assistive technology. This documentation is available in HTML format, and contains markup to facilitate access by the disabled community. Accessibility standards will continue to evolve over time, and Oracle is actively engaged with other market-leading technology vendors to address technical obstacles so that our documentation can be accessible to all of our customers. For more information, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program Web site at http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/.
Screen readers may not always correctly read the code examples in this document. The conventions for writing code require that closing braces should appear on an otherwise empty line; however, some screen readers may not always read a line of text that consists solely of a bracket or brace.
This documentation may contain links to Web sites of other companies or organizations that Oracle does not own or control. Oracle neither evaluates nor makes any representations regarding the accessibility of these Web sites.
In this chapter we provide an overview of the products in the Field Service suite and an overview of the Field Service application.
This chapter provides an architectural overview of the Field Service application and references information sources for technology stack, software, and hardware requirements.
This chapter gives an overview of the mandatory and conditional application dependencies prior to implementing Field Service or Advanced Scheduler.
This chapter documents about High Availability (HA), mapping of responsibilities for HA and the user actions supported in Field Service in HA.
This chapter describes in detail and in the recommended order, the implementation tasks for Oracle E-Business Suite applications relevant to Oracle Field Service.
This chapter describes the implementation tasks for Field Service-specific tasks, including setting up the Dispatch Center, and Debrief.
This chapter documents setup for Oracle Spares Management, External Repair Execution, and Warehouse Replenishment Planning.
This chapter documents tasks for implementing Oracle Advanced Scheduler.
You can choose from many sources of information, including online documentation, training, and support services, to increase your knowledge and understanding of Oracle Field Service.
The Oracle Integration Repository is a compilation of information about the service endpoints exposed by the Oracle E-Business Suite of applications. It provides a complete catalog of Oracle E-Business Suite's business service interfaces. The tool lets users easily discover and deploy the appropriate business service interface for integration with any system, application, or business partner.
The Oracle Integration Repository is shipped as part of the E-Business Suite. As your instance is patched, the repository is automatically updated with content appropriate for the precise revisions of interfaces in your environment.
All Oracle Applications documentation is available online (HTML or PDF).
PDF - PDF documentation is available for download from the Oracle Technology Network at http://otn.oracle.com/documentation.
Online Help - Online help patches (HTML) are available on My Oracle Support.
About Documents and Release Notes - Refer to the About Document or Release Notes for the mini-pack or family pack that you have installed to learn about new documentation or documentation patches that you can download. About Documents and Release Notes are available on My Oracle Support.
My Oracle Support Knowledge tab - The My Oracle Support Knowledge tab lets you browse the knowledge base by technology, industry, integration, application, documentation, training, and services, to find all documents for a product area. Use the Knowledge Home to search for release-specific information, such as FAQs, recent patches, alerts, white papers, troubleshooting tips, and other archived documents.
Oracle E-Business Suite Electronic Technical Reference Manuals - Each Electronic Technical Reference Manual (eTRM) contains database diagrams and a detailed description of database tables, forms, reports, and programs for a specific Oracle Applications product. This information helps you convert data from your existing applications and integrate Oracle Applications data with non-Oracle applications, and write custom reports for Oracle Applications products. Oracle eTRM is available on My Oracle Support as part of Online Documentation.
This guide explains how to enter data, query, run reports, and navigate using the graphical user interface (GUI) of an Oracle Applications product. This guide also includes information on setting user profiles, as well as running and reviewing reports and concurrent programs.
You can access this guide online by choosing "Getting Started with Oracle Applications" from any Oracle Applications help file.
Oracle Advanced Scheduler enables you to create optimized schedules for assigning tasks to qualified field service technicians. It enables you to define constraints and parameters such as overtime allowed, proximity to the customer site, resource skill, spare part availability, and customer preference of resource and use these to calculate operational costs and provide the most efficient service.
Oracle Field Service enables the automation of field service operations such as scheduling and dispatching tasks to field technicians, ordering parts, and tracking task completion. You can use its debrief capabilities to access notes and interaction history in support of call closure, and report task execution time, parts and expenses.
This guide describes how to create and manage mobile users, implement the wireless option, and set up the interapplication bar to conveniently navigate between applications to perform diagnostic testing. This enables mobile users to periodically synchronize their mobile computer devices with the enterprise system in order to download new Oracle Mobile Field Service data and upload changes that they have made in their applications. For example, the technician can access and update the material debrief at a customer site for materials installed and returned in the task. When out of wireless coverage, technicians can continue to perform tasks using the voice interface or phone.
Oracle Mobile Field Service offers both connected browser-based solution and a disconnected solution that enables field service technicians to service their customers in a fully automated way. With the service request, field service technicians automatically receive the customer service history and customer install base information. For replacement parts, they can access the robust spare parts management feature of Oracle Mobile Field Service. After completing their tasks, they report labor, materials, and expenses and this information is sent back to the service organization at electronic speed so that an invoice can be given to the customer in a timely manner.
This guide describes the tools and features provided by Oracle Spares Management that field service technicians can use to maintain personal and warehouse inventories, locate parts not available in the normal supply chain, create requirements and orders for parts, track order status, and successfully execute internal and external repair. You can learn how to create planning loops that coordinate planning and execution activities across multiple locations, and control the total inventory across all subinventories in the loop.
This guide explains how to define periodic and event alerts to monitor the status of your Oracle Applications data.
This book is intended for all those planning to deploy Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12, or contemplating significant changes to a configuration. After describing the Oracle Applications architecture and technology stack, it focuses on strategic topics, giving a broad outline of the actions needed to achieve a particular goal, plus the installation and configuration choices that may be available.
This guide contains the coding standards followed by the Oracle Applications development staff. It describes the Oracle Application Object Library components needed to implement the Oracle Applications user interface described in the Oracle Applications User Interface Standards for Forms-Based Products. It also provides information to help you build your custom Oracle Forms Developer forms so that they integrate with Oracle Applications. In addition, this guide has information for customizations in features such as concurrent programs, flexfields, messages, and logging.
This book is intended for use by anyone who is responsible for installing or upgrading Oracle Applications. It provides instructions for running Rapid Install either to carry out a fresh installation of Oracle Applications Release 12, or as part of an upgrade from Release 11i to Release 12. The book also describes the steps needed to install the technology stack components only, for the special situations where this is applicable.
This guide contains the user interface (UI) standards followed by the Oracle Applications development staff. It describes the UI for the Oracle Applications products and tells you how to apply this UI to the design of an application built by using Oracle Forms.
This guide provides flexfields planning, setup and reference information for the Oracle E-Business Suite implementation team, as well as for users responsible for the ongoing maintenance of Oracle E-Business Suite product data. This guide also provides information on creating custom reports on flexfields data.
This guide describes how to set up multiple organizations and the relationships among them in a single installation of an Oracle E-Business Suite product such that transactions flow smoothly through and among organizations that can be ledgers, business groups, legal entities, operating units, or inventory organizations. You can use this guide to assign operating units to a security profile and assign this profile to responsibilities such that a user can access data for multiple operation units from a single responsibility. In addition, this guide describes how to set up reporting to generate reports at different levels and for different contexts. Reporting levels can be ledger or operating unit while reporting context is a named entity in the selected reporting level.
This guide contains the user interface (UI) standards followed by the Oracle Applications development staff. It describes the UI for the Oracle Applications products and tells you how to apply this UI to the design of an application built by using Oracle Forms.
This guide contains information on implementing, administering, and developing diagnostics tests for Oracle E-Business Suite using the Oracle Diagnostics Framework.
This guide explains the details of how integration repository administrators can manage and administer the entire service enablement process based on the service-oriented architecture (SOA) for both native packaged public integration interfaces and composite services - BPEL type. It also describes how to invoke Web services from Oracle E-Business Suite by working with Oracle Workflow Business Event System, manage Web service security, and monitor SOAP messages.
This guide describes how users can browse and view the integration interface definitions and services that reside in Oracle Integration Repository.
This guide explains how to complete the setup steps necessary for any Oracle E-Business Suite product that includes workflow-enabled processes. It also describes how to manage workflow processes and business events using Oracle Applications Manager, how to monitor the progress of runtime workflow processes, and how to administer notifications sent to workflow users.
This guide explains how to define new workflow business processes and customize existing workflow processes embedded in Oracle E-Business Suite. It also describes how to define and customize business events and event subscriptions.
This guide describes how Oracle E-Business Suite users can view and respond to workflow notifications and monitor the progress of their workflow processes.
Oracle offers a complete set of training courses to help you master your product and reach full productivity quickly. These courses are organized into functional learning paths, so you take only those courses appropriate to your job or area of responsibility.
You have a choice of educational environments. You can attend courses offered by Oracle University at any of our many Education Centers, you can arrange for our trainers to teach at your facility, or you can use Oracle Learning Network (OLN), Oracle University’s online education utility. In addition, Oracle training professionals can tailor standard courses or develop custom courses to meet your needs. For example, you may want to use your organization structure, terminology, and data as examples in a customized training session delivered at your own facility.
From on-site support to central support, our team of experienced professionals provides the help and information you need to keep your product working for you. This team includes your Technical Representative, Account Manager, and Oracle’s large staff of consultants and support specialists with expertise in your business area, managing an Oracle server, and your hardware and software environment.
Oracle STRONGLY RECOMMENDS that you never use SQL*Plus, Oracle Data Browser, database triggers, or any other tool to modify Oracle E-Business Suite data unless otherwise instructed.
Oracle provides powerful tools you can use to create, store, change, retrieve, and maintain information in an Oracle database. But if you use Oracle tools such as SQL*Plus to modify Oracle E-Business Suite data, you risk destroying the integrity of your data and you lose the ability to audit changes to your data.
Because Oracle E-Business Suite tables are interrelated, any change you make using an Oracle E-Business Suite form can update many tables at once. But when you modify Oracle E-Business Suite data using anything other than Oracle E-Business Suite, you may change a row in one table without making corresponding changes in related tables. If your tables get out of synchronization with each other, you risk retrieving erroneous information and you risk unpredictable results throughout Oracle E-Business Suite.
When you use Oracle E-Business Suite to modify your data, Oracle E-Business Suite automatically checks that your changes are valid. Oracle E-Business Suite also keeps track of who changes information. If you enter information into database tables using database tools, you may store invalid information. You also lose the ability to track who has changed your information because SQL*Plus and other database tools do not keep a record of changes.