Preface

Intended Audience

Welcome to Release 12.1 of the Oracle iSupport Implementation and Administration Guide.

This guide is intended for personnel who are responsible for implementing and administering the Oracle iSupport application.

This guide assumes you have a working knowledge of the following:

See Related Information Sources for more Oracle E-Business Suite product information.

Deaf/Hard of Hearing Access to Oracle Support Services

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.

Documentation Accessibility

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/.

Accessibility of Code Examples in Documentation

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.

Accessibility of Links to External Web Sites in Documentation

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.

Structure

1  Introduction to Oracle iSupport
2  Dependencies and Integration Points
3  Implementation Tasks for Oracle iSupport
4  Integrating Oracle iSupport with Service Request
5  Integrating Oracle iSupport with Products and Returns
6  Integrating Oracle iSupport with Oracle Workflow
7  Integrating Oracle iSupport with the Oracle Applications Framework (OAF)
8  Using Oracle iSupport
9  Administering Oracle iSupport
10  Overview of Oracle Marketing Encyclopedia System
A  System Profile Options
B  Lookups
C  Seeded Information
D  Custom Look and Feel Configuration
E  Configuration of AK Regions
Glossary

Related Information Sources

You can choose from many sources of information, including online documentation, training, and support services, to increase your knowledge and understanding of Oracle iSupport.

Integration Repository

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.

Online Documentation

All Oracle E-Business Suite documentation is available online (HTML or PDF).

Guides Related to All Products

Oracle E-Business Suite User's Guide

This guide explains how to enter data, query, run reports, and navigate using the graphical user interface (GUI) available with this release of Oracle Projects (and any other Oracle Applications products). This guide also includes information on setting user profiles, as well as running and reviewing reports and concurrent programs.

You can access this user's guide online by choosing "Getting Started with Oracle Applications" from any Oracle Applications help file.

Guides Related to This Product

Oracle Advanced Pricing Implementation Manual

This guide show you how to define pricing rules that service the pricing requirements of Oracle applications. Pricing rules control the pricing actions that are applied to customer transactions such as price lists, price agreements, formulas, and modifiers. With Oracle Advanced Pricing, you can attach qualifiers to a price list that enables an item have more than one price list. You can also set up block pricing, promotional limits, multiple currency conversion, and multiple contexts per sales order.

Oracle Advanced Pricing User's Guide

Oracle Advanced Pricing calculates prices including promotional prices for Oracle Order Management and other Oracle Applications based on pricing rules, pricing relationships, item hierarchies, usage brackets, and deals and promotions.

Oracle Marketing Implementation Guide

Oracle Marketing provides the tools necessary to automate the planning, budgeting, execution, and tracking of your marketing initiatives. It provides a single repository of customer information that enables you to analyze, personalize, refine, and target your campaigns to better align with sales. You can set up fatigue rules to define contact limits by time period and by channel.

Oracle Marketing User Guide

This guide tells you how to create marketing programs, execute campaigns across multiple customer interaction channels such as Web, email, direct mail, and telemarketing, and monitor the performance of these programs. With Oracle Marketing, you can generate prospective customer lists and assess the effectiveness of these lists, and manage marketing collateral and marketing budgets.

Oracle Receivables User Guide

This guide provides you with information on how to use Oracle Receivables. Use this guide to learn how to create and maintain transactions and bills receivable, enter and apply receipts, enter customer information, and manage revenue. This guide also includes information about accounting in Receivables. Use the Standard Navigation Paths appendix to find out how to access each Receivables window.

Oracle Trade Management Implementation Guide

This guide provides detailed functional and integration setup information for Oracle Trade Management, which can be used by technical consultants, application administrators, and implementation team members.

Installation and System Administration

Oracle Applications Concepts

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.

Oracle E-Business Suite Installation Guide: Using Rapid Install

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.

Oracle Applications Maintenance Utilities

Use this guide to help you run the various Applications DBA (AD) utilities, such as AutoUpgrade, AutoPatch, AD Administration, AD Controller, AD Relink, License Manager, and others. It contains how-to steps, screenshots, and other information that you need to run the AD utilities. This guide also provides information on maintaining the Oracle Applications file system and database.

Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide Documentation Set

This documentation set provides planning and reference information for the Oracle Applications System Administrator. Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Configuration contains information on system configuration steps, including defining concurrent programs and managers, enabling Oracle Applications Manager features, and setting up printers and online help. Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Maintenance provides information for frequent tasks such as monitoring your system with Oracle Applications Manager, administering Oracle E-Business Suite Secure Enterprise Search, managing concurrent managers and reports, using diagnostic utilities including logging, managing profile options, and using alerts. Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Security describes user management, data security, function security, auditing, and security configurations.

Oracle Alert User's Guide

This guide explains how to define periodic and event alerts to monitor the status of your Oracle Applications data.

Oracle E-Business Suite Developer's Guide

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.

Oracle Applications User Interface Standards for Forms-Based Products

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.

Other Implementation Documentation

Oracle Workflow Administrator's Guide

This guide explains how to complete the setup steps necessary for any Oracle Applications product that includes workflow-enabled processes, as well as how to monitor the progress of runtime workflow processes.

Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide

This guide explains how to define new workflow business processes and customize existing Oracle Applications-embedded workflow processes. It also describes how to define and customize business events and event subscriptions.

Oracle Workflow User's Guide

This guide describes how Oracle Applications users can view and respond to workflow notifications and monitor the progress of their workflow processes.

Oracle E-Business Suite Flexfields Guide

This guide provides flexfields planning, setup and reference information for the Oracle Projects implementation team, as well as for users responsible for the ongoing maintenance of Oracle Applications product data. This guide also provides information on creating custom reports on flexfields data.

Oracle E-Business Suite Diagnostics User's Guide

This guide contains information on implementing, administering, and developing diagnostics tests in the Oracle E-Business Diagnostics framework.

Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway User's Guide

This guide describes how users can browse and view the integration interface definitions and services that reside in Oracle Integration Repository.

Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway Implementation Guide

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.

Training and Support

Training

Oracle offers a complete set of training courses to help you and your staff master Oracle Projects 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.

Support

From on-site support to central support, our team of experienced professionals provides the help and information you need to keep Oracle Projects 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.

Do Not Use Database Tools to Modify Oracle E-Business Suite Data

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.