Oracle Alert is your complete exception control solution.
Oracle Alert gives you an immediate view of the critical activity in your database. It helps you keep on top of important or unusual business events you need to know about, as they happen. Oracle Alert gives you real-time measurements of staff and organization performance, so you can zero in on potential trouble spots immediately. You can automate routine transactions with Oracle Alert, saving your valuable time for more essential tasks. And, Oracle Alert does all this online, so you do not have to contend with a pile of paperwork.
Oracle Alert gives you the flexibility you need to monitor your business information the way you want.
For more information on Oracle Alert, see the Oracle Alert User's Guide.
Oracle Alert meets the following basic business needs:
Informs you of exception conditions as they occur
Lets you specify the exception conditions you want to know about, as often as you want to know about them
Informs you of exception conditions by sending alert messages through a single application -- your electronic mail
Takes actions you specify, based upon your response to an alert message
Automatically performs routine database tasks, according to a schedule you define
Integrates fully with your electronic mail system
If you do not have a licensed copy of the full Oracle Alert product, you may still derive benefit from major Oracle Alert features by using the predefined alerts that are packaged with your Oracle E-Business Suite product.
All Oracle E-Business Suite products are packaged with a runtime version of Oracle Alert. Although all the Oracle Alert windows are available in this runtime version, not all the features in those windows are enabled. With the runtime version of Oracle Alert, you can run only the predefined alerts that are packaged with your product; you cannot create new alerts.
A mechanism that checks your database for a specific exception condition. An alert is characterized by the SQL SELECT statement it contains. A SQL SELECT statement tells your application what database exception to identify, as well as what output to produce for that exception.
For example, you can define an alert to flag purchase orders exceeding $10,000, and have that alert output the name of the individual who requested the purchase order, as well as the name of the individual's manager. All predefined alerts are listed in the Alerts window of Oracle Alert.
An event alert monitors the occurrence of a specific exception or change in your database. An exception in your database results if you add or update information using your Oracle E-Business Suite windows. The event alert monitors the database for exceptions based on its SQL SELECT statement.
A periodic alert periodically reports key information according to a schedule that you define. Rather than notify you of immediate exceptions in the database like an event alert, a periodic alert scans for specific database information specified by its SQL SELECT statement at scheduled intervals.
An alert action is an action you want your alert to perform. An alert action can be dependent on the output from the alert. An alert action can fall under one of three categories:
Detail action-an action that represents one exception found in the database
Summary action-an action that represents multiple exceptions found in the database
No exception action-an action that represents no exceptions found in the database
An action can include sending an electronic mail message to a mail ID, running an Oracle E-Business Suite program, running a program or script from your operating system, or running a SQL script to modify information in your database.
You can have more than one action for an alert and an action can incorporate the output of the alert. For example, you may want a particular alert to send a message to a manager, as well as run an Oracle E-Business Suite program when an exception occurs.
An action set is a sequence of alert actions that are enabled for a particular alert. Each action that you include in an action set can be assigned a sequence number so that you can specify the order in which the actions are performed. Some predefined alerts may also have more than one action set. You can also assign a sequence number to each action set to specify the order in which each action set is performed.
There are two types of predefined alerts:
Event alerts-for example, the Receiving Notification alert for Oracle Purchasing notifies the requestor with a mail message when an item is received and entered in the Receipts window.
Periodic alerts-for example, the Forecast Over-Consumption alert for Oracle Material Planning checks every day for over-consumption of the forecast and sends you a mail message if the current forecast quantity listed in the Forecast Entries window goes below zero.
Tip: See your product's reference guide for a list of the predefined alerts that are packaged with your Oracle E-Business Suite product.
All predefined alerts are initially disabled. You must enable the alerts you want to use. Select the Oracle Alert Manager responsibility when you start Oracle E-Business Suite to view or use a predefined alert. The Alert Manager responsibility gives you access to the Oracle Alert menu.
Navigate to the Alerts window to enable or edit predefined alerts. To display the predefined alert(s) for your Oracle E-Business Suite product, execute a query with your Oracle E-Business Suite product name in the Application field.
The Name field displays the name of the predefined alert. The Type field indicates if the alert is an event or a periodic alert.
You can enable an alert to run by checking the Enabled checkbox. You can also enter an End Date to specify the date until you want this alert run.
Choose the Alert Details button to open the Alert Details window. Choose the Alert Installations tabbed region to display the available Installations.
Enter the Oracle ID of the application installation you want your alert to run against. You can select only the Oracle IDs that are associated with the application that owns your alert. You can disable an Oracle ID for the alert temporarily by unchecking the Enabled checkbox.
Choose the Actions button to open the Actions window. Oracle Alert automatically displays the actions that are defined for the alert.
In the Actions window, if the Action Type is Detail, choose the Action Details button to display details for that action.
The alert action sends an alert action message to the mail ID listed in the To field of the Message Detail zone. If the mail ID is in the format &NAME, where Name is an output defined by your alert, you need not modify this field. If, however, the mail ID in the To field is not in the above format or if there is no value entered in the field, you must enter the mail ID(s) of the person(s) you wish to receive the alert action message. After modifying the contents of this window, save your work.
Navigate to the Oracle Alert Options window. Use this window to define the options Oracle Alert uses when checking your alerts.
In the Alerts window, choose the Actions Sets button to navigate to the Action Sets window. Oracle Alert automatically displays the action sets defined for the alert.
Check the Enabled checkbox for each action set you wish to use. You may also enter an End Date field to specify the date until you want this alert action set to be enabled.
In addition, in the Action Set Members block, check the Enabled checkbox for each action set member you want to use in that action set.
You may also enter an End Date to specify the date until you want this alert action set member to be enabled. When you finish, save your work.
Your predefined alert is now ready to use.
You can customize predefined alerts in the following ways to suit your business needs:
Oracle Alert leverages the Workflow Notification Mailer to send alert e-mail messages to your users. Ensure that you set up mail servers and configure the Workflow Notification Mailer to send e-mail messages according to your alert requirements. See: Setting Up Notification Mailers, Oracle Workflow Administrator's Guide.
You can customize the message header and footer text that appears in all your alert message actions. Navigate to the Message Elements tabbed region of the Oracle Alert Options window, and four message elements appear automatically. Each element represents a specific type of message text that appears in all your alert mail messages.
In the runtime version of Oracle Alert, you need to edit only the Message Action Header and Message Action Footer elements. Simply customize the text that appears to alter the text at the beginning and end of every alert message. You may also leave the text blank if you do not want to display any standard text in your alert messages. Save your work when you are done making changes in this window.
You can schedule the frequency you wish to run each predefined periodic alert. You may want to check some alerts every day, some only once a month, still others only when you explicitly request them. You have the flexibility to monitor critical exceptions every day, or even multiple times during a 24-hour period. And, you can set less significant exceptions to a more infrequent schedule; for example, a monthly schedule.
To change the frequency of a predefined alert, navigate to the Alerts window. Perform a query to display the predefined periodic alert you wish to modify, then alter the Frequency of the periodic alert.
Oracle Alert can keep a history of exceptions and actions for a particular alert. Use the Alerts window to alter the number of days of history you wish to keep for an alert. Simply change the Keep N Days field to the number of days of history you wish to keep.
If you do not want Oracle Alert to send repeated messages for the same alert exception, you can choose to suppress duplicate messages. If Oracle Alert finds a duplicate exception condition for the alert, it simply does not execute the action set members for that alert again.
Use the Suppress Duplicates checkbox in the Action Sets block of the Alerts window to specify this option. The default for the Suppress Duplicates checkbox is unchecked. If you check the Suppress Duplicates checkbox, you must also make sure you keep history for the alert at least one day longer than the number of days between alert checks. Oracle Alert uses the history information to determine if an exception is a duplicate.
If a predefined alert involves a message action, you can customize certain aspects of that message action. Navigate to the Actions block in the Alerts window by choosing the Actions button. In this block, move your cursor to the row representing the message action you want to customize, then choose the Action Details button to open the Action Detail window for that message action. You can modify the following features of the message action:
Recipient list-you can add or delete mail IDs in the List, To, Cc, Bcc, or Print For User fields. You should not modify any mail IDs listed with the format &Name, as they represent mail ID's defined by the alert output.
Printer-you can modify the name of the printer to which you want Oracle Alert to direct the message.
Text-you can modify the boilerplate text that you want your alert message to send. Do not edit any of the alert outputs (in the format &Name) used in the body of the text. For summary messages, edit only the opening and closing text within the summary message. Save your work when you finish making modifications.
Predefined alerts use one of three action types: detail action, summary action, and no exception action. A no exception action is straightforward in that Oracle Alert performs the defined action when no exceptions are found for the alert.
But how does Oracle Alert know when to perform a detail or a summary action? Oracle Alert can perform a detail action for every exception it finds, regardless of the number of exceptions, or Oracle Alert can perform a summary action for a unique set of exceptions. For example, you can receive individual mail messages for each exception found by an alert, or you can receive a single mail message summarizing all the exceptions found by the alert.
In the Members tabbed region of the Action Sets block of the Alerts window, you can set a Summary Threshold to specify how many exceptions Oracle Alert can find before it should change the action from a detail action to a summary action.
Your Oracle Alert installation contains custom alerts that are designed to help you manage your database and the data you generate when you use Oracle Alert. Oracle Alert provides eight alerts that systematically monitor your system for potential tablespace, disk space, and allocation problems, making your Database Administrators more efficient, and increasing database performance.
Occasionally, you will want to purge your database of obsolete concurrent requests, alert checks, and action set checks. Oracle Alert provides two alerts that let you periodically remove old files, freeing up valuable tablespace and increasing database performance.
This section gives you an overview of these alerts, and suggestions on how to use them to enhance your system performance.
Before reading this discussion of precoded alerts, you may want to familiarize yourself with the following Glossary terms:
Periodic Alert
Exception
Action
Detail Action
Summary Action
No Exception Action
Input
Oracle Alert DBA alerts help you manage your database by notifying you regularly of:
Tables and indexes unable to allocate another extent
Users who are nearing their tablespace quota
Tablespaces without adequate free space
Tables and indexes that are too large or are fragmented
Tables and indexes that are near their maximum extents
Oracle Alert DBA alerts are periodic alerts, so you determine how often they check your database. Set them to run daily, weekly, or monthly, according to your database needs.
If Oracle Alert finds the database exceptions specified in a DBA alert, it sends you a message summarizing all exceptions found. If Oracle Alert finds no exceptions, it sends you a message reporting that no exceptions were found. Oracle Alert keeps you notified of the status of your database, even if it is unchanging.
Inputs let you customize your DBA alerts. You can specify the ORACLE username, table, or index you want your alerts to target, and you can specify the threshold number of extents, maximum extents, or blocks Oracle Alert should look for. You can also define your input values at the action set level, so you can create multiple action sets that target different usernames, tables, and indexes. You can create as many action sets as you need.
The Applications DBA application owns the Oracle Alert DBA alerts. This lets Oracle Alert perform the DBA alerts for every database instance you create, even those that reside outside Oracle Alert's database.
The following descriptions list the customizable frequency and inputs of each DBA alert.
This alert looks for tables where the next extent is larger than the largest free extent.
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
| Frequency | Every N Calendar Days |
| Inputs | Table Name, ORACLE Username |
This alert looks for indexes where the next extent is larger than the largest free extent.
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
| Frequency | Every N Calendar Days |
| Inputs | Index Name, ORACLE Username |
This alert detects users that are near their tablespace quota.
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
| Frequency | Every N Calendar Days |
| Inputs | ORACLE Username Tablespace Name Check minimum percent free space remaining Check maximum percent space use Minimum total free space remaining (in bytes) Maximum percent space used |
This alert looks for tablespaces without a specified minimum amount of free space.
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
| Frequency | Every N Calendar Days |
| Inputs | Tablespace Name Check total free space remaining Check maximum size of free extents available Maximum size of free extents available (in bytes) Minimum total free space remaining (in bytes) |
This alert detects indexes that exceed a specified number of blocks or extents.
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
| Frequency | Every N Calendar Days |
| Inputs | Index Name ORACLE Username Check maximum number of blocks Check maximum number of extents Maximum number of blocks Maximum number of extents |
This alert detects tables that exceed a specified number of blocks or extents.
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
| Frequency | Every N Calendar Days |
| Inputs | Table Name ORACLE Username Check maximum number of blocks Check maximum number of extents Maximum number of blocks Maximum number of extents |
This alert searches for tables and indexes that are within a specified number of extents of their maximum extents.
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
| Frequency | Every N Calendar Days |
| Inputs | Table Name ORACLE Username Minimum number of extents remaining |
This alert searches for tables and indexes that are within a specified number of extents of their maximum extents.
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
| Frequency | Every N Calendar Days |
| Inputs | Index Name ORACLE Username Minimum number of extents remaining |
Two of the Oracle Alert precoded alerts are designed to help you manage the data you generate when you use Oracle Alert. While using Oracle Alert you should be able to:
Automatically delete concurrent requests older than a specified number of days
Automatically clean out alert checks and action set checks that are older than a specified number of days
You determine the schedule for running your purge alerts. On the schedule you define, Oracle Alert submits the purge alerts to the Concurrent Manager, and deletes all old concurrent requests.
Inputs let you customize your alerts. You specify which application and which concurrent program you want your purge alerts to target, and you decide when your data becomes unnecessary or "old." You define your input values at the action set level, so you can create multiple action sets that target different applications and different concurrent programs. You can create as many action sets as you need, so you can keep your system free from unnecessary files.
The following descriptions list the customizable frequency and inputs of each purging alert.
This alert looks for alert and action set checks older than the number of days you specify, and runs a SQL statement script that deletes them.
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
| Alert Type | Periodic |
| Periodicity | Every N Calendar Days |
| Inputs | Application Name, Number of days since alert check
Note: Oracle Alert will not delete alert checks and/or action set checks for a response processing alert that has open responses. |
This alert looks for concurrent requests and their log and out files that are older than the number of days you specify, and runs a concurrent program that deletes them. If you enter a concurrent program name input, you should use the program name (located in the column USER_CONCURRENT_PROGRAM_NAME in the table FND_CONCURRENT_REQUESTS), and not the optional description that may accompany the concurrent program name in the Requests window.
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
| Alert Type | Periodic |
| Periodicity | Every N Calendar Days |
| Inputs | Application Name Concurrent Program Name Number of days since concurrent request was submitted to the Concurrent Manager |
| Operating System Program | Deletes log file, out file, and corresponding record of each concurrent request |
| Arguments | Concurrent request ID |