Oracle Apps 11i: Advantages of Oracle E-Business Suite

Oracle ERP Suite is based on Oracle Apps framework. What that essentially means to the customers is that no matter which component of the suite you buy, you get the same look and feel.
Advantages of Oracle E-Business Suite

Oracle Database
The biggest USP of Oracle ERP is that it is based on Oracle Database, which in itself is a market leader. So the Oracle ERP is best placed to take advantage of the advances in the database technology. The buzzword is "If it is in the database, you will get it and get it fast!!"

Consultants
As far as the components of the suite itself are concerned Oracle Financials is a market leader, Oracle HRMS and Payroll they are catching up pretty fast. So the market indications are pretty positive and you have enough consultants in the market to cash in.

UI
Oracle Apps UI comes in two flavours - The Oracle Forms and the Oracle Self Service Application (HTML). The former is meant for the power user and provides incredibly quick learning curves for people from the finance and other domains who are used to Fox pro and dBase forms. The Oracle Self Service Application is an HTML based solution and specifically caters to the global organization where Internet plays a major role.

Role Based Security
Oracle has been a pioneer in Database Security systems and the buzz word of Oracle Database is "Unbreakable". Oracle Apps seem to gain from this legacy of secure systems. The role based security system offered by Oracle Apps is one of the better security models available currently.

Advantage over Best of Breed Software
Best of breed software cater to specific areas like HRMS, Financials etc. If your business is looking for software in only one specific area and you don't think s/w for the other areas are required, you might be tempted to go for these offering... But one word of caution, in case you go for s/w for other areas where you select another best of breed s/w, you might end up paying exceptional amount of money in integrating the two softwares. This is where Oracle Apps and other Suite vendors like SAP score over the best of the breed software. Implementing different parts of the suite would be much less costly than best of breed software and getting them to talk to each other.

Fast adoption of standards
By past record Oracle has a good record of adoption of new legal and technological standards which keep arising from time to time. So standards like Rosettanet, uccnet would be adopted as they solidify.
Ease of customization and installation
Oracle has a good record on supporting products. Oracle Apps are quite easy to install and customize according to your business needs.

Reports
Another major USP of Oracle Apps. In fact one single thing that should make you sit back and take notice. Check out the Oracle Daily business intelligence package. Chances are your business needs it.

Count Number of Record for every Table

set serveroutput on

DECLARE
v_count NUMBER;
v_stmt VARCHAR2(100);
CURSOR c1 IS SELECT owner'.'table_name table_name FROM all_tables
WHERE owner = 'SCOTT';
BEGIN
FOR c1_rec IN c1 LOOP
v_stmt := 'SELECT COUNT(*) FROM ' c1_rec.table_name;
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE v_stmt INTO v_count;
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('The number of rows in table ' c1_rec.table_name' is: 'v_count);
END LOOP;
END;

Output

SQL> /

The number of rows in table SCOTT.BONUS is: 0
The number of rows in table SCOTT.DEPT is: 4
The number of rows in table SCOTT.EMP is: 14
The number of rows in table SCOTT.SALGRADE is: 10
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed

What is Oracle E-Business Suite?

Oracle E-Business Suite (i.e., Oracle Applications, Oracle Apps, Oracle Financials, Oracle Manufacturing, Oracle CRM) is the suite of products that used to be called Oracle Financials. Oracle Financials was first released in the late 1980s and has evolved into a full-fledged solution for enterprise processes for companies of nearly any size. The Oracle E-Business Suite contains over 55 integrated modules for financial management, supply chain management, manufacturing management, project management, human resources management, and sales force automation all pulled together to provide business automation. Oracle E-Business Suite combines ERP and CRM into one fully integrated package that can meet all of a company's needs. Oracle E-Business Suite can provide a company with business performance metrics, current financial ratios, profit and loss report summaries, and other information that can be tracked across departments, across product lines, even across geographies. It allows information to be shared across the enterprise. It further allows a company to centralize a single definition of what a customer is, what a supplier is, what an employee is, a business partner is, or product is, and maintaining this definition and its connected information across the enterprise. Oracle E-Business Suite allows upper management to access its business intelligence information and take immediate action when situations warrant it. The Customer Resource Management module allows a company to manage customer information, from leads to sales to revenue through multiple channels of input (e.g., Web, phone, mail order, or e-mail).

Oracle E-Business Suite also incorporates a powerful, flexible combination of state-of-the-art technology integrated to aid in rapid implementation. Various implementations in varying configurations can be found in shops with fewer than 200 employees to many of the Fortune 500 companies. Oracle Applications 11i also brings the evolution of the core technology, which saw its start with terminal emulation, to true Internet computing architecture. Where, in past releases, users needed some special piece of software installed on their workstations to run Financials (these could
have included a terminal emulation package or Forms and Reports executables or the like), now the only piece of software that is really necessary to use Apps 11i is a Java-compliant browser. The only Oracle E-Business Suite specific software today that ends up on the end user's computer is a Java applet (JInitiator™ client platform) that is downloaded and cached the first time the PC connects to applications. This new, evolved architecture has opened the door for new modules and new functionality.

Oracle Database 11g new features

Oracle Database 11g adds significant new capabilities to all the major application development environments.

PL/SQL
New fully automatic "native" compilation of PL/SQL in the database delivers dramatic performance improvements. There is just one parameter to set to turn native compilation on. There is no need for a C compiler and no file system DLLs to manage. Dramatic performance improvements are achievable on the order of 50% - 100% faster for pure PL/SQL code and 10% - 30% faster for more typical applications containing SQL when compared to non-compiled code. Other enhancements include performance improvements for triggers, finer grained dependency tracking, dynamic SQL enhancements, and a more powerful performance analysis tool.

Fast bulk-loadRDF/OWL data into the database
Several times faster than 10.2.0.2 batch load
Infernew triples with native OWL inferencing
Faster query of RDF/OWL data and ontologies
Ontology-AssistedQueryof relational data

Calling Oracle Forms from Oracle Reports

Under Developer 6i on Windows, there exists a pl/sql librarywhich can be used to invoke excutables residing on the PC.
1) Modify the D2KWEXEC.PLL to change any references to the Forms built-in MESSAGE to the Reports built-in SRW.MESSAGE.
2) Choose the 'Attached Libraries' section for your report and select the 'Navigator/Create' menu option - this will cause the 'Attached Library' dialog to be displayed.
3) Use the 'Find' button to locate the library file (D2KWEXEC.PLL) and then attached it to the report using the 'Attach' button. A warning is displayed you that a hard coded path name is being used and gives the option of removing it. If the full path is removed, then the FORMS60_PATH variable will be used subsequently to locate the library. The directory in which the library is located must be part of FORMS60_PATH.
Then select the appropriate trigger from where Oracle Forms should be invokedfrom. In that trigger reproduce the following code:
function return boolean is
command_string VARCHAR2 (100);
BEGIN
command_string := 'c:\orant\bin\ifrun60.exe';
RETURN d2k_winexec.execute (command_string);
END;
Note: 'command_string' contains the full path of the Oracle Forms Runtime executable.
When the trigger fires, the Forms Runtime Executable is invoked automatically.