2. Mark Craig Group Manager
Oracle Workflow

3. Oracle Workflow System Management
Hints and Tips

4. Important Patches OWF H Patchset OWF G Rollup 7: 3868138
Metalink Note
Released November 4
OWF G Rollup 7:
Simplified prereqs
Released November 17

5. Agenda Is everything up and running?
Are the Agent Listeners falling behind?
Why did the Mailer go down?
Why didn’t I receive my ?
When can I drop and recreate workflow queues?
When can I “skip” errored workflow activities?
What’s the latest on the Workflow Directory Service?
Any news on cloning?

6. #1 Is everything up and running?

7. Oracle Workflow Manager
Dashboard for System Administrators and DBAs
Component of Oracle Applications Manager
Accessible from Workflow Administrator resp
Track Workflow System Status
Manage Workflow Background Processes
Manage Notification Mailer
Drill Down Capability

8. Oracle Workflow Manager
Unified Logging
Diagnostics
Notification User Preferences
GSM Setup
Mailer Component Test
Mailer Component Parameter Test
Mailer Diagnostic Test

9. Oracle Workflow Manager

10. Workflow Service Instances
There are two workflow service containers which must be running:

11. Workflow Service Components

12. Workflow Manager: Metrics
Access metrics either via graph or Related Links: Throughput:Work Items(View)

13. Drill Down on an Item Type
Error Count per activity per item type

14. Drill Down per Activity Stage
Launch Monitor, Abort (All), Retry (All)

15. View Errored Work Items

16. #2 Are the Agent Listeners falling behind?

17. Workflow Agent Listeners
Business Event System requires agent listeners to be run to process event messages
An agent listener monitors incoming messages and dequeues messages
When an event message is dequeued, the Event Manager begins subscription processing for the event.
Oracle Workflow provides 3 seeded agent listener service components to process messages:
Workflow Deferred Agent Listener (WF_DEFERRED)
Workflow Error Agent Listener (WF_ERROR)
Workflow Inbound Notifications Agent Listener (WF_NOTIFICATION_IN)
Event – A business event is an occurrence in a internet or intranet application or program that might be significant to other objects in a system or to external agent. For instance, the create of a purchase order is an example of a business event in a purchasing application.
Subscription – An event subscription is a registration indicating that a particular event is significant to a particular system and specifying the processing to perform when the triggering event occurs.

18. Workflow Agent Listeners
Workflow Deferred /Java DeferredAgent Listener
for deferred subscription processing (Local subscription)
Can run multiple Workflow Agent Listeners on WF_DEFERRED
MUST BE RUNNING
Workflow Error/Java Error Agent Listener
for error handling (Error subscription)
Workflow Inbound Notifications Agent Listener
inbound agent for e–mail notification responses (External subscription)
can run multiple Workflow Agent Listeners on WF_NOTIFICATION_IN
Local – The subscription applies only to events raised on the subscribing system.
External – The subscription applies only to events received by an inbound agent on the subscribing system. All event messages received by an inbound agent on the subscribing system are considered to have an External source.
Error – The subscription applies only to errored events dequeued from the WF_ERROR queue.

19. Workflow Manager: Agent Activity

20. Search on Messages/ View XML

21. Tip: Custom SQL Example SQL to check status of messages (example only)
select count(*) from applsys.aq$wf_deferred
where msg_state = ‘READY’
select count(*) from applsys.aq$wf_notification_out where msg_state = ‘READY’
(example only)
Queue message states also available from wfver.sql

22. Tip: Custom SQL
Simple custom SQL to check status of service components
select 'Service component ' || COMPONENT_NAME || decode (COMPONENT_STATUS, 'RUNNING', ' is running', ' is not running') from fnd_svc_components where concurrent_queue_id = (select concurrent_queue_id from fnd_concurrent_queues where concurrent_queue_name = 'WFALSNRSVC') order by COMPONENT_TYPE, COMPONENT_ID
(example only)
Also available from wfver.sql

23. #3 Why did the Mailer go down?

24. Oracle Workflow Java Mailer
Based on standard Java Mail APIs
SMTP for outbound
Optional IMAP for inbound OR users respond via hyperlink included in
One Workflow Mailer for detail and summary s
Leverages Generic Service Management feature to manage JVM
Leverages Generic Service Components feature to monitor java threads

25. What type of errors? Not configured correctly
See Workflow Manager Online Help
Not configured when system was started
Complete configuration
Run
(for owf g, run wfntfqup.sql after contacting support)
Invalid Addresses
mark.craig instead or

26. What type of errors? SMTP Server uncontactable
UNIX SA doesn’t talk to Apps DBA
Content Generation errors
Uncompiled Packages
Oracle/Java Errors
IMAP Server uncontactable
Mail Admin doesn’t talk to Apps DBA
Unexpected Errors: Oracle/Java
Unsolicited s

27. Mailer Status says System Deactivated
Maximum error count for Mailer is 10 (default)
Service Component Level
MAX_ERROR_COUNT=10
10 consecutive fatal errors = Stopped with Error
Maximum restart count is 5 (default)
Service Instance Level
SVC_COMP_MAX_ERROR_COUNT=5
5 sets of 10 consecutive errors = System Deactivated

28. Workflow Service Components
Workflow Notification Mailer service components
use for inbound and outbound mail processing
can run multiple outbound thread for scalability.
can only run one inbound thread
Workflow Agent Listener service components
to perform deferred subscription processing
error handling for the Business Event System
inbound e–mail processing for notification mailers

29. #4 Why didn’t I receive my email?

30. Possible Causes Email traffic – be patient
Check Notification Preference
“Do not send mail”
“Summary”
Address
Not set
Wrong
Invalid

31. Find Notification Screen

32. Troubleshooting
Send a Test to that Role using Workflow Manager, note down the NID.
wfmlrdbg.sql: for a given NID:
Notification Status and Mail Status
Role Details: preference and address
Existence/Status of Messages on Queues
Depends on Queue Retention Time (processed messages may have already been purged), default retention is zero
WF_DEFERRED
WF_ERROR
WF_NOTIFICATION_OUT
WF_NOTIFICATION_IN

33. Troubleshooting – wfmlrdbg.sql
Notification Item Information
Notification Recipient Role Members
Notification Recipient Role Information
Notification Recipient Routing Rules
Notification More Info Role Information
Notification Message Attribute Values
Notification Attribute Values
Notification User Comments
Deferred Queue Status
Error Queue Status
Notification OUT Queue Status
Notification IN Queue Status
Message Templates
Generate Notification Message
GSC Mailer Component Parameters
Mailer Tags

34. Troubleshooting Metalink Note 242941.1
How to Troubleshoot Java-based Workflow Notification Mailer in and OWF G

35. #5 The Agent Listeners are running slowly, should I drop and recreate the queues?

36. Dropping Queues
No!!!
Not supported unless you are using a SQL script provided by Oracle Workflow Development
Not all Queues can be recreated without loss of data
WF_ERROR
WF_JAVA_ERROR
WF_DEFERRED
WF_JAVA_DEFERRED
WF_NOTIFICATION_IN

37. Investigate Performance Issues
Number of messages on queue (wfver.sql)
Run more Agent Listeners
OK to run in parallel
Review STATSPACK Reports
Review DB File I/O
Temporary Tablespace used heavily for LOB Operations

38. #6 My Order Management workflow has errored…
#6 My Order Management workflow has errored…. can I just skip that activity?

39. Skipping Activities Not Supported
Workflows are business processes
For a product to function properly, all activities within the workflow process need to be executed, for example:
Activity 1 – creates business document
Activity 2 – inserts record into table
Activity 3-6 update other tables
Activity 7 – updates record created by activity 2
If Activity 2 errors and you “skip” it, Activity 7 will error, but activity 3-6 have already been executed……data is corrupted!!!

40. Status Monitor

41. Status Diagram

42. Status Diagram

43. #7 What’ the latest Workflow Directory Service Rollup??

44. Workflow Directory Service v4
Patch
Additional Bug Fixes
Enhancements to support Role Based Access Control
Role Hierarchies
Included in OWF H and AOL Data Security Rollups
And any product which prereqs those patches
Bulk Synchronization disabled for partitions which are hierarchy enabled

45. #8 Any news on Cloning?

46. OWF H + OAM H Automated Cloning No manual steps required
Global Preferences, Instance specific runtime data updated to be correct for target instance
More details
Oracle Applications Manager Online Help
Oracle Applications System Administrator Guide

47. Future Directions Basic vs Advanced
Keeping the Mailer Up in unfriendly environments
SMTP Server not contactable
IMAP Server not contactable
Many Addresses wrong or invalid
Integration with System Alerts feature of OAM
Official hooks to get status of service components for 3rd party management tools eg. Database view
Enterprise Manager Integration
Raise alerts based on queue backlog
Override Address vs Test Mail address

48. Q
&
Q U E S T I O N S
A N S W E R S A

49. Workflow Administrator Web Applications