Unraveling the Mysteries in the System Administrator Responsibility NCOAUG Training Day February 22, 2008 Judy Vales

© 2008 O2Works, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 2 Introduction Principal Consultant, O2Works LLC Eleven years of Oracle applications experience, specializing in Financials. Additional ten years experience working with Financials and Financial Systems. Judy Vales

© 2008 O2Works, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 3 Agenda 1. The System Administrator 2. Menus and Responsibilities 3. Profile Options 4. Request Sets 5. Other Features 6. In Summary

© 2008 O2Works, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 4 It’s a mystery, because it’s kept out of the users hands. For good reasons, usually! Initial setup teams makes decisions and no one reviews them after you are live. There are many items that should be reviewed by users and managers as time goes on. There are secrets here that users NEED to know about. 1. The System Administrator Mystery

© 2008 O2Works, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 5 This is NOT an attack on the jobs your System Administrators do. None of the steps in this presentation should be touched without the assistance of your system administrator. Work together to get the information you need. Use test instances, and / or reports provided by your SA for these “checks”. The System Administrator Mystery

© 2008 O2Works, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Responsibilities are used to create secure access to Oracle functions. Responsibilities have these critical components: – Menus - To provide access to functions – Request Groups - to provide access to reports. – Exclusions - To provide limitations on functions this responsibility can access. 2. About Responsibilities

© 2008 O2Works, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 7 Responsibilities You can use standard responsibilities, if they closely match user responsibilities. Consider using menu exclusions instead of customizing responsibilities and menus. Custom responsibilities should be created using standard ones as samples. Self-Service custom responsibilities must have the correct available from option and securing attributes.

© 2008 O2Works, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 8 Responsibilities

© 2008 O2Works, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 9 About Menus Menus are used to build access to functions to your responsibilities. Menus have to be created before responsibilities can use them. Use Oracle’s submenus to ‘build’ main menus. Or use custom submenus. Add custom forms into your menus. “Custom” menus can prevent you from getting new functionality in patches.

© 2008 O2Works, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 10 Menus

© 2008 O2Works, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 11 Request Groups Request groups are used to grant or allow responsibilities the access to certain reports or processes (requests). Build request groups from the ground up or use existing request groups. Build request groups from: Applications, Sets or individual reports. If a report is not dangerous in the wrong hands, allow it, that will be less work later.

© 2008 O2Works, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 12 Request Groups Type Options include Application, Program, & Set.

© 2008 O2Works, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 13 Profile Options are often the ‘unknown’ features within Oracle. Profile Options can be used for various functions: – Assign responsibilities to the correct Set of Books, Operating Unit or Business Group. – Choose defaults for users. – Choose options for security and functionality. 3. Profile Options

© 2008 O2Works, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Profile Options Profile  System Set Profile Options at various levels, to meet your needs

© 2008 O2Works, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Profile Options Profile Options by Module: – GL%, GLDI%, ADI%, AR%, etc. Profile Options for DBA’s / Technology. Profile options for users: – Printer default, extract defaults, etc. Suggestion: Request a list of the profile options for your module, and review any settings.

© 2008 O2Works, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 16 Create Request sets to run multiple reports from a single request. Request sets in System Admin allow other users to be the owner. Use the Wizard, he’s got it all covered. Don’t forget to assign stages, and choose parameter defaults. – Allow users to enter fewer parameters. – Share parameters when possible. 4. Request Sets

© 2008 O2Works, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 17 Request Sets Sharing and Defaulting Parameters is the biggest benefit! Always Start with the Wizard.

© 2008 O2Works, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 18 Administer Folders: – Correct Problem folders – Assign Default folders to certain Responsibilities or specific users. Concurrent Requests Managers View – Review requests that are running for long periods of time. – Review scheduled requests for out of date or repeat issues. 4. Other Features

© 2008 O2Works, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 19 Other Features System Administrator Concurrent Requests to review: – Active Responsibilities, Active Users – Users of a Responsibility…see who has access to your data. – Report Group Responsibilities. – Cross Validation Rule Violations Report. – MultiOrg setup validation report.

© 2008 O2Works, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 20 Work with your System Administrator or Technical team. Spend time with your System Administrator and learn all they know. Try to understand what is available, in the System Administrator responsibility. Learning more about someone else’s job, pays off by doing your job better. 3. In Summary

© 2008 O2Works, LLC. All Rights Reserved. In Summary Once you know what is available, you might: – Re-Think what you do and how you do it. – Find new ways to improve your system – Reduce your efforts – Get more information out of the system.

Questions? Judy Vales O2Works LLC Dallas – Chicago - Denver