1 / 21

Survivor! Oracle Financials 11i Upgrade

Learn about the successful upgrade of Mirant's Oracle Financials from 10.6 to 11i, resulting in improved functionality and streamlined business processes.

adennis
Download Presentation

Survivor! Oracle Financials 11i Upgrade

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Survivor!Oracle Financials 11i Upgrade Release 10.6 character/10.7 NCA to 11i

  2. Mirant • The Premier Global Integrated Power Provider We see the opportunity to change the world with our energy • A global competitive energy company with leading energy marketing and risk management expertise • Integrated business model: • Mirant develops, constructs,owns, and operates power plants • Sells electricity, gas, and other energy related commodity products • Extensive operations in the Americas, Europe, and Asia • Assets of $17.7 billion • Year 2000 earnings of $366 million • More than 18,000 MW of electric generating capacity worldwide • Formerly known as Southern Energy Inc. • A subsidiary of the Southern Company

  3. What Happened? • April 17, 2000 - Southern Company Board Announces IPO of Southern Energy • offering up to 19.9% of ownership • subsequent spinoff of remaining ownership to SoCo shareholders within 12 months • April 2, 2001 - Spinoff of Southern Company ownership • Mirant separation from Southern Company is completed

  4. Mirant Business Responsibilities • Identify and replace Southern Company shared services • Human Resources, Payroll, Treasury, Tax, Finance • Oracle HR/Payroll apps selection forced early upgrade of Oracle Financials to release 11i • Hardware Evaluation, Selection, and Implementation • existing HP K570 server would not meet new requirements • purchased 2 HP N4000 servers - one Test and one Production box • Focus on Oracle HR and Payroll applications implementation

  5. Oracle Financials 11i UpgradeBackground • Mirant Oracle Financials • Implemented Financials 8.3 beginning last Qtr 1992 • Currently 225 Oracle Financials users located across U.S. • Managing a 3 Ring Circus • Ongoing Production Support for Financials 10.7 NCA and Character versions • Backlog of Financials enhancement and customization requests • Planning and executing the Oracle Financials 11i upgrade • Recognized need for external expertise • Partnered with System Architechs to manage and execute the Financials 11i upgrade

  6. Oracle Financials 11i Upgrade Project Scope and Approach • Base software upgrade and retrofit of customizations • Limited deployment of new functionality • Freeze production environment for better manageability • Isolate Database and Applications upgrade • Separate database upgrade using interoperability patches • Allow stepped approach to migrate to new HP boxes • Minimize outage window needed for upgrades • Financials 11i versions and release dates • Production upgrade - Financials 11.5.2 - completed Mar. 12, 2001

  7. Oracle Financials 11i UpgradeProject Organization • Develop communication plan and identify stakeholders • Prepare documentation portfolio and archive folders • project plan, customization documentation, change log, issue log, test scripts, training materials, etc. • Secure appropriate internal resources • Identify date for production upgrade - changed twice • External resources used: • project manager, functional (2), technical (2), DBA (part-time) • Approximately 2700 external resource man-hours to complete

  8. Oracle Financials 11i Upgrade Upgrade Assistant and EMM • Available on Oracle Metalink under Apps 11i Information • Excel file of all Category 1-6 upgrade steps • Mirant enhanced internally to identify relevant tasks and assign resources • Oracle’s EasiPath Migration Method (EMM) is an option - for a price

  9. Oracle Financials 11i Upgrade Upgrade Assistant Examples Original Revised

  10. Oracle Financials 11i UpgradeCustomization Management • Research infrastructure changes to determine impact • Developed scripts to search sql scripts and reports • Developed customization workbook for recording impact, tracking changes and managing future change • Developed customization statistics summary for management reporting and monitoring progress to plan • Customization summary: • 86 sql scripts • 48 host/shell scripts • 7 forms • 69 reports • 16 extensions (packages, procedures, triggers) • 67 tables, 24 indexes, 19 views

  11. Oracle Financials 11i UpgradeCustomization Workbook

  12. Oracle Financials 11i UpgradeCustomization Statistics

  13. Oracle Financials 11i UpgradeSupplier Banks • Supplier banks no longer supported in 11i • Category 2 Payables pre-upgrade step #2: • run apmsbrep.sql script • Review output for incomplete supplier banks • Fix incomplete records before running the upgrade • Oracle has patch 747306 to fix incomplete supplier banks • Populates bank_number and branch_number with “UNKNOWN” • Mirant developed semi-automated process to fix all errors • Loaded ABA banking information from third-party into temp table • Developed scripts to cleanse incomplete supplier banks • Manual updates to fix the leftovers • Resulting in 100% accuracy

  14. Oracle Financials 11i UpgradeSupplier Banks • How 10.x supplier banks are mapped to 11i: • Bank Name • po_vendor_sites.bank_number => ap_bank_branches.bank_name • po_vendor_sites.bank_number => ap_bank_branches.bank_number • Bank ABA Number • po_vendor_sites.bank_num => ap_bank_branches.bank_num • po_vendor_sites.bank_num => ap_bank_branches.bank_branch_name • Bank Account Name • po_vendor_sites_all.bank_account_name => ap_bank_accounts_all.bank_account_name • Bank Account Number • po_vendor_sites_all.bank_account_num => ap_bank_accounts_all.bank_account_num • Missing link between suppliers and banks is ap_bank_account_uses_all

  15. Oracle Financials 11i UpgradeWorkflow • Get trained on Workflow before the upgrade • Account Generator replaces Release 10 Flexbuilder • Document business rules for modified Flexbuilder rules • Generate accounts using Flexbuilder rules is an option in 11i • Workflow impact at Mirant: • PO and requisition distribution accounts - we used the default • PO and requisition approval process for notifications • FA Generate Accounts - see next slide

  16. Oracle Financials 11i UpgradeFA Generate Accounts • New Assets concurrent process to create account combinations for each asset • Generates a plethora of accounts for each asset - whether used or not • Difficult to resolve problems - but there is a way • Profile option available to control number of workers to accelerate the process • First execution involves significant processing time • Process improved from 11.0.x to 11i - now it reports all errors to a log rather than reporting errors incrementally • Mirant added minor customization to FA generate accounts

  17. Oracle Financials 11i UpgradeADI Spreadsheets • Research identified numerous versions of ADI deployed • Used Citrix solution to standardize single version throughout the company • Murphy’s Law appears... • ADI worksbooks have one hidden sheet for each sheet in the workbook • “CriteiraX” is the hidden sheet name, where X represents the sheet number in order from left to right • Contains pointers to database that needed to be updated • Developed Excel macro to automatically update older workbooks - preserving precious time and energy

  18. Oracle Financials 11i UpgradeReceivables • Significant infrastructure changes in 11i on customers • Trading Community Architecture (TCA)/Customer Model • HZ_PARTIES, HZ_LOCATIONS, HZ_CUST_SITE_USES… • Beware of the “TCA” patch - many problems in 11.5.2 • Review Customer addendum from Metalink • Apps 11i Information > Technical Articles, under Documentation heading for Financials select Accounts Receivable • Two important documents to review: • Oracle Receivables Customer Addendum Release 11i 276828 • Doc Addendum: Customer Find/Enter User Interface Update 279687

  19. Oracle Financials 11i UpgradeTesting Strategy • Acceptance testing requires management support • How you manage it is another challenge • Establish dedicated facilities for acceptance testing • DO NOT limit the number of resources involved in testing • Perform upgrade simulations • Mirant results: Alpha (weeks), Beta (days), Gamma (hours) • Keep copious notes organized and centralized • Documents known issues at go-live • Identifies custom post-upgrade steps

  20. Oracle Financials 11i UpgradePreparing for Production • What Mirant did to support a successful upgrade to 11i: • Developed milestones spreadsheet to calculate and estimate actual and revised completion times during the upgrade • Organized two conference calls during the weekend to discuss progress and estimated completion time • Established dedicated email address and phone number for reporting problems • Staffed centralized problem tracking and resolution group • Morning meetings with key stakeholders to discuss issues

  21. Oracle Financials 11i UpgradeI Wish... • The production date didn’t change twice • We had more resources assigned on acceptance testing • We upgraded to multi-org • HRMS didn’t create a new business group • We tested the Citrx/ADI solution outside the project team

More Related