ED HAYES

I have had an Oracle Service Request (SR) open for 3 years now. The request has to do with how slow several security based objects are to be displayed when a user is set up using Oracle’s newer RBAC (Role Base Access Control) security structure.  Right now we are working on is the list of concurrent requests.

The SR was originally opened as a severity 2.  About a year into the SR, one of my DBAs had some work to do on it and was getting poor response from Oracle support, so he raised the severity to 1.  It has been at severity 1 for about 2 years now.

I have gotten several patches from Oracle.  The first one we applied showed no change in performance at all.  When they released the second patch, I insisted they provide details of what the improvement was so I could confirm A) it actually did improve, and B) they have actually replicated the problem internally.  I didn’t want to waste our DBA team’s time applying an alpha stage patch that has been untested.

I never got the proof that the patch was tested.  I gave up and had the patch applied. The patch broke the security all together; a user would have no access to concurrent requests at all.  Yes it was fast, but it didn’t work.

A third patch was released; it fixed the security, so at least the user would get access, but the performance was 50% slower than an un-patched system.

For several months I have been asking for updates on the SR every week or so, and it get the standard “we are working on it” or “requested status from development” response.

I have poked the bear, per-say, this last week by asking for some manger interaction.  Take a look at the latest response I got from them:

Note in the title of the SR I mentioned “W/RBAC.”  The first question in this SR update is “Are you using RBAC model to define security?”  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Working with Oracle Support is frequently frustrating and difficult.  Very often Service Requests analysts post updates asking for customer’s to refer to an internal document, stating: “The following note can enhance your experience with Global Customer Services: Note: 166650.1 : Working Effectively With Support.”  At this point, I have determined I need to do something similar.

Here is my list to keep in mind to effectively work with customers:

• Before asking a questions or asking for data, review entire SR and it’s attachments to make sure it has not already been provided. If another SR is referenced, please include that in your review.
• Consult Oracle internal experts rather than asking customer how a module works.
• Do not give statements that may be untrue or are assumptions.
• Test all solutions in an internal, Oracle, instance before asking customer to try the solutions. Video evidence of testing may be requested.
• Provide all files in an industry standard formats. Customers should not be required to download proprietary software or codecs.
• Review all files before attaching
• Video files must be understandable, and easy to follow.  A beginner should be able to replicate the same actions portrayed in the video.
• Do not constantly indicate that an SR is not responded to within a certain period of time. The same courtesy will be given to you.
• Development instances will not be cloned onto production.
• An SR will not be opened per instance.
• The solution “that is a limitation of the software” or “that is how it works” is not acceptable.
• If documentation does not match the application’s functionality, only a “bug” will be a satisfactory solution.
• If configuration requirements are missing from documentation, and assumed, it is inherently irreverent.  And any undesired functionality must be considered a bug.
• Documents on My Oracle Support are not considered documentation unless referenced in the customers software version’s User Guide or Implementation Guide available at publication/release date.
• It is Oracle support’s responsibility to coordinate between Oracle divisions/module development teams.
• Analysts should not expect customer to have direct Unix level access to complete testing or diagnostic work.  SQL Plus is considered direct Unix access.
• Any dates or times should be expressed in the customer’s time zone.
• It is the responsibility of an Oracle Analyst to provide a sufficient hand-off of SRs to subsequent analysts.  Questions resulting from poor SR transitions may be responded to in a harsh manor.
• Please honor the requested communications method listed on the SR. Any communication initiated that does not match the requested communications method may be treated as if it never happened, unless it is agreed that that method may be used by both parties.

All of these are based on actual experiences.

I have been working on BI Publisher templates and the XLF Language Translations at work. I found a nice bug where a user uploads a XLF template translation and Oracle gives an Error that does not match the actual problem that caused the error.

Conditions

• Oracle BI Publisher or XML Publisher module in Oracle E-Business suite R12
• XLF Template Language Translation files

Symptoms

• BI Publisher gives error as seen below
• Unable to upload XLF Translation file

The uploaded translation file is invalid. It should specify a valid target language and territory. Please verify that the file is in the correct format.

Solution

• Change XLF Specified Encoding from utf-8 to ISO-8859-1