Included in this release are our first Industry versions of Foundation Pack

Utilities Foundation Pack

• Includes industry specific business process models to support key Utility industry processes around “Transmission & Distribution” and “Deregulated Retail”: Concept to Launch, Order to Bill, Meter to Cash and Customer Service (self-service and assisted)
• Includes 2 new Utilities EBOs (Enterprise Business Objects): ServiceUsage and MeterReading
• And 13 verticalized horizontal EBOs: AccountBalanceAdjustment, AccountingEntry, CustomerParty, DisbursedPayment, InstalledProduct, Invoice, Item, PaymentInvoice, PriceList, ReceivePayment, SalesOrder, SalesQuote, ServiceRequest

Insurance Foundation Pack

• Enables integration of an insurance company’s claim system to its Financials system (AR, AP, and GL). 
• Includes industry specific business process models to support key Insurance claims processes
• Includes 1 new Insurance EBO: Claim
• And 2 verticalized horizontal EBOs: Invoice, Payables Invoice

This version is certified on WebLogic Server 9.2

This should be good news for BEA customers. Customers can choose to run FP 2.2.1 on the WLS J2EE container, and are free to use either the Oracle ESB and/or the Oracle Service Bus right now. 

AIA Foundation Pack 2.2.1 is certified on Oracle Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Linux and Windows 2003.

This is a great opportunity to honor and recognize pioneering/innovative projects at the interesection of Oracle Applications and Oracle Fusion Middleware. Please note that Oracle is also specifically welcoming Oracle Applications customers (e-Business Suite, Siebel, PeopleSoft, JDE etc.) who have been using BEA’s SOA offering as well as the entire portfolio of Fusion Middleware capabilities (SOA, EPM, OBI EE, IdM, WebCenter, ECM, etc.).

Last year’s Excellence Award was a great success with an award ceremony jointly hosted by Thomas Kurian and Ed Abbo and an Oracle Profit Magazine cover story. Please note that the UK and Australian Oracle user groups provide further benefits for overseas winners.

If you want to submit a nomination right now, please give us a quick heads-up.

With enterprise applications, iPhone becomes an even more effective productivity tool. Enterprises can easily build their own in-house applications to meet distinct business needs utilising iPhone Multi-Touch technology, the accelerometer, wireless connectivity and GPS. Or users can simply download commercial applications directly to iPhone from the App Store.

Oracle recently announced the first in a series of Oracle business applications for the Apple® iPhone – Oracle Business Indicators – that became available on the Apple App Store as of July 10, 2008. These new Oracle business applications address how executives and managers work today – requiring targeted, intelligent and task focused information to make informed decisions with ease and simplicity with today’s increasingly mobile work style. The applications leverage the power of Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Plus (OBIEE) and Oracle Business Intelligence Applications, Fusion Edition to provide access to key metrics and analytical data for mobile executives. These native applications for the Apple iPhone also leverage the Serviced-Oriented Architecture (SOA) capabilities of OBIEE and the powerful set of Oracle Business Intelligence Web Services. They also have support of SSL encryption protocol enabling superior and secure mobile flexibility and performance.

Oracle Business Indicators allows users to view and interact with Oracle Business Intelligence Applications that include financial, human resources, supply chain and customer relationship management analytics, as well as analytical alerts generated by Oracle Delivers, an integrated component of OBIEE. User configuration options allow users to select the relevant indicators to their role and preferences for browsing.

Oracle intends to release rich CRM solutions for the iPhone with applications that help users be productive when mobile; collaborate and share information with colleagues and customers, and manage leads, accounts, opportunities and forecasts, all through the iPhone.

The English language version of Oracle Business Indicators is available for free from Apple’s App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore. Details from Oracle also available here.

• Sysadmin
• Guest
• Anonymous

In Oracle E-Business Suite release 12, there is no need to apply any patch as the files required are already present in the filesytem. The instructions are below:

• Load the event with the command: java oracle.apps.fnd.wf.WFXLoad -u <apps_un> <apps_pw> <apps_dbserver.+fqdn>:<db_port>:<SID> thin US \ $FND_TOP/patch/115/xml/US/icxevte.wfx
• Load the event subscription: java oracle.apps.fnd.wf.WFXLoad -u <apps_un> <apps_pw> <apps_dbserver.+fqdn>:<db_port>:<SID> thin US \ $FND_TOP/patch/115/xml/US/icxevts.wfx

Details are available on Metalink note #304209.1 (login required).

The event, hosted by Oracle President Charles Phillips and Oracle Senior Vice President Thomas Kurian, will provide insight into the BEA acquisition and announce the go-forward direction of Oracle Fusion Middleware. Core topics include:

• Welcome – BEA customers and partners
• BEA Integration – The role BEA products will play in the Oracle Fusion Middleware product family
• Strategy – Oracle Fusion Middleware evolution, strategy, and key products

Details are available here.

This webcast is one in a series of programs addressing the BEA acquisition and Oracle Fusion Middleware. Visit www.oracle.com/bea for more information on the BEA acquisition and www.oracle.com/middleware for more information on Oracle Fusion Middleware.

Today, acting as a system integration hub, Oracle Workflow can apply business rules to control objects and route them between applications and systems. It extends the reach of business process automation throughout an enterprise and beyond, to include any email user, web user, or system, enabling people to receive, analyze, and respond to notifications needing their attention. Users can respond to a notification via any standard email system or standard Web browser.

Everybody knows that notification routing rules save workflow participants time and provide the flexibility to assign responsibility for notifications in a variety of circumstances. Frontline support personnel can be automatically assigned to review certain requests to make sure that all information needed is present before making a decision.

The current limitation of this system is that you only received (rich) text messages. Now, imagine that the Oracle E-Business suite notification system provides a video twitter capability for a perpetual interaction around both professional and user generated content… For example, Oracle E-Business suite users could attach videos on their operational dashboards (from Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition platform) to illustrate some reports or graphs with more details and impacts, to their expense reports or requests for vacation (to show how you’re so tired…), in the knowledege database for the Support team, etc.

We think that Seesmic could the perfect solution to do that… If you have more ideas to use Seesmic with Oracle E-Business Suite, please share with us by comments.

So, the next time you will use Oracle E-Business Suite, don’t forget your make-up!

Sample Use Cases:

• Streamline the order-to-cash process using Oracle SOA as orchestration engine between Siebel CRM and e-Business Suite Financials.
• Actionable intelligence in finance, sales, service and HR to employees using Oracle BI on Siebel CRM.
• SOX compliance and faster Employee Onboarding by securely provisioning users on PeopleSoft HR using Oracle Identity Manager.

Please note that Oracle Fusion Middleware is not limited to Oracle SOA Suite. We also welcome nominations from:

• BEA customers
• Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) and Business Intelligence (BI) as well as Identity Management (IdM) or Enterprise Content Management (ECM) projects together with Oracle applications.

The award is jointly sponsored by Oracle and premier user groups: Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG), Quest International Users Group, Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG), Oracle Development Tools User Group (ODTUG), UK Oracle User Group (UKOUG), and Australian Oracle Users Group (AUSOUG).

Awards Recipients

• FREE registration to Oracle OpenWorld 2008 (September 21-25) in San Francisco
• FREE Oracle polo shirt
• Placement in Oracle Press Release
• Placement in Oracle Profit Magazine
• Podcast opportunity with Oracle SVP of Applications Technology
• 1-3 Meetings with Oracle Executives during Oracle OpenWorld 2008
• For Australian and Asia Pacific Excellence Award winners, free passes from Australian Oracle User Group(AUSOUG) to the annual conference (October 2008) as well as opportunity to participate in a panel session and reception.
• For Excellence Award winners from Europe, Middle East and Africa, free passes from UK (December 2008) as well as offer guaranteed speaker slots for the top 5 winners Oracle User Group (UKOUG) to the annual conference Award Nominations

To submit a nomination, please Register Now and download an official 2008 Oracle Excellence Award submission form.

“As SOA, Web 2.0, and Rich Enterprise applications continue to evolve in sophistication, Oracle is committed to helping insulate developers and customers from the complexity and pitfalls that accompany the vast combination of potential underlying technologies,” said Thomas Kurian, Senior Vice President, Oracle Server Technologies. “Through its standards-based, hot-pluggable foundation, the latest preview of Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g further demonstrates this commitment.”

Based on feedback resulting from close cooperation with customers testing in real-world environments, the latest preview of Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g also showcases planned performance and manageability improvements, as well as tighter integration between various Oracle Fusion Middleware components. Enhancements and new capabilities in this preview span the Oracle Fusion Middleware product family and include:

• Oracle SOA Suite — new capabilities for Complex Event Processing and Business Activity Monitoring;
• Oracle WebCenter Suite — enhanced Enterprise 2.0 and social computing capabilities;
• Oracle JDeveloper and Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) — using AJAX with support for Java Script 1.6, 1.7. and 1.8; JavaServer Faces 1.2; and other Web 2.0 technologies, to help provide exceptional productivity for developers.

Details are available here. To download the enhanced preview of Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g, click here.

Are your Oracle Applications customers asking for “how to” information? Oracle created brand new Best Practice Centers on OTN featuring 15 step by step tutorials:

• E-Business Suite technology leads can learn how to service-enable Oracle E-Business Suite business services, workflows, and business components. “How-to” sessions cover technology areas such as BPEL, ESB, BAM, ADF, and WebCenter: Visit today and bookmark it for constant updates and Webcasts.
• PeopleSoft: www.oracle.com/technology/tech/fmw4apps/peoplesoft
• Siebel: www.oracle.com/technology/tech/fmw4apps/siebel
• JDE E1: available by OpenWorld
• Webcasts will demonstrate the content on May 20 (E-Business Suite), May 21 (PeopleSoft) and May 22 (Siebel) – sign up on the Best Practice Center

Furthermore, an excellent white paper has been released by Oracle about “Application Upgrades and Service - Oriented Architecture“. Maintenance costs, for major point releases as well as more frequent patches, is a topic that catches the attention of most ERP and CRM customers. In this whitepaper, Oracle provides a detailed look into why and how SOA-enablement can reduce cost and risk of Application upgrades.

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Finally, if you have an interesting Fusion Middleware projects with EBS, PSFT, SEBL or JDE applications, you can be nominated for the Excellence Award 2008 on http://www.oracle.com/goto/excellenceawards. Winners receive free OpenWorld passes (Oracle also recognize system integrators). EMEA winners receive free passes to the UK User Group conference and APAC winners receive free passes to the Australian User group conference!

From April 13 to 17, celebrating the third year, the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG), the Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG) and Quest International Users Group (Quest) have combined resources and ideas to bring COLLABORATE 08 in Denver, Colorado.

During first general session keynote of the week, Oracle President Charles Phillips told Oracle customers, “Your role is growing in importance,” as Oracle continues to grow and rely on customer input. Before discussing what Oracle will be focusing on over the next three years, Charles reviewed Oracle’s accomplishments over the last year, and he made a key Applications Unlimited announcement. Charles also announced that Oracle is extending Premier Support for Oracle E-Business Suite 11.5.10 until November 2010.

Missed the keynote? You can view the video here.