TekStream AXF 12c Upgrade Special Components

TekStream’s extension to Oracle’s Application eXtension Framework (AXF) provides enhanced customizations surrounding Invoice Reporting using Business Activity Monitor (BAM), auditing of user actions, and QuikTrace of BPEL process instance.   With the introduction of the 12c upgrade available with release 12.2.1.3 TekStream discovered that two of its reporting components were highly impacted by paradigm changes in 12c.   TekStream has gone through multiple iterations of 12c upgrade and has incorporated the necessary reporting enhancements to provide the functionality of the 11g release to its 12c counterpart.  This paper highlights the enhancements to the package to bring it on line with 12c.

BAM Dashboards:

The Business Activity Monitoring component of the SOA solution was significantly improved in the 12c release.  So significantly in fact that it precluded an upgrade path from 11g.   In the official upgrade procedures solutions incorporating this component are instructed to stand up an 11g version for BAM and slowly introduce a 12c version as all of the nuances of the new release are learned such that alternatives can be made.  In addition to a different dashboard component the layered introduction of ‘Business Queries’ and ‘Business Views’  add new elements to the solution that have to be solved before a dashboard can be constructed.  TekStream has done the necessary homework to bring the 11g based system directly online during the upgrade within a new InvoiceAnalytics package to save our customers the effort of introducing an interim solution during the process.  With TekStream’s 12c AXF upgrade we accommodate replacement dashboards, new 12c objects that are introduced with the release as well as upgrade of the 11g BAM data.  Clients will regain functionality (albeit with new upgraded BAM dashboards and underlying components) immediately after going online with 12c.  They will have direct replacements to the ‘Assigned Invoices’, ‘Invoice Aging’, and ‘Invoices’ reports and can use these with all of the 12c enhancements.

QuikTrace:

TekStream’s Audit and Reporting package ships with a component labeled QuikTrace which in addition to global Worklist views to locate all active invoices also provided technical tracing capability not available in AXF.   Technical staff can use key data points to find a record within the SOA composite execution stack for those records not active in a worklist and traceable via the global Worklist view.  The capability was based on an 11g primitive ‘ora:setCompositeInstanceTitle’ which on a per composite level allowed for the population of the title field which was then searchable via the Enterprise Manager (em).  The Audit and Reporting package allows for the searching based on Imaging Document ID, Invoice Number, Purchase Order Number, Supplier Name, and a customizable business key.

With 12c Oracle has changed their paradigm for a more efficient flow trace primitive ‘oraext:setFlowInstanceTitle’ which migrates the search element to a new single element SCA_FLOW_INSTANCE.title per composite flow.  To maintain the same functionality of the 11g system it is necessary to encapsulate all designed search elements into a single location.   TekStream has incorporated this into the Audit and Reporting package to offer the same functionality to its client base.

Upgrading AXF Clients:

For AXF clients with the reporting package we have the elements to bring you back online with the features that you are accustomed.    These will be available as soon as you bring AXF back up on 12c.

For AXF clients without the reporting package be assured that TekStream can get you to a 12c Audit and Reporting point as well.  We understand the 12c data and can pull together the data objects for functional dashboards and can introduce those QuikTrace touchpoints into the 12c based composites for that feature capability.

Want to learn more about Invoice Reporting using Business Activity Monitor? Contact us today!

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