FSIO requests a 2nd R12 presentation/demo from Oracle prior to Certification
On the monthly Oracle Federal Financials Special Interest Group (FEDSIG) call this week (held on November 18), Oracle identified that FSIO has requested a 2nd followup presentation/demo from Oracle prior to certifying R12. Oracle provided an initial R12 demo/presentation in September to FSIO in hopes of attaining a thumbs-up on gaining the R12 certification, so this 2nd request seems to be a bit of a setback in terms of finalizing the certification. Details of the rationale were not disclosed and Oracle is eager to complete the process, however a date has not yet been set for the follow-up presentation.
Hopefully, this will not delay the process significantly as a number of agencies are eagerly awaiting the go-ahead from FSIO. Of course, the irony of the situation is that R12 solves a number of issues (due to SLA and other capabilities) and I’d consider it to be more compliant with FSIO requirements than prior releases
Other news from the call:
-The next Federal Customer Advisory Board (CAB) meeting is scheduled for 12/3 in Reston. This is typically an invite-only event for Federal Financials system owners/executives.
-Next FEDSIG call tentatively scheduled for 12/16.
-The FEDSIG will be extending its time frame for collecting enhancement requests from agencies. See the template at http://fedsig.oaug.org and contact information for forwarding the enhancements.
-AP Patchset O created a number of issues for an agency on the call, suggest testing it well prior to moving into prod.
-A straw poll was taken of how year-end closing processes went. For the most part, it seems agencies are getting through year-end easier with each passing year. Numerous agencies reported needing to develop custom year-end processes.
-2 large agencies have mentioned significant performance considerations with rebuilding summary accounts. Oracle is apparently working on some performance enhancements to the summary account build process so maybe we’ll see that in the future.
-Multiple agencies indicated continuing problems with unaccounted AP invoices (due to failures of the Payables Accounting Process) and mentioned the desire for enhanced focus by Oracle to assist with mitigating these continuing issues in the future (note: due to the changes in R12 SLA, these specific issues should go away and lets hope we don’t have too many new ones)
-A few months ago, Mike Barker (Oracle Federal Development Lead) offered up the possibility of providing a web conference on new R12 capabilities aimed to help agencies comply with CGAC. This is still being considered, however the current highest priority is getting through the FSIO process for R12. The webinar won’t be until after the next R12 demo/presentation with FSIO.
-The FEDSIG chair is researching the preferred time-frame of the OAUG Collaborate ’09 FEDSIG meeting. Options are somewhere between 1 hr & a half-day.
If anyone reading this is unsure on how to join the FEDSIG or is interested in getting on the distribution list for the monthly calls, see http://fedsig.oaug.org.
Oracle Federal Applications 
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