Oracle Spring ’12 Federal Development Update
I didn’t attend, but there was an Oracle Federal Financial Briefing on 17-Apr in Reston where information was shared about some of the upcoming GTAS enhancements and target patch release dates. Personally, besides focusing on our Fed R12.1.3 stabilization efforts on my current gig, I’m working to get smart on some of the basics associated with GTAS, the upcoming 6-digit USSGL standard and new Federal Accounting/System process changes associated.
As soon as we can get our hands on these new GTAS patches, we need to jump on them to start understanding some of the impacts to our EBS environments in further detail. As the Federal E-Business Suite community, we don’t really have much time to be able digest, test and prepare for these changes. First required reporting cycle for GTAS is after Nov FY13 month-end (Calendar Nov 2012) and the fact that GTAS will only accept Bulk File feeds (i.e. no pencil whipping any numbers like with FACTS today), means we’ve got to be ready with this stuff working. If anyone is looking for more info from Treasury on GTAS, you can find it here.
For R12 Fed Financials Installs who jumped on the CGAC & FV 90000001 patches early (me and my local Denver Federal Financials Shared Service provider!), at least we have that piece behind us. But certainly there is more coming, especially for all the agencies still on 11i.
Here’s the link to the deck I scored:
Oracle Federal Financials Spring ’12 Development Update
If you’ve been following the twitter feed, you know I’m heading to Collaborate ’12 to present two Federal Financials R12 sessions and catch-up on as much news/info as I can there. The FED Sig meeting is on Monday, maybe that will help. Keep watch on the twitter feed for anything I pick up relevant to the Federal EBS community.
If anyone has any comments or knowledge to share that you feel would help spread key info, please don’t hesitate to comment.
–Larry
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )Oct’11 Federal Financials Update
I was able to get a copy of the E-Business Suite Federal Financials Update slides presented at this year’s Oracle Federal Forum on October 18th. Most of the content revolves around the upcoming Federal interface changes and transition to the Governmentwide Treasury Account Symbol Adjusted Trial Balance System (GTAS) to replace FACTS I & II. I’m sure these changes are definitely going to keep us busy!!
Here is the link:
Dept. of Labor closing in on planned R12 go-live
First of all, sorry for the void of posts for the last few months, unfortunately I’ve just been severely swamped with project-work as we try to close in our USAF DEAMS go-live later this year. But I happened to notice an article where it looks like Dept. of Labor is targeting an Oct. 1st go-live for R12 Fed Financials, so I thought I’d post a link to that info here. I also know that SSA was targeting a R12 go-live a bit earlier this summer, but haven’t been able to stay much in the loop on how that’s going. It is definitely good to see more agencies getting further along with their R12 plans.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Collaborate ’09 Recap – A Federal Spin
Now that I’m back in Denver, here’s a recap from the Collaborate ’09 conference in Orlando that I thought would be helpful to share. I definitely enjoyed seeing friends, meeting new ones and taking in as much information as I could during the conference. Being responsible for three different presentations was a bit more than I would have preferred (especially with a newborn and a 3 year-old at home, along with supporting a pretty demanding project cutting into the prep time), but it seemed that the presentations went well and were favorably accepted. Thanks to everyone who came to them and please don’t hesitate to contact me with any follow-up questions. The presentations are available here.
Here’s an attempt at sharing some of the past week’s events, announcements and information of Federal relevance (with a few other items) that I picked up. The link to the Oracle Collaborate 09 Media Kit, which provides press-releases and additional info on a number of these items is available here.
E-Business Suite 12.1 Released – 12.1 (12.1.1) was made Generally Available on Monday, May 4th. 12.1 brings a variety of new capabilities to the table, but for the Federal community, the biggest news with 12.1 is the important step forward in the long awaited “Projects Federalization“. 12.1 now provides the capability to create the required USSGL Budgetary postings from PA Agreements/Fundings, Revenue and Costs. Projects has never provided USSGL Transaction Codes or any other solution for creating these entries and this gap has been a long-time Federal Top-Ten enhancement request.
Other top 12.1 new features include:
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )Oracle/CACI Contract Lifecycle Event – Feb3
Well, its been almost a month since my last post, but I’ve now got the Christmas tree and all the rest of holiday decorations packed back away. So hopefully I can do a bit better job of putting content out here.
Wanted to mention that Oracle and CACI are hosting an event on Feb 3 in DC, around their collaborative enhancement of the E-Business Suite Federal Contracting capabilities. Click here to see additional details on the location, speakers and times. Suggest touching base with your agency’s friendly apps rep or partner rep on details to register.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 3 so far )December Federal CAB Info
The most recent Oracle Federal Customer Advisory Board (CAB) meeting was held on 3-December.
A few interesting points of info include:
-Both Oracle and FSIO are pointing to January 2009 as finalizing the R12 FSIO certification
-In the Oracle Development update, Oracle pointed identified R12.1 as targeted for release in calendar year 2009 (12.1 is slated to include additional out of the box integration for Projects SLA items such as the capability for creating standard journal entries for Unfilled Customer Orders when an agreement is baselined). This obviously doesn’t really give much specificity, but at least they mentioned it.
Here are the slides from the meeting as presented from Oracle and OMB FSIO.
Oracle CAB Development Update (Dec. 3, 2008 )
R12 Overview for Dec 2008 Cab_v1
FSIO Presentation at Oracle 12-3-08
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )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.
SBA Awards Work to Support OFF Environment and Pilot Oracle Loans
This news is a little old (its been a rough past 2 months with year-ends, ongoing implementation work & some part-time work on another new effort), but I thought I’d post it anyway. Small Business Administration looks to be moving their Oracle Fed Financials environment under a new contract to SRA International for support and will also begin a pilot of the Oracle Loans platform in concert with Fed Financials. If you haven’t heard, R12 SLA enables Oracle Loans to comply with the required budgetary entries, so this pilot may involve moving to R12. Oracle is listed as one of the teaming partners and I’m interested in learning more about who’s actually going to be hosting the environment (maybe OnDemand). Anyway, here’s a link to the story & I know there’s additional stories available online as well.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )The Federal Desktop Core Configuration, huh??
I wasn’t aware of this until I saw it today on Steven Chan’s blog, but he mentions that “11i is certified with the US Federal Desktop Core Configuration for Windows XP and Vista desktop clients”. Here’s the link to his post, which gives background on the requirement from OMB and also includes a link to a Statement of Direction doc that Oracle has published on the configuration.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )3 New Agencies Go-Live Oct. ’08 on Oracle Fed Financials
I know of at least 3 new agencies going live on Oracle Federal Financials 11i10, effective this October. Welcome to the expanding community and good luck with your transition.
The agencies going live that I know of are:
- DoD Business Transformation Agency (BTA) (as the first agency being rolled out under the Defense Agencies Initiative (DAI))
- International Trade Commission (serviced by DOI-NBC SSP)
- Treasury Debt Management (serviced by DOI-NBC SSP)
If anyone knows of others, feel free to comment. Its just interesting to know.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )
Oracle Federal Applications 