Running Reports and Programs

Lesson Overview

To manage information in Oracle Applications, you must be able to run and monitor reports and programs. This lesson explains how to submit reports and processes, and monitor their status.

Running Reports and Programs

Concurrent processing helps you satisfy the following business needs:

•Continue working at your computer while running data-dependent reports and programs.

•Fully use the capacity of your hardware by executing many application tasks at once.

•Standard Request Submission lets you satisfy a related set of business needs. You can:

•Use a standard interface to run your programs and reports.

•Control access to different reports and programs.

•View report output online.

•Automatically run programs, reports, or request sets at specific time intervals.

•View a log file that summarizes the completion information about all the reports and programs in a request set.

Concurrent Processing Terminology

Concurrent Request

A concurrent request is a request that you submit to run a concurrent program as a concurrent process. You issue a concurrent request when you submit a report or program to run using Standard Request Submission or when you click an action button in a product-specific submission window.

Concurrent Manager

A concurrent manager is a component of concurrent processing that monitors and runs requests without tying up your computer.

Request Set

A request set is a collection of reports or programs that you group together. You submit the reports or programs in a request set all at once using one transaction.

Stage

A stage is a component of a request set used to group requests within the set. All requests in a stage are run in parallel (all at the same time), while the stages themselves are run sequentially (one after the other) in the request set.

Parameter

In Standard Request Submission (SRS), a parameter is a report variable whose value you can change each time you run a report. For example, you might run an account balance report and change the account number each time you run the report. The account number is the parameter for the report.

Concurrent Processing Options

You can control and change certain run options for each of your concurrent requests. Not only can you control and change the number of copies to print, which print style to use, and which printer to use, but you can also choose to hold a request from being run, choose a specific date or time to start a request, or choose to save the results of your concurrent request in a standard file format.

Online Request Review

You can review the output and log files from your concurrent requests online. You can see the results of a concurrent request without the delay of printing out the entire report or log file.

Using Concurrent Processing

You can run a noninteractive, data-dependent function such as a report or program, simultaneously with online operations. With concurrent processing, you can complete noninteractive tasks without interfering with the interactive work that you perform at your terminal.

An example of concurrent processing occurs when you use the Post Journals window in your Oracle General Ledger application. Once you specify the journal batches to post and click Post, your Oracle General Ledger application uses concurrent processing to post the journal batch entries without further involvement from you. Meanwhile, your terminal is still available for you to continue doing other work in Oracle Applications.

Oracle Applications runs all of its reports and programs as concurrent processes whether you submit them using the Submit Requests window, or using a product-specific submission window. Your system administrator can tailor concurrent processing to optimize the performance of Oracle Applications for you to ensure that your system is not overloaded with processing at any time.

Using Standard Request Submission (SRS)

Using Standard Request Submission gives you control over how you can run your requests and request sets.

There are three elements involved in submitting a request: selecting the request or request set to be submitted, defining a submission schedule, and providing completion options.

Defining a schedule can be as simple as submitting “As Soon as Possible” or it can involve using a more complex schedule that you define when you first submit your request. The schedule may be used for other requests in the future.

Completion options enable you to deliver notification to others using Oracle Workflow, and specify which printers, and how many copies of the output you want to produce for each request.

You can submit as many requests as you like from the Submit Request window. You can even submit a request more than once if you want to run the same request with different parameter values.

How To Submit a Request and Define Parameters

1. Navigate to the Submit a New Request window.

2. Check the Request option to submit single requests, or choose to submit a predefined group of requests by checking Request Set.

3. Click OK.

4. Use the Copy button to take advantage of previously entered request submissions. Or, select the Name of the request (report or program) that you want to run from the list of available requests. Note that the responsibility you are using determines the request group and the requests that will appear in the list.

5. A Parameters window automatically appears if you select a request that requires parameter values. The prompts in the Parameters window are specific to the request that you select.

6. Enter the values in the required parameter fields and click OK. The Parameters window closes, and your parameter values are concatenated and displayed in the Parameters window.

Defining a Submission Schedule

1. Click Schedule to open the Scheduling window.

The scheduling window provides you with several scheduling options. You can choose to re-use a schedule you previously defined and saved, or define a new schedule. You can define your schedule to run a request as soon as possible, at a specific time, or repeatedly at specific intervals, on specific days of the week or month.

2. Choose a type of schedule.

3. To save your schedule, select the “Save this schedule for use again later” check box. You must also provide a unique name for each schedule you save, and you can provide additional information in the Description field.

4. Click OK. You are returned to the Submit Requests window.