Dave Muirhead Director of Electronic Customer Self-Service Oracle Corporation

Power Tools, Tips and Tricks: Getting the Most Out of Your Oracle Support Services

OracleMetaLink  Top Technical Documents  Diagnostic Tools  Oracle Support KB search including Bug database  Patch download  Forums or TAR’s?  Oracle DirectConnect  User Administration  “My Configs & Projects”

OracleMetaLink – Top Tech Docs  Your Starting Place – Compiled by the “best and brightest” – Continuously updated – Rich resource for research and problem solving – Electronic documentation – eTRM -Electronic Technical Reference Manual – Refined/enhanced through PAA - Problem Avoidance Architecture Learning folded back into top tech docs – Support Tools

Support Tools  ACT – Applications Collection Tool – Top Tech Docs -> E-Business Suite -> Diagnostic Tests Catalogue  RDA – Remote Diagnostic Agent – Search for “RDA” or “Remote Diagnostic Assistant” (Doc ID )  Diagnostic Scripts OracleMetaLink – Top Tech Docs

OracleMetaLink – KB Search General or Advanced? General: Keywords are combined with “AND” operators. Advanced allows you to specify several options: Filter by product, platform, modified date, document ID and chose from the different knowledge repositories

OracleMetaLink – Patch Download  Find the patches you need – Simple search  By Patch Number  By Product Family  Saved Searches – Saved searches – Quick Links – Advanced search

OracleMetaLink – Patch Download

OracleMetaLink – SR’s or Forums? Forums Are…  A call for information A public discussion Customer answered, Oracle moderated Archived on MetaLink only Bulletin board/threaded format Viewable/searchable by other users iTARs Are… For problem mgmt A one-to-one transaction Oracle support analyst answered Tracked/measured in Oracle call tracking system Problem/symptom/ solution format Only viewable by customers who created them

OracleMetaLink Customer User Administration  Provides greater control over your company’s MetaLink access – Set user access and permissions – Create/approve new accounts – Remove existing users  Enhances security – All new registrations with your support identifier must be approved

Oracle DirectConnect  Accessible through OracleMetaLink  Collaborate directly with an Oracle Support engineer  A secure encrypted connection between Oracle Support and your system  Available from MetaLink for resolving open SR’s  Coordinate use with the support engineer working your SR  Chat/Desktop Sharing/File Transfer

Oracle DirectConnect

OracleMetaLink: My Configs & Projects  Internal Code name “My Support”  Global initiative to move to proactive support  Provides new capabilities on MetaLink – Ability to manage your support needs by project – Ability to catalog your environments – Ability to view configuration details on your environments – Health check reports based on rules for best practices and supportability – Oracle can begin to enable proactive support capabilities – Attach Configurations and Projects to TARs for faster resolution

OracleMetaLink: My Configs & Projects “Configs”  Ability to catalog all your configurations – Detailed description of business-critical environments – Both manual and automated configuration description creation and maintenance – Projects can also be associated to configurations – Third-party software impact

Configuration Details View detail of configuration information Secure Encrypted Upload Support Agent Installed on each server Uploads every 24hrs; low system impact Stored in MetaLink Configuration Repository

Health check reports for critical areas Checks against current knowledge base Presents Findings, Risks & Recommendations: Warnings and Cautions! Summary Reports give a comprehensive view of systems Key Issues: Availability, Integrity, & Performance Fix problem areas before problems occur!

“Projects”  Ability to manage your configurations by project – View your system configurations the way you manage your business – Identify Project Contacts & Project Roles – Identify milestones and critical dates – Project Dependencies OracleMetaLink: My Configs & Projects

A Q & Q U E S T I O N S A N S W E R S

Next Steps….  Attend “Advanced Support Services: Maximizing the Performance and Health of Your Systems” Wednesday, 1:00 p.m., Juan Jones  Visit the MetaLink and Oracle Support Tools demo stations in the Oracle Campground  Browse here for more information: – –

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