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Product Specific Information - Manual Actions

This section contains important information that differ from standard routines where manual steps or actions must be taken.

Note: These manual steps must be executed before clean scripts are executed.

Platform

Invalid SYS Packages

  • It is common to upgrade the Oracle to a newer version together with an IFS Cloud upgrade. The Oracle lift is normally done by exporting IFS Cloud from the existing database with the old Oracle version and import it into an empty database with the new Oracle version. This export/import or changes in the different Oracle versions might invalid some SYS packages (e.g. Installation_SYS and Database_SYS) needed for running the manual pre scripts. A way to fix these invalids could be to run the Prepare Database step before the pre scripts are executed. Actually, it could be done even before the import into the new database.

About Triggers

  • History Logging and Custom Events in IFS Cloud are handled by database triggers. During an upgrade due to changes in database tables these triggers might get invalidated. These need to be fixed manually using the relevant windows (e.g. History Log Configuration) after the upgrade.

Business Reporting & Analysis Services

About KPI Services

The Apps 10 track of IFS Analysis Models supported multidimensional analysis models powered by SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS). IFS Analysis Models also supported financials KPIs via the functionality called KPI Services, functionality that supported the customer in defining finnancial KPIs based on income and balance sheet structures and then publishing them to a model in SSAS.

KPI Services functionality is no longer supported in IFS Cloud. Thus it is recommended for customers using this functionality on Apps 10 track, to go through their defined KPI definitions and document them before doing an upgrade to IFS Cloud. KPI definitions can be added as customizations to GL or Group Consolidation Tabular Models once these models are available in IFS Cloud.

IFS Cloud might support definition of KPIs in one way or another in forthcoming releases.

About Materialized View refresh categories

  • For customers having previously used the Data Mart version of the Business Reporting & Analysis services framework, an upgrade from App 7.5, or earlier, to Apps 10 leads to some changes related to refresh categories for Materialized Views. If upgrading from Apps 8 the changed categories are already in place.
  • All old by RnD defined refresh categories will be left untouched.
  • There will however be a set of new refresh categories, representing Information Source (IS) related Materialized Views belonging to each product domain. The core defined refresh categories before and after upgrade are listed below:
Refresh Categories before Apps 8 Purpose
DIM_ALL Contains all dimension related Materialized Views
FACT_DISTRIBUTION Contains Distribution IS:s related Materialized Views
FACT_ENGINEERING Contains Engineering IS:s related Materialized Views
FACT_FINANCIALS Contains Finance IS:s related Materialized Views
FACT_HR Contains HR IS:s related Materialized Views
FACT_MAINTENANCE Contains Maintenance IS:s related Materialized Views
FACT_MANUFACTURING Contains Manufacturing IS:s related Materialized Views
TRANSLATIONS Contains all translation specific Materialized Views
Refresh Categories in IFS Cloud Purpose
DIM_ALL Contains Materialized Views related to all dimensions
IS_FINANCIALS Contains Materialized Views related to Information Sources in Finance
IS_HR Contains Materialized Views related to Information Sources in Human Resources
IS_MANUFACTURING Contains Materialized Views related to Information Sources in  Manufacturing
IS_PROCUREMENT Contains Materialized Views related to Information Sources in  Procurement
IS_PROJECTS Contains Materialized Views related to Information Sources in Projects
IS_SERVICE_ASSET Contains Materialized Views related to Information Sources in Service and Asset
IS_SUPPLY_CHAIN Contains Materialized Views related to Information Sources in Supply Chain
TRANSLATIONS Contains all translation specific Materialized Views
  • All MV refresh schedules based on old refresh categories will be left untouched. It is recommended to manually remove these old schedules and replace them with schedules based on the new MV refresh categories, to make sure that correct Materialized Views are refreshed. An alternative is of course to manually update the existing MV refresh categories. Instead of removing old schedules it is also possible to set them as not active.

About Access Views

Access Views are on-demand created views that serve as read interfaces for Analysis Models. If an upgrade is performed from an earlier version of IFS Cloud where Analysis Model has been used, there is a risk that some of the Access Views are invalid after the upgrade. The main reason is that the referenced source views has changed. An Access View can be invalid in two ways; either as an invalid object in the database or invalid in the sense that the Access View is not compatible with its references source view.

There is no automatic recreate task started during the upgrade since it must always be investigated if it is possible or not to recreate invalid Access Views. If an Access View is recreated and Analysis Models is used, it is important to make sure that the view definition is compatible with associated tabular data source in the Analysis Models specific SQL Server database. If columns have been removed there will be an issue when transferring data to SQL Server. Same applies if existing column have changed datatype. if new columns have been added, the tranasfer will still work but if the new columns are needed in a tabular model it is necessary to make sure tha they are also transferred. How to handle Tabular Data Sources is described more in detail in the Administration & Configuration guide.

To handle the case where Access Views are considered as invalid database objects:

  • Use the script biaxsv_Recreate_Db_Invalids_From_Src.sql in the folder manualdeploy\database\biaxsv to recreate all Access Views considered as invalid database objects. The script will only consider Access Views where the object status in the database in Invalid. It is still important to be aware of that once an Access View has been recreated, it might not be compatible with Analysis Models specific Tabular Data Sources.

    Note: The script might fail to recreate some of the Access Views. If there are any views with status Invalid in the Access Views page after the script-execution, go to the Access View page, Validate and use the Info field to get an idea about what the problem is. Also note that recreating an Access View might lead to that the view changes, meaning that it is no longer a consistent read interface. This situation might lead to that is is necessary to perform modifications where the access views are used, e.g. in 3rd party tools or in Analysis Models.

To handle the case where Access Views are considered as in invalid by the framework:

  • Use the Access Viewspage
    • Select the Access Views and then go to the Access View page and perform Validate and use the Info field to get an idea about what the problem is.

About Materialized Views

All Materialized Views with a status (staleness) other than UNUSABLE will during an upgrade be marked as active.

When the installation has finished, there might be Materialized Views that are not valid, i.e. considered as invalid database objects. There is currently no automatic mechanism that can reduce the number of invalids. The reason for a Materialized View to become invalid might be due to changes to referenced tables without recreating the Materialized View. One way of handling this is to use the existing Data Mart Sources page and to do a manual refresh. The refresh mechanism will try to recreate a Materialized View that is marked as having a compilation error status.

Read about more general info about Materialized Views.

Note: Since previously used Materialized Views, during the update are marked as active, this means that even if the staleness after upgrade is UNUSABLE, such Materialized Views will be refreshed next time a refresh schedule, containing the Materialized Views, is executed. It is thus not necessary to manually Activate these Materialized Views.

Note: Changes in source tables might cause Materialized Views to become invalid. This can happen if Materialized Views are actively used or not. To handle this situation there is a script,  biserv\manualdeploy\database\biserv\biserv_Recompile_All_Invalid_MVs.sql, in component BISERV that can be manually executed after an upgrade if the database contains invalid objects of type Materialized View. Please refer to the script for more information.