Oracle Support Accreditation – Level 1 Study Guide

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Oracle Support Accreditation – Level 1 Study Guide

Support Accreditation for Oracle Customers and Partners.


A word from the program team

Thank you for deciding to include Oracle Support Accreditation as part of your learning experience.

The content in this accreditation is fast-paced and targeted to experienced users actively using My Oracle Support core functions on a regular basis.

Make sure the content and level of information is right for your current level of experience. If any topic is new to you, take time to study it in more detail before continuing.

Accreditation is self-paced. You can begin your accreditation at any time.

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Welcome to Oracle Support Accreditation


The Accreditation Process

Be sure you have good foundational knowledge of My

Oracle Support core functions.

Use this Study Guide along with the

learning content to prepare for your

exam.

We recommend you preview the series

modules and study guide before you begin this

accreditation.

This guide provides links and information to help you get the most from

your learning experience, so refer to it throughout

your accreditation.

Use the Comment/Sticky Note feature in the study

guide to note your comments and questions.

Make the program work for you by pausing or replaying any video or testing actions in My

Oracle Support.


Get Help and Provide Feedback

• Get Help

– If you have questions during your accreditation, please click Contact Us from the Oracle Support Accreditation Level 1 page, Doc 1579751.1. The program team will answer your questions and provide recommendations.

– How to use My Oracle Support How-To Video Series – Doc 603505.1

• Providing Feedback

– Use the Rate this Module link next to each video to provide feedback on that video. Be specific about what you liked and what you would like to see improved.

– Use the Contact Us link to provide general feedback to the program team.

– If you get accredited, post updates to the Oracle Support Accreditation Community with examples of how you are changing your business with accreditation best practices. Tip: see the post-accreditation roadmap at the end of the study guide.

• The Exam

– Please do NOT post specific questions and answers in community.

– Questions about specific exam questions should be forwarded to the program team.

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Accreditation Results

Service Requests

Tools

Insights

Best Practices

Toolkit

Enhance your expertise with proactive tools for Oracle products.

Leverage insights about capabilities you already use – and take your experience to the next level.

Adopt recommended best practices from the use cases for faster results.

Build your personalized toolkit of key documents, resources, and tools – customized to your role.

Create fully qualified Service Requests to help you work with Oracle Support more effectively.


Module Checklist

• We recommend completing the modules in order.

• As you navigate through the series, check off modules you have completed. If you need to take a break, you can easily resume your accreditation.

Module Completed

01 Introduction to Accreditation Program

02 Customer User Administrator and Support Identifiers

03 Introduction to My Oracle Support Dashboard

04 Knowledge Searching and PowerView

05 Product Certifications

06 Patches and Updates

07 My Oracle Support Community

08 Best Practices for Hardware and Software Support

09 Creating and Managing Service Requests

10 Mobile My Oracle Support

11 Technical and Lifetime Support Policies

12 Recap and Summary

Track your progress


Build Your Toolkit • A key Best Practice in Oracle Support Accreditation is building and maintaining a personalized toolkit of key resources.

• This is an easy way to keep track of content of interest (and locate it again when needed).

• Start by making knowledge documents a Favorite by clicking the gold star.

• From My Oracle Support, click on the Favorites folder in the top navigation (Gold Star) and select Manage Favorites.

• Click ‘New Folder’ to create a personalized folder such as My Oracle Support or create a series of product-specific folders for topics like troubleshooting and patching.

• Click the arrow to the left of My Folders to expand it and see your new folder.

• Locate your newly marked documents and move them to your folder.

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Best Practice:

Also create a browser folder for your products to find that content quickly as part of your extended toolkit.


Set Up Hot Topics Emails • Another recommended best practice is to set up Hot Topics E-mail notifications. This functionality works with the documents you marked as Favorites in your toolkit. From My

Oracle Support, navigate to My Account from Settings or from your user name. Select ‘Hot Topics E-Mail’ from the left navigation. Fill out the options based on how you want to be updated.

9

“Add products of interest and select options like Knowledge Articles, Alerts, and Bugs. Apply your changes and update at any time.”

Copyright © 2016, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | 10

Technical User Our technical user has SR Create and Update privilege in My Oracle Support and access to Patch downloads.

User Profiles for Our Examples

Functional User Our functional user has general access to My Oracle Support, which includes the knowledge base and My Oracle Support Community. This user searches the portal for knowledge content to research and resolve issues or questions.

Our examples are demonstrated with standard functional and technical user types. Depending on your organization, your role could be either

user type (or a hybrid of these functions).


Path Objectives

• Build your personal support toolkit of My Oracle Support capabilities • Implement high-value best practices to manage ‘information overload.’ • Fully leverage Oracle tools and spend more time on your primary business role with easy-to-implement suggestions. • Address common questions with product use cases from subject-matter experts.

This content is intended for both functional and technical users who

regularly use My Oracle Support and want to be proactive with Oracle

support tools and products.

The modules will refresh your knowledge and proficiency with resources and tools available to help you get started and then

stay up-to-date with Oracle support tools.

Nothing our users demonstrate should be new to you, as they are recapping

common activities you need to know to pass the accreditation exam.

If any topic being demonstrated is new, review any additional knowledge

documents highlighted as important.

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Get Proactive Portfolio

• Throughout the Oracle Retail Accreditation Series, our users will highlight many Retail support resources.

• We will often cite the Retail Get Proactive catalog as the source for resource links our Oracle Retail team recommends.

• The Get Proactive catalog is a dynamic resource that is updated over time by the Oracle Retail team to highlight various high-value resources.

• There may be occasions when a specific resource in a user example is not highlighted in the catalog.

• The highlighted resources are available and can be located by searching.

Finding Resources – Best Practices

• Search terms – use natural language searches with full search terms, not single words.

• Use a product filter. Create a PowerView (PV) for your primary products and leave it on. Or, create a PV at the product-family level.

• Add double quotes around only "important terms" that MUST be returned in the search.

• Check additional ‘sources’ like Documentation or Bug to expand your search.

• Use "inline" product refinement (within your search result lists) to quickly broaden or narrow down your search results.

Resource Examples and Searching

“I can easily find content in My Oracle Support by using a search phrase most

applicable to the content I need.”

Become a searching expert to ensure you find relevant content.

12


Oracle Support L1 Accreditation Modules

13


Accreditation is a self-paced learning program.

You pick the time that works for your schedule to complete the content and take the exam. We suggest setting aside 3-4 hours (minimum) for the accreditation. Your individual time will vary.

Use the Study Guide content as a companion resource to the video content.

The majority of learning content is provided in video format. Each video is short (approx. 6-15 min) and opens in the page.

Tip: There are no questions from Module 1 on the exam; it’s just foundational information for you as you go through your accreditation experience.

14

1.0 – Introduction to Level 1 Accreditation


Use the control bar on the bottom of the video frame to pause, play, make the video full screen, or adjust the volume. Or, click and drag the cursor on the control bar to go back a few seconds. If you mouse-over the video, the video name appears on top of the header bar (along with an information button). If you click the information icon, details about the video appear. Click the video image to return to the video view.

When you take the exam, you receive immediate notification about your accreditation status in the exam interface. The accreditation exam is 60 questions (multiple choice, T/F) and requires a score of 80% to become an Oracle Support Accredited User.

1.1 – Introduction to Accreditation


1.2 – Manage Your Accreditation Experience A few suggestions to help you have a great experience:

• Study Guide – Download the Study Guide and use it along with each video to prepare for your exam. You can use the Sticky Note feature to add comments or questions for follow-up.

• Closed Captions – Make use of Closed Captions in the video console to display the script onscreen if prefer to read the narration. Use the options to adjust your display.

• How To Series – Leverage the My Oracle Support How-To Video series for any new topics. These short videos provide step-by-step demonstrations of basic functionality. You can watch any of the videos at any time, and then return back to this accreditation. Be sure to make this document a favorite for your toolkit.

• Try It Yourself – Try it yourself to reinforce your understanding. Click the Pause button on your video and try the suggested action.

• Get Help – Finally, use the Contact Us link on your accreditation home page to engage the program team. We are here to help, so please let us know if you need anything.

“You can influence the Accreditation program by posting ideas into the Accreditation community or contacting us

directly. Based on input from our users, content improvements are prioritized. Do more than take

accreditation … become part of our team.”


You need a minimum of 2-3 hours to complete the learning content and the exam. Your actual time will vary.

When ready, select Take the Exam on the final module page.

Your exam includes questions from each module presented in random order, and a passing score of 80% is needed to become a My Oracle Support Accredited User.

When you pass your exam, use the Certificate link on the accreditation home page to print your completion certificate.

1.3 – Completing Your Accreditation


We will cover recommended best practices for both users with the Customer User Administration (CUA) role and non-CUA users.

What you should know for your exam:

• The scope of the Customer User Administrator role • Number of CUAs recommended for your business • How to Locate your Support Identifier (SI) • Receiving full Service Requests updates via email • Support Identifier Groups

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2.0 – Customer User Administration and SI

Bonus Content – Establishing the first CUA

Obtaining the SI and establishing the first CUA: the process starts when your organization purchases products from Oracle and the SI is assigned. The technical contact is sent an email-based welcome pack with the new SI. The contact signs into My Oracle Support and requests access to the SI. Oracle validates the request and approves the first CUA for the SI. It is now the CUA’s responsibility to manage access for other users and set up SI-related features. Alternatively, the first person to register for an SI can become the CUA.


2.1 – Core Concepts • WHERE your access and assets are

managed.

• Your CUA will leverage My Oracle Support and Mobile My Oracle Support portals to manage access for your users.

• WHO is managing your access and assets.

• Your administrator for roles and privileges within My Oracle Support. Your contact for new access or updates to existing access if your role changes.

• WHAT is being managed.

• Your SI (numeric value associated with your products and services), your portal access, plus HW for some users.

CUA Support Identifier

My Oracle

Support


2.2 – Customer User Administrator & SI • My Oracle Support – is Oracle’s online support portal. A personalized, one-stop shop for knowledge, solutions, community,

proactive tools, and service requests. Leveraged by both functional and technical users to meet the objectives of the role.

• Support Identifiers – A Support Identifier or SI is a numeric value assigned to orders when you purchase Hardware and all software. SIs can be hardware only, software only, or a combination of hardware and software. Partners also have Support Identifiers – OPN software Support Identifier, Support Partner SP software SI, or SP hardware SI.

• Under My Account, view products associated to your Support Identifiers and the type of access you have associated to that Support Identifier. If you need any assistance to locate your SI, log a non-technical Service Request in My Oracle Support, located under Contact Us. Or, for partners, access the Oracle Partner Business Center and log a non-technical Service Request.

• Your Customer User Administrator (CUA) performs an administration role that includes managing user access and support identifier features.

• Best Practice: Establish a minimum of two CUAs per support identifier. Why is this important? Managing user access requests in an ongoing function of the CUA. Having multiple CUAs in place ensures that users like yourself have adequate coverage and back-up coverage if any CUA is unavailable.

Support Identifiers are assigned per Oracle Purchase Order.

Oracle customers asked for the ability to manage assets in a way that closely aligned to how they manage their organization and administrators.

Oracle created Support Identifier Groups. These allow you to group assets and products from different Support Identifiers into virtual groups called containers.

Customer purchases products from Oracle and a

support identifier is assigned.

Technical contact is sent an email

welcome pack with the new support

identifier.

Technical contact signs into My Oracle

Support and requests access to

the Support Identifier.

Oracle validates the request and

approves the first CUA for the Support

Identifier.

The CUA is now responsibility to

manage access for all other users and set up SI-related

features.

“The process to obtain the support identifier and establish the first CUA.”


2.3 – Best Practices for CUA • Best Practice: have a minimum of two CUAs per support identifier. This gives your organization adequate coverage

for access requests, especially if your CUA is unable to respond to a request. If you are the only CUA for a support identifier, talk to your manager about expanding the coverage with at least one back-up.

• Best Practice: understand your organizational strategy for user access. What do you need to know before granting access for SR Create and Update? Your organization can guide you on how to effectively manage the number of users who are logging service requests.

• Best Practice: plan time in your schedule to manage access notifications. Maybe you spend 15 minutes early in the morning to process all pending requests. Make it work for your typical workday, number of requests, and how you like to work.

• Best Practice: Take advantage of both My Oracle Support and Mobile My Oracle Support to easily review and respond to user requests.

• Best Practice: Keep your access model current. On a quarterly basis, review users with access to each CUA and add or remove access as required. Export a list of all users associated with the SIs you manage and implement any desired changes.

• Best Practice: Enable full text in the email notification to improve the productivity of your users. Check with your organization to confirm if this aligns with corporate direction. ONSCREEN – This functionality is available for most Oracle products.

• Best Practice: If you manage many SIs and have users who need access to the SIs you manage, add the other SIs they will be using once you approve the first SI.

• Best Practice: Add more detail to the SI Name and Account. Access the SI and update the Name and Description fields. Your users can now see the more detailed Name (SI) and Description (Account) and this improves which SIs are selected when users create SRs.

How the CUA sets up Support Identifier Groups

• Request and receive access to set up support identifier groups.

• Group assets to mirror how the admin staff are grouped; select Support Identifier and Create New to view container creation page.

• Enter name and description for the container and validates the access defaults. Tip: if this container is for Admins, they should have SR Create and Update, patch download, and Asset View.

• Select Create and the container is created.

• Add users and Assets and software to it.

• Add users who are already approved to a support identifier you manage.

• Select users, locate them, and add them. It is the same process for adding software and hardware.

• That’s it, you are done.


2.4 – Best Practices for CUA • Best Practice: Use SI Groups to organize your users, assets, and SIs into groups that mirror how your organization

works. Setting up Support Identifier Groups (or SIGs) allows you to group users to only see the assets and products of interest.

• Best Practice: Set up auto approval for functional user access to knowledge base and community. This saves you review time and allows the user to immediately begin searching for solutions.

• Best Practice: If you have hardware, associate the Hardware settings to the HW users who need to manage the assets and Auto Service Requests.

Action Plan;

• So, if you are the CUA, think about implementing at least a few of these suggested best practices in your business.

• You have an opportunity to ensure easy and fast access for your users and a great experience for yourself.


2.5 – Best Practices for the non-CUA • Best Practice: Get help from your CUA via My Account – Your CUA is your primary contact for access requests and

SI needs. This best practice includes knowing how to look up and email your Administrators in My Account and use the general functions related to SIs, hardware, and access. In most cases, your CUA will address your question or need.

• Best Practice: Provide justification for your access request to let the CUA know about your access needs. A detailed business justification for SR Create and Update and patch downloads is a key best practice. Include your role, team, project, and any manager approvals. Why is this important? Your CUA could refuse your request without a full understanding of the business need and that could delay your work. ONSCREEN – I am part of the upgrade team for this product area and will need to log service requests to support the XYZ project that kicks off at the beginning of the month. If you need confirmation, please contact Greg Jones.

• It’s a similar process if you need access to a new Support Identifier. Select Request Access and enter your SI. If you have a serial number, select Find a Support Identifier and enter your serial number. ONSCREEN – Again, be sure to include the business justification.

• Best Practice: Enable SR Details – this option is available when the CUA enables this feature on the SI. This enables you to receive email updates with the body of the update in the email for most product lines.

• Best Practice: If you need assistance to locate your SI, log a non-technical Service Request, located under Contact Us in My Oracle Support. Or, for partners, access the Oracle Partner Business Center and log a non-technical Service Request.

• Best Practice: Think about the future – If you know that your role is changing, make sure your access levels and support identifiers are in alignment. Let’s say you just joined a new project team for a different product. Although you log service requests, this is a new team and they use a different SI from your current team. Find out which SI they use for service requests and submit a request to add that SI. Remember to include a business justification that explains why this specific SI is required.

Action Plan;

• So, if you are the CUA, think about implementing at least a few of these suggested best practices in your business.

• You have an opportunity to ensure easy and fast access for your users and a great experience for yourself.


The content today will refresh your understanding of the My Oracle Support layout, how to set up the dashboard based on your role, a review of the best practices for My Account settings, how to stay informed, and available resources.


• Understand Assets widget

• Setting up and Using Hot Topics Emails

• Customizing your dashboard layout

• Getting up to speed on My Oracle Support

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3.0 – Introduction to My Oracle Support


3.1 – Introduction to Oracle Support • Spending just a few minutes customizing your dashboard adds ongoing value. It can help you quickly focus on your areas of

interest every time you access My Oracle Support. And, you can easily change the dashboard as your role changes. The objective is to make My Oracle Support work best for you.

• The number of tabs you see depends on the Support Identifiers associated to your account. If you have more tab options than the space available, they are located under the More tab. The top section displays the global content that appears on every page in My Oracle Support.

• The search option shown is about searching the knowledge base. When you are on a specific tab, such as Service Requests or Patching, there is an additional search option available on those tabs for searching within those topics specifically.

• If you need access to a Support Identifier once you have registered, select Request Access and enter your SI. If you have a serial number, select Find a Support Identifier and enter your serial number. Add the reason you need access and the request will be reviewed by your CUA.

• Most user access issues can be addressed by the CUA for the SI. It is the role of the CUA to make sure the correct level of access is established for each of their end users.

• You have flexibility to the layout of the dashboard based on the tasks you perform. Take time and spend a few minutes to lay out the dashboard exactly how you like.

Hardware Assets

If you are on the Systems home page (and do not see a list of your hardware assets), it could be due to two reasons: 1) You need to have a Support Identifier associated to your account for hardware and 2) you need to be approved to view assets to see the related content.

• You can resolve these issues by accessing My Account and checking your Assets status – if says No Access, it needs to be changed to View in order for you to see assets.

• If you do have No Access, contact your Administrator (CUA) and request access.

“Be sure to engage your CUA for any access issues as they are your

first point of contact.”


3.2 – User Examples

Database Administrator System Administrator SP Partner for HW

• From the dashboard page, select Customize Page.

• Select Add Content to view a pop-up and select widgets available for the dashboard page.

• In this example, we will look at what is specific for a database user.

• This user may add health recommendations, inventory report, etc. Then, close the pop-up by selecting the Close button and close the Customize feature.

• Then, view the new layout. There are options to move things around on the dashboard by dragging the current regions.

• In the Targets area, this user can select the Targets names to view information or configuration.

• On the dashboard, the user can view information about the actual systems. One of the cool features here is that you can directly go and log a service request.

• The next example is for a user associated with Hardware.

• As you can see, the Assets is at the top, and the user has added two service request regions – the first being for those that the user created and the second one for everyone else with the Support Identifiers.

• And, the HW user includes draft service requests because ASR is set up and the user also has patching and knowledge.

• Note: As a system administrator for hardware, the assets region is a key feature and we will be covering that in two later sessions where we look at best practices for hardware and service requests for hardware.

• As a service request partner, this user is often dealing with multiple end customers. And, the dashboard has great filtering properties for that.

• For the Assets, this user can filter by support identifier to quickly toggle between end customers looking at different types of assets and ASR qualifications.

• Likewise, with the service requests, the user can filter by support identifiers to quickly see what is happening.

• In addition, there are multiple service requests regions.

• Is this user has a few different customers with some hot Severity 1’s, the user can have all those open either in the left-hand bar or in the main bar. Again, it’s easy to see what is happening and effectively manage multiple service requests.

“You have flexibility to the layout of the dashboard based on the

tasks you perform.”


3.3 – Stay Informed • There are many ways to stay informed about changes and content within My

Oracle Support. Here are some examples – My Oracle Support Resource Center, the Hot Topics Email, Blogs, and Twitter.

• My Oracle Support Resource Center – You can search for ‘My Oracle Support Resource Center’ in My Oracle Support. You can also locate it within the Getting Started on the dashboard home page (Existing Users: What’s New, Doc 873313.1 ). Click the star icon to make it a favorite and check back often as this is a great resource. Navigate through the tabs when you have time and look at the available content. With every portal release, there are release notes under What’s New which provide the latest information about updates in My Oracle Support.

• Hot Topics Email Notifications – To subscribe, select My Account and go to the Hot Topics Email. Take a few moments to check your preferences. For this example, click Add from Selected Products and type ‘My Oracle Support’ for the product and select Knowledge Articles. Each time a new knowledge article is updated for My Oracle Support, you will receive an email notification with those links in it.

• Best Practice: Try options to stay informed and see how they work for your role – and how you like to be updated. If you are getting too much email, change your options. You could change your frequency to Weekly if that is a better fit than daily emails.




3.4 – Blogs, News, Webcasts, and Help • There is also a lot of great information in the product lines.

• Product Support Blog and Newsletter Index – each of the product lines often have great content about how to stay informed about their product or how to stay informed about product-specific features within My Oracle Support. Over time, many of the product lines have transitioned from the traditional newsletter to a product blog format. Find your product of interest and locate their product updates. Product Support Blog and Newsletter Index, Doc 222.1.

• Blogs – there are two blogs we would like to highlight. The first is Support Portal and this is the My Oracle Support Blog and the second one is the Get Proactive Blog. This also has tips and tricks for using My Oracle Support and from this one you can see there is a link through to Twitter. If you select that, it will take you through to the My Oracle Support Twitter account, which you can subscribe to. The link for the My Oracle Support Blog is in the Getting Started region – Support Portal Blog. Access the Get Proactive blog from the Get Proactive Index, Doc 432.1 – Get Proactive Blog

• Essentials Webcast Program – The Essentials webcast program has a great list of topics including the My Oracle Support basics that provides more detail topics covered in this module you can select the time and language available to you. My Oracle Support Essentials Webcast Series, Doc 553747.1.

• Help menu – There is always the Help menu located up in the top right-hand corner in My Oracle Support. It is content-sensitive based on the page where you select it. Best Practice: Leverage the help menu. This resource is often under-used. It takes just a minute to look up content of interest to learn more about the topic, how to use it, and an explanation of the feature.

Need More Content on The Basics?

If anything I have discussed today is new to you, be sure to check out Doc 6035051, the My Oracle Support How To Series. If you still have questions, please post them in the community and we will get back to you as soon as possible.


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Our expectation is that you have been searching in My Oracle Support on a regular basis and you have completed Part 1 and 2 of the search training in the My Oracle Support How-To training video series, Doc 603505.1.

This module is intended as a refresh of your knowledge about searching.

We will cover knowledge settings, searching and search results, refining your search terms by product, search assistants, and additional resources.


• Managing your search responses in My Oracle Support

• Searching use search terms

• Search refinement

• PowerView filtering

29

4.0 – Searching and Browsing



4.1 – Knowledge Search • There are more than 500,000 active knowledge articles. There are over 9 million searches per month, resulting in over 12 million article views by users. More than 50% of

service requests are resolved with known solutions from the knowledge base.

• So, why does this matter to you? We want to help you find relevant content and solve your problems and answer your questions – quickly and easily. That’s it. The full value of My Oracle Support is delivered to you when you are able to find what you need.

• Most users start their search by entering in a key word in global search; the knowledge search engine works best with a natural language search where you type a phrase or a question or more than one keyword. For example you might have noticed that as you type – a list of suggestions appear. This list is displayed based on your knowledge settings, located under My Account, Knowledge Preferences.

• The search suggestions are displayed based on the settings in this preference and you have a few options – either ON or OFF, and if ON, how many do you want supplied (5 or 10). For example, I can edit this and select 5 and apply. Now, when I start to type, only 5 suggestions are returned. The other options are all best left ON as they support your search experience within My Oracle Support.

• Global search is available on most tabs. If you search within the global search box, your results are displayed on the knowledge tab. Search performs best when you enter a phrase or a set of key words.

• If I enter My Oracle Support Training – the words are treated as My Oracle Support and Training. Notice the difference in the results if I put quotes around ‘My Oracle Support Training’ – now I have results with my exact phrase. When I type in just the word training, the tips recommend what I should do to improve my search. When the results are displayed, you can change your search results by clicking on the different knowledge bases. You can click to add or remove and the results are updated in real time. Did you notice that if the search has no results in the Knowledge base, the search automatically includes the other sources?

• Best Practice: Think about exactly what you need to make sure your results are targeted and effective and filter by selecting the product, adding more terms, etc.


4.2 – Searching Tips and PowerView • Notice that you can enter a product and/or version. This allows you to enter your product and version (and then additional key words to refine your results). Additionally, we’ve

been working to co-locate content around activities users often perform. The co-located content is called an information center. If I navigate to the knowledge tab, now I have the ability to pick a product. And, if an information center exists, it’s automatically displayed. By now, you should be very familiar with the layout of an information center. These documents are a great way to learn about a product. Other information centers are focused around products or tasks. For example, if I wanted to check the configuration of my software, I could make use of ORAchk and Doc 1268927.2 provides everything I need in order to get started using this tool.

• Have you used PowerView to streamline your search for specific products or support identifiers? You can create a PowerView to filter by product. How PowerView works is covered extensively in the PowerView training video accessed from the My Oracle Support Video How-To Training Series. Best Practice: check if your PowerView is ON or OFF if you are not seeing the results you expect from your search. If you have a product-specific filter on, it will limit your results to that product and may not be applicable to a more generalized search need.

• Sometimes when you search, the results include documents with the word ‘assistant’ in the title. These documents have been created to assist you in locating answers for a set of symptoms. For example, a troubleshooting assistant document co-locates typical symptoms you may be experiencing. The document displays a set of prompts for you to select from – based on your answers, the assistant displays one or more documents that may have the solution for your set of symptoms.

“Notice how the dashboard and other tabs that make use of

PowerView will display content filtered based on your selection. If

you use PowerView, you will see the icon displayed in the region.”



Example #1 – PowerView for product line

• Sue wants to find content related to JD Edwards EnterpriseOne.

• She has tried several searches in the global search field, but did not find exactly what she wants. And, it feels like it is taking too long to get results.

• Which search or filtering technique should she follow? In this scenario, we would recommend that Sue create a new PowerView filter.

• She could select Product Line and then JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, and Create.

• She can see that the new PowerView is set to ON as it appears in the global area at the top of My Oracle Support.

• If she types in a search for JDE patches, all her results on the knowledge tab are related to JDE. And, she can see that the Knowledge tab shows that PowerView is filtering by Product Line.

• She can now refine her search to be more targeted and know that she is reviewing all the content the JDE product team has developed.

Example #2 – Search Refinement by Update Date

• John wants to search for content related to Siebel CRM but with a more specific parameter.

• He was talking to a support engineer about fix packs and the engineer indicated that he had just updated a knowledge document that has information relevant to John’s question.

• Is it possible for John to review content based on update date? Yes, he can use the Knowledge tab and input his product, version, and select ‘Updated in the last 2 weeks’ as the time filter.

• This allows him to focus his search to recently updated content.

• In this scenario, John uses the inline product refinement option on the Knowledge Tab to narrow his search results. The date parameter is especially helpful if he does not know the exact wording of a document name but knows that it was just updated.

4.3 – User Examples Let’s take a look at a few examples and see which search approach is going to fit best with her needs. As you build your search expertise, you’ll be able to quickly and easily locate content based on the objective and product.


4.4 – Help Menu and Best Practices • One of our favorite best practices is to leverage context-sensitive help as part of your

search toolkit.

• It is a very fast and targeted way to learn about content in My Oracle Support that can help you understand terminology, how things work, and give you information that may help you further improve your search technique.

• If you click the Help menu in the upper right of the global banner, it displays the documentation manual focused on your current page.

• For example: if John is on the Patches & Updates tab and clicks the Help menu, he sees content for patch topics like Patching Quick Links, Patch Searches, and Patch Details. If he switches to the Service Requests tab and clicks Help again, he can see content such as How do I search for a service request? or How do I create an SR?

• Best Practice: try out some of the search techniques covered in this module. Make sure you understand the best way to find content of interest. Frustration with searching is often related to search technique. Effective search technique saves you time, helps you avoid unnecessary service requests, and benefits your company by helping you find (and leverage) the latest information available.

“The Help Menu offers users a powerful filtering mechanism and is easily accessible as you navigate. You

can save a lot of time by simply clicking Help wherever you are in My Oracle Support to find targeted content (without

setting filters or creating a search).”


This module covers product certifications using the Certifications tab with a focus on best practices for leveraging this information for your business. The content builds on your foundational knowledge about using the search functionality on the Certifications tab.


• What is available on the Certifications tab

• When and why to check the Certifications tab

• Finding your product certification information

34

5.0 – Product Certifications

Foundational Knowledge

Need help with the basics for Certification?

• How To Use My Oracle Support Certifications, Doc 1945326.2



A combination of Oracle and third-party products, operating systems, or hardware that Oracle has tested and should work together.

5.1 – Oracle Product Certification

What is Oracle Product Certification?


5.2 – What Can You Find on the Certifications Tab? Application

Servers Databases

Desktop Applications

Directory/ LDAP

Enterprise Applications

Operating Systems


5.3 – Product Certification Common Scenarios

Why would you need to look up product certifications?

Let’s start with some common scenarios.

1 2 3

You purchased new hardware and need to determine what products are supported on that release.

You plan to upgrade specific products or operating systems and need to review the target version combinations to validate or modify your upgrade plans.

You want to proactively manage support and certification as part of your business model.

Upgrade

New Hardware

Get Proactive


5.4 – Product Certification Common Scenarios


5.5 – Best Practices

1

2

3 4

5

6

7 Get Proactive

Develop effective search technique

Leverage Certification Quick Links

Prepare for Upgrades

Search My Oracle Support

Ask questions in My Oracle Support Community

Provide Feedback

Ready to change your business with Certifications

best practices?


5.6 – Details on the Recommended Best Practices Best Practice Make It Work For You

1 Get Proactive Review your product combinations on a quarterly basis to make sure your products continue to be certified to work together. This is a good way to avoid surprises when you begin your next upgrade cycle. If there are noted concerns with length of support or a specific combination, review that data with your leadership team. Be sure your components and versions are documented to easily research support availability for your current footprint.

2 Develop effective search technique for our products

Find what you need quickly at any time during your product lifecycle. Confirm if your products are available on the Certifications tab. Consider saving searches for easy access in the future.

3 Leverage the Quick Links region There are helpful links to training content, tips, and certification news.

4 Prepare for Upgrades Check to make sure your planned product combinations are certified to work together. Review the available support for the product combination and any patches required to enable the products to work together. If you are researching an upgrade for your team, provide several options for the upgrade plan.

5 Search My Oracle Support If you don’t see the exact information you need on the Certification tab, search in the portal to confirm if product-specific certification data is be available from your product team. If you find certification resources for your product, make them a Favorite for your customized toolkit. Save time by not having to search for the same content again.

6 Ask questions in My Oracle Support Community

Questions about Certifications can be asked in your specific Product Community. Locate the Product from the Space List and look for a certification sub-space or the most appropriate product sub-space. This is also a great way to see what your peers are saying about specific upgrade paths that may relate to your upgrade plan. If you find a relevant sub-space for discussion, follow it for future updates.

7 Provide feedback Use the Give Feedback… link in the upper right from the Certifications tab to send your feedback directly to the product team. Let them know about your experience, specific content you found helpful or additional information you need.


5.7 – Upgrade Search Example (Step 1) • Our technical user, Bob, is ready to research a proposed upgrade plan for his team. He has the current footprint of components and versions documented to make the process

easier. He also has the upgrade target versions from the leadership team. Now it’s time to research the combinations to see what’s certified and the associated support coverage dates. He will document a couple certification combination options to review with the team to discuss the strengths of each approach and fit with objectives.

• Bob’s company wants to upgrade their E-Business Suite products to Release 12.2.5. He needs to get ready for a project meeting later in the week by investigating certified combinations for the proposed upgrade path.

• He logs into My Oracle Support and navigates to the Certifications tab. His first step is to create the search. He doesn’t have a saved search for the current product set, so he will create a new one. He enters E-Business Suite, Release 12.2.5 and the Platform, Linux 5, and selects Search.

3. Adding a Platform further

targets the search.

2. This search relates to a

proposed upgrade, so he selects a future release.

1. Start typing the product name to bring up a list of products in the system.


5.7 – Upgrade Search Example (Step 2) • The search brings up results based on the

input parameters.

• The Certification Results section provides high-level details for the product combination he provided in his search.

• The results indicate that Oracle E-Business Suite 12.2.5 is certified on Linux x86-64 Oracle Linux 5.

• He can click into the details on that to learn more about the support duration for the combination.

1. Always check out the Top Level Certification Results

2. Expand and review the

relevant components here to see what combinations are

certified.


5.7 – Upgrade Search Example (Step 3) • He starts reviewing his additional product components by reviewing Database options. The team wants to validate if Data Guard 11.2.0.4.0 is certified for the target upgrade

path. He needs to review this combination and provide feedback on feasibility.

• From here, he can select 11.2.0.4.0 from the Data Guard row to learn more.

1. Select the desired version

associated to the Database product.


5.7 – Upgrade Search Example (Step 4) • He sees that 12.2.5 is certified

with his planned combination.

• He can also review the Support Information which will be key to the upgrade path planning.

2.

The team wants to ensure the length of coverage aligns to their planned roadmap, including availability of patches for Ongoing Support.

1. In particular, check out

the Ongoing Support for future planning.


5.7 – Upgrade Search Example (Step 5) • There is a lot of great functionality on the Certifications tab. Take advantage of these options the next time you search for certification data.

2. Select ‘Edit Search’ to

edit the current search or Save it.

3. Use the View link to

export to Excel or print.

1. Use the breadcrumb

trail to easily navigation your path.

4. Send the link to your

team if you want others to review the

data.


5.7 – Proactive Certification Example • Another reason that users may leverage the Certifications data is to proactively validate the current footprint of components and versions. In this example, your team does not

have an upgrade window on the roadmap, but you have planned for a quarterly proactive review to ensure the team is aware of any possible support coverage concerns.

• The search process is the same as covered for the upgrade, except the focus is on the current versions. Review each component and the associated support coverage.

2. Review current versions in your

combination to note support dates.

1. This search relates to the

current release in production.


This module covers best practices for patching and will build on some of the concepts already covered in the series including product certification and access privileges.

Patch refers to code that may fix or provide additional functionality to your software. Some product lines call these a Quick Fix, some call them updates, firmware, or patch. Regardless of the name, your process to locate and download the patch is the same.


• Patch downloading

• Patch search technique

• Getting help with patching

• Patch Advisors and patch plans

47

6.0 – Patches and Updates


6.1 – Patching Basics

Watch the Video Patches and Updates Video, Doc 1543731.1

Review the Center My Oracle Support Patches and Updates How To, Doc 1966784.2

Patch Conflict Checker, Doc 1941934.1

Find Targeted Advisors Oracle Support Lifecycle Advisors, Doc 250.2 (upgrade advisors, patching & maintenance advisors)

• Take time to learn about patching. The foundational video training walks you through patching with step-by-step instructions.






6.2 – Patching Basics • Patching and upgrading are common activities many technical users like support administrators are asked to perform.

• From the certification video, you discovered how to validate different releases of software, operating system and hardware platforms to see if they work together.

• Once your environment is certified, you may need to upgrade or patch to keep the configuration current over time.

• Or, you may run into some type of issue and your application or hardware is not performing as expected.

• You may have an error string or code problems and you search the knowledge base and a patch is recommended.

• Or, you had an issue and called Oracle Support.

• Regardless of the trigger, you need to download a patch – and there are a number of simple ways to do this.

Lifecycle Advisors

Make use of patching and maintenance content available as part of the lifecycle advisor series, Doc 250.2.

These articles are easy to locate by entering in terms such as patch advisor.

Select the lifecycle advisor, locate the product of interest, and select upgrading or patch advisor.

The content is laid out in a tab format, using a step-by-step approach to evaluate, plan, test, and implement patching and maintenance activities.

Take time to explore this resource, including the content-specific videos about patching for your product.



6.3 – Patches & Updates Example • As part of a service request, you may be given a patch number to download.

• For example, you want the patch set for database 11.2.0.2 and are provided patch number 10098816. Just enter the patch number, click Search, and the results are displayed. The table is sorted by selecting the column names.

• Based on the details you provided, this search shows every platform. Select Edit Search, and add your platform (Oracle Solaris x86) and the results are refined.

• If you are working with a team, you can share the results using the Share Link feature.

• Selecting the patch number provides additional information (if available) such as a list of the bugs covered by this patch, download access level, and related knowledge articles referenced by this patch. There is even a count of downloads and a trends option.

• Best Practice: be sure to notice if a patch has been superseded. The Download Patch page will provide that data for you and recommendations.

• If you have questions, you can enter them directly into the community from this page. In addition, you can review what others have been posting about this patch.


6.4 – Additional Patching Examples • JD Edwards – For JD Edwards patches, the search process is the same. However, select JD Edwards

Patches link from the Patch Search region. Select your configuration, the release, and platform, agree to the license and select Search. Once you locate your patch, you can download it.

• Recommended Patch Sets – Some teams, like E-Business Suite, have created a Quick Link to the patch sets or recommended patch sets for its products.


6.5 – Advisors, Plans, and Patching Content

Advi

sors

Similar to certifications, recommended patch advisor (Patch Search > Search) allows you to enter a product and get the latest release by selecting Oracle Solaris, release 11, for your x86 64-bit platform and the latest release is displayed. Or, select between two products such as Oracle E-Business Suite latest version and Oracle Database latest version. You select search and the list of recommended patches are displayed.

Plan

s Patch plans and upgrade plans require configuration manager 10.3.2 or higher to be installed. Patch plans allow you to review the patches against a specific configuration and patch plans are currently available for the product lines shown here. Example: you have a collector installed for one of your systems and you select one of your configurations and select latest DB release and run an analysis. Note that it provides the order of patches to install and there are no conflicts.

Patc

h-Re

late

d This section is similar to an audit trail of your activity. You can see what you’ve downloaded, viewed, discussed and any patches you’ve flagged as favorites. Similar to certifications, sometimes you can’t quite find what you are looking for. Many of the product lines have created content in the knowledge base to directly link to a matrix of patches, versions, and releases. Many of the different product lines have created how-to documents for patching, searching, and provide additional background about how patching and maintenance works for their specific product.


6.6 – Patching Tips • Help Menu – Remember our best practice of leveraging context-sensitive help? It’s a great option for patching – just access the help menu in the top right-hand corner. On

the patches and updates tab itself, there are Quick Links located on the left-hand side which also provide additional support and information. Or, you can search the knowledge base as I advised previously where there is a lot of content related specifically to patching by product family.

• Document Your Plan – Best Practice: Have your current product, OS, and patch levels documented and readily available. When you look for patch information in My Oracle Support, update your upgrade or patch plan with your latest information. Do you know your patch level at any given time? Do you proactively look at available patches on a quarterly basis? Finding patches or patch information is only part of the equation, the big picture is about keeping your platform up to date and delivering against your business objectives.

• Ask Questions and Get Answers – If you still have questions, find your product family in the My Oracle Support Community. Look to see if there is a patch-related discussion and if not, post a question at the product level and the support team will investigate and provide the answer you are looking for.

“Finding patches or patch information is only part of the

equation … the big picture is keeping your platform up to date

and delivering against your business objectives.”


6.7 – Patch Regions – What’s on Your Tab?

Region Description Requires OCM

Patching Quick Links • Add this region to access a set of links to other patch related resources.

Patch Recommendations

• Add this region to view the set of recommended patches based on your system. Requires Oracle Configuration Manager (OCM).

▲

Patch Related Activity • Add this region to view a history of your recent activity including patches viewed, downloaded, discussed or marked as favorites.

Patch Search • The most commonly used patch region. Add this region to search for patches. You can search by patch name or by product and release.

Plans and Patch Requests

• Add this region to create patch plan and manage patch requests. Requires Oracle Configuration Manager (OCM).

▲

Upgrade Planner • Add this region to build upgrade paths to help you upgrade to more recent releases. Requires Oracle Configuration Manager (OCM).

▲ “Customize the regions on the Patches & Updates tab. What

regions work for your environment and search needs?”


6.8 – Best Practices for Technical Users 1. Get certified and Get Proactive – Take time to validate that your products are certified to work together. The strategy you develop to monitor certification can also be used

for tracking patches. Consider adding a proactive regular patch maintenance process.

2. Track Critical Patch Updates – Review Critical Patch Updates as part of your Oracle Product patching strategy, including being able to locate and deploy Critical Patches.

3. Customize the regions on your Patches tab – Take a minute to review the patching regions available and update the tab options to best meet the needs of your role.

4. Become an expert on product-specific patching – Use Get Proactive to locate patching content under Upgrading for product-specific information. Review Patching modules in the Level 2 Accreditation series for the products you support. Leverage Patch Advisors for detailed instructions and targeted information. Use Quick Links and the Knowledge Base to locate additional content about patching.

5. Manage your SIs and patch download privilege – Check your Support Identifiers to ensure you have the access you need for patching. If you are not sure about your current privileges, view My Account under your name. Locate the Patches column and validate you have Download access.

6. Expand your Toolkit – Use additional tools available for products supported by collector.

7. Leverage patching community – Use patching community for your Oracle products to stay current on the latest patching questions and answers. If you want a peer review of your patch strategy, use the appropriate product patching sub-space, and ask Support Engineers and your peers for feedback.

8. Use OCM – If you have Oracle products installed that can use Oracle Configuration Manager, install and use it.

9. Review your Support Policies – Understand the relationship between Patching and your lifetime support policy. You can look up content such as Critical Patch Updates and availability against the support stages.


Research patches for your product combination and access the readme to learn more about the patch.

If your role includes being part of the test team for a new patch/release, the readme is a good first look at the content you will be testing for your users.

Post questions directly to the patching community associated to the patch you are viewing to learn about the experiences of your peers.

If you locate a patch that you believe resolves an issue or adds desired functionality, work with your internal technical support team to have the patch reviewed and tested.

6.9 – Best Practices for Functional Users


Today, we will recap some of the features available within the My Oracle Support Community, starting with updating your user profile, locating spaces and sub-spaces, following spaces and people, creating discussions, managing your notifications, and participating in the community.

The content today will refresh your understanding of how to interact within the My Oracle Support Community.

Many My Oracle Support users log service requests for issues which are just questions.

Did you know that the same support engineers who resolve technical support requests also work within the community?

In addition, the many active users who participate in My Oracle Support Community make this a great place to get questions answered.


• Locating the best community for your need

• Who is in community?

• Managing email notifications from My Oracle Support Community

• Using sub-spaces

57

7.0 – My Oracle Support Community


7.1 – Value of Community • Value of Community – My Oracle Support Community is available 7x24 and the communities are staffed with Oracle Support

engineers and My Oracle Support users. Both groups will react and respond to your questions as soon as they are able. You can leverage the shared experience and expertise at any time. Post your question and the community members will share their known solutions. The community is NOT somewhere to post private corporate data and it is NOT a replacement for the technical support experience. If you need help with the basics, check out Doc 1616733.1 for documentation and training videos on community.

• Manage Your Profile – Your profile is managed by selecting Edit Profile, Your Profile. If you only choose to do one thing, change your user name from a number to your name. Being able to reply to a user’s name is much nicer than replying to a number. And, take time to add a photo to make the community experience more personal for other users.

• Sort your activities by making different connection streams (you can have up to 10). Then, within the connection streams, turn ON or OFF notifications based on what you want. The tip here is if you follow a product space, then you get notifications about all the activity in that space and your inbox may become large very quickly. Another example is if you follow the My Oracle Support Community at the top level, then you are following EVERY space and every sub-space within the whole environment – and your inbox will explode.

• You will notice there are always a few gurus who seem to have answers for questions in your sub-space community. You may wish to follow those individuals by mousing over their avatar and selecting FOLLOW. Users become gurus by answering postings with replies that are marked correct by the original poster.

• Learn more about how the points are assigned by clicking your avatar and then View Profile. Mouse-over your points total to see how points are earned.

• Be sure to indicate which reply resolved your issue and mark it Correct. This enables other users to find questions with answers skip your question as they can see a Correct reply has been provided and no further update is needed.

Locate Sub-Spaces

Use the navigation banner to locate product spaces and associated sub-spaces of interest to follow. By default, everything you follow goes into the connection stream in your activities.

Post Questions

Best Practice: Always find the most relevant sub-space before posting a question. This gets your question directly to the right experts rather than having it re-assigned to a different community.

“New Questions: include product, version, and details on what you need.

What are experiencing or attempting to do? Is there an error message? Give

some background about what it is you are trying to do and some examples.”



The content today will refresh your understanding of Oracle recommended best practices: for your Oracle operating system, software, and hardware, to ensure you resolve known solutions and create fully qualified service requests that enable faster issue resolution.


• Assets and permissions

• Understanding Oracle Configuration Manager (OCM) and basic collector tools

• Auto Service Request (ASR)

59

8.0 – Hardware and Software Best Practices


8.1 – Get Proactive for Your Products • The Oracle Support teams have worked to ensure you have an easy time locating the tools and resources to help assist you resolve known issues for your products.

• Best Practice: Make use of the product-based resource tools co located in the Get Proactive Portfolio.

• The Get Proactive Series can be accessed from either the Getting Started Region, the Knowledge Tab, or by Searching on Get Proactive. Document 432.1 is the introduction page to learn about the portfolio, and allows you to select a product of interest and then access Best Practice Tools and resources highlighted by the product team to Prevent and Resolve issues and Upgrade your Oracle Products.

• For each link there may be an ACT link to provide more content and a DISCOVER link to access a video that explains more the feature or tool.

• Many of these product-based resources are reviewed in the Level 2 product based accreditation series. Some of the features listed in the Get Proactive pages require the installation of Oracle Configuration Manager or the Oracle Hardware Support Tools bundle.

• If these terms are new to you, I would recommend that you review the Essentials Advisor Webcast program, Doc 553747.1 and look for sessions covering Oracle Configuration Manager or Oracle Hardware Best Practices for a deep dive on this topic and the ability to ask questions during the live presentation.



Oracle Enterprise Manager Upload configuration data through EM Harvester.

Oracle Configuration Manager Centralized configuration information based on your Oracle technology stack.

8.2 – Tools to Know


8.3 – Key Tools • Did you know it’s a best practice for Oracle Software support to enable Oracle Configuration Manager (OCM)? This application only collects your product configuration data

to enable Oracle Support to quickly assist resolving your issues and to enable the Health and Patch Recommendations displayed in the System Tab on My Oracle Support.

• The first two collection tools are Oracle Collection Manager and Oracle Enterprise Manager Harvester collection job. These tools are available for the displayed products, as you can see many of Oracles Products can make use of this feature. The data collected is analyzed and made available within My Oracle Support and based on your product you can make use of the following features available in the Systems Tab.

• There are many existing knowledge articles that explain how to set up these tools in your environment. The core point I would like to stress is that these tools only collect your configuration data in Oracle Home and automate the sending via a secure method of this data to Oracle. We don’t collect your data and we have a very strict Data Security and Privacy policy in place to ensure only the Oracle Support Engineer working your issue has access to your configuration information.

• The configuration information supplied by you, is made available within My Oracle Support in the System Tab or the Dashboard. The analysis is done on our side, therefore there is no impact to your systems and you can view an analysis output on the Systems Tab in each of the regions, for example: System Patch Recommendations, System Health Recommendations and an overview of your configuration.

• Based on how frequently you send this data, you can track changes that have occurred in your systems. Best Practice: Use the configuration data to ensure you apply recommended patches, make use of the upgrade planner, and address the Health recommendations. This data can also be used when triggering a Service Request to provide the Support Engineer with everything they need to get started.

• ORAchk – Another tool available for Software users is ORAchk. This tool checks your configurations by performing an Audit. It does this by interrogating your Oracle stack components and provides a series of output files that cover your System Health Score, known issues and recommended solutions. Use the link below to further research ORAchk for your role and business. Review, download, and install ORAchk to resolve known issues on your Oracle Software Products.

• Get Proactive Portfolio, Doc 432.1 | ORAchk, Doc 1268927.1 | Oracle Services Tools Bundle (STB), Doc 1153444.1 | Proactive Analysis Center (PAC) – Doc 1634073.1






8.4 – Best Practices • Best Practice: A best practice for Oracle systems is to download and install the Oracle Services Tool Bundle and enable Auto

Service Request (ASR) on your hardware. This enables you to prevent known issues, automatically log service requests for a range of errors and faults as they occur and enable you to create a fully qualified service request. Use the Get Proactive Portfolio for Oracle Systems to locate these tools. From the ACT link, find support documents that cover the installation steps, frequently asked questions, and deep-dive how-to videos to learn more.

• Best Practice (Hardware): Install the ORACLE SERVICES TOOLS BUNDLE.

• Once you enable the sending of explorer data to Oracle, you can make use of the Proactive Analysis Center.

• Best Practice (Hardware): Use the PROACTIVE ANALYSIS CENTER to analyze your system risk. How at Risk is your Oracle Hardware and Operating System? Can you answer this question easily? If you have enabled Service Tools Bundled and installed Explorer can you can make use of the Proactive Analysis Center accessed via My Oracle Support.

• There is a detailed instructional document, Doc 1634073.1 that provides screen snapshots, an overview, and a video to explain how to use this application. Using the Proactive Analysis Center enables you to diagnose how at risk your systems are by displaying a risk index and providing detailed information on how to address and resolve each risk identified.

• This Best Practice resource is a holistic proactive system solution and has been known to assist with quickly identify vulnerabilities for at Risk Systems, decrease the operational cost by managing downtime and reduce the number of service requests and potentially the time to resolve the issue.

Oracle Services Tools Bundle

Self-extracting tool with four components:

• Explorer is a set of shell scripts that gather information configuration, snapshot and current state.

• RDA captures the comprehensive snapshot of your environment for support for Mac OS, UNIX, VMS, and Windows.

• SNEEP allows for easy serial number identification for those older systems.

• ACT is a crash dump analysis tool. Installing the Oracle Services Tools Bundle installs the Explorer and enables you to automate the data collection.

• You can also automate the transport of data to Oracle via Oracle Secure File Transfer (SFT).



8.5 – Auto Service Request • Best Practice (Hardware): Enable Auto Service Request for your business.

• Set up Auto Service Request to enable your system to automatically notify Oracle Support and open a prioritized Service Request on your behalf when a specific hardware fault has occurred.

• After installing the Sun Service Tools Bundle, review the information on oracle.com/asr to learn more about installing, configuring, validating, completing the activation and testing your ASR installation.

• Once enabled, the electronic fault telemetry data will be sent securely to Oracle using a one-way method; therefore, there is no risk to your environment.

• This best practice resource enables Oracle Support to work the issue before you are even aware of it and parts are dispatched on receipt of the service request.


The content today will refresh your understanding of common SR best practices, and creating and then managing your service request. What is NOT covered in this video is the management of service requests created by Auto Service Request (ASR) – that is covered later in our Level 2 series for Oracle Systems.

Throughout the video, a number of best practices will be highlighted. My assumption is you have reviewed the basic SR creation process in the My Oracle Support How to Series, Doc 603505.1. This resource covers the different methods for hardware, software, and Cloud. If you are a Cloud user, please review the Cloud: How to Log a Service Request video from the Cloud Users tab.


• Handling non-urgent questions with Oracle Support

• Process to validate your access levels to My Oracle Support

• Understand fully qualified Service Requests

• When and how to use Severity 1

• Process to log service requests

• Process to bring Management Attention to your service request

65

9.0 – Creating and Managing Service Requests



9.1 – Before You Log A Service Request

Com

mun

ity It is a best practice to use the My

Oracle Support Community to post any ‘how do I’ type of questions.

The community is available 7x24. The same Oracle support engineers who work your service requests also participate in the community.

My

Acco

unt It is a best practice to validate your My Account access levels.

Do you have the right Support Identifier associated to your account? And, do you have the Create and Update access level if you need to log SRs?

Be proactive. Gather what you need to log the service request. Do you have the log files, diagnostic output, error messages, and business impact?

Diag

nost

ics Many products will require you to

upload some type of output or diagnostic message. Have you followed the hardware and software best practices? For example, have you enabled collector for your software? If you have enabled Auto Service Request for your hardware, your system may have logged a Service Request for you.


9.2 – Logging a Service Request • Let’s review the Service Request process. Typically, the service request flow is a four-step process.

• Step one is the problem-definition stage where you outline the problem and where the problem is located. Based on your product selection, you may be prompted to answer more questions, and it may even trigger a guided resolution. The guided resolution is triggered when there may be a known solution to your issue.

• Based on the data you entered, the second step is to identify if your issue is a known issue and a solution already exists. If the guided resolution does not resolve your issue, it displays instructions about data to collect. If the guided resolution was not triggered, you may be presented with questions to gather more information about your issue.

• The third step is more details. Again, based on the product problem definition, a number of uploads may be requested. We will not ask for data that we don’t need. The files being requested aid in the timely analysis of your issue.

• The final step is to determine how critical the issue is to your business. Best Practice: review your support policy for a correct understanding of the severity levels. Not every issue is a severity 1. If you select Severity 1, additional data is required.

• Be sure to include a customer reference to easily identify the service request.

• Submit the service request and you are done.

Your SR

1. Problem Definition

2. Known Issue?

3. Problem Details

4. Severity

“Before logging a severity 1, validate that your manager and additional contacts are associated with the Support Identifier

you used to log the service request. If these users are NOT associated to the SI, you will not be able to select them when

attempting to populate the manager details field.”


9.3 – Managing Your Service Request • Favorites – Be sure to make your Service Request a favorite and this will enable you to quickly access it from your

mobile phone or mobile device.

• SR Updates – Best Practice: Enable SR Updates to be included in the body of the email. This helps you be more efficient by allowing you to read the full update that the support engineer has entered. Check with your CUA to ensure they have activated this feature for the SI you are associated with and that your organization supports the use of it.

• Online Chat – When in the office, enable the online chat feature. Being available for chat can save you and the support engineer time. The support engineer may initiate a chat session to share a solution, validate a solution, or request additional information.

• Primary Contacts – Manage who is the primary contact for your service requests. If you will be out of the office, you can easily adjust this field. If you resolve your issue before Oracle does, select the reason and provide a comment. This improves our knowledge and enables Oracle Support to create knowledge documents to assist other users.

• Ensure Your Data is Complete and Accurate – During the SR process, there may be times when you feel the SR is not progressing. Be proactive. Validate your problem statement, business impact, and severity. Are there any milestone dates documented in the SR or against the particular support identifier? Is there a workaround? Did the workaround work for you? Or, is there something stopping you from implementing the suggested workaround?

• Request Management Attention – You can request Management Attention by either updating the SR by providing the answers in the template displayed or by calling the Support Hotline Number and provide the same information to the support engineer working your service request. Management Attention is about bringing the right resources to your servicer request, improving the communication process, and creating an action plan to resolve your issue. To learn more: How to Engage Management Attention to a Service Request with Oracle Support Services, Doc 199389.1.

Managing Your Service Request

Now, let’s look at managing your service request.

This is quite easy, especially when you follow recommended best practices.



• If you are a technical user and work service requests, be sure you can easily upload any content required by Oracle Support as part of the investigation.

• Do you know what to do if your attachment is larger than 2GB and you have been asked to attach it to the Service Request?

• Sometimes your crash file or other files being requested by Oracle Support are larger than 2GB.

• There are a few different ways to upload files to Oracle:

1. Upload using File Attach

2. You can use the FTP using Filezilla

3. FTPS or HTTPS using cURL

• Learn more – How to upload and attach files to Service Requests, Doc 1596914.1.

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Bonus Content: Upload Files to Your SR




Today’s session is for those of you who are busy at work, in meetings, or have stepped out for a coffee and need to be able to quickly update your service requests or respond to a user request for access to My Oracle Support if you are the CUA.

We call this Mobile My Oracle Support.

You can access it from mobile phones with Internet access and I’m going to quickly recap how to update your service requests while having a cup of coffee, search the knowledge base, and I’ll include how to manage user requests if you happen to be the CUA for your Support Identifiers.

Just remember when I say mobile phone I mean cell phone or whatever you call the phone you walk around with that has Internet access.


• What is Mobile My Oracle Support?

• Available functions for general users and CUA users

• Best practices

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10.0 – Mobile My Oracle Support


10.1 – Using Mobile My Oracle Support • In this example, you are away from your desk and you want to see how your service request is progressing.

• Log into Mobile My Oracle Support – http://support.oracle.mobi. You let the engineer know you uploaded some files prior to stepping out of the office, and you post a message and provide your update. Best Practice: Bookmark the Mobile URL for easy access on the go.

• While getting your coffee, you received a Tweet about something to do with Solaris 11; you selected the link to find out more information. You view the knowledge document within your mobile device, reading through the details and accessing any hyperlinks; this one has some terms you have seen before and it has a bug, so you mark the bug a favorite and also mark the document a favorite. When you are back in the office in 10 minutes, you can go back and this information is available to you under your favorites.

• If you are the CUA, you can view notifications and in this example, a user is requesting access. You can approve or deny. Best Practice: Approve for just default level (general access) until you determine who they are and what access they need for their role. You remind the user to learn how to use My Oracle Support so they can get started quickly and reduce possible questions back to you as their CUA.

• There are additional resources available in My Oracle Support:

– The Help menu in the top right-hand corner. Once you view the table of contents, enter ‘Mobile My Oracle Support’ to view the full how-to guide

– My Oracle Support Resource Center resource guide, Doc 873313.1.

Let’s review what we have on the mobile version of My Oracle Support. You have access to knowledge, service requests, and some settings. You can create filters for your service requests such as SRs where you are the contact. From here, you can select a service request of interest and mark it a favorite. You can review the content to date by scanning through all the updates.

http://support.oracle.mobi/�



The content today will refresh your understanding of what the support policies are, where to locate them, what’s covered and not covered under a technical support policy and additional resources.

Oracle support policies provide the coverage you need, when you need it. They are simple, predictable, and flexible – providing support for the complete Oracle technology stack.

There is support for your Oracle service and storage or Oracle software or engineered systems and solutions.

Complete support is an essential element of customer success and a critical enabler of high system availability, operational efficiency and continuous business innovation.


• Locate the support end date for your products

• What is covered by the policies?

• Locate the support policies

• Understand when you might need to access your policies

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11.0 – Support Policies


11.1 – Support Policies • A part of the Oracle support policy is Oracle lifetime support.

• There are three stages of coverage – Premier provides full system support and is a 5-year commitment. Extended is an additional 3 years for selected Oracle software and operating systems. Sustaining offers unlimited technical and knowledge support and access to pre-existing content.

• Best Practice: Understand the stages of support coverage and know how to locate and review your policies as needed.

• In the module that covered certification, the use case demonstrated how to review the support information for products.

• If you are not using the Certifications tab or if the content is not available there, you can locate the information by following the links on oracle.com. Download the PDF and search within it to quickly see what is covered for each product.

• The policy PDFs outline what is covered for support. The policy covers troubleshooting and problem diagnostics that use experienced implementation and use of Oracle products.

• The Oracle support team assists with the fixing of product-based support problems.

• Oracle Lifetime Support Policies | Oracle Technical Support Policies

What is Not Covered in Your Support Policy

This is a commonly asked question. Let’s take a look at a few examples that would not be covered by your policy:

• Oracle support engineers are not available to assist with mapping business requirements to product functionality.

• Educating system admin staff on how to write and run scripts.

• Addressing issues with debugging code that is part of a unique customization you have introduced that is not listed as supported in the specific product user guide.

• Assisting with schema and attribute design or the proper tuning of index or search filters against Oracle software products.

• Oracle Roadmap – The support staff cannot discuss what is in or out of any future product release, release dates, or roadmaps.

http://www.oracle.com/us/support/lifetime-support/index.html�

http://www.oracle.com/us/support/policies/index.html�


11.2 – Support Policies and Patch Download • This accreditation previously covered your Support Identifier and the different levels of access within My

Oracle Support.

• The level of Patch Download is directly associated to the type of Oracle Support policy you have purchased.

• You can locate your page download access under My Account.

• If you do have issues downloading a patch, review your Patch Download Access levels under My Account.

• Check back often to the support policy pages on oracle.com as content does change and this is your source of truth for what is covered.

• Within My Oracle Support, you can locate documents where specific product teams have listed out additional content. Search using terms such as Technical Support Policies.

• Best Practice: Develop a strategy for managing your product installments against your support policies. Consider checking your policies quarterly to ensure alignment with your goals and any upgrade plans on the horizon. This is a good opportunity to be proactive and make sure you have the coverage you need.

• Oracle Lifetime Support Policies | Oracle Technical Support Policies

Are You Covered?

Note: once a patch moves out of Premier Support into Extended Support, you may find that you cannot access patches created in the Extended Support period – your organization will need to purchase Extended Support to access the patch.

http://www.oracle.com/us/support/lifetime-support/index.html�

http://www.oracle.com/us/support/policies/index.html�


11.3 – Reviewing Your Support

Breadcrumb trail of your selections

Key Support Dates to track in your plan

Availability of patches

Are You On Track?

This view elaborates on the best practice we just covered. If you are planning for future upgrades or monitoring your current product combinations, you can easily see your support end dates and how long patches will be available for the specified combination.

Edit your current search

Jump to your support policies


Bonus Content: Creating Your Fully Qualified SR

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If users need to log an SR, a recommended best practice is to ensure it is a fully qualified SR. That means it includes a complete set of facts about all aspects of the problem and any relevant log files or results from issue replication. The objective is to avoid significant back-and-forth dialogue with your support engineer to fully define your issue.

Develop Your Fully Qualified SR – Get Your Issue Moving to Resolution ►►►

ACTION DETAILS

Gather information for your SR

• Before you initiate the new SR, gather data that Support will need to start working your issue – exact error message, log files, screen captures of what you or your users are seeing, detailed business impact of the issue.

• Best Practice: If you note an unusual behavior with your product, go ahead and grab a screen capture. You may be able to solve it with known solutions, but this screen capture may be important to a future SR. If you are not able to reproduce the issue, this is your evidence of the problem. Note the day, time, user actions, and results observed.

Problem Statements

• What is the problem – Your problem statement should be very specific. • Users impacted – One user unable to complete a process is different from all users are unable to conduct business. Are users completely unable to

perform a function or just limited in performing the function. Only users with XYZ privilege or role. • Occurrence – Just a single time? Happens repeatedly? Only happens when XYZ occurs. • What happened before the issue – Any change in your environment? Patch applied? New users added/removed from system? Upgrade? Process

change? Do you have a clear date of when it last worked? • Can you reproduce – Is the issue reproducible? Have you tried to reproduce? If so, what happened? • Actions you took – After the problem was noted, did you apply any solutions or changes? Apply a fix? Change a setting? Reboot the system? Add or

remove a user or parameter? Roll-back a fix? Change a user’s privilege?

Products, versions, systems

• Be sure your selections match your set up. These details ensure your issue gets to the right engineer with the right product knowledge and avoids a delay if SR needs to be re-assigned to the correct product team.

Search the knowledge base

Ask the Community

Gather Data for your SR

Log your Fully Qualified SR


Bonus Content: Community

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Expanded Space List

Top-Level Spaces (Communities)

Click here to go to the Top-Level Space

Click a Sub-Space of interest

Best Practice: Increase your expertise with Community. That includes finding a sub-space of interest, searching for posted content for a specific question, and following discussions of interest to get emails when that content is updated. Always take a moment to find the most relevant sub-space before posting a new question to target your product-specific experts.


Are You Ready to Get Accredited?


Leverage Your Study Guide to Prepare For Your Exam Did you use the study guide throughout your accreditation? Take a few minutes to review the study content now and check on any notes you took during your learning experience. Make sure you understand the core functions and the suggested best practices.

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Take Your Exam Click on Take the Exam from the final module page. Start your exam by clicking Play. Carefully review and answer each question. Click Finish Test to submit your exam. If you do not pass, you can re-take your accreditation exam once per 24-hour-period.

You Have Completed the Learning Content!


Print Your Completion Certificate

2 Click the Completion

Certificate link to open and print your certificate

1 Navigate to the Index page for

this accreditation

Print your certificate

Q. Why do I get an error when clicking on the certificate?

A. The certificate will only launch and auto-populate with your name if you pass the exam with a score of 80% or higher.

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Accreditation Roadmap – Next 30 Days

My Oracle Support

• Customize your Dashboard with regions of interest.

• Leverage the Getting Started region for ongoing learning.

• Validate your access levels are aligned with role.

Make Your Accreditation Work for You

Toolkit

• Create your personalized toolkit in Favorites with a few relevant folders for frequently used tools and resources.

• Mark documents as Favorites and add to your toolkit.

Hot Topics Email Notifications

• Set up Hot Topics notifications with a minimum of knowledge documents selected.

Community

• Set up your profile and know the basics.

• Find at least one community of interest to review.

• Follow 1-2 discussions relevant to your role.

Change your business by adopting 2-3 best practices

Oracle Support Accreditation – Level 1 Study Guide

Business

Transcript of Oracle Support Accreditation – Level 1 Study Guide