OCP Advisor

Every week this blog will feature a question and answer session with a globally renowned Oracle expert. Each expert will share their experiences with OCP blog readers. This week, our featured expert is Sabdar Syed from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Sabdar is an expert Oracle DBA and an Oracle Certified Professional (OCP).

OCP Advisor: Hi Sabdar, on behalf of the OCP blog readers we are delighted to have you today as our featured Oracle Expert. Please tell us something about you, your background and professional experience.<?xml:namespace prefix = o />

Sabdar Syed: Right after the completion of my graduation in Computer Science, I joined as a team member at Oramasters where I have started my career as a DBA. The team was lead by Rama Velpuri who is a leading expert in Oracle Backup and Recovery. Afterwards, I worked for a couple of multinational companies - iGate Global Solutions and Sierra Atlantic as an Oracle DBA and Oracle Apps DBA respectively. Later, I moved to Saudi Arabia and worked as a senior Oracle DBA at King Saud University. Presently, I am working as an Oracle Consultant for a bank in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

OCP Advisor: New Oracle technologies are being introduced every year. Which technologies excite you most? What is your advice to Oracle professionals for adopting them?

Sabdar Syed: Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) are emerging technologies that are being deployed in many organizations in this part of the world. Having only core Oracle DBA knowledge is not enough in this competitive IT world. So, I would advice interested Oracle professionals to learn these challenging technologies like Oracle E-Business Suite DBA and Oracle RAC Database Administration and explore the frontiers of knowledge further.

OCP Advisor: You are an Oracle Certified Professional on multiple tracks. How do you prepare for the certification exams?

Sabdar Syed: First of all, I would like to talk about my elder brother, Syed Jaffar Hussain , who is one of the experts in Oracle Technologies. Syed Jaffar is certified on 10g/9i/8i and RAC, and also an Oracle ACE Award winner. He motivates me and guides me all the way. He is my role model for my DBA Career and for preparing and achieving Oracle certifications in Oracle 10g/9i/8i
DBA/RAC DBA/Oracle Apps DBA tracks. I am interested in keeping up-to-date with newer Oracle versions. I am continuously upgrading my skills by reading, preparing, practicing and writing the certification exams. I have recently started preparing for Oracle Database 11g upgrade certification exam.

OCP Advisor: You are a very active member on the Oracle Technology Network Certification forums. Do you think certification plays an important role in the Oracle community? What advice/tips/suggestions do you have for the certification candidates?

Sabdar Syed: Yes, I'm an active member on the Oracle Technology Network (OTN) on the Certification, Database, E-Business and RAC Forums. Of course, certification plays a vital role in the Oracle Community. However, it's all up to an individual how to value the same. I have come across many senior and experienced DBAs those who are not certified. In my opinion, having both the experience and certification is the ideal combination and adds value to one's career. I would advice Oracle certification candidates to prepare using Oracle Student Guides and ILT Materials as well as Oracle documentations. The practice tests available from third party providers such as Self Test Software are also effective. This combination has proved very handy in achieving my certifications.

OCP Advisor: Your blog is one of the most popular Oracle blogs. Please tell our blog readers what topics do you discuss on your blog?

Sabdar Syed: Thanks for my blog viewers who have made my blog very popular. In my blog, I discuss topics such as issues that I faced and resolved. Also I discuss topics that I have read and tested or implemented, and those I think would useful to my blog readers.

OCP Advisor: Can you please let us know one habit that has contributed most to your professional success?

Sabdar Syed: Learn the concepts and then practice test and implement them. One big secret I want divulge is this: Never hesitate in sharing your knowledge. You never know what further insights you will gain from the feedback of others.

OCP Advisor: Thanks Sabdar for taking time out from your busy schedule and chatting with our blog readers. Wish you continued success and acclaim in the coming years!

Sabdar Syed: You are welcome. Best of luck to all OCP Blog readers. Thank you all!

Certification Magazine has created a survey to gauge the financial impact of certification and experience on IT professionals. Litchfield Research, an independent research firm, is collecting the data on behalf of CertMag.

Like last year, OCP Blog readers are invited to take part in this 5-10 minute survey. All responses are confidential and the results would be published in the annual Salary Survey in the December 2008 issue of CertMag.

All survey entries would be entered into a drawing for one of three $100 American Express gift certificates.

Let the survey folks know how your certification counts!

Ever since the R12 Sys Admin beta exam has been released, there has been renewed interest from our blog readers to request practice tests for the 1Z0-232 (R11i) or 1Z1-206 (R12) exams. The OCP blog presents a Nano9 on Sys Admin fundamentals. As mentioned in the previous blog post on the Sys Admin exam, there has been some changes in the R12 exam. This set of Nano9s cover areas that are common to both the R11i and R12 exams.

Take the Nano9s by clicking the link here or copying this URL: http://tinyurl.com/5dk9sr on your browser.

For the Solution Key, click here or copy this URL: http://tinyurl.com/5m9qf9

Have you registered for R12 Sys Admin beta exam yet?

Preparing for R12/R11i System Administration Fundamentals (1Z0-206 / 1Z0-232) has several bonuses. Several of the topics included in this exam overlap with E-Business Essentials exam (1Z0-200/ 1Z0-204). Hence, a detailed preparation for the Sys Admin exam would be sufficient to cover the requirements for E-Business Essentials exam. Similarly, due to the overlap of Workflow topics, the preparation for the Workflow exam (1Z0-231) would benefit from the Sys Admin exam prep.

Please find below the solution key for the Nano9s for Sys Admin Fundamentals. The correct answers are indicated in italics and in bold.

Q#1: Arrange the successive layers of access control in the correct order:

[a] 1- Data Security; 2-Function Security; 3-Delegated Administration; 4-Role Based Access Control; 5-Registration Process; 6-Self-Service Approvals
[b] 1-Function Security;2-Data Security; 3-Role Based Access Control; 4-Delegated Administration; 5-Registration Process; 6-Self-Service Approval
[c] 1-Function Security;2-Data Security; 3-Role Based Access Control; 4-Registration Process; 5- Delegated Administration; 6-Self-Service Approval
[d] 1-Function Security;2-Data Security;3-Registration Process;4-Role Based Access Control; 5-Self-Service Approval;6-Registration Process

Q#2: Which of the following are correct statements regarding pasta printing?

[a] It is an Oracle Applications utility
[b] Provided as an executable named FNDPASTA
[c] Works best for Italian localization only (i.e. Italian Pasta)
[d] Handles multi-lingual text using UTF8 character set

Q#3: Which of the following value set types can one configure?

[a] Independent
[b] Interdependent
[c] Dependent
[d] Table
[e] Special
[f] Pair

Q#4: Which of the following layers of access control can be managed by local administrators?

[a] Data Security
[b] Function Security
[c] Role Based Access Control
[d] Delegated Administration
[e] Registration Process
[f] Self-Service Approvals

#5: Users can request additional access through which of the following feature within the application?

[a] Clicking on Help icon
[b] Standard Alert
[c] UMX Access Request Tool (ART)
[d] Concurrent program

#6: You have been asked to reset the application password for user: OCP.ADVISOR@GMAIL.COM Which profile option would stop you from entering the following password: SUCCESS ?

[a] Sign-on Password No Reuse = 30
[b] Sign-On Notification = Yes
[c] Sign-on Password Length = 6
[d] Sign-on Password Hard To Guess = Yes

#7: Which of the following are the optional layers of access control ?

[a] Data Security
[b] Role Based Access Control
[c] Registration Process
[d] Function Security
[e] Delegated Administration
[f] Self-Service and Approvals

#8: You have been asked to check the default printer set for user OCP.ADVISOR@GMAIL.COM Which application table would you query to find the value?

[a] FND_PRINTERS_VALUES
[b] FND_PROFILES
[c] FND_PROFILE_OPTIONS
[d] FND_PROFILE_OPTION_VALUES

Q#9: You modified the existing printer setup information of Printer HPLJ2000 by editig the Printer Style in Oracle applications. In order for the change to take effect, what is the next step that you should do?

[a] Restart the database server
[b] Restart the concurrent manager
[c] Restart the database server and application server
[d] Ask the user to log out and log in again
[e] Pray that the changes have taken effect
[f] Bounce the Apache

There would be more Nano9s on Sys Admin over the coming weeks. For the R12 beta exam, one has to be fast to win the race against time - as fast as lightning bolt or Lightning Bolt!

Every week this blog will feature a question and answer session with a globally renowned Oracle expert. Each expert will share their experiences and suggestions with OCP blog readers. This week, our featured expert is Laurent Schneider from the beautiful country of Switzerland. Laurent is an expert Oracle DBA and an Oracle Certified Master (OCM). A multi-linguist and the Swiss champion in Chinese Chess, Laurent is a frequent speaker at Oracle conferences. Chances are that you might meet him at a global Oracle conference somewhere in the world.

OCP Advisor: Hello Laurent, on behalf of OCP blog readers we are delighted to have you as our featured Oracle Expert. Please tell us something about professional experience.
Laurent Schneider: I spent the last decade in database development and administration. One of my favorite 'poetry' is SQL (OCP Advisor's note: A language to most of us is indeed poetry to Laurent) . I have spent innumerable hours this year writing my book on SQL - Advanced Oracle SQL Programming: Expert Guide to Writing Complex Queries
OCP Advisor: Congratulations on being awarded the "Oracle ACE" credential. Laurent Schneider: I have been regularly posting answers to several Oracle Technology Network (OTN) forums over the years. I was nominated by my peers. Also, being one of the first Oracle Certified Masters surely helped in getting the "Oracle ACE" recognition.


OCP Advisor: New Oracle technologies are being introduced every year. Which technology excites you the most?
Laurent Schneider: Again, SQL is the first thing I enjoy the most. I am looking forward to exploring the new features of Oracle 11g R2 beta release soon. OCP Advisor: You are also an Oracle Certified Professional. What advice do you have for the certification candidates? Laurent Schneider: I have written more than a dozen certification exams. I wrote my first certification exam for Oracle 8. I did follow the Oracle University courses. Everything asked in the exam is part of the Oracle University course ware. For SQL Certified Expert and RAC Certified Expert exams I read all available product documentation. In 2004, I appeared for the Oracle Certified Master (OCM) exam. The exam preparation was very intense. I spent hundreds of hours testing and crashing and recovering my test databases. I have also achieved several certification through the beta exams. One advice to certification candidates is to remember that beta exams are gigantic. You have to be a quick reader and be very comfortable answering multi-choice questions with more than one correct answer. OCP Advisor: Your blog is one of the most popular Oracle blogs. Please tell our blog readers what topics you discuss on your blog? Laurent Schneider: I love to write SQL code. Sometimes I explain what I write. Sometimes it is trivial :) (OCP Advisor's note: It may be 'trivial' to Laurent, but is often a new learning for his blog readers) I have learned a lot from the readers that posted comments on my blog ! OCP Advisor: Can you please let us know one habit that has contributed most to your professional success? Laurent Schneider: Test everything. There is no substitute for hands-on experience. Read about the new features and try them. I have reported many bugs for several beta releases following this method. OCP Advisor: Thanks Laurent for taking time out from your busy schedule and chatting with our blog readers. Wish you continued success and acclaim in the coming years. Laurent Schneider: Wish OCP Blog readers great success in their certification exams!

Many of our blog readers are taking the first steps of getting certified on R12 tracks. A lot of requests have come in for sample questions on 1Z0–204: E-Business Essentials exam. Since Tutor documents are available for the 11i version, topics related to new R12 features have to be reviewed either from the E-Business Fundamentals Student Guide or the User Guides. To get a quick overview of the differences in the exam topics for 11i and R12 versions, please review to earlier blog post – “What’s the Diff?”

For the next four weeks, Nano9s on this exam would be posted with particular emphasis to R12 functionalities. Answering the Nano9s would provide you a quick assessment of your preparedness. The topics for this exam may be familiar to most certification candidates and hence there may be a strong urge to cram for the exam over a week or even a weekend. It is advisable to avoid such an exam preparation strategy. Instead make a study chart by assigning at least 2–3 days on any given topic (a day or two for reading and hands-on practice on the system and another half or full day revising the key concepts). Since most of the test takers also have a day job, the time unit of measure of a ‘day’ here may be equivalent to just two to three hours since that’s what one can spare early morning or in the evening after a full day at the office. Even with this relatively slow and steady approach, the exam preparation time would be less than a month. The idea here is to make small improvements daily in one’s knowledge base – a kaizen approach instead of a big bang kamikazee cram.

Click on the link here to answer the Nano9s on 1Z0–204 E-Business Essentials.

This blog entry was written on a desktop application called BlogJet. Get your copy here: http://blogjet.com

Updated on 08/13/08: For the Solution Key, click here

Oracle R12 E-Business Essentials: 1Z0-204 would perhaps be the first certification exam you are taking for any of the R12 certification tracks. The exam can be taken online from the comfort of your home or office. Of course, the exam is also available at the authorized testing centers.

The exam consists of 60-70 questions to be answered in 90 minutes. As far as other certification exam goes, this is perhaps the most easy paced one. There would be enough time to review the answers after you have finished. The passing score of 61% is among the lowest of all certification exams. This means you have to get just 40 correct answers out of 65 questions. On paper, this looks quite achievable but the multiple choice and multiple correct answer (MC square) causes inadvertent errors (E). So one has to be careful to avoid this waste of energy: E=MC square.

There are eight exam topics. At least one or two days should be devoted to reviewing the concepts for each topic. Hence, at least two weeks of preparation is advised. There are topics like 'Fundamentals of Workflow and Alerts' and 'Oracle Business Intelligence Products Overview' that you do not use frequently or may have been recently been introduced to. For these topics even a week's preparation is justified.

Check the solutions for the Nano9s for EBS R12 Essentials below.
The correct answers are in bold and italics.

================================================
Solution Key for EBS R12 Fundamentals Nano9s - I
================================================

Q#1: The new user interface (UI) in R12 is called _______________ and is a sub-class of _____________ (BLAF) that greatly improves the look and feel of Oracle E-Business Suite
[a] Silk ; Browser Look and Feel
[b] Swan ; Browser Lines and Frames
[c] Silk ; Browser Lines and Frames
[d] Swan ; Browser Look and Feel

Q#2: From the E-Business Suite Home Page which of the following operations can you perform?
[a] Create Top 10 List
[b] Create Favorites
[c] Set Preferences
[d] Use Worklists
[e] Choose a responsibility
[f] Access Oracle Metalink

Q#3: Which of the following terminologies are correctly matched?
[a] LOV - List of Values
[b] MDI - Multiple Download Interface
[c] AOL - Application Object Library
[d] SRS - Single Request Source

Q#4: Which is the field color that indicates that data entry is required ?
[a] White
[b] Yellow
[c] Blue
[d] White with green text

Q#5: What is the keyboard shortcut to execute a query on a form?
[a] [Fn] + F11
[b] [Ctrl] + F12
[c] [Ctrl] + F11
[d] [Shift] + F12
[e] [Alt] + F11

Q#6: Which of the keyboard shortcuts are correctly matched?
[a] Count Query - F12
[b] Duplicate Record - Shift+F6
[c] Enter Query - F11
[d] Clear Field - F11
[e] Duplicate Field - Shift +F5

Q#7: Which of the following are the optional layers of access control ?
[a] Data Security
[b] Role Based Access Control
[c] Registration Process
[d] Function Security
[e] Delegated Administration
[f] Self-Service and Approvals

Q#8: What are the 4 C's that define a Ledger?
[a] Chart of Accounts
[b] Functional Calender
[c] Functional Currency
[d] Transaction Currency
[e] Accounting Convention

Q#9: Sub-Ledger Accounting (SLA) includes which of the following features?
[a] Centralized Accounting Rules
[b] Full Audit Trail
[c] Unidirectional Drill downs
[d] Predefined validations
[e] Date effective policies

How much did you score? Did you score at least 5.5 out of 9 correct (61%) ?
There would be more Nano9s on 1Z0-204 to follow over the next two months.
So keep visiting this blog and attempting more mini practice tests.
Best of Luck!

The introduction of R12 beta exam also provides an opportunity to E-Business Suite OCPs to upgrade to R12. Oracle Certification Program team has made the upgrade path relatively simple. Click on the 'Certification Upgrade Path' under the gadget titled 'Oracle Certification Links' on the left column of this blog.

One would be pleasantly surprised to find a single exam to obtain the R12 certification. For example, if one is a OCP on 11i Payables track, there is only one exam - 1Z0-215, to upgrade to R12 OCE certification. So instead of writing three exams like R12 E-Business Essentials, R12 General Ledger and R12 Payables, there is just one exam - Oracle EBS R12: General Ledger and Payables Fundamentals !

The theme of this year's Olympic Games is "One World, One Dream".

For those already certified as 11i OCP, let your theme be:
One World, One Dream, One Exam !!


For those planning to attempt the "One World, One Dream, One (Upgrade) Exam" a close look at the exam content is advised. As most blog readers are aware, R12 has introduced a whole new architecture for Financial modules. The exam content for 1Z0-215 or 1Z0-216 reflects this change with the introduction of new topics.

For the benefit of our readers, let's present an analysis of the difference in exam content for the 11i and R12 exams for the Payables track. This comparison is made with the exam content of 1Z0-215 (R12) with the two 11i exams: 1Z0-211 (11i GL) and 1Z0-212 (11i AP).

The R12 exam introduces new topics for the General Ledger section. The Oracle General Ledger Process topic now discusses integration of GL with Oracle subledgers and non-Oracle systems. Overview of Accounting Setup Manager, EPB, reporting and analysis are additional new subtopics. There is a entirely new topic on Accounting Setup Manager dealing with setup consideration and components. Similarly, a new topic on Accounting Setup has been introduced. The Basic Journal entries topics sees the introduction of Web ADI related subtopics and absence of ADI setups. Financial Budgeting and Financial Reporting topics also mention Web ADI and not ADI. As expected, the Set of Book topics has been replaced by a new topic called Ledger. Another new R12 features debuts as a topic called Advanced Security that discusses data access security for legal entities and ledgers. The retirement of MRC in Multi-Currency topic is evident. There are new subtopics of use of Currency Rate Manager. In Financial Reporting, FSG Reports with XML Publisher is a new subtopic that is introduced. The rest of the topics like Consolidation, Budgeting, Advanced Journal Entries and Period Close remain unchanged.

The R12 exam also introduces new topics for the Payables section. The Payables overview now includes setup and use of MOAC. Transaction taxes and E-Business Tax are new subtopics. Advances and Progressive Contract Financing is an entirely new topic. There is a new subtopic of Payment Manager under the Payments topic. The topic of Quick Invoices does a vanishing act. Topics of Invoices, Suppliers, Expense Reports and Credit cards and Period Close are unchanged.

A similar analysis would be presented for 1Z0-216 exam along with the Nano9s on Receivables Fundamentals next week.

Meanwhile, keep dreaming!

The buzz about the beta exams from the Oracle Certification Program has also generated a very interesting question - "What is a beta exam?" and several other related questions around it.

In a typical software development and deployment life cycle, a beta phase arrives when a select group or individuals are chosen to test the software which is assumed to bug free by the developers. The intent here is to identify any glitches that are in the product before it is released commercially. A beta period can last for weeks or months or even years (like Google's GMail which is still is beta!) For certification exams, a beta exam is the final tune-up for the exam before the exams are available to the public. In some cases it contains all the questions in the question pool for the test. Beta exams thus feature double or triple the number of questions asked in a production release. The reason is that if a question turns out to be too hard and everyone misses it or if its too easy and everyone gets it right, then the question may be dropped from the production release of the exam. In a way, a beta exam is the final test of the exam questions.

For Oracle certification exams, beta Exam numbers begin with "1Z1" while the production exam number start with "1Z0". Since, both versions have the same suffix, the beta exam for R12 Sys Admin Fundamentals:1Z1-206 would be released as 1Z0-206 in the production version. So, a quick way to identify if it's an Oracle beta exam is to look for "1Z1" prefix. For a complete list of beta exams available now, click here

Beta exam are usually available worldwide and one can register on the Prometric website. Exams are delivered at Authorized Prometric Testing Centers and are proctored exams. Beta exams are a test of skill and endurance. There may be 180-220 questions to be answered within 3 to 3.5 hours. For the production exam, there may be 60-90 questions to be answered within 1.5 to 2 hours. It's a race against time and one may not have as much time to spend on each question of a beta exam as one would have during the production version. Needless to say, there would not be much time (if any) at the end of the exam to review the answers.

Feedback for beta exam questions are highly encouraged. One can include comments on specific exam questions while working through the questions or one can mark specific questions and return to add comments at the end of the test. There's also a brief confidential demographic survey administered at the end of the exam to 'calibrate' the test scores and for statistical analysis.

A candidate is scored only on the questions that are chosen for the production version of the exam. While it takes about 8 weeks for the production release of the exam after the beta testing period closes, an additional 2-4 weeks is required to receive the exam results from Prometric. The good news about passing a beta exam is that is it the same as passing a production exam. For example, if one were to pass all the beta versions of the exams required within an Oracle Certification path, one will earn your Oracle Certified Associate, Oracle Certified Expert or Oracle Certified Professional credential as the case may be. One need not take the production version again to get certified. For each certification track, there is a hands-on course (HOC) requirement that needs to be fulfilled. The course/s can be taken before or after writing the beta exams since there is no pre-requirements for beta exam registration. However, attending a course and then attending the corresponding certification exam is a more logical order.

The beta exam cycle may be a six months cycle covering the following stages -1: Pre-registration - when the beta exam is announced but testing has not started yet2: Open - when beta exam testing dates are available3: Closed - when beta exam testing period is over4: Post-beta review - the intensive process when the Oracle Certification Program team analyzes the beta exam questions and select the list of questions for the production release.

Beta exam benefit both Oracle as well as the Oracle certification candidates. Oracle Certification program team gets a statistically significant number of test takers to validate the questions, improve the exam content and maintain its superior value. Certification candidates get the opportunity to get certified at a significant discount (discounts are often 50%-75% of the production release registration fees) and get the privilege to announce themselves as one of the first in the world to be certified on that exam track!

The above discussion is based on the blog editor's experience, conclusion and understanding of the beta exam announcements and its contents. Every blog reader is encouraged to write to the Oracle Certification Program team at ocpexam_ww@oracle.com for any clarifications and an 'official' response to any of their questions.

Oracle Openworld Blog featured the OCP blog on it's blog post entitled "Around The World"
It's never too early to start planning your Oracle OpenWorld agenda. So read the blog post above to see what sessions and events people from around the world are talking about this week.

The Oracle Certification Program team announced today that the beta testing period for several beta exams including Oracle EBS and Peoplesoft Expert certifications has been extended!

So here are the new beta exam deadlines:
1Z1-206 Oracle E-Business Suite R12: System Administration - Extended to December 01, 2008
1Z1-215 Oracle EBS R12: General Ledger and Payables Fundamentals - Extended to December 01, 2008
1Z1-216 Oracle EBS R12: General Ledger and Receivables Fundamentals - Extended to December 01, 2008
1Z1-218 PeopleSoft Enterprise 9 HRMS Fundamentals - Extended to December 01, 2008
1Z1-225 Oracle EBS R12: Inventory and Purchasing Fundamentals - Extended to December 01, 2008
1Z1-226 Oracle EBS R12: Inventory and Order Management Fundamentals - Extended to December 01, 2008
1Z1-238 Oracle EBS R12: Install, Patch and Maintain Applications - Extended to October 31, 2008
1Z0-228 PeopleSoft Enterprise 9 General Ledger - Extended to October 31, 2008
1Z0-244 Oracle EBS R12: Advanced Supply Chain Planning - Extended to December 01, 2008

The blog editor encourages readers from all across the globe to accept the R12 beta exam challenge. This blog will assist you over the next three months to prepare for the exams. As an added bonus, if you become an Oracle Certified Expert in a given track your name would be entered in a raffle. One lucky winner for each exam track would have their certification exam fees reimbursed. So it's like getting R12 certification for free!!

Are you ready for the R12 Beta Exam Challenge?

The Know Oracle blog published an interview with the OCP Advisor. Please click here to read what your blog editor said to Know Oracle.

The ever enterprising Oracle Certification Program team has now provided even more reasons to register for Oracle Openworld 2008.
Onsite certification testing will be offered to registered conference attendees, subject to availability.

Here’s the strategy to get an admission ticket. Show up bright and early on Monday (Sept 22) before 9am in front of Moscone South Room 252 . Session tickets will be given out starting at 9:30am and would be limited to only one ticket per person. If you are planning to take more than one exam, check with the onsite staff at the OCP Lounge after you have taken the first exam. If you are lucky, there may be open slots still available (typically for Wednesday or Thursday).
Be sure to take your conference badge, photo ID, credit card and Prometric ID to the testing center. In case you have never tested with Prometric, you can go online right now and create one at http://oracle.prometric.com/ For updates regarding the onsite certification, please bookmark this page and check back regularly
As in past years, the testing room is located at Moscone South, Room 252.
A total of 8 testing windows have been announced as follows:

Mon, September 22
Session 1at 11:30am
Session 2 at 2:00pm

Tue, September 23
Session 3 at 9:00am
Session 4 at 11:30am

Wed, September 24
Session 5 at 9:00am
Session 6 at 11:30am

Thu, September 25
Session 7 at 9:00am
Session 8 at 11:30am

.

The annual get-together of the Oracle family - Oracle Openworld - would be held from September 21-25, 2008 in San Francisco, California.
This year, the conference promises to be quite spectacular in terms of the sheer number of presentation sessions (close to 2000) as well as number of attendees flying in from all over the world (some estimate it to be over 50,000-60,000). The blog editor has been fortunate to be a frequent presenter (see list here) and a regular attendee since 2001. Over the years, the conference offerings have grown across multiple dimensions. There are hands-on lab sessions, panel discussions, user group forums, special interest group meetings, executive solution sessions apart from the enthralling keynotes presented by the who's who of the Oracle universe.
Just in case you are yet to register, the Oracle Certification Program team announced on their blog a few more reasons to attend Openworld 2008. For the Oracle OCP DBA experts waiting to jump on the 11g bandwagon, there is a free full day exam cram session. For more details on how to register early for this exam cram, click here. Like previous years, there would be two testing windows every day for the 4 conference days. So, in theory, one can write all the certification exams in an OCA, OCP or OCE track while at Openworld!
The blog editor looks forward to meet the dynamic Oracle Certification Program (OCP) team and publish the face to face interviews on this blog. So if you have any question for the OCP team, please e-mail me or post as a comment to this post. Like last year's interview, the top ten most popular questions would be featured on this blog.

Oracle has been introducing new certifications for Oracle Certified Associate (OCA), Oracle Certified Professional (OCP) and Oracle Certified Expert (OCE) credentials. Apart from this there is the exclusive Oracle Certified Master (OCM) for DBA tracks.
Today, an individual can proudly announce oneself as an Oracle certified professional (Ocp) on achieving either an OCA, OCP, OCE or OCM certification.

Organization's today are no longer entirely brick and mortar entities but mostly 'click and mortar' corporations. Every organization that you work or interact with is in some form, shape or manner involved with e-business. It's either 'E-business or out of business' to profit in the today's new economy.

Whether one has a technical or functional background, years of experience transforms one to a techno-functional guru (the percentage of technical and functional expertise depends on one's background and continued interest). When one is considering a personal certification road map, it can very well consist of both technical as well as functional tracks.

The blog editor thinks its time for the E-Business OCP & OCE blog to change it's name to 'Oracle Certified Professionals' blog to cover an expanded certification footprint and topics for discussion. This blog is of, by and for Oracle certified professionals (Ocp) - those already certified and the hundreds of thousands who are working hard day and night in their pursuit of Oracle certification dreams. We raise a toast to you all!

Oracle Certification Program team has come out with another gem - a new OCP Beta exam for the technical track. For our blog readers with technical and techno-functional expertise, Oracle PL/SQL Developer track was somewhat limited with only the Oracle Certified Associate (OCA) credential. One could take one of these three exams - Introduction to Oracle9i SQL (1Z0-007) or Introduction to Oracle SQL and PL/SQL (1Z0-001) or Oracle Database SQL Expert (1Z0-047) followed by Program with PL/SQL (1Z0-147) or Develop PL/SQL Program Units (1Z0-101) exam to complete the OCA certification.
The new beta exam launched today is called Oracle Database 11g Advanced PL/SQL exam (1Z0-146). Those already OCA certified can just take this exam and become a PL/SQL OCP!
For a pictorial of the certification path, click here
As usual, the 1Z0-146 beta exam is being offered at a significant discount ($50 in United States) and provide a mouth-watering challenge to all our technical and techno-functional experts. As more participants take the beta exam, it would be quicker for the certification program team at Oracle to launch the production version. This exam would certainly become one of the popular ones as it addresses the long desired OCP certification requests of the developer community.
Kudos to the Oracle Certification Program team for launching another winner!

I have been reading with interest the two recent postings (http://tinyurl.com/6ddx46 and http://tinyurl.com/5z7x4g) by Paul Sorensen, Director of Oracle Certification Program on the topic "To Certify or Not To Certify".
As Paul emphasizes, "It can be an important career-building tool for people who take the process seriously. However it’s my strong feeling that certification alone is only a part of the equation in building your career". To a large extent, certification is a means and not the end. Paul adds, "The true value sought by professionals and their clients is found in the steps that a person must goes through in order to pass the required exams". Indeed, for this reason I would encourage blog readers to actually prepare for the exams the hard way by going through the exam content and reading training guides, user guides, handbooks and so on but please avoid dumps at all cost. Not only it violates clause 3.3 of the Certification Candidate agreement, it defeats the very purpose and dilutes the value of certification. There is no greater joy than the enjoying success through your hard-earned effort of weeks or months of preparation. Oracle E-Business Suite certification exams employ questions that tests the real world experience is not a straight out of the manual memorization exercise. Paul highlights this when he says, "The breadth and depth of what is covered on the exams (or the exam objectives) typically requires even experienced professionals to prepare well – think, practice, train and study".

Here are few reasons that are top of my mind why one would seek Oracle certification:
[1] Provides industry-standard validation of my Oracle expertise recognized around the world
[2] Brings prestige and recognition from my peers and my employer
[3] Provides me an incentive to keep pace with new Oracle technologies and releases
[4] Demonstrates proof of my professional competence
[5] Provides greater opportunity for my career advancement within the organization (including salary increases, job role changes and promotions)
[6] Increases my marketability outside the organization
[7] Raises my clients or end users confidence in my Oracle skills
[8] Oracle certifications are HOT! I see everone is going for it.

What are the top 5 reasons why you are attempting to get Oracle certified?
I encourage you to please take the survey on this blog so that we can find from our blog readers around the world.
On a lighter note, if you are looking for top five reasons why you should NOT get certified, please read the humorous article that I came across on about.com - http://certification.about.com/od/entrylevelcertification1/a/notcertified.htm

Oracle E-Business Suite R12: System Administration is now available as a beta exam (1Z1-206). Pre-registration for the exam started on July 7, 2008. The beta exam will be available from July 26, 2008.

The exam is based on the Oracle University 5 day instructor-led training entitled 'R12 Oracle Applications System Administrator Fundamentals'. Are the 11i and R12 exams close cousins? Let's have a quick look to compare the exam content and highlight any differences.

The topic - 'Introduction to Applications Security' - discussing Role Based Access Control (RBAC) is a new introduction though the Function Security and Data Security topics were also in the 11i version too. Somewhat overlapping is the topic 'Introduction to Oracle User Management' which was also in the 11i exam.

Exam topics such as Profile Options, Auditing System Resources, Managing Printers, Concurrent Programs and Reports are unchanged in the R12 version. Topics related to Oracle Applications Manager related to system monitoring and troubleshooting feature in the R12 version. These may be DBA duties in some organizations and Sys Admin in others. Perhaps, that was the logic of including this topic. Oracle Workflow topics feature prominently in the R12 exam content and if one is preparing for the Workflow exam, it would be quite a bonus to score some handy home runs here. The R12 exam content rounds off with topics related to flexfields, value sets and advanced validation capabilities.

Surprisingly, several topics are excluded from the R12 exam. Application DBA duties, Form Personalization and Personalization OA Framework Pages are among those topics that are missing.

Look out for the Nano9s on Sys Admin Fundamentals later this week. Meanwhile, take up the challenge and register for the 1Z1-206 Beta exam!

As the OCP blog survey results indicate, three out of every four readers of this blog are preparing or intended to prepare for EBS R12 beta exams.




For 11i OCP SCM track and R12 Supply Chain Expert track one has to take the following exams: 1Z0-221 Oracle Inventory Management 11i Fundamentals, 1Z0-225 Oracle EBS R12: Inventory and Purchasing Fundamentals, 1Z0-226 Oracle EBS R12: Inventory and Order Management Fundamentals. This set of Nano 9s is based on Inventory Fundamentals that are part of the above exams.


Before you click on the Nano9s link and submit another entry for the exclusive OCP blog t-shirt, let's discuss a few minutes on the differences between the 11i Inventory Fundamentals exams (1Z0-221) and its R12 avatars - 1Z0-225 and 1Z0-226. The R12 exams consist of two modules: Inventory+Purchasing or Inventory+Order Management.

The exam content for the Inventory Fundamentals section is mostly the same for R12 and R11i exams. There are minor changes in the exam topic names - '11i Receipt to Issue Overview' and '11i Defining Inventory Organizations' for the R11i exam is 'Overview of Oracle Inventory' and 'Inventory Structure' respectively for the R12 exam. Some R12 topics are now independent topics like 'Unit of Measure' (R12) and '11i Inventory Controls' is split up in the R12 exam content as 'Lot and Serial Control' and 'Material Status Control'. R12 exam content also mentions the topic of 'Table Information' where one needs to identify the Oracle Inventory tables (for this eTRM is the reference of choice)

Please enjoy the Nano 9s on Oracle Inventory Fundamentals while sipping your hot cup of java and also enter for a chance to win the OCP Blog T-shirt to a lucky winner with all correct answers.


Please click here for the direct link to Nano 9s: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB227ZVJBVEYK

Solution Key:
http://ebizocp.blogspot.com/2008/07/solution-key-for-nano9s-on-inventory.html

Google Analytics tracks the geographical location by city, country or continent where our blog readers reside. Since the launch of this blog, I am happy to report that we had our honored guests arriving from 137 countries and 3070 cities till date.

This week's lucky winner of one OCP Blog T-shirt is Ivo Huaynates from the city of Lima, the capital of Peru. Ivo (pictured in cosy warm clothes in the South American winter - remember its winter down south when we have summer north of the equator), works for an Oracle Implementation partner and is an Oracle E-Business Suite expert. Congratulations Ivo!

Whether you are an Oracle EBS expert or not, questions for OCP/OCE exams are often tricky with multiple correct answers and some like "which one of these is NOT a correct option" which is read by the test taker in a hurry as 'which one of these is a correct option'. Unfortunately "not" is neither in caps, bold or italic on the exam terminal to trigger a more careful review.

Every week, more blog readers are taking the Nano9s and checking their preparation for the OCP exams. Here is the solution key for the Nano9 on Inventory Fundamentals. The correct answers are listed in green and bold. How may questions did you correctly answer?

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Solution Key to Nano9s on Oracle Inventory Fundamentals - 1Z0-221 or 225/226
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#1: An organization's Receipt to Issue (R2I) process consists of which of the following functions?
[a] Receiving, Purchasing, Work in Process, Shipping
[b] Receiving, Work in Process, Order Management
[c] Receiving, Transferring, Issuing
[d] Receiving, Order Management, Work in Process, Shipping

#2: For which of the following areas can one define status attribute controls?
[a] Services
[b] Bill of Material
[c] Inventory
[d] Invoicing

#3: Which flag makes a sub-inventory eligible for Pick Release Process?
[a] Depreciable Flag
[b] Nettable Flag
[c] Reservable Flag
[d] Customer-order Enabled Flag

#4: In MTL_SERIAL_NUMBERS table, CURRENT_STATUS = 6 for a serial number. What does this signify?
[a] Serial Number is defined but not used
[b] Serial Number is obsolete
[c] Serial Number in pending status
[d] Serial Number is in transit

#5: Oracle Inventory shares key data with other Oracle modules such as Payables, Assets and Receivables. Please select from the list below which are the share entities.
[a] Item Information
[b] Transaction Accounting Information
[c] UOM Information
[d] ATP Supply Information
[e] On-Hand Quantity Information

#6: Which of the following time fences are used by the Available To Promise (ATP) algorithm?
[a] Infinite Supply Time
[b] Planning Horizon Time
[c] Past Due Supply
[d] User Defined Lead Time
[e] Past Due Demand

#7: For which Move Order transaction is approval required?
[a] Shipping Move Order
[b] Replenishment Move Order
[c] Requisition Move Order
[d] All of the above

#8: Which among the following are Inventory Replenishment Methods?
[a] MRP
[b] Kanban
[c] Safety Stock
[d] Min-Max Planning

#9: What is the precedence for Locator Control to apply ?
[a] 1. Organization Level 2. Sub-inventory Level 3. Item Level
[b] 1. Organization Level 3. Sub-inventory Level 2. Item Level
[c] 2. Organization Level 3. Sub-inventory Level 1. Item Level
[d] 3.Organization Level 2. Sub-inventory Level 1. Item Level