Blog dedicated to Oracle Applications (E-Business Suite) Technology; covers Apps Architecture, Administration and third party bolt-ons to Apps

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

New post patch for ATG_PF.H RUP5: 6145463

On August 22, 2007, Oracle updated its metalink note 375682.1 (About ATG_PF.H RUP5) :

- Added information on descriptive flexfield context synchronization to New and Changed Features section and New and Changed Components section.
- Added application of patch 6145463 in post-install step 1.

Size of patch 6145463 (SUPPORT NEGATIVE CURRENCY PROFILE VALUE '(XXX)') is only 275 KB. The readme of the patch says:

Description :
After upgrading to the new ATG RUP5 the currency amount value is appended
with "PT" when the profile value Currency: Negative Format parameter is set to
'(XXX)'.

Technical Description :
Added support for Negative Currency Format (XXX) in the java layer.

Its very typical to have additional post patches added to rollup patches due to issues discovered by early birds. However it is very difficult for customers to keep track of post patches. For example, when forms patchset 18 was released, there were 4 post patches. Now we have completely different 6 post patches. If you raise a TAR / SR with Oracle for Forms issues, they may ask you to apply those new post patches first. Patching has been the bane of Apps DBAs who are also called "Patch DBAs" How far you can analyze is an open question. I don't think anyone keeps up with post patches and we encounter them only in case we hit the bug for which they were created. It is a tall order to keep track of the forever changing readmes of ATG rollups and security patches which are mandatory for all instances.

No comments: