ApplTop Solutions September 2004 Newsletter

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Welcome to the ApplTop Solutions September 2004 Newsletter

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September 2004 – Issue 7

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Welcome to the 7^th issue of the ApplTop Solutions newsletter, we hope you find the content of interest and we are always pleased to hear any feedback you may have regarding its content. To send feedback or to make suggestions for future content then please email to newsletter@appltop.com.

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In this issue

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3. Oracle Tip

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For all the very latest ApplTop news, articles and information, please checkout our latest news and media coverage sections on our website.

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New Product Announcement - CS*Secure

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We are pleased to announce the worldwide availability of CS*Secure, a new product that is now an optional extra available with CS*Accelerate. CS*Secure allows almost anyone to implement complex rule based security policies at database level in minutes.

For more information, please visit our website at http://www.appltop.com/aslsecure.php.

Also, see the media coverage for this product launch...

eBizQ - The insiders guide to business integration

IT Toolbox – Oracle Knowledge Base.

CS*Secure is available now.

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New Product Announcement - CS*Audit

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We are also very pleased to announce the forthcoming release of CS*Audit for Oracle E-Business Suite.

CS*Audit is a complete auditing solution for the Oracle E-Business Suite...

Transactional Data Auditing

Database-Wide Auditing

Structured, Rule Driven Auditing

Fine Grained Auditing

Detailed and Extensible Auditing

User Friendly Auditing

and much more

For more information, please visit our website at http://www.appltop.com/aslaudit.php.

Also, see the media coverage for this product...

eBizQ - The insiders guide to business integration

CS*Audit will be available soon.

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Global Evaluation Program

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ApplTop Solutions announced this week their Global Evaluation Program designed to put their products in the hands of companies worldwide. The program is simple, any company can request an evaluation CD (or direct download) containing ApplTop's complete product line and can use them in full unrestricted form for up to 12 weeks, furthermore, full support services are also included with all evaluations.

For the full press release click here.

To request an evaluation pack, please visit our website at http://www.appltop.com/request_demo.php.

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UKOUG Conference and Exhibition 2004

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We are delighted to announce that we will be exhibiting at the UK User Group Conference & Exhibition 2004 on the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd of November 2004.

You will be able to see all of our products, CS*Rapport, CS*Form, CS*Accelerate, CS*Secure, CS*Audit and CS*Query in action. We will be running a number of product demonstrations and you will have the opportunity to try them out for yourself.

Come and see us on the balcony demo area on stand number 77 and see how ApplTop Solutions can help your business.

We look forward to seeing you there.

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Training E-Guide Series

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Why not download your free Training E-Guide, over the coming weeks we will be making available for download a number of Training E-Guides. We plan to make available the following...

SQL & SQL*Plus for Beginners

PL/SQL for Beginners

UNIX for Beginners

Oracle Applications Development

We are starting the series today with our 187 page SQL & SQL*Plus for Beginners Training E-Guide, head on over to our downloads section now and look for the Training E-Guides under the CS*Education header.

Download at http://www.appltop.com/downloads_request.php.

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Pricing/Licensing Guide

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Our price lists are now available online directly from our website. Price lists are available in GBP, Euro and USD. Download them now at http://www.appltop.com/downloads_request.php.

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=== Product Updates ===

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Version Numbering

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To help save confusion with the ever increasing number of version numbers floating around for different suites of software, we have changed the version numbers of all of our products to be inline with the major release of the current Oracle product for which our product is intended. For example, CS*Form for Oracle E-Business Suite 11i is now called CS*Form/R11i. The actual version numbers will begin with the most current release of Oracle E-Business Suite that our product was release on, i.e. if the next version of CS*Form is released when Oracle E-Biz is at 11.5.9 then CS*Form will be 11.5.9.1, the next release will be 11.5.9.2 then 11.5.9.3...etc. When Oracle E-Biz moves to 11.5.10 then CS*Form will only move to 11.5.10.1 on the next release of CS*Form/CS*Rapport.

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CS*Form/CS*Rapport

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The latest release is 11.5.9.2 and is now available for download from our Online Support Centre; amongst other features, this release contains the long awaited ability to automatically total an item on screen. Enabling this functionality takes a few seconds and is as simple as a click of the mouse.

We are continually improving and adding to CS*Rapport and CS*Form and work closely with clients in this regard. If you would like to see something added or have any suggestions for future improvement then we would like to hear from you. Please email your suggestions and ideas to aslform@appltop.com or aslrapport@appltop.com.

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CS*Accelerate/CS*Secure

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We are continually improving and adding to the product and work closely with users in this regard. If you would like to see something added or have any suggestions for future improvements then we would like to hear from you. Please email your suggestions and ideas to aslaccelerate@appltop.com.

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=== Oracle Tips ===

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To have your own Oracle tips published in our newsletter, please email your tips to newsletter@appltop.com. If we think it is suitable we will consider publishing it in a future newsletter.

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HTML Output in SQL*Plus

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You may often find that you need to quickly produce a report directly from SQL*Plus. The traditional route of formatting the data generally produces only simple text output but Oracle provides a very easy to use method of generating HTML output directly from SQL*Plus (8.1.6+).

You can generate HTML output by setting the MARKUP option to HTML ON. This is done by specifying -MARKUP "HTML ON" from command line, or with the "SET MARKUP HTML ON" command...

SQL> SET MARKUP HTML ON

SQL> SPOOL tables.html

SQL> SELECT * FROM tab;

SQL> SPOOL OFF

SQL> SET MARKUP HTML OFF

Now open the file tables.html in your browser.

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Timing in SQL*Plus

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Two simple methods of timing in SQL*Plus.

At the SQL*Plus prompt type...

SET TIME ON

This will set the SQL*Plus prompt to the current time, for example...

SQL> SET TIME ON

The prompt will now show the current time...

12:15:00 SQL>

So the next time you run something such as a procedure, you can figure the time simply by comparing the time at the prompt...

12:15:00 SQL> EXEC my_proc

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

12:20:10 SQL>

Looking at the above we can see that the procedure took 5 minutes 10 seconds to complete.

An even easier and more accurate method of timing something in SQL*Plus is to use the following SQL*Plus command...

SET TIMING ON

For example...

SQL> SET TIMING ON

SQL> EXEC my_proc

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Elapsed: 00:05:10.00

The above shows total elapsed time of 5 minutes 10 seconds.

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Changing/Verifying an Application Users Password

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Ever wanted to change an application users password without logging into 11i? Oracle provide a utility for doing just that, FNDCPASS. To change the password for a user called FRED use the following...

FNDCPASS apps/<P1> 0 Y system/<P2> USER FRED <P3>

Where P1 = apps password

P2 = system password

P3 = new user password

For example...

FNDCPASS apps/Apps 0 Y system/manager USER FRED SLEEP

You can also verify a username/password combination in SQL*Plus using the following...

SQL> SELECT FND_WEB_SEC.validate_login('FRED','SLEEP') valid

FROM dual;

If the above SQL statement returns Y then the username/password combination is valid.

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=== Oracle News Links ===

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Oracle Knowledge Base

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An excellent source for all things Oracle.

http://oracle.ittoolbox.com

UK Oracle User Group

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Online presence for the UK’s very own User Group.

http://www.ukoug.org/

News Now

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News portal site that collates news from over 17,000 sites worldwide.

http://www.newsnow.co.uk/newsfeed/?name=Oracle+Corporation

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Sponsorship Opportunities

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If you would like to sponsor this newsletter then please email to sponser@appltop.com.

For more information about ApplTop Solutions, our products and services please visit us on the web at www.appltop.com.

For general enquiries please email info@appltop.com.

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If you feel you have received this email in error then please accept our sincere apologies and to ensure you are completely removed from all future announcements please email to remove@appltop.com.

CS*Rapport, CS*Form, CS*Accelerate, CS*Secure and CS*Audit are trademarks of ApplTop Solutions Limited.

Oracle, Oracle Applications and Oracle E-Business Suite are trademarks or registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation.

Any other names are used for reference and may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

We make no warranties as to the accuracy of any information contained within this newsletter other than what is specifically related to ApplTop Solutions Limited.