How to determine what is being processed?

As a DBA you might be receiving a lot of calls from users asking some of the questions listed below.

- What their process is currently executing?

- How long will it take?

- Should I cancel my process?

In this post, I will cover some steps that will help you quickly respond to the above questions.

I have executed the below SQR Report in my environment and want to know what is happening.

What their process is currently executing?

1.Use the below SQL to correctly identify the Oracle session

SELECT CLIENT_INFO, PROGRAM, SID, SERIAL#, SQL_ADDRESS FROM V$SESSION WHERE CLIENT_INFO LIKE ‘NPAI%’ AND STATUS =‘ACTIVE’;

2.The above results identify the session executing the report; in this case it is SID 32.

3.Use this SID to identify the SQL being executed.

SELECT SQL_TEXT FROM V$SQLTEXT WHERE ADDRESS = (SELECT SQL_ADDRESS FROM V$SESSION WHERE SID= 32) ORDER BY PIECE;

SQL_TEXT

—————————————————————-

SELECT A.RECNAME, A.FIELDNAME FROM PSRECFIELD A WHERE A.SUBRECO

RD <> ‘Y’ AND NOT EXISTS (SELECT ‘X’ FROM PSDBFIELD B WHERE B.FI

ELDNAME = A.FIELDNAME)

4.The above results will provide you the SQL that is currently being executed. Equipped with this information you SHOULD be able to dig deeper if the session continues to execute the same SQL for more than expected time. Some of the scenarios could be:

a.Locked rows

b.Bad SQL

c.Statistics not updated

d.Bad DB configuration – SQL waiting on some event

e.Missing index, etc

Note 1
Also, there are scenarios where the session might not be executing any SQL because it is busy executing the code logic within the program. If the program is written using good coding standards then you should be able to look at the log file to decipher the progress.

Note 2
It is possible that there are no Oracle sessions created by the process. Some of the scenarios are:
- Process is Queued
- Process has completed and is Posting, etc
How long will it take?In most scenarios the functional support personnel along with the developer should be able to respond to this question based on the SQL or results in log file that you have identified. If you have knowledge about this process based on its history and/or your ability to interpret the program then you can estimate the completion time.
Should I cancel my process?This decision will require approval from the business + functional support personnel unless you have knowledge about the impact of the process.

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Calling Oracle DB Function from PS Query Manager

A few weeks back a developer posed a question“Can I use an Oracle Function in PS Query Manager?”
Yes, you can and here are the steps.

1.Create your function in Oracle DB

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION TEMP_FUNC(VAR1 IN NUMBER)

RETURN VARCHAR2

IS VAR2 VARCHAR2(48);

BEGIN

SELECT NVL(PROGRAM,’NULL’)

INTO VAR2

FROM V$SESSION

WHERE AUDSID=USERENV(‘SESSIONID’);

RETURN(VAR2);

END;

2.Create a view in PeopleSoft

CREATE VIEW PS_TEMP_VW AS SELECT TEMP_FUNC(10) VARIABLE_NAME FROM DUAL;

3.That’s it! Use your view in Query Manager as shown below.

 

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Tuning Data Conversion AE during PeopleSoft Upgrade – I

In this post I will share a tuning tip that I used to improve the performance of the PeopleSoft Upgrade data conversion AE.

Data Conversion AE was truncating the temporary table -> Inserting 35 million rows into temporary table from transaction table -> Updating stats

The above steps combined took around 6hrs to complete. It ran in 30mins after the below changes to AE.

e dropped the index on temporary table

NSERT was modified to use APPEND hint

Recreated the index using NOLOGGING

Summary: PeopleSoft does not necessarily ship optimal code. We have to keep our eyes open to identify and modify the problem code to improve conversion performance

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How to build an efficient interface using AE or SQR?

While building an Inbound/Outbound interface, most of the time we may be in dilemma whether to use Application Engine (AE) or SQR. Here are the tips to build an efficient interface using either AE or SQR.

If we use Application Engine, below points are to be taken into account

• If the interface is INBOUND, its better to go for Application Engine
• If the program fails, we can make use of Restart Control to restart the program from the position where it abends
• PeopleSoft – Business Process related Validation will be taken care automatically when we go for AE/CI.
• Parallel Processing can be easily achieved using AE. This can be done by using Temporary Tables and State Records.
• Reusability of SQLs is very much easy when we go for AE.
• Bulk Insertion of data and Set Processing of data can be easily done in an AE
• COMMIT levels can be maintained either at SECTION or STEP levels
• Generation of Reports using File Layout, Workflow related batch interface can be easily developed using an AE
• XML related processing is quiet easy when we go for AE
• When we go for Upgrade of the Current PS System, Retrofitting of AE is done by easily identifying the impacted objects.

If we are going to use SQR, below points can be taken into account to build an interface

• Formatting of Reports is very much easy in SQR using Begin-Header, Begin-Footer and Begin-Setup commands.
• If we are going to consider the Performance of the Interface Program, its better to go for SQR.
• Better Performance can be achieved by using Load-Lookup Arrays and Dynamic SQL
• Reusability of SQLs can be achieved by creating either generic Procedures or SQCs

Load Lookup Arrays in SQR

How to improve the performance of the SQR using Load Lookup Arrays?

For Simple database related validation, we will fire a SQL to check the sanity of data. If this data validation is to be fired for each and every row of data, then it is better to go for Load-Lookup Arrays. This is like Prompt table validation in the case of Online Pages.

In this way, we can reduce the database hits and thereby increasing the Performance of the SQR Program.

For Eg: If we want to validate the Earnings Codes present in the file, we can use these arrays to validate the Earning Code data.

Generally we will use the below SQL to validate the ERNCD data

SELECT PET.ERNCD, PET.EFFECT_ON_FLSA, PET.ADD_GROSS
FROM PS_EARNINGS_TBL PET
WHERE PET.EFFDT= (SELECT MAX (EFFDT) FROM PS_EARNINGS_TBL
WHERE PET.ERNCD = ERNCD
AND EFFDT <=(SYSDATE)

AND PET.EFF_STATUS =”A”

AND PET.ERNCD = $Erncd
In order to avoid these database hits for each and every row of data, we can the below code to load all the valid Earning Codes at once from the Database to Load Lookup Array Name EARN and then use the array to validate the input ERNCD data.

! Lookup array for EARNINGS CODES

Let $where = ‘PET.EFFDT = (SELECT MAX (EFFDT) ‘||

‘FROM PS_EARNINGS_TBL ‘||

‘WHERE PET.ERNCD = ERNCD ‘||

‘AND EFFDT <=SYSDATE) ‘||

‘AND EFF_STATUS =”A”’

LOAD-LOOKUP

NAME = EARN

TABLE = ‘PS_EARNINGS_TBL PET’

KEY = ERNCD

RETURN_VALUE = ERNCD||’-'||EFFECT_ON_FLSA||’-'||ADD_GROSS

WHERE = $where

QUIET

In this case, KEY (This is nothing but Input Data value) is ERNCD and RETURN_VALUE (Output data value) is Combination of ERNCD, EFFECT_ON_FLSA and ADD_GROSS database field’s value.

! Checking Load lookup array for data validation

Lookup EARN $input_data $output_data

Note: It is good to initialize these Load Lookup Arrays in the SETUP Section related procedures.

Read More About Load Lookup Arrays

How to Monitor PeopleSoft Messages/Subscription/Publication Contracts?

One of the hallmarks of a good administrator is that they are already troubleshooting the problem before the users complain!

The key to ensuring that the system does not spring surprises is to automate monitoring (without impacting the system performance). In my previous posts, I have provided steps to monitor the process scheduler and application server. This post will provide insights into monitoring the integration broker messages, publication and subscription contracts.

Use the below SQLs for monitoring.

SUBSCRIPTION

SELECT A.CHNLNAME,

DECODE(A.SUBCONSTATUS,0,’ERROR’,1,’NEW’,4,’DONE’,A.SUBCONSTATUS) STATUS, COUNT(*)

FROM PSAPMSGSUBCON A

WHERE

– not older than 99 days

A.LASTUPDDTTM >= sysdate – 99

– in error or timeout status

AND (A.SUBCONSTATUS IN (0, 6)

– in NEW status but was last updated 30 mins agao.

OR (A.SUBCONSTATUS = 1 AND A.LASTUPDDTTM < SYSDATE – 1/48))

GROUP BY A.CHNLNAME, DECODE(A.SUBCONSTATUS,0,’ERROR’,1,’NEW’,4,’DONE’,A.SUBCONSTATUS)

/

MESSAGE

SELECT A.CHNLNAME, DECODE(A.PUBSTATUS,0,’ERROR’,1,’NEW’,4,’DONE’,A.PUBSTATUS) STATUS, COUNT(*)

FROM PSAPMSGPUBHDR A

WHERE

– not older than 99 days

A.LASTUPDDTTM >= sysdate – 99

– in error or timeout status

AND (A.PUBSTATUS IN (0, 6)

– in NEW status but was last updated 30 mins agao.

OR (A.PUBSTATUS = 1 AND A.LASTUPDDTTM < SYSDATE – 1/48))

GROUP BY A.CHNLNAME, DECODE(A.PUBSTATUS,0,’ERROR’,1,’NEW’,4,’DONE’,A.PUBSTATUS)

/

PUBLICATION

SELECT A.CHNLNAME, DECODE(A.PUBCONSTATUS,0,’ERROR’,1,’NEW’,4,’DONE’,A.PUBCONSTATUS) STATUS, COUNT(*)

FROM PSAPMSGPUBCON A

WHERE

– not older than 99 days

A.LASTUPDDTTM >= sysdate – 99

– in error or timeout status

AND (A.PUBCONSTATUS IN (0, 6)

– in NEW status but was last updated 30 mins agao.

OR (A.PUBCONSTATUS = 1 AND A.LASTUPDDTTM < SYSDATE – 1/48))

GROUP BY A.CHNLNAME, DECODE(A.PUBCONSTATUS,0,’ERROR’,1,’NEW’,4,’DONE’,A.PUBCONSTATUS)

/

Value	Status
0	ERROR
1	NEW
2	STARTED
3	WORKING
4	DONE
5	RETRY
6	TIMEOUT
7	EDITED
8	CANCELED
9	HOLD

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