We have several work areas that require a longer inactive timeout setting than the default 20 minutes (Payroll Time-entry, Fixed Asset Accounting, etc.).

Unfortunately, EnterpriseOne�s architecture does not make the process of configuring a session timeout very easy. There are three separate separate settings that need to configured correctly. Depending on your architecture that could mean three separate machines using three separate platforms. Whatever your architecture looks like there are at least three.

The Java Application Server (JAS). No matter what flavor of JAS you are running (IBM Websphere, Oracle Application Server, BEA, etc.) you will need to configure the application�s user session timeout setting. The screenshots for IBM Websphere 6.0.2.13 are below:
The EnterpriseOne HTML Server. This setting is in the JAS.INI under the [CACHE] stanza. The setting is in milliseconds (3600000 = 1 hour). If you are running the Oracle Server Manager for EnterpriseOne, you can find it in the �Cache Configuration section under the �Web Runtime� configuration.
The HTTP server. The instructions for both Microsoft IIS and IBM HTTP Server follows:
- Microsoft IIS:
  - Display the properties of the website that is configured to host EnterpriseOne
  - On the �Website� tab, modify the �Connection Timeout� setting. Please note that this value is in seconds, not milliseconds.
- IBM HTTP Server:
  - Edit the �Timeout� setting in the HTTPD.CONF file. Please note that this value is in seconds, not milliseconds.

NOTE: To avoid record locking Oracle specifies to configure the system so that the JAS server will �timeout� the user�s session. To do that both the EnterpriseOne HTML Server and the HTTP server need to be set to great times than the JAS server. For example:

To configure a timeout value of 30 minutes:
- JAS Server: 30
- EnterpriseOne HTML Server: 3600000
- HTTP Server: 3600

Tags: e1, enterpriseone, enterpriseone, EnterpriseOne - Install/Upgrade, EnterpriseOne - JAS (Java Application Server), ibm, jas, java application server, Microsoft, oracle, oracle, oracle application server, Oracle Server Manager, Server Manager, websphere, xe

Tags: e1, enterpriseone, ibm, jas, java application server, oracle, oracle application server, Server Manager, websphere, xe

How To Change The Login Screen Image

July 2, 2008 by Stewart Schatz · Leave a Comment
Filed under: EnterpriseOne - JAS (Java Application Server)

We are finishing up a project for Employee Self-Service. Essentially, that means that we are giving employees the option to view their payroll and benefit information online.

This is not new to most larger organizations, but it’s new to us. Since it is new and there will be employees accessing EnterpriseOne who do not use it for their daily jobs, we wanted to make it look a little different.

One of the things that we wanted to change was the login screen.

The screen shot to the left is the standard login screen for EnterpriseOne 8.11 SP1 using Tools Release 8.96.1.5.

We really wanted to change the Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne logo. So, I did a little checking on Oracles Support site and found Solution ID: 201052190 (requires login). This solution doesn’t specifically address the login image but it does talk about the disclaimer text at the bottom of the page. So, it gets you to the right files.

A summary of that solution is that there is a file called html4login.jsp in

[Websphere Install Directory]\installedApps\mdur-ets-ME1WEBNode01\EA_JS_87.ear\webclient.war\share.

That location may be different in your installation. Also, remember that this is for Tools Release 8.96.1.5. Anyway, this file has a variable in it called "companyLogoImageURL". Just point this variable to your image.

Here is the new login screen. Well, not really, but you get the idea.

Tags: e1, enterpriseone, EnterpriseOne - JAS (Java Application Server), jas, jd edwards, oracle, peoplesoft, Tools Release, websphere

Tags: e1, enterpriseone, jas, jd edwards, oracle, peoplesoft, Tools Release, websphere

EnterpriseOne & VMWare

June 27, 2008 by Stewart Schatz · Leave a Comment
Filed under: EnterpriseOne - General

I always thought that the way I had things setup wasn’t necessarily supported. You see, I use VMWare for the two IBM Websphere JAS servers in our instances. However, thanks to some insight from a fellow SysAdmin, I now know different.

Bob Plankers, The Lone SysAdmin, found an article on Oracles support site (200955472).

So, according to this, I think my next Deployment Server upgrade will also be on VMWare.

Thanks, Bob!

Tags: enterpriseone, EnterpriseOne - General, ibm, jas, oracle, peoplesoft, websphere

Tags: enterpriseone, ibm, jas, oracle, peoplesoft, websphere

E1 Admins Need To Know Everything About Everything

May 21, 2008 by Stewart Schatz · Leave a Comment
Filed under: EnterpriseOne - General, EnterpriseOne - Install/Upgrade, EnterpriseOne - JAS (Java Application Server)

I admit that I am a "Jack of all trades, master of none". Which can be a good thing as in the second paragraph of the Wikipedia entry.

A Jack of all trades may also be a master of integration, as the individual knows enough from many learned trades and skills to be able to bring their disciplines together in a practical manner.

Ok, I’m getting a little off track.

With that said, I don’t think that any EnterpriseOne CNC Admin can be a master at everything. That may be a little strong, but unless E1 is your only responsibility and you have very little changes to make, knowing everything about everything that touches your EnterpriseOne system is an extremely difficult pursuit.

In our staff of 30 or so, I feel that I am one of a few that have a pretty extensive background in a wide variety of information technology related subjects. However, yesterday, my "master of none" was exposed.

We are running tools release 8.96.1.5. This release uses IBM’s HTTP Server, which is IBM’s slightly modified Apache HTTP Server 2.0. Although I’ve worked on many different systems, I’ve never had the privilege of administering a mission critical Apache HTTP Server until we started using it for E1 and even then it always… just ran. I never really had to do anything with it besides the httpd.conf modifications required by E1, which are specified very simply in the EnterpriseOne documentation.

Well, yesterday, we had users calling saying that they "couldn’t view PDFs". We were receiving IBM Websphere logs that indicated that the system was unable to write to the /temp directory. Well, the reason for this message was found when one of my colleagues logged-on to the server and noticed the pop-up that said the "E:" drive was out of space.

Now, we know what was going on, but why? There is usually about 10GB of free space on that drive. What could have taken it all. Granted, I haven’t looked in quite a while, but nothing else runs on that box, but the E1 web client.

After a little bit of head-scratching, we found that the culprit was a log file. The Apache access log file. Unknown to me or my non-Apache admin colleagues, the Apache access logs are set to not truncate automatically. In other words, they build and build and build until you have no more disk left.

Fortunately, I was able to find a way to create a new log file after either an amount of time or when the a specified file size is reached. It uses the rotatelogs application that ships with Apache and is configured within the httpd.conf file.

Essentially, you send all Apache access logging through the rotatelogs application which then writes the log to your specified location. This is called "Piped Logging". Here is the basic syntax:

rotatelogs  [ -l ] logfile  [ rotationtime [ offset ]] | [ filesizeM ]

And this is what I am using:

CustomLog "|bin/rotatelogs.exe logs/access_%Y%m%d_%H%M%S.log 3600" common

This configuration forces a new log file to get created every hour (3600 seconds).

Another benefit to using piped logging is that the log files are not locked by the Apache.exe process. This allows the ability to delete the current log file.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to find a way to delete old files within Apache. I may have to resort to some bat file or VBScript for that.

Technorati Tags: oracle,enterpriseone,e1,ibm,websphere,apache,http server,cnc,httpd.conf,rotatelogs,piped logging,access log,vbscript,bat file,8.96

Tags: cnc, e1, enterpriseone, EnterpriseOne - General, EnterpriseOne - Install/Upgrade, EnterpriseOne - JAS (Java Application Server), ibm, oracle, system i, Tools Release, websphere, xe

Tags: cnc, e1, enterpriseone, ibm, oracle, system i, Tools Release, websphere, xe

Red, Blue, Purple or Green?

March 21, 2008 by Stewart Schatz · 1 Comment
Filed under: EnterpriseOne - General, EnterpriseOne - Install/Upgrade, EnterpriseOne - JAS (Java Application Server)

Currently, the installations that I support are Blue, I guess.

We have an IBM System i/DB400 Enterprise Server and Database with IBM Websphere running on Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (not sure if that makes us part green or not).

In the next few weeks, we will be starting a project to upgrade our E1 Tools Release to 8.97. As a part of that upgrade, we are going to look at installing Oracle Application Server and possibly replace Websphere. I am also a little curious about using OAS on Linux. So, I might try to get that setup too.

There is a great thread on JDEList that talks about some of the pros/cons of each, but you may have to wade through a couple miss-directions to get the most value. The great part is that many of those that responded are very experienced CNC Admins.

What would you use, especially if there were no push from management in either direction?

Tags: cnc, e1, EnterpriseOne - General, EnterpriseOne - Install/Upgrade, EnterpriseOne - JAS (Java Application Server), ibm, jde, linux, oas, oracle, oracle application server, system i, Tools Release, websphere

Tags: cnc, e1, ibm, jde, linux, oas, oracle, oracle application server, system i, Tools Release, websphere

EnterpriseOne (E1) ERP Employee Self-Service

January 28, 2008 by Stewart Schatz · 2 Comments
Filed under: EnterpriseOne - Install/Upgrade, EnterpriseOne - JAS (Java Application Server), EnterpriseOne - Security

We are starting a Employee Self-Service project in the next month or so. The overall goal of which is to provide a place where employees can view/change their personal information: address, phone number, W-4, dependants, etc. There are many application setup things that need to happen in order for this to be possible. Luckily for me, I don’t have to worry about the function setup, but am concerned about the technical stuff.

From a CNC perspective, this could be a nightmare. We’ve done a fairly decent job restricting the sprawl of our system to being very basic: 1 Enterprise Server, 1 Deployment Server, 1 JAS Server. Ok, maybe only having 1 JAS server isn’t really recommended but there are plans to add to that.

Anyway, there seems to be 4 basic hurdles to clear:

What about the additional users that do not currently use E1?

Additional users, which have never seen E1 before, will be added to E1. To create the user profiles, we will either import from the Address Book (R0092) or enter them by hand. There will also be some security work to setup additional roles to access the Employee Self-Service stuff. Application support for these users will need to be coordinated with the PC Helpdesk, Human Resources and Payroll departments.
How will the users be presented the application?
There seem to be 3 choices on this issue: 1) Use the portal. 2) Use the normal UI with a scaled down menu. 3) Setup our own web page that links to the applications using parameterized URLs.

Here is a quick rundown of why we decided on option 3:
- Option 1: adds system complexity; may cause a degradation in performance; lacking current in-house JAVA expertise for UI modifications
- Option 2: may confused users by presenting them with an unfriendly menu; no control over the UI
- Option 3: greatest control over the UI using current staff expertise; maintains system simplicity
Can the users access it from home?
Now, this one worried me a little. However, I know that it can be done using SSL. I don’t exactly know how to do this, but shouldn’t be too difficult.
What happens to the server during the last week of the Open Enrollment Period when everyone is making their selections?
There will be about a month out of the year that the system will be very heavily utilized, which may require additional JAS servers. That means setting up a cluster of Websphere servers, both horizontal and vertical. I’m not real excited about this either, but I know it can be done.

These three things really shouldn’t be too difficult to tackle, but could definitely cause some issues.

My main concern is numbers 3 & 4. I really don’t want to add anymore complexity that is required.

Then, I got wind of a project that was going on with our internet servers and MS SharePoint (I am a secondary administrator for the web servers and like to make sure I know what is going on in that arena). Anyway, they are testing Microsoft’s Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server.

What is it? The following is from the ISA web site:

ISA Server 2006 is an integrated edge security gateway that helps protect IT environments from Internet-based threats while providing users fast and secure remote access to applications and data.

We’ve done some preliminary tests and have found that both issues 3 & 4 could be resolved using an ISA server without installing SSL or clustering Websphere.

Not too bad for Micro$oft!

Tags: cnc, e1, enterpriseone, EnterpriseOne - Install/Upgrade, EnterpriseOne - JAS (Java Application Server), EnterpriseOne - Security, jas, security, websphere

Tags: cnc, e1, enterpriseone, jas, security, websphere

Remove EnterpriseOne (E1) Environment Selection Screen

November 8, 2007 by Stewart Schatz · Leave a Comment
Filed under: EnterpriseOne - General, EnterpriseOne - JAS (Java Application Server), EnterpriseOne - Security

In our EnterpriseOne (E1) configuration, I force the user to pick what environment they are going to go into before they login by presenting an HTML page that then gives them links to the different environments.

I have each environment on it’s own port, so that I can bring down one environment without disturbing the others.

Anyway, by default, after signing in E1 asks the user what environment they would like to log into. Since I have everything separated, they only get one choice.

The users were annoyed with this “extra” screen that didn’t really provide them with anything. So, I did some research and found a way to remove it on JDEList. I also specified a default role with these settings.

In the JAS.INI file in the WebSphere instance:

[OWWEB]
DefaultEnvironment=JPD811
DefaultRole=*ALL

[LOGIN]
DisplayEnvironment=Hidden
#Options: Show|Hidden|ReadOnly|UseDefault

Hope this helps. It was an easy way to be the Hero-of-the-day…10 minutes…few seconds.

Technorati Tags: e1,enterpriseone,erp,peoplesoft,oracle,jde,jd edwards

Tags: e1, enterpriseone, EnterpriseOne - General, EnterpriseOne - JAS (Java Application Server), EnterpriseOne - Security, jas, jd edwards, jde, oracle, peoplesoft, websphere

Tags: e1, enterpriseone, jas, jd edwards, jde, oracle, peoplesoft, websphere

iSeries JDBC jt400.jar – {note to self}

September 21, 2007 by Stewart Schatz · Leave a Comment
Filed under: EnterpriseOne - Install/Upgrade, EnterpriseOne - JAS (Java Application Server), IBM i/System i/iSeries/AS400

Excerpt from a post on JDEList.com by Colin Dawes:

You CAN NOT use the jt400 from the client access folder.

You need to use the jt400 that is on your iSeries. The 2 versions are not the same and you’ll get some hanging if you use the iSeries Access version.

The jt400 on the iSeries is located at:
/QIBM/PRODDTA/HTTP/PUBLIC/JT400/LIB/JT400.JAR

Usually you need to copy this to the following location on Windows:
\WebSphere\AppServer\lib

I say usually because sometimes during the installation prople point the installed to the iSeries Access Path. In this case the WAS variable will be incorrect and you either need to (1) Change the variable in WAS or copy the jt400.jar from the iSeries on top of the jt400.jar that came with iSeries Access.

Technorati Tags: e1,enterpriseone,erp,peoplesoft,oracle,jde,jd edwards

Tags: e1, enterpriseone, EnterpriseOne - Install/Upgrade, EnterpriseOne - JAS (Java Application Server), ibm, IBM i/System i/iSeries/AS400, iseries, jd edwards, JDBC, jde, oracle, peoplesoft, version, versions, websphere

Tags: e1, enterpriseone, ibm, iseries, jd edwards, JDBC, jde, oracle, peoplesoft, version, versions, websphere

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How To Change The Login Screen Image

EnterpriseOne & VMWare

E1 Admins Need To Know Everything About Everything

Red, Blue, Purple or Green?

EnterpriseOne (E1) ERP Employee Self-Service

Remove EnterpriseOne (E1) Environment Selection Screen

iSeries JDBC jt400.jar – {note to self}

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