Tools release upgrade estimate

jimmymac

Reputable Poster
Hello all,

We are on E9.0 tools release 8.98.42 and are looking to upgrade to tools 9.1 likely early next year. We will likely be bringing in a CNC consultant and need a ballpark estimate for the time that a consultant might be needed on this project.

This is a tools release not an application release, so I was thinking somewhere in the 4-6 week time frame. Just as a high level estimate, would appreciate any input on what this might take. Other info, our servers are windows based, we have two web servers, and the database is Oracle 11g.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.
 
If your web server is OAS (Oracle Application Server), you will need to replace it with either Oracle's WebLogic or IBM's Websphere, as OAS isn't supported with TR 9.1.x.
I'd HIGHLY recommend that you spend some time in developing some E1 Pages, which will give your end users a much more user-friendly front-end to E1, instead of just using the Navigator. This is really pretty straight forward, once you've learning how to use the E1 Page Generator tool. You'll want to spend some time with your functional experts in designing the E1 Pages to be easy to navigate and well-organized.
While this won't be an application release for you, I'd highly recommend that you do a full test of your business processes to ensure that they all function correctly under the new tools release. Better to find out in testing than at go-live.
Do you use BI Publisher? If so, there are new capabilities in BI Pub that you may want to take advantage of.
Also, there are new features such as Advanced Queries and Cafe One layouts that you may want to look at.
While I can't give you a timeframe estimates, I'd guess that the 4-6 week time frame you mentioned will not be enough time to accomplish this.
 
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Thanks Don, good info.

We are using Oracle Weblogic on our web servers. We are on EnterpriseOne 9.0, so are E1 pages that different from tools 8.98.42 to tools 9.0 or 9.1? And a full business regression test is a good idea and will add some time. We also use BI publisher so that is a good point also.

And I think you're right about the 4-6 week, looks more like 8 weeks at least as a starting estimate.

Thanks.
 
Thanks Don, good info.

We are using Oracle Weblogic on our web servers. We are on EnterpriseOne 9.0, so are E1 pages that different from tools 8.98.42 to tools 9.0 or 9.1? And a full business regression test is a good idea and will add some time. We also use BI publisher so that is a good point also.

And I think you're right about the 4-6 week, looks more like 8 weeks at least as a starting estimate.

Thanks.

I've done full upgrades that didn't require 8 weeks of CNC consulting time. Four to six weeks from start to finish is a reasonable estimate in terms of applying the tools releases, testing the system and training your users on the UI changes but you should only need the CNC resource for one to two weeks max in that process. If there are no really curly issues then you'd expect a tools update to be applied to a path code in a couple of days at most and that is for the first one. All of the others should be measured in hours.
 
It's good for you that you're already on Weblogic -- 1 less thing to have to learn from the ground up.

To the best of my knowledge, E1 Pages were introduced with Tools 9.1, and work on Apps 9.0 and Apps 9.1, so this should be all new to you (at least coming from Tools 8.98.4.2). Regression testing duration will depend on the complexity and number of business processes to model. FYI, we did run into a bug in Accounts Payable Vouchering that was tools-related, so testing is definitely worth the extra time.

Good luck as you head into your upgrade!
 
If you are already on WLS then that definitely saves you some time. The typical CNC effort for a tools upgrade is anywhere between 140-180 hours depending on the impact on other software components like the Web Server for example , the number of pathcodes , the number of servers in your architecture etc. This estimate is also keeping some buffer for issues that might arise.

Are you on 11gR1 or 11gR2 ? I ask because 11gR1 is not supported on tools 9.1
 
A follow up question in regards to CNC consultant rates. Here is the Southeast US what is the current going rate for a Senior CNC, 150? 175?
 
11.2.0.1 is officially not supported on the latest tools 9.1.4. There are 4 Oracle DB releases supported on tools 9.1.4.x - 12.1.0.1 , 11.2.0.4,11.2.03 and 11.2.0.2

So you might want to take that into consideration too (patching your oracle DB to 11.2.0.4 , which is supported on tools 8.98 also). Of course 11.2.0.1 might work without any issues on tools 9.1.4 , but that is a risk you have to take which is not advisable for a Production system.

If you have the time and the resources you can also consider upgrading your Oracle database to 12c (12.1.0.1) , because 11.2.0.4 shows as only 4+ months of support remaining , though I am not really sure how one should interpret that.
 
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