Display Decimals - Have you faced this situation?

Has anyone worked on changing the display decimal 'after' go live? We are considering to add decimals to mfg, Distro transactions ( QNTY/QTYINV), the system is live for the last few years.

I am aware JD Edwards advises against doing this. But if the display decimals are must what is the alternative/ work around. Any experiences/ lessons learnt would be really helpful.

Nova614,

Any alternative/work around would depend on the reason for the change. The system configuration (not provided in you post) would probably have some effect too.

I have never tried nor needed this sort of change. However a couple of things, of which you may already be aware, is that (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) JDE does not store decimals in the database but effectively stores the data as an integer, using the display decimals to define the decimal value. If you change the display decimals in the data dictionary, that will have be deployed, which is not a straight forward process. Also the database will have to be updated, where ever that data item exists in what ever tables. You would also need to be careful if the display decimals are increased that this does not lead to data being too large for the field. The formula you would use would be something like this:

new data value = integer( old data value * 10 power (new decimal places - old decimal places) )

Thanks Peter, your inputs are helpful.

Nova,

I have done this earlier this year for a client who was already live. Here are a few things that we had to our advantage.
1. Separate Enterprise servers for production and test environments.
2. Separate databases for production and test environments.

First I made a back up of the database and made sure any changes I was about to make I would be able to reverse without a lot of work.

I did research to find all the tables that were using the QNTY/QTYINV.

We multiplied the columns by a factor of the change.
Made the modification in JDE.
Checked the values.

If you decide to do this I would suggest having a test environment you can test it on.

You will want to make sure that this environment is totally independent of any production environment.

Once you have made all the changes and tested it out you can have a procedure for your specific system and ready to implement.


Below is a document I received from Oracle on it.
[
Display Decimal Settings
Details: Decimal Display changes supported

There are two instances where the Global Support Center can support changes to the Display Decimal field in the Data Dictionary:

1) When the batch job R9200100, Update Display Decimals, is run for the entire Data Item Class "QTYINV."

2) When the Display Decimal field is changed manually or by using R9200100 for the single Data Item QNTY.

Support Services can support these changes because PeopleSoft has researched, and identified all the quantity fields in our software. We have tested changing these concurrently and how this will impact our applications. QTYINV is the only Data Item Class for which this research has been completed.

Any other changes to the Display Decimal field in the Data Dictionary must be researched and tested before implementation. This includes changing Display Decimals for any Data Item not in QTYINV, adding to or removing Data Items from the QTYINV Data Item Class and running R9200100 for any other Data Item Class. A Client Manager, or other members of the Field organization can help in addressing this issue.
]

I hope this helps.

Sean Colp

Very easy. I've done this half a dozen times, half of them remotely in the US and Canada. Only takes about a day.

What's your backend database? Release of JDE?

Not that hard to do if you know SQL (and test, test, test in test).

Step 1: Query F9210 to identify all data items with data item class QTYINV.

Step 2: For each data item found in Step 1:
a) Query F98711 to find what tables use that data item
b) For each table update the item values in the table as described in Peter's post

The whole thing could be scripted in SQL. Or you could do the steps manually.

Have fun

P.S. would it kill you to post your system configuration/versions?