My Oracle Support

Getting Started Guide Release 5.3

July 2011

My Oracle Support provides personalized, proactive, and collaborative support. You can benefit from integrated service request (SR) work flows and detailed dynamic system configuration data, shared with Oracle Support in real time to improve system stability and resolve problems more easily. Using the configuration manager, you can share configuration information with Oracle Support. When this is done, Oracle Support engineers can view your configuration information through My Oracle Support to assist with diagnosing and resolving system-critical issues and help you to avoid problems before they occur. This guide provides an overview of My Oracle Support features and concepts. It includes the following topics:

Before You Begin My Oracle Support Concepts My Oracle Support Overview Providing Feedback to Oracle Support My Oracle Support Accessibility Documentation Accessibility
See Also: For more information about each section of My Oracle Support, see the context-sensitive online help and the online product training videos.

Training:

For a full list of the online product training videos, see Knowledge Doc 603505.1.
https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type =NOT&id=603505.1

Before You Begin

Note:

Oracle Sun customers should review the information on the My Oracle Support Welcome Center page for information about the features of My Oracle Support that are available to Oracle Sun customers that do not have an Oracle support identifier (Oracle Sun-only customers):

http://www.oracle.com/us/support/044752.html

To get the full capability of My Oracle Support, install the configuration manager collector. Using the information collected by the configuration manager, you can make detailed comparisons between your configurations, access health and patch recommendations, and simplify the SR creation process. When you install the configuration manager, Oracle recommends that you install the configuration manager collector in each Oracle home from which you want to collect configuration data. The configuration manager uses a secure method of transporting data to Oracle and can mask sensitive information as necessary.
See Also:

For a list of all collected data, see the Collection Overview Guide at the following URL:

http://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type= NOT&id=728985.5

For security-related information, see the Oracle Configuration Manager Installation and Administration Guide and the Oracle Configuration Manager Security Overview at the following URL:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/ocm.html

Some regions of My Oracle Support require the configuration manager. The announcement icon (Figure 1) identifies these regions. If you do not install the configuration manager, My Oracle Support highlights and populates these regions with sample information.
Figure 1 Announcement Icon

See Also: For more information about the configuration manager, see the Collector tab on My Oracle Support and review the documents available at the following URL:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/ocm.html

My Oracle Support Concepts

This section explains My Oracle Support concepts and global features. It includes the following topics:

Systems, Projects, and Targets Dashboard PowerView Global Filters Online Help Favorites Knowledge

Systems, Projects, and Targets

Configuration manager users can take advantage of capabilities related to systems, projects, and targets. A system is a logical grouping of components used for a single purpose. The following list provides some examples of the supported system types:

Oracle Database Oracle Application Server Oracle E-Business Suite

Systems A system is a target or collection of targets which forms a unit, such as the Production Finance System. My Oracle Support uses systems to deliver proactive support in terms of health recommendations, patch advice, product alerts, and SR creation. When creating SRs, My Oracle Support provides platform, version, and other configuration information based on the system that you specify. My Oracle Support enables you to associate an SR with a predefined system that includes all prerequisite information. With this standardized, accurate information about your environment, support analysts can begin resolving the issue knowing that the information is valid and up-to-date. Projects A project is a customer-defined entity that can assist in managing complex support scenarios. Projects may consist of a combination of systems, associated people, SRs, and milestones. Each project has a description and project phase and can use Oracle support identifiers (Support IDs) to restrict access. Targets A target is an individual component whose data is collected by configuration manager collectors. Examples of targets include OC4J as part of an Application Server installation, Enterprise Manager Agent, a host, or the components that make up the Oracle E-Business Suite installation.

Dashboard
My Oracle Support provides a complete, dynamic view of your current systems through dashboards. The main dashboard provides a comprehensive view of your systems. The following topics provide information about the components of a dashboard.

Regions
Regions display information such as SRs, systems, or search results. In many regions, you can drill down to more specific information, as well as customize what information is displayed. You can move and rearrange regions by clicking and dragging the title bar of the region. Click Customize Page... at the top of the Dashboard page to add regions and click the close icon (Figure 2) in the top corner of the region to remove the region.
Figure 2 Close Icon

Setting Region Display Attributes If a region has pencil icon (Figure 3) in the upper right or left corner, click the icon to specify what content is displayed in that region (Figure 4). For example, in the Service Requests region, you can modify the title, number of items displayed, filter by SRs created by the user, filter by favorite SRs, and filter by support identifier.
Figure 3 Pencil Icon

Figure 4 Edit Service Requests Dialog Box

Organizing Region Content If the region has a table icon (Figure 5), you can specify which columns are displayed as shown in Figure 6.
Figure 5 Table Icon

Figure 6 Using the Table Icon

Copying, Printing, and Exporting Data The table icon (Figure 5) also lets you export region content to a variety of formats, thus providing a method to distribute critical information within your organization. My Oracle Support enables you to export information by one of the following methods:

Copy to Clipboard Copies selected entries or the entire region to the system clipboard, providing a quick copy-and-paste capability.

Export as CSV Exports all region content to a comma-separated value format for import into a spreadsheet or other another application.

Printable View Generates a printable HTML table containing all region content.

Taking Action In most cases, to perform an action, select a row in a region (Figure 7), then select a function from the inline toolbar (Figure 8) in that region. Menu options are dynamic and context-sensitive. Select an option from the toolbar or click the close icon (Figure 2) to remove the toolbar from the page. For a single row selection, My Oracle Support displays the details of the selected row in the lower area of the page.

Figure 7 Selecting a Row In a Region

Figure 8 Inline Toolbar

Customizing Pages
There are many ways you can customize My Oracle Support pages. All changes are saved automatically.

To remove regions from the dashboard, click the close icon (Figure 2) in the top right of the region. To maintain multiple views of the same data set, add copies of a region. Click Customize Page... located at the top right corner of the main dashboard, then drag and drop regions onto the page. When dragging you will notice that light gray target boxes appear that indicate places on the screen where you will be able to drop the selected region. Notice that there are sometimes single or double wide regions as well as a full screen width drop area. You can also move the region from one area on the screen to another at any time. To add or remove columns from tables, click the table icon (Figure 5) in the top left corner of the region's toolbar. Reorder columns by dragging and dropping the columns. Sort columns by clicking the column header. Edit a region by clicking its pencil icon (Figure 3). You can set local filters, adjust the height of the region, or rename the region. Rearrange regions by dragging the region's title bar and dropping to the area where you want the region to appear.

To view large amounts of data, maximize the region by clicking the maximize icon in the top right of the region. To switch contexts quickly, use PowerView. Create a few PowerViews, then use the PowerView menu to switch between your PowerViews.

PowerView Global Filters

The PowerView feature enables you to filter the Dashboard, Knowledge, and Service Requests tabs. You can define PowerView filters based on attributes such as Product, Support Identifier, Platform, Host, and System. You can create multiple PowerView filters to display information that you require in different situations. For example, you can set up filters to display or exclude one or more target types, specific lifecycle stages, such as showing production systems only, or configurations located on hosts with names containing a specific text pattern. The PowerView menu is on the My Oracle Support title bar. To open the PowerView menu, click the arrow on the right of the PowerView button. Use this menu to turn PowerView on or off, edit the current PowerView filter, create a new PowerView filter, remove a PowerView filter, or select from the list of previously created PowerViews filters.
See Also: For more information about using PowerView filters, see the online help.
https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type =NOT&id=780132.5

Online Help
My Oracle Support provides a comprehensive, context-sensitive task-based online help system. Click the help icon (Figure 9) to display a dynamic help menu that provides access to relevant tasks, conceptual information, and training videos.
Figure 9 Help Icon

The Help menu is divided into two areas by a separator:

The first set of menu items provide context-sensitive links to help topics specific to the current page. The menu items below the separator provide links to global help topics that are available on every My Oracle Support page.

In addition to online help, the Dashboard tab provides a Getting Started region that provides information about how to use My Oracle Support and contains links to documentation, collateral material, training, and news events.

Favorites
The Favorites capability enables you to identify items in My Oracle Support for quick access from the Favorites menu. You can select specific region entries and make them directly accessible from the Favorites menu. Anywhere you see the star icon (Figure 10), you can make the item a favorite. This applies to articles, bugs, SRs, systems, and other items. Use PowerView to filter your pages to view favorites only or go to the Favorites menu and select a favorite. In certain regions, click the pencil icon (Figure 3) to view only favorites.
Figure 10 Star Icon

Figure 11 Adding a Favorite

If you specify an entry in a region as a favorite, you can access this information directly from the Favorites menu.
Figure 12 Favorites Menu Options

After adding an item to the Favorites menu, My Oracle Support enables you to manage your favorites from the Manage Favorites dialog box (Figure 13). From the Favorites menu, select Manage Favorites to open the Manage Favorites dialog box.

Figure 13 Manage Favorites Dialog Box

From the Manage Favorites dialog box, you can remove favorites that are no longer required. You can also filter the entire list of favorites by name, type, and the date the favorite was last visited. Use the Last Visited drag bar to select old favorites. You can then add or remove additional items to your selection using a combination of Shift + Ctrl (Macintosh) or Ctrl (Windows) before choosing to remove selected favorites.
Figure 14 Selecting Favorites Using the Last Visited Bar

Knowledge
The Knowledge tab enables you to search for and review articles in the Oracle knowledge base. However, you can also search the knowledge base from any page, as follows:

1. 2.

In the Search Knowledge Base box available in the upper right corner of most My Oracle Support pages, enter the text for which to search. Click the sources icon to the left of the search box (Figure 15), then select an area to search. If you do not select an area, My Oracle Support searches the last selected area. By default, this is the Support knowledge base.

Figure 15 Searching My Oracle Support

3.

If you want to specify search criteria to refine your search, click Advanced. Otherwise, continue to step 4.

Figure 16 Advanced Search Window

4.

Click Search, or the search icon to the right of the search box, or press the Enter key.

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My Oracle Support Overview

My Oracle Support contains many features and capabilities that are grouped under tabs across the top of the application. The following topics provide an overview of what you will find on My Oracle Support.

Dashboard
The Dashboard tab provides you with a concise, personalized, dynamic view of your systems and interactions with Oracle Support. The dashboard is configured to give you both high-level dashboards as well as specific details through various customizable regions that include Service Requests, Knowledge, Systems, and many more.
See Also: For more information about the Dashboard tab, see the online help:
https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type =NOT&id=733243.5

Health Recommendations
You can use health recommendations to automatically detect known issues and improve system stability. The health recommendation suppression feature enables you to personalize your proactive support experience by selecting the health recommendations that are most pertinent to your environment.
See Also: For more information about health recommendations, see the online help:
https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type =NOT&id=733249.5

Knowledge
The Knowledge tab enables you to access Oracle Support information from the Knowledge home page. It provides you with an advanced search capability to Oracles knowledge base, tracks your recent knowledge activity, enables you to personalize the page to present alerts and recently updated knowledge articles for the products that you have defined, and provides you with a browse capability.
See Also:

For more information about the Knowledge tab, see the

online help:
https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type =NOT&id=733244.5

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Service Requests
The Service Requests tab enables you to view, manage, and update SRs. From the dashboard, you can see summaries of SR status and severity as well as details of individual SRs. Your view of SRs is based on the support identifiers (SIs) that you have in your My Oracle Support profile. If you are running the configuration manager, you can relate SRs to individual systems. Then from system-specific dashboards, you are shown the SRs that are specific to the context of that system.
See Also: For more information about the Service Requests tab, see the online help:
https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type =NOT&id=733245.5

Patches and Updates

Note:

Patch Recommendations and Plans require configurations.

The Patches and Updates tab enables you to view and download patches for your Oracle products. You can search for patches by patch name or number or you can use Advanced Search to search by product. The Patch Recommendations region provides a portal to all recommended patches applicable to your uploaded configuration. From the bar graph, you can drill down to a list of recommended patches, view details about those patches, download the patches, or add them to a patch plan. The bar graph summarizes the number of issues found (one issue equals one recommendation for one target). The Patch Recommendations region appears by default on the Patch and Updates page and can also be added to the Dashboard. You can edit this region or use PowerView to filter its contents. The Plans region displays information about your current plans. A patch plan is a collection of patches which you may want to consider managing as a logical group. A patch plan could map to the application of a set of patches during a maintenance window for a given set of configurations. The plan supports validation of the patches against your environment also. It looks for conflicts with existing (installed) patches or missing prerequisites for patches that you want to install (a candidate patch).

See Also: For more information about the Patches and Updates tab, see the online help:
https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type =NOT&id=847410.5

My Oracle Support Community

The Community tab enables customers to connect instantly to a vast network of peers, industry experts, and Oracle Product specialists. Users can participate in discussions, exchange documents, and receive recognition for participating.

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See Also: To access My Oracle Support Community directly, enter the following URL in a browser:
http://communities.oracle.com

For more information about the Community tab, see the online help:
https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type =NOT&id=733393.5

Certifications
The Certifications tab provides access to product certification and roadmap information for Oracle and third-party products. A product can be certified for support against another product release or on a specific release of an operating system on a particular hardware platform, for example, Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2.0.1.0) on Sun Solaris 10 (SPARC).
See Also:

For more information about the Certifications tab, see the

online help:
https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type =NOT&id=870956.5

Systems
The Systems tab provides access to system, target, and inventory information and patch and health recommendations.
See Also:

For more information about the Systems tab, see the

online help:
https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type =NOT&id=733246.5

Proactive Hardware Services

The Proactive Hardware Services tab is visible to customers with at least one hardware Support ID in their profile. Proactive Hardware Services provides Oracle Sun System Analysis (OSSA) reports. These reports identify known issues and risks associated with systems in terms of serviceability, and for mission critical environments. They are designed to improve time to repair, first call completion rates, and avoid some calls altogether by identifying known security, data corruption, availability, interoperability, compatibility, and configuration issues, and by identifying best practice recommendations regarding diagnostic data capture.

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On Demand
The On Demand tab enables Oracle On Demand customers to track On Demand services, service requests (SRs), and requests for changes (RFCs). The On Demand tab is visible to customers with at least one On Demand Support ID.
See Also: For more information about the On Demand tab, see the online help:
https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type =NOT&id=847398.5

CRM On Demand
Note:

This section applies to CRM On Demand customers only.

The CRM On Demand tab enables Oracle CRM On Demand customers to log and track CRM On Demand SRs. On the CRM On Demand page, the My SRs region displays open SRs that you have created, and the My Company's SR region displays SRs with a customer service identifier for which you have View SR privileges. The CRM On Demand tab provides access to CRM On Demand-specific knowledge articles also.
See Also: For more information about the CRM On Demand tab, see the online help:
https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type =NOT&id=779604.5

Collector
The Collector tab enables you to download the configuration manager collector. After deployment, it extracts required configuration information from the Oracle product into which it is installed and uploads the information to Oracle.
Note: The configuration manager collector is also available with Remote Diagnostic Agent (RDA), Opatch, some Critical Patch Updates, and supported Oracle products. For a list of the supported Oracle products, see the Oracle Configuration Manager Prerequisites document:
http://download.oracle.com/docs/pdf/E12883_01.pdf

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See Also: For more information about the Collector tab, see the online help:
https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type =NOT&id=733253.5

For more information about the configuration manager, see the configuration manager documentation, which can be found at the following URL:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/ocm.html

Reports
The Reports tab provides access to the following My Oracle Support reports:

Inventory Report and Sun Inventory Report

Note:

The Inventory report is available to configuration manager users only. To view the Sun Inventory report, you must be an Oracle Sun customer signed into your Sun account.

These reports provides information-dense summary graphics that enable you to drill down into target-specific information about your environments.

Service Requests Report The Service Requests report provides comprehensive reports, with adjustable time boundaries, for all of your SRs.

Proactive Reports The Proactive Reports include all SSA essential and mission critical reports. You must be an Oracle-Sun customer to view Proactive Reports.

Advanced Customer Services

The Advanced Customer Services tab provides an at-a-glance view of descriptions and the value of Oracle Advanced Customer Services offerings. If you are an existing Advanced Customer Services customer, the Service Delivery Dashboard provides online access to your service delivery plans (SDPs), enhancing your ability to communicate effectively with your service delivery team. The Dashboard provides details about your contracted services, current status, and key contacts. In addition, you can upload and view content related to the delivery of your services.

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Settings
The Settings tab enables you to view and edit your contact information, personalization features (such as text size and style), Hot Topic subscription settings, SR profiles, and support identifiers. The Settings tab enables users with the Customer User Administrator (CUA) role to create custom attributes. These customized properties enable users to further personalize their viewing environment by creating links to other data that may not be covered by standard systems. CUAs with edit permission on systems can add or modify attributes, such as associate systems and targets with other data deemed valuable by a CUA. Sun customers can lookup their Oracle Support Identifier on the Settings tab.
Note:

The Custom Systems Properties feature is available to configuration manager users only.

See Also: For more information about the Settings tab, see the online help:
https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type =NOT&id=733386.5

Providing Feedback to Oracle Support

To provide feedback to Oracle Support or to submit a query about My Oracle Support:
1.

Click Contact Us at the top of any My Oracle Support page. The Contact Us window opens.

2. 3.

From the Support Identifier list, select your support identifier. From the Topic list, select a topic to match the issue, enter your feedback, and then click Send.

My Oracle Support Accessibility

As part of the effort to make Oracle products, services, and supporting documentation accessible and usable to the disabled community, My Oracle Support has several accessibility options, such as using the JAWS screen reader and customizing display settings. For information about My Oracle Support accessibility, see the My Oracle Support - Registration, Sign In, and Accessibility Options help topic:
https://support.oracle.com/CSP/ui/faq_en.html#accessibility

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Documentation Accessibility
Our goal is to make Oracle products, services, and supporting documentation accessible to all users, including users that are disabled. To that end, our documentation includes features that make information available to users of assistive technology. This documentation is available in HTML format, and contains markup to facilitate access by the disabled community. Accessibility standards will continue to evolve over time, and Oracle is actively engaged with other market-leading technology vendors to address technical obstacles so that our documentation can be accessible to all of our customers. For more information, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program Web site at http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/. Accessibility of Code Examples in Documentation Screen readers may not always correctly read the code examples in this document. The conventions for writing code require that closing braces should appear on an otherwise empty line; however, some screen readers may not always read a line of text that consists solely of a bracket or brace. Accessibility of Links to External Web Sites in Documentation This documentation may contain links to Web sites of other companies or organizations that Oracle does not own or control. Oracle neither evaluates nor makes any representations regarding the accessibility of these Web sites. Access to Oracle Support Oracle customers have access to electronic support through My Oracle Support. For information, visit http://www.oracle.com/support/contact.html or visit http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/support.html if you are hearing impaired.

My Oracle Support Getting Started Guide, Release 5.3 E10716-01 Copyright 2009, 2010 Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This software and related documentation are provided under a license agreement containing restrictions on use and disclosure and are protected by intellectual property laws. Except as expressly permitted in your license agreement or allowed by law, you may not use, copy, reproduce, translate, broadcast, modify, license, transmit, distribute, exhibit, perform, publish, or display any part, in any form, or by any means. Reverse engineering, disassembly, or decompilation of this software, unless required by law for interoperability, is prohibited. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice and is not warranted to be error-free. If you find any errors, please report them to us in writing. If this software or related documentation is delivered to the U.S. Government or anyone licensing it on behalf of the U.S. Government, the following notice is applicable: U.S. GOVERNMENT RIGHTS Programs, software, databases, and related documentation and technical data delivered to U.S. Government customers are "commercial computer software" or "commercial technical data" pursuant to the applicable Federal Acquisition Regulation and agency-specific supplemental regulations. As such, the use, duplication, disclosure, modification, and adaptation shall be subject to the restrictions and license terms set forth in the applicable Government contract, and, to the extent applicable by the terms of the Government contract, the additional rights set forth in FAR 52.227-19, Commercial Computer Software License (December 2007). Oracle USA, Inc., 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood City, CA 94065. This software is developed for general use in a variety of information management applications. It is not developed or intended for use in any inherently dangerous applications, including applications which may create a risk of personal injury. If you use this software in dangerous applications, then you shall be responsible to take all appropriate fail-safe, backup, redundancy, and other measures to ensure the safe use of this software. Oracle Corporation and its affiliates disclaim any liability for any damages caused by use of this software in dangerous applications. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. This software and documentation may provide access to or information on content, products, and services from third parties. Oracle Corporation and its affiliates are not responsible for and expressly disclaim all warranties of any kind with respect to third-party content, products, and services. Oracle Corporation and its affiliates will not be responsible for any loss, costs, or damages incurred due to your access to or use of third-party content, products, or services.

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